The Fates Unwind Infinity
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Transcript of The Fates Unwind Infinity
!e Fates Unwind In"nity
Contents.Introduction.
Part IChapter 1Chapter 2. The Cause of ExistenceChapter 3. The Immutable Foundation of ExistenceChapter 4. TruthChapter 5. Mind and the Illusion of DualityChapter 6. Elements of Human and Non-Human ConsciousnessChapter 7. What is “me”?Chapter 8. The Modern Status of Supernatural BeliefChapter 9. In My End Is My BeginningChapter 10. Destiny vs. Free WillChapter 11. Our OnenessChapter 12. Intelligence vs. InstinctChapter 13. The Universality of Life
Part II: Abstract Reflections and Theories Concerning PhysicsChapter 1. Gravity in Intuitive TermsChapter 2. Relativity and the Origin of Mass and InertiaChapter 3. A Closer Look at SpacetimeChapter 4. Interpreting Quantum EffectsChapter 5. Time as ChangeChapter 6. The Basis of Set TheoryChapter 7. The Inconceivable Beauty of the UniverseChapter 8.
About the BookAbout the Author
Introduction.
!is book is an exploration of the Universe's deepest questions,
a personal re"ection which is not conducted in the familiar and o#en
tedious style of academic philosophy. “Why does anything exist at all?”
“What is consciousness; how can the workings of my brain produce this
unthinkable range of experience, and how can conscious will in turn af-
fect my body and cause it to type or speak, or do any of the other count-
less things it does in response to these experiences?” “Why does all en-
ergy unfailingly follow the laws of physics?”– If these towering mysteries
stimulate your interest, this book will likely prove engaging and eye-
opening for you. Even if you are for some reason uninterested in these
questions, I think that if you continue reading, before long you will be-
gin to see that examining the Universe in reference to questions of this
sort can dramatically rede$ne and enrich our understanding and experi-
ence of life.
!is book is packed with mentally taxing topics and concepts.
My aim is clarity, brevity, and accessibility, and I intend to write in a very
straightforward style, but this will likely prove to be more strenuous than
the average read. I have quite a lot I want to say, and the pace is brisk.
Rather than a comprehensive exploration of a few specialized and spe-
ci$c concepts, these words are intended to serve more as a broad glance
at many profound ideas, in the hope that you will undertake the process
of examining each in depth and in reference to your own worldview and
style of reasoning. In Part 2, general relativity, set theory, and similarly
advanced concepts are discussed without much preliminary explanation;
if you don't know about these things, they would probably be very inter-
esting for you to learn about from other sources before reading about
them here.
Generally, when we are presented with a fact describing the
world that is more subtle and nuanced than our intuitive, day-to-day
worldview, we shy away from the a%empt to truly introduce that fact into
the reality we see. Modeling new information in our minds takes a sub-
stantial, and o#en sustained expenditure of energy, and we resist this
exertion in the same way that we might choose the elevator over the
stairs. When I tell someone, “Imagine, our bodies are comprised of
about a hundred trillion cells, all immensely complex living beings in
their own right!” they invariably change the subject immediately, giving
the impression “Yes, I'm sure I could imagine that, but please, not right
now.” !e mental modeling ends up being put off inde$nitely.
We should seek to overcome this existential inertia, and try to
learn how to more fully appreciate the miracle that is the reality we in-
habit. !is is not to say that the mental aspect of horizon broadening is
easy, but it is worth the effort. Even if this wider view of reality, from a
higher vantage point than the normal human perspective, is not in effect
at all times, having an idea of your life in the context of the entire Uni-
verse, of all that has happened and all that is possible to unfold in the
endless future, can be a pleasant state to revisit whenever life's difficulties
and injustices need to be put into perspective.
Part I.
Chapter 1.
!is book is wri%en in praise of the vibrant beauty and elegance
of reality. !e Universe is just in$nitely, hilariously deeper and more sig-
ni$cant than we can possibly comprehend or hold in our tiny aware-
nesses; the most enlightened human minds in history have only had the
power to experience the slightest, most microscopic glimmer of its mag-
nitude. And yet it's right there, right here, all around us and in us at all
times; in fact, giving rise to us. I stand in awe before the brilliance of all
that is, in love of life and experience. Even so, I sense the blindness with
which I see, the boundless depth behind the thin surface my animal
mind can perceive. At times I long for true knowing beyond the bounds
of my biological intelligence, but I am exhilarated by the realization that
though I cannot hold the in$nite in mind, the in$nite exists in itself.
Like all philosophical texts, the following should be read criti-
cally. !e bene$t of reading someone else's conclusions concerning the
mysterious world we inhabit is that even if you disagree with them fully,
the act of contrasting your views with theirs gives you a deep insight into
who you are, and what you truly believe about life and your place in it.
A#er all, your worldview serves as the foundation for your experiences;
every choice you make, every thought you think and every word you
speak occurs in the context of your fundamental beliefs, which o#en go
unquestioned or taken for granted a#er their gradual development dur-
ing your early years.
We should never chain ourselves to any conception picked up
along the clu%ered paths our lives and our ancestors lives have taken, but
examine every dusty certainty in the light of all newly uncovered evi-
dence. Any logical tension between aged axioms and new ideas repre-
sents an opportunity for insight into the true nature of reality. In the
quest for truth, we can treat the Universe as an immense riddle, and
know that though con$rmation that we have reached the truth may be
forever out of reach, the truth is always there, underlying and explaining
all that exists.
Science is the most extraordinarily successful means we have of
unraveling these Universal mysteries; the realization that rational, em-
pirical inquiry is uncannily successful in learning about the true nature
of the Universe is truly humanity's greatest discovery. However, because
the entire point of scienti$c inquiry is never to draw conclusions that
cannot be experimentally demonstrated and tested, science cannot ex-
amine many of the most compelling questions. For example, the ques-
tion "Where did existence, this Universe, come from?" is not in the
realm of science because the Big Bang is apparently the very $rst in-
stance in our Universe that we can ever possibly investigate directly- the
cause of the Big Bang is forever out of our reach to examine empirically,
so the incomplete scienti$c standpoint is that the Big Bang was the be-
ginning of time (though the most insightful scientists acknowledge that
it had to have a cause). In a strictly positivistic scienti$c worldview,
which many scientists today are proud to hold, the only reality is that
which humans can presently investigate experimentally.
I reject the thought that our knowing of the world can only pro-
gress through empirical science. !e fact that a system of investigation is
not constrained to the directly observable does not necessarily mean the
investigation can reveal no insight into the Universe we occupy. Imagine
the blow that would be dealt to modern physics if Einstein were a strict
experimentalist; it is clear that his brilliant forays into Universal truth
were conducted in the light of pure intuitive logic. Intuition o#en deals
with systems of logic that are too complex to immediately parse in
mathematical propositions; intuitive insight is built up from networks of
more fundamental knowledge, bits of empirical evidence and logic, only
gaining utility through the dynamic, creative combination of these facts
undergone by theorists.
!rough the use of logic and intuition, a deeper insight into the
essential character of reality can be gained, realizations that a purely em-
pirical approach might never uncover. Of course, this is a philosophy
inspired by the modern $ndings of science, and I would never downplay
the magni$cent bene$t science has to mankind and to our general un-
derstanding of the Universe. !e drawback is that even with all of these
breathtaking $ndings, science is forbidden to discuss the overarching
signi!cance of the reality uncovered. !ese explorations fall within the
happy realm of the philosopher, the realm we visit today.
CHAPTER 2
The Cause of Existence
How deliciously miraculous it is that the limitless potential in
our Universe exists, that there is this brilliant spectrum of Existence
rather than nothingness. Why should this be so; why does Existence it-
self exist? To discuss this question, it is useful to de$ne what is meant by
Existence: the capitalized form will be used here in the all-encompassing
sense referring to absolutely everything that has the condition of not
being nothing; anything that does exist, has existed, or can possibly exist
is part of Existence. !e uncapitalized “exist” is used in the normal way,
covering the speci$c sense referring to a thing's objective reality. For in-
stance, I might describe the existence of this text as a minuscule facet of
Existence, the sum of all things. !e Universe, its history, future, and all
of its contents (time, space, energy, gravity, electromagnetism, the strong
and weak nuclear forces, consciousness, emotions, everything that has a
name and everything that is as yet unnamed) are subsets of Existence.
!ere is no “outside of ” Existence, for if there were, that outside would
have to be existent as well, and would therefore be part of Existence.
!ere can be no precedent to Existence, for if there were, that precedent
would have to be existent as well, and therefore would be part of Exis-
tence.
!e cause of the Big Bang (perhaps a previous Universe collaps-
ing into a “singularity” and subsequently re-expanding, or perhaps any
number of unknown possible causes) existed at one time; whatever ex-
isted before our Universe necessarily contained the potential for our
Universe to occur. Even if you believe there was absolute nothingness
preceding the Big Bang, there is no way for you to deny that the poten-
tial for our Universe to exist existed then. For instance, contemporary
cosmologists can be heard saying “We have mathematics which show
that the Universe could have sprung from nothingness.” Could those
mathematics also spring from the same nothingness? In other words, if
there was nothingness, those mathematics didn't exist: how could the
Universe spring into being on account of them? Clearly, the potential
preceding the Big Bang was not -nothingness-, but existent and bound-
less, representing every facet of our Universe's in$nite breadth and com-
plexity, including the potential for your life to spring out of universal law
and energy. If this potential (for the Universe to arise) didn't exist before
the Universe came about, the Universe could not have possibly come to
be. As the saying goes, something cannot come from nothing.
"Wait a minute," some might be thinking, "where is the !rst
cause, the reason for it all?" And rightly so, a $rst cause would apparently
satisfy the question we are trying to answer. Where can we $nd the $rst
cause, if not backwards through an in$nity of time? So far we see that
anything that exists is not nothingness; we have Existence on the one
hand, and nothingness on the other.
What exactly do we mean when we speak of nothingness? True
nothingness is what many people expect there would have to be before
Existence came about, and what will remain a#er Existence has run its
course. !is would mean no energy, no space, no time, no force, no po-
tential, and no concept (e.g. mathematics) is present. !is would be ab-
solute nothingness, beyond emptiness (you cannot have emptiness
without having space).
However, as we can $nd, there is no such thing as true nothing-
ness. We've already encountered this realization by looking back along
the string of causation- every cause in Existence is clearly the effect of a
previous cause. Empty space is not nothingness; it is characterized by
containing the possibility of holding and transmi%ing mass-energy and it
springs from the same overarching set of physical laws that produced us.
Space contains at every point the logic of the cosmos, the same gravita-
tional and electromagnetic potential. Even our concept of nothingness
doesn’t constitute or describe nothingness, because the idea is existent
in the physical brain processes that activate it in our minds. We can no
more hold nothingness in mind than we can hold in$nity in mind: any-
thing our minds can explicitly conceive of is $nite, and every thought we
can think exists (and is therefore not representative of true nothingness).
To simplify, if true nothingness were something that could exist,
that something wouldn’t be nothingness. From this paradox arises an
eternal interrelationship: Existence absolutely must exist, because its ab-
sence would bring -nothingness- into direct existence, which is an im-
possible situation.
!is is a rather abstract argument, but I believe this fact is abso-
lutely fundamental to Existence. To put this mind-twisting paradox dif-
ferently: if there were no Existence, all the conditions for the existence of
nothingness would be met. True nothingness would exist– however, in
this case its existence would negate it being nothingness. By de$nition,
the only way that -nothingness- could exist is by not existing; this fun-
damental contradiction assures that it cannot exist, and truly is nothing-
ness. Existence cannot exist in its own right without contrasting (forever
nonexistent) nothingness, and the permanent impossibility of nothing-
ness existing necessitates the existence of Existence. !e resultant being
of Existence is expressed forever through this absolutely fundamental
Truth. !is eternal relationship between nothingness and Existence is
the root of all that is.
Among the people I've discussed this idea with, inevitably the
protest arises: “Well, of course nothingness doesn't exist. It's right there
in its de$nition: nonexistence.” It is a deceptively simple truth, which
many mistake for insigni$cance without apprehending the scope of what
it suggests. If the question concerns the nature and origin of Existence,
the fact that true nothingness cannot exist is perhaps the most telling
information of all. It is not the case that nonexistence preceded the Uni-
verse, or will follow the Universe, as most take for granted. It is not the
case that nonexistence lies outside of the Universe. Nonexistence does
not, cannot, and never will exist, which tells us many important things
about Existence, namely, that it is inarguably in$nite in every possible
dimension of being.
Not to labor the point, but some might believe this still hasn't
answered the question of "What is the $rst cause?” !e answer (though
counterintuitive on $rst glance) is, "!ere never was a $rst cause, but
described above is the eternal cause." Existence never came from any-
where, it is all that has ever been or ever will be. !e fundamental, eter-
nal cause of Existence is the impossibility of its nonexistence, the impos-
sibility of nothingness existing.
!is intuition is described (at least to my ears) in the Tao Te
Ching, Lao Tzu's timeless philosophy:
"e Tao that can be spoken of is not the eternal Tao.
"e name that can be named is not the eternal name.
!e eternal Tao is nothingness. It cannot be named, because
nothingness doesn't exist; the word nothingness describes our existent
concept of the forever nonexistent. When speaking about it, we are
speaking about our existent idea of nothingness, and not -nothingness-
itself.
"e nameless is the beginning of heaven and earth.
"e name is the mother of the ten thousand things.
In other words, nothingness (the nameless) is the cause of Exis-
tence. “!e name” represents Existence, everything nameable, dis-
cussable, or conceivable, and the “ten thousand things” represents the
boundless possibility made real by the energetic unfolding of Existence.
CHAPTER 3
The Immutable Foundation of Existence
To summarize the ground covered thus far: Nothingness cannot
possibly exist; Existence must exist. Before proceeding, we must answer,
“What does it mean for something (or in the case of Existence, every-
thing) to exist?” We take for granted that we know what it takes for
something to exist: it simply has to be present in existence, to have actual
being. What does it take for something to have actual being? Well, the
thing has to exist... !is circularity reveals the fact that we don't quite
have a rigorous de$nition for what it takes for something to exist, and
our concept of existence relates only to our experience of the things that
do exist and our non-experience of things that do not exist. I do not see
a car parked in this room; all indications and prior knowledge suggest
that no car exists in the room. I do see a lamp to my right. I can touch it
and its light reveals the color and shape of my surroundings; this lamp
certainly exists, and I know that it exists based on its relationship with
me and the other existent things surrounding it. If any of these things
didn't exist, they would not have any part in this relationship.
!e existence of any thing is solely de$ned by how that thing
stands in reference to other existent things, not just in its relative spatio-
temporal position, but also in every possible distinction which makes
that thing exactly what it is and nothing else. Anything that exists neces-
sarily stands in reference to and is de$ned by all that it is not; it is impos-
sible for something to exist without existing relative to the whole of Ex-
istence. !e entirety of being is encapsulated in this in$nite One, the
sum total of this in$nite network of relations. On account of this, though
I cannot directly observe some aspects of my lamp's relationship with
the rest of Existence, the fact that both the lamp and the rest of Existence
exist tells me that this broad relationship also exists. For instance, I know
that the sun is orbiting the Milky Way, and that since the lamp is orbiting
the sun, the lamp is also orbiting the Milky Way.
!e lamp, like every existent thing, is spatiotemporally situated
relative to every other existent thing in the entire scope of Existence, no
ma%er how distant in space or time. !is may not be an obvious or im-
mediately intuitive fact, but is true nonetheless. (Before you disagree, try
to come up with something which simultaneously exists and doesn't spa-
tiotemporally relate to the rest of Existence. By the way, a fact like 2+2=4
does not satisfy this challenge; facts like this are Truths, true at all times
and all places, and therefore relate to the whole of Existence, underlying
physically existent things like stars and lamps. I will elaborate on the
concept of Truth shortly.)
To know of something in Existence requires interacting with
some of the information making up that thing's relationship with Exis-
tence. !ink of a guitar; you know what I mean when I say that because
the word 'guitar' activates the informational network of associations
your brain has built up around that word. In looking at a guitar, your
eyes are registering information carried by photons, which each indi-
vidually contain information of the molecular conditions whence they
were emi%ed, and which collectively sum to describe the form and color
of the guitar from the angle and lighting in which you are viewing it.
Hearing a chord strummed on its strings involves your ears registering
"uctuations in the elastic medium of atmospheric pressure; you access a
tiny corner of a near-spherical wave given off by the string's vibrations
within this medium, containing the information pertaining to the gui-
tar's interaction with the air it is in contact with.
When you pick up the guitar, the weight you feel is the result of
the guitar's informational relationship with spacetime, the relativistic
warping it responds to and participates in (described in depth in Part II,
Chapters 1 and 2). All of this information embodies elements of the gui-
tar's existence; the being of the guitar is entirely contained in all the in-
formation which describes the guitar's existence, both in itself and in
relation to all other existent things. In fact, the existence of any piece of
Existence is wholly made up of that thing's informational presence in
Existence; every single thing has existence solely through the totality of
information which describes that thing.
!is network of co-de$ning existence among all things repre-
sents an absolutely unimaginable volume of information; what could
possibly account for the existence of this information? Information can-
not have any meaning if its logic or validity is unknown, yet the informa-
tion in the Universe clearly exists. All of the information pertaining to
the world around you must exist in order for you to interact with it; how
can that information exist embodied in the thing? How could two in-
animate objects, or a galaxy of inanimate objects, contain in their being a
reference to other existent things, and to the laws of physics?
Essentially, these questions equate to asking “what does it take
for information to exist?” It is an immensely puzzling thought. !e in-
formation making up the star Betelgeuse, describing all its atomic mo-
tions and the light it has historically given off, its position in space, etc.,
all certainly exists, though it seems no one is paying a%ention to it; how
can that information possibly exist if it is unknown, if there is no objec-
tive record of or reality to it?
It seems there is no possible way it could exist in such an in-
stance; information must be known in order to exist. !is suggests that
the missing piece to the puzzle of de$ning the existence of information
is Awareness, that mysterious quality which is clearly present in exis-
tence (we experience it all day, every day), but whose origins and nature
seem perfectly unexplainable to us. In order for anything to exist relative
to anything else, there must also exist Cosmic Awareness of that rela-
tionship to contain the information embodied therein. If there exists no
Awareness of something's existence whatsoever, that thing cannot exist.
Cosmic Awareness is perfectly inseparable from Existence: it is the es-
sence of Existence, a necessary prerequisite to the existence of Existence.
To exist is to embody information in the Knowing of Cosmic Aware-
ness; the Knowing of Cosmic Awareness is Existence, the sum total of all
existent possibility. Every piece of Existence is accounted for by Cosmic
Awareness, contained in its uncountably in$nite web of relations be-
tween every other existent thing. It all extends from and relates to this
oneness, bound by the informational bonds comprising Existence.
!is might seem like an unnecessary complication, to answer
the question of how information can exist by postulating the existence of
a grand Consciousness which knows that information, but with a closer
look we can see that it simpli$es the ma%er; it is a simple fact, casually
overlooked for too long, that information cannot possibly exist if it is
unknown. Imagine an old, forgo%en book in an a%ic; if the information
making up the complex electromagnetic interaction between the book's
molecules were totally unaccounted for, how could the book possibly
retain its shape? !e energy making up that book contains in$nitely
more dynamic information than the book's words could ever encode,
and necessarily exists the entire time it sits neglected; if this information
were completely nonexistent, there could be no physical energy repre-
senting the book, and therefore the book could not possibly physically
exist. Our current de$nition of information does not account for this
fact, and for this reason our current de$nition is incomplete.
!e existence of information cannot be explained by the cur-
rently prevalent metaphysics of materialism, the idea that everything
which exists is strictly physical. Materialism is required to sidestep the
question “what does it mean for something to physically exist?”, because
that question immediately leads to the answer given above, that physical
existence is informational existence (and informational existence is nec-
essarily mental existence). When an investigation of how information
can exist is followed to its logical conclusion, materialism must fall away,
with idealism $nally taking its proper place as the foundation for meta-
physics. Idealism has o#en been misunderstood to represent the idea
that everything which exists is human mental content; this is not the
case, in fact, human mental content is but a minuscule re"ection of the
in$nity of Cosmic Awareness.
!ese two absolutely fundamental requirements, that Existence
cannot not exist, and that Awareness of its existence must exist for Exis-
tence to exist, account for the permanent being of Existence. “!en
which came $rst, Existence, or Awareness of Existence?” is an invalid
question: each part cannot exist without the other. !at is, Awareness
cannot exist without Existence being possible, and Existence cannot be
possible without Awareness existing. !ey co-de$ne and co-create.
Awareness contains not only the conditions of and interrelation-
ships between every existent thing, but knowledge of all possible condi-
tions and all possible interrelationships; the entirety of the information
in Existence is known at this fundamental level, and this knowledge
comprises all that is True. I will use the capitalized word Truth to mean
information known to Cosmic Awareness, part of the information de-
scribing and constituting Existence.
!e Knowing of all that is True of a thing entirely makes up the
Existence of that thing. Simultaneously, the Existence of all that is True
entirely makes up the being of the Knower, Cosmic Awareness. !at is,
without Truth existing, Cosmic Awareness would have nothing to Know,
and would not exist. On the other hand, without Cosmic Awareness pre-
sent to Know Truth, Truth could not exist. !e two necessarily coexist
as one.
!is bears clari$cation: I am not saying that Existence is con-
sciously aware in the exact sense that we are consciously aware. Cosmic
Awareness should probably not be thought of as a thinking entity (unless
its perspective is currently that of a free-willed life-form arising into exis-
tence from the interplay of energy and law, but more on that later), be-
cause the thinking we do is limited to the informational content our
brains can process, while Cosmic Awareness comprises the knowing of
eternal, unchanging Truth, the out"ow of which is embodied in the Uni-
verse and all possible frames of Existence. Of course, I cannot begin to
properly imagine the content of the in$nite mind from which the Uni-
verse arises, but I strongly suspect that it is unrecognizably different
from our familiar $nite subjectivity which unfolds over energetic change
in time. !is should go without saying, and will become abundantly
clear as we proceed, but I am absolutely not equating Cosmic Awareness
with the anthropomorphic, insecure God of religion. Cosmic Awareness
is not supernatural; it is the very essence of Nature, the root of all Truth.
Many would argue, saying "Awareness only arises through the
logical processing of information occurring in our brains; it is unique to
life.” Indeed, this seems to be the source of our consciousness. However,
this argument neglects the rather gigantic fact that all of the physical
Universe consists of the logical processing of information, of energy in-
teracting and reacting with perfect logical precision. !e only difference
between the processing that occurs in our brains and that which occurs
all around us is that our brains achieve a special type of self-reference
and self-in"uence, which will be discussed in much more detail in Chap-
ters 5 and 6.
Still more would protest, “No awareness is necessary. !e Uni-
verse exists and behaves according to its laws automatically." Quite a
bold assumption, though o#en taken for granted without question. Does
it, though? Where are the laws, the Truths contained, if there is abso-
lutely no awareness of their existence? How are the laws enforced and
constant over time? One might answer "!ey arise from the unchanging
necessary Truths you described above." I agree that the laws of physics
are products of necessary Truth, but the Truths' necessity hinges on the
knowing of those Truths. Cosmic Truth cannot exist without there exist-
ing Awareness of that Truth. It is time we take the de$nition of informa-
tion to its logical conclusion: information, in any form, can necessarily
only exist if its existence is Known; without knowledge of information's
being, information cannot exist.
However, I'll examine the question from the conventional scien-
ti$c perspective. What would it mean if Existence were dead, meaning,
forever unaware of its being? Let's imagine the situation in this way: We
know that there cannot be nothingness, that there has to be something
existent. To take the simplest method of ful$lling this condition: all that
exists is an electron, suspended in an endless void of nothingness. Who
in this instance can say that the electron is different from the nothing-
ness? What distinguishes the existent speck from the void?
You might say, "Well, the electron is the only thing that isn't
nothingness; therefore it exists." But what about the electron suggests in
itself that it exists? !e electron has no potential for change, no possible
interaction to participate in, no means of asserting its existence whatso-
ever. Remember that there is no awareness present in this example to
recognize that the electron is different from the in$nite void surrounding
it, just the electron itself is present. !e electron couldn't realize "I exist,"
and the nothingness certainly couldn't realize "I don't exist, but that elec-
tron does." !e electron would have no impetus provided by the laws of
physics (since as we've decided, for this example only the electron exists.
No mathematics or physical laws can exist in nothingness (of course, an
electron couldn't exist without the central laws of physics, but this is
simply an a%empt at an explanatory example of why this is an impossible
situation)). No ma%er how much “ma%er” is imagined to be present in
an unaware Universe such as this, it all equates to absolute nothingness,
because there is no way to internally (or externally) distinguish it from
nothingness, and no way for the informational content it should contain
to manifest its being.
Let's look at the conception of an unaware Universe another
way, closer to the scienti$c materialism prominent in philosophy since
the scienti$c revolution of the sixteenth century: If the Universe we in-
habit now is “dead” to itself, as many modern thinkers believe, until life
arises in this dead Universe, there is no awareness whatsoever. A#er life
has again died out, there is again no awareness whatsoever. !e only
awareness of any kind exists in $nite life forms. In this case, the time be-
tween successive arrivals of sentient races in the Universe could be said
to pass instantly; there is no awareness of the possibly trillions of years of
time between the arrival of awareness of reality in the form of life. Dur-
ing those time spans, how could the energy in the Universe be said to
exist at all; in other words, what does it exist in reference to? What if life
never arose? And most of all (this is the question which strict material-
ism cannot answer), how would the laws of physics determine the func-
tioning of the Universe if there were absolutely no awareness outlining
the existence and behavior of those laws?
To restate as succinctly as possible the ontological basis of this
book: all of Existence springs automatically from logical necessity, and
the requirement that logical necessity exist is founded on the primordial
and permanent Truth that it is impossible for nothingness to exist, cou-
pled with the requirement that Existence cannot exist without Aware-
ness of that Existence. In other words, Cosmic Awareness exists because
Existence is impossible without it, and Existence is required to exist.
Truths exists in the way that they do out of logical necessity ful$lling the
requirement that nothingness does not exist, and Existence is the em-
bodiment of the consequences which follow from these Truths.
In short, the answer to the question “How can it be possible that
all of this is even possible?” is not only that nonexistence cannot exist,
but that what has to exist in its place is that exquisitely complex, em-
bodying the full spectrum of all necessary possibility over an in$nity of
time. How this complexity arises from these simple foundational re-
quirements is our next topic.
CHAPTER 4
Truth
!roughout the history of human invention and investigation,
we have go%en so used to uncovering the logical explanations for every-
thing that happens, we have forgo%en to question why there's a perfectly
logical explanation for everything. We never ask how such logic can ex-
ist, and the fact that it does is simply taken for granted. How does all the
information in this Universe, this boundless, logically pristine system,
come to exist; what is its basis?
Forming the foundation for the immense system of information
embodied by Existence are Truths which necessarily exist, or necessarily
follow from more fundamental necessary truths. Each represents a logi-
cal certainty whose modi$cation would negate that Truth (in other
words, a necessary Truth can only exist in exactly one form; any other
conclusion drawn from this logical certainty is a falsehood), and Truths
of this class of existence are eternal and unchanging. !e Blackwell Dic-
tionary of Western Philosophy has a lucid de$nition: "A necessary truth
must be true and could not be false, whatever way the world is. It is true
in itself. Logically necessary truths are based on the principle of contra-
diction, having negations that are logically impossible."
Awareness contains not only the conditions of and interrelation-
ships between every existent thing, but knowledge of all possible condi-
tions and all possible interrelationships; the entirety of the informational
potential in Existence is known at this fundamental level, and this
knowledge comprises all that is True. !e logic of proportion contained
in mathematics provides an endless catalogue of examples of necessary
Truths, e.g. the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is π,
and any $gure with different proportions is not truly a circle (for an end-
less expanse of further necessary Truths, simply peruse Wolfram Math-
world's wiki). !e impossibility of nothingness existing is another neces-
sary Truth, an analytic, logically unassailable axiom.
I contend that the information physical systems embody can
only arise as a property of the Universe from the network of relations
between the necessary Truths held at all times and all places in Aware-
ness, and that these are clearly not at all human inventions nor are they
con$ned to human thought. (I'll be using the words logic, Truth, and
mathematics interchangeably, since mathematics is an instructive repre-
sentative of necessary Truths.) Only things that are logically possible to
exist can exist, and mathematics, or the more inclusive term Truth, de-
$nes what is possible to exist. For example, a circle can't exist that is a
square, and being inhabitants and participants in this informational sys-
tem, we can examine logically why that is. (It has nothing to do with
human labeling or de$ning; the two $gures have con"icting logical
properties.)
To those of you who do not yet understand that mathematics is
not a human invention but a Universal property: Where did the capacity
for humans to think mathematically come from? Did humans invent the
brain mechanisms that recognize mathematical and logical truth? Obvi-
ously, no, their existence is a prerequisite for mathematical understand-
ing in humans. Does human mathematical thought require mathematical
truth to exist as a prerequisite? Clearly, yes; there would be no way for
our neurons to discover this logic if it were nonexistent, and there would
be no way to reach general, universal mathematical conclusions without
mathematical truth existing independently of our $nite brains.
Here's a simple test you can perform to prove to yourself that
numbers really exist. Open up any word processor program, and type
the following words: “Mathematics is a fundamental aspect of the Uni-
verse; it describes much of the informational content of the Universe,
applying to all that exists physically, all that could possibly exist, and eve-
rything which is logically true and false about the Universe. (All that is
true is de$ned by all that is untrue, just as all that is untrue is de$ned by
all that is true.)” Highlight that text (leave out the apostrophes, of
course), and perform a word count. Your program will tell you that there
are 64 words and 368 characters in that selection. Now, if there is no
such thing as number, how could every computer reliably identify that
there are 64 things which share one complex characteristic (namely, be-
ing a string of characters bounded by spaces) and 368 things which share
another complex characteristic (being any symbol encoded in the selec-
tion) highlighted? Where did the computer get that information, if
number only exists in human minds? Where indeed. How could each
fact represent something true about the Universe (that there are 64
words highlighted comprising 368 characters), if the information mak-
ing up that truth does not simultaneously exist in the Universe? If you are two meters tall and I am one meter tall, the ratio be-
tween our heights (2:1) exists whether we have a language to express
this fact or not (along with all the ratios comparing every different size,
speed, duration, and every possible intelligible proportion amongst
things existent or possibly existent). It is part of the information en-
coded within and making up the relationships between existent things; it
is in fact these relationships between existent things which characterize
the being of Existence. Every single thing exists as the embodiment of all
the Truths which describe what that thing is. For this reason, the effec-
tiveness of mathematics is not at all unreasonable– mathematics ex-
plores some of the most fundamental and primary logical requirements
of Truth, and every existent phenomenon embodies all the Truths which
de$ne its existence.
Seven is not a prime number because people designed it to be
divisible only by itself and 1, humans recognize it as prime because upon
examination it is discovered to be divisible only by itself and 1, given all
the logic comprising what these concepts represent. It is astounding that
we haven't yet found a mathematical way to predict where prime num-
bers should be found on the number line. We cannot mathematically
analyze or understand numbers and all the boundless information they
encode; this fact alone should make it glaringly obvious that number is a
system beyond our invention.
Even before the system of information described by human
mathematics is discovered by intelligent life, the primes are still prime,
the squares are still square, the angles within a triangle add up to two
right angles, and so on. A musical major triad sounds the way it does not
because human ingenuity invented a pleasing harmony, but because the
sound waves' frequencies mathematically correspond in whole number
ratios, which physically resonate and thereby reinforce each other with a
sonorous ring (2:3 between root and $#h, 4:5 between root and third,
and 5:6 between third and $#h), and which our logical brains can easily
decode. !e examples are limitless in number because everything that
exists arises from the foundation of cosmic logic, undying Truth.
•§•
What instantiates physical existence– of what material does this
sublime Universe of nature consist? Put simply, the energy and force
making up the Universe are the necessary expression and embodiment
of the information in Awareness. Above, it is argued that no physical
content can exist without there existing Cosmic Awareness, knowing all
the information pertaining to that content; it is equally true that the
Awareness of that information cannot exist without the realm embody-
ing its content and relationship to other information, that which we call
the physical. If there is no embodiment of the content of information,
there is no information; the information pertaining to the existence of
any physical object is wholly contained and expressed in the characteris-
tics of its physical being.
!e most central, basic necessary Truths represent the in$nite
but speci$c boundary to the possible, and underlie all points in this con-
tinuous web of Existence. Each of these central Truths exists based on its
own infallibility; further Truths necessarily follow which depend on
these central Truths for their own validity. All of these in turn suggest
and require further Truths, generating a system of hierarchical necessi-
ties which de$nes all possibility in Existence. !rough a subtle and mo-
mentous string of requirements, this unimpeachable logical system nec-
essarily gives rise to energy, and the laws of physics de$ning the possi-
bilities open to that energy.
Everything you can see, think and experience has at its funda-
mental basis the pure logic of Universal Truth. All of these phenomena
exist as systems of information and logic extended from Truth; energy,
force, space, time, and consciousness are all systems of Universal infor-
mation. !e answer to the question “why does all energy unfailingly fol-
low the laws of physics?” is that energy is the embodiment of the laws of
physics; energy must abide by the fundamental physical laws because
energy is the direct expression of those physical laws. In its inexhaustible
outpouring of change over time, energy ful$lls the requirement that
there can never exist nothingness anywhere in Existence. Truth ex-
pressed in force is the logical framework through which this information
"ows, at every point serving to determine exactly how that energy can
exist and change; energy can never undergo an interaction that fails to
abide by the logic, extended from Truth, which makes up the existence
of that energy.
Here is a good point to remember that we are physically com-
prised of atoms and molecules, bundles of energy and force, and that the
unimaginably dynamic interchange of these bits of information actually
causes all of the sensations and ideas we experience. !e information
they embody represents all that is True of them, including the informa-
tion pertaining to their relationship with other existent things. All in-
formation is a consequence of the behavior of the fundamental Truths
interacting, contradicting and resolving, a process which manifests as the
laws of physics which de$ne everything about what the Universe is, how
it can change and interact– these physical Truths de$ne the existence of
those atoms; there is no separation between the Existence of the atoms
and the laws of physics which de$ne them and serve as their basis. In-
deed, there can be no fundamental separation of some region in Exis-
tence from another; every single thing's existence is comprised of its in-
formational relationships with every other thing in existence, comprising
the being of Cosmic Awareness.
All possibility exists at once, contained and implied by all neces-
sary Truths and the logical relationship between these Truths. However,
from considering the existence of time it is clear that not all possibility
can have physical expression at once; all physical realizations of neces-
sary Truth's possibility take the form of energetic change over time in the
ways allowed and required by the fundamental laws of physics. !e most
central necessary Truths are timeless, never changing, and the informa-
tional consequences of their existence underly and give rise to all ener-
getic "ux. Moment by moment, this never-ending interchange embodies
the in$nite possibilities contained within logical Truth, con$ned in its
random unfolding only by the limits set by the permanent nonexistence
of the impossible.
A uranium atom, for example, is a tiny bundle of a huge amount
of energy, encapsulated in the way that it is based on the logic of force
dictating the interactions between the conditions of the energy therein,
the electromagnetic, strong and weak nuclear forces, and minuscule
gravitational characteristics of that energy. If the nucleus of this atom
were energetically split, force would govern the transition of the energy
in the atom's strongly bound nucleus as it is converted into new group-
ings of particles, alongside an explosion of light, pressure and heat, each
phenomena drawing the logic of its existence from Truth.
Time, space, and the physical laws that govern energy are also
implied by and contained within Truth. Time is nothing but change in
energy, be it through motion in space, oscillation in heat, propagation in
electromagnetic waves, etc.; the passing of time occurs as Universal in-
formation changes. Energy cannot change without time. (Where there's
no change, no heat, no energy, internally in that system there would be
no time passing, though that system would exist in its static state relative
to the changes occurring in the rest of the Universe. Due to zero-point
energy, it seems that no such static system can exist.)
!e Truths comprising the existence of the real numbers contain
(among other things) the logic of proportion, for example, that 2 is twice
as great as 1, 1 is 47 times as large as 1/47, and the entire scope of the
in$nite range of proportions suggested by the existence of numbers. !is
conceptual logic of proportion is physically embodied in space, which
holds the explanation to the content of its being in mathematical pro-
portions. In other words, space exists as the physical embodiment of the
basic cosmic Truths of the in$nite mathematics of continuity in dimen-
sional proportion. Space and the Truth de$ning space are not separate
phenomena; space is the embodiment of, the fabric of that logic, neces-
sarily expressing the limitless information it entails. All of the logical
axioms uncovered by geometry are contained in every point in space; no
ma%er how small or large the point in question, that point is both in$-
nitely small relative to the in$nite span of larger possible sizes and in$-
nitely large relative to the in$nite spectrum of smaller possible sizes con-
tained therein. (However, the $eld of energy which we are a part of and
which $lls the possibility outlined by space is warped away from this
foundational, omni-homogenous shape by its interaction with energy,
causing mass and gravitation, a process described in much more detail in
Part II, Chapters 1 and 2 of this book.)
!e integers represent (among other things) the interrelation-
ships between indivisible units of equal proportion (1s) following and
adding to each other in in$nite sequence. !e integers exist in the fact
that components of the Universe are countable; one quality that two
electrons and two protons share is the abstract property “two”. Division
occurs every time force is distributed amongst particles, the impulse di-
viding into every applicable particle and $eld in the region. Addition,
subtraction, and multiplication are forms of counting, (among other
things) de$ning the logical consequences of proportional relation. (E.g.
that a length divided equally into 10 parts can be grouped into 5 por-
tions of length 2, 2 portions of length 5, or 10 portions of length 1, and
the same length divided equally into 27,644,437 parts (being prime) can
only be said to have 27,644,437 portions of length 1, and no other
groupings (without further dividing the portions.)
!e duality between positive and negative numbers is repre-
sented in nature in force at all times, in charge, in momentum, etc.
Wherever Newton's third law (every action has an equal and opposite
reaction) is being obeyed in nature (which happens in every single reac-
tion between units of energy, an effectively in$nite amount of times in
the vast Universe every second), positive and negative logical magni-
tudes exist with respect to each other.
When a leaf falls from a tree, the number describing how many
leaves are in the tree is subtracted from by 1; simultaneously, the number
describing how many leaves are falling through air towards the Earth at
that moment is added to by 1. (Of course, this is not to say that there is
some numeral "oating out there in space recording these numbers; these
numbers exist in the informational makeup of the truth describing and
comprising the contents of the Universe– the subtraction from the
number of leaves in the tree is a necessary informational consequence of
the leaf falling from the tree, and is part of what describes the existence
of the leaf and tree.) Soon a#er this, when the leaf lands on the ground,
the number describing how many leaves are falling through the air is
subtracted from by 1, and the number of leaves on the ground is added
to by 1.
During the leaf 's falling, it picks up and expends kinetic energy.
!is energy is at $rst all contained as potential energy in the leaf 's gravi-
tational position; as the leaf accelerates through the gravitational $eld it
is situated in, part of that potential energy is expressed as motion. !is
kinetic energy is divided amongst the octillions of atoms the leaf 's en-
ergy interacts with; the sound of the leaf 's falling alone causes more at-
oms to move than there have been seconds in the history of the Uni-
verse.
Which atoms happen to be directly affected by the leaf are de-
termined by their geometrical position in the Universe, information
which is accounted for in Cosmic Awareness. Many nitrogen atoms will
pick up momentum due to the leaf 's motion, but it is true that the nitro-
gen atoms which happen to occupy the Crab Nebula are not among
these special few; only those nitrogen atoms in the leaf 's direct vicinity
are directly in"uenced by its motion. If these atoms were not geometri-
cally near the leaf 's tree of origin at the time the leaf falls, those atoms
would not be directly affected by the leaf 's motion. (Chaos theory at-
tempts to describe the improbable possibility that distant atoms can be
affected indirectly by minuscule motions like this, and Truth contains
the information making up these types of possibilities.)
To reemphasize the points made so far, Truth describes what
exists; any single object's existence depends on the innumerable facts
which encode what is True about that object. Mathematical, purely logi-
cal Truths account for a great lion's share of this Truth, and it is for this
reason that mathematics is so profoundly successful when used by hu-
mans to model and interpret Universal phenomena.
More complex mathematics, built up from the interplay of more
fundamental properties like size, duration, and the mysterious logic of
particulate interaction are expressed physically in systems like atoms,
chemistry, and our DNA. Natural selection, the primary mechanism for
evolution, arises as a logical system of Truth from its constituent smaller-
scale logical systems: the laws of chemistry (which water's unique quali-
ties of adhesion, cohesion and surface tension directly proceed from, as
well as carbon's diverse potential for bonding), the logic of gene replica-
tion, life's consistent requirement for energy (be it energy from the sun
or energy from eating those organisms which photosynthesize, or from
eating those plant-eating organisms), sex and genderization, the competi-
tive nature of survival, the general tendency for far more offspring to be
produced than the environment can support, et cetera.
!e logic within our various languages directly extends from
more simple properties of reality; language is a logical form within
which information can be linearly encoded and communicated. Words
serve as shared general ideas around which our personal thoughts can
crystallize more easily, and be communicated more clearly, though the
special connotations we personally hold in mind when we think of dif-
ferent words in different contexts are never perfectly conveyed through
speech or body language. If there were no logic fundamental to Exis-
tence, we could not possibly invent language; the existence of the logic
underlying our languages is the prerequisite material to their develop-
ment, and is not a product of their creation as we generally believe. Simi-
larly, nothing we “create” is created by us; we simply rearrange and join
systems of information and logic which are already present to build them
into new, novel or useful forms.
Examples can be found in any one of our technologies. !ey all
depend on more central logical properties for their emergent utility, e.g.,
to function, our cars require the physical logic of force, utilized in our
engineering of the engine, gears, axles and wheels, and make use of the
chemical structure of gasoline, and the resultant explosion of energy
when a spark of sufficient temperature is introduced to a mist of gasoline
particles; each of these systems of logic and information are derived
from more fundamental Truths. A similar nested hierarchy is present in
our computers, the internet, the monetary system, the post office, our
cultures, our emotions, our minds; in short, in every composite thing
that is not itself a necessary Truth. !is progression of larger systems of
emergent logic arising from the cumulative effect of sufficient numbers
of smaller-system logical interactions spans the boundless spectrum
from those described by quantum mechanics to those governing the
progression of stars and galaxies.
Smaller still in size and duration than quantum logic are the
physical processes summing together to give rise to quantum phenom-
ena, just as larger in size and duration than our mathematics of galactic
evolution must be the physical processes made up of interaction of spans
of energy larger than the observable Universe over hundreds of trillions
of years (with the Universe making up a microcosmic subset of the
larger system; more on this idea in Part II, Chapter 3). In$nity extends
beyond the limits of our investigation in every possible direction, and is
physically existent wherever it extends.
!e foundational Truths underlying Existence not only de$ne
what exists, but all that is logically and informationally possible to exist.
Just as every possible three-dimensional form exists within the potential
of every three-dimensional enclosure of space (i.e. every possible marble
sculpture exists already in a slab of sufficient size), every possible piece
of music exists in the possibility represented by the logical system of
music, of sound, pitch, and rhythmic relations over time. A Michelan-
gelo or a Beethoven recognizes more possibility than lesser artists. Bee-
thoven's Moonlight Sonata never existed in actuality before he wrought
it into being, only as a secret and unlikely gem of universal possibility.
Now that it has explicit being, its existence has been re"ected in millions
of minds, each personally lending the work a unique signi$cance based
on the way they experience it in the context of their lives, dispositions
and emotions.
!e possibility for you to be reading this sentence at this time
and place in your life has always existed; it needed an almost in$nitely
unlikely set of circumstances to come to pass (including several billion
years of Earthly evolution in this corner of this galaxy happening exactly
the way it did, and the events of your life and mine unfolding exactly the
way they did, not to mention the preceding billions of years of star birth
and rebirth allowing the Earth to se%le into the speci$c orbit it now oc-
cupies, set in motion by the exact unfolding of the energy released by the
Big Bang), but the possibility for it to occur always has and always will
be part of the possibility inherent to the Truth making up Existence.
!e same can be said of all your experiences, and every possible
event and circumstance. Every possible something, be it an object, an
experience, an event, a life form, etc., everything possible to exist is implied
by and contained within the boundless possibility represented by Truth,
and the conglomerative relations between Truths. A planet of more suit-
able conditions like the lovable Earth realizes more of this inherent pos-
sibility than an unsuitable planet, a Venus or Mercury. Of course, both
Venus and Mercury represent the interaction between mind-boggling
numbers of atoms swept up in vortices of physical possibility, but on a
planet more suitable to the delicate balance of life, these vortices yield
subjectivity, imagination, technology, transcendence. !e only piece
missing from this in$nite, "owering potential is -nothingness-.
•§•
Everything that exists embodies Truth. Even falsehoods are
Truths; it is true that they are false. For example, it is true that this
statement is false: “!is great sentence is comprised of four thousand
le%ers.” Truths de$ne all falsehoods; the sentence contains exactly 49
le%ers, so it is false to say it comprises any other number of le%ers. It is
interesting that in a self referential statement like this, where the number
stated changes the number of le%ers in the sentence, it can be impossible
to state it with truth. For example “!is great sentence is comprised of
forty-nine le%ers.” is still false, because now the sentence contains 46
le%ers. “!is great sentence is comprised of forty-six le%ers.” contains 45.
“!is great sentence is comprised of forty-$ve le%ers.” again contains 46:
this particular sentence has no possible logical resolution where it can
state a truth.
Gödel's famous incompleteness theorems rely on this potential
for paradox arising from logical self-reference. It seems that only a vast
exaggeration of the signi$cance of this realization would lead a logician
to believe that because all axiomatic systems contain instances of ir-
resolvable self-reference, no axiomatic systems can represent absolute
truths. !is would be a misinterpretation of the value of Gödel's theo-
rem; it simply acknowledges the unavoidably paradoxical nature of self-
reference in a logical system. Even the grand logical system of Existence
might be considered incomplete in this sense, based on the paradox “!e
only way for nothingness to exist is for it not to exist.” !e contradictory
nature of self-referential de$nition is explored more fully in Part 2,
Chapter 6.
In any case, the entire breadth of falsehoods pertaining to any
truth (e.g. 1+1=2) are contained within and implied by that one truth
(i.e. 1+1≠3, 1+1≠4, 1+1≠5... as well as 1+1≠ a ham sandwich, 1+1≠ Be-
telgeuse). !us, an in$nite number of falsehoods surround every Truth,
and these falsehoods in themselves represent Truths, in that it is true
that they are false. If it weren't true that they are false, the Truth would
exist differently; the in$nite falsehoods surrounding Truths de$ne those
Truths, just as those Truths de$ne the falsehoods relating to them. !ere
are uncountably in$nite sets of Truths and falsehoods for every single
thing in Existence, because every thing in Existence exists relative to
every other thing in Existence; Existence is one whole, comprised of the
inter-de$nition of its parts, such that no component part can be sepa-
rated from the whole.
Truths are de$ned in in$nite ways by the interrelationships be-
tween components of Existence. !e path that every one of your atoms
has taken through space since their formation exists in Truth; that is, if a
carbon atom in your right eye was forged in the same supernova as an
atom of oxygen in your le# big toenail, this fact will always be true, con-
tained in the history of the Universe (the chain of causality which leads
to these atoms occupying the present situation), even if we could never
$nd it out. One could ra%le off instances of the mind-meltingly complex
system of Truths and Untruths in Existence without end; there is noth-
ing you can think about that doesn't represent Truth. (E.g. you might try
to disprove this by thinking 1+1=3, yet it is True that this is false.)
•§•
To recap, our Universe is the part of the physical embodiment of
Cosmic Awareness that we happen to inhabit and can possibly observe.
Consciousness of Truth exists at all points in Existence, from in$nitely
small to in$nitely large, and it is the Awareness of Truth that de$nes how
energy can interact, how gravity pulls, how light propagates, how water
"ows, and how action potentials in neurons are orchestrated. Cosmic
Awareness contains not only the possibility for the rules of chess to exist,
but every possible chess game given those rules. Awareness contains not
only the possibility for numbers to exist and to describe the relation-
ships between existent entities, but every possible number and logical
interrelationship therein, including every mathematical operation and
theorem we have so far uncovered.
!e interplay between information (in the form of energy and
force) and the logic of Truth dictating how the two can interact combine
to embody a sublimely limitless breadth of potential; energy can $nd a
restful (though ultimately temporary) home in atoms, which can group
into molecules and participate in chemical reactions, the logical possi-
bilities of which can produce self-replicating molecules, life, and eventu-
ally your lovely awareness. Where more energy is compounded into
larger and larger systems, more information is there embodied.
!e entirety of the atoms in the sun, for example, represents an
absolutely staggering amount of information, and the physical character-
istics of the sun, its nuclear reactions, gravity, and the light it gives off, are
consequences of its physical informational content, expressed in energy
and force. Similarly, the molecules in the sea of air we bo%om-dwell in
each occupy a distinct informational point of existence at any moment;
each one has a speci$c place in space and time relative to every other
object in spacetime regardless of its velocital or accelerational condi-
tions; each one behaves exactly as it should given its logical makeup and
its logical interaction with every force that applies to it, and each is in-
ternally characterized by its hierarchical information structure (arising
out of the informational interchanges in its constituent particles, and
their interactions with the forces acting on them).
!e leaf falling into the river before me at this moment is the
highest culmination of the necessary Truths summing to that leaf 's exis-
tence that I can readily observe, its path through the air temporarily rep-
resenting the change in Universal information from the leaf occupying
the tree to the leaf "oating downstream. Every event, including every
action you take, changes the informational content of the Universe: for
instance, as your eyes scan these lines, the information modeled in your
brain is changing, the position of your eyes relative to the page is
changing, etc. Breathing in, you set off a cascade of cellular chemical in-
terchanges involving speci$c molecules, which used to be part of the in-
formational (energetic) content of the atmosphere, and are now spiral-
ing down your arteries into trillions of your cells. If you pick up a hand-
ful of dirt and throw it into the air, you've rewri%en the history of those
specks of dirt, which now each have a different orientation than they did
previously and are sca%ered in different locations; like all information,
this information is connected to all the information in Existence by be-
ing known to Cosmic Awareness.
Consider the information contained in a spider's web: the
chemical makeup of it, the shape it occupies in space (relative not only
to the trees around it and the Earth, but to every atom in every galaxy
(within its light-cone, a relativistic concept describing the area over
which information pertaining to its existence can extend, limited by the
speed of light)), the air it displaces, the statistical trap it represents to
each "ying bug in the area, the vanishingly minuscule gravitational pull it
exerts on the world around it, and most of all, its origins. !is gorgeously
complex network of information relies on the spider to weave it into be-
ing, and that speci$c spider's existence depends upon billions of years of
evolution along the unique path its entire ancestry took in the context of
the evolution of all the species evolving concurrently.
!e same astounding breadth of origin precedes every individ-
ual life form, and truly every event; observe a tree, its gorgeous fractal
branching, its elegant molecular machinery, the pleasing texture of its
color and form touching your mind. To reach the habitat it now occu-
pies, the tree's ancestry has taken an extremely lengthy journey in time
and distance from the seas, where its ultimate ancestors (and ours)
originated. All of this, both the tree in itself and the inner re"ection of its
nature in your awareness required an effectively in$nite amount of un-
likely circumstances to arrange into the informational system that the
interaction between you and tree represent.
Not a single thing exists that is unnatural. A beehive is as natural
an embodiment of Truth as a cloud hanging in the light of a sunset, or an
electron, and a car arises from Cosmic possibility into existence by the
exact same overarching set of natural laws as stars and planets. Your ex-
perience of the Universe is just as much a part of the Universe as gravity,
water and light are. Your personal awareness is a "owering bud of Eternal
Truth, perfectly indivisible from all of Existence.
CHAPTER 5
Mind and the Illusion of Dualism
Beauty is eternity gazing at itself in a mirror. ~Khalil Gibran
!e assumption that consciousness is a substance distinct from
physical reality is the standard belief which the majority of people
throughout history have shared. !at this belief has been so widely held
is not surprising; at $rst glance, our minds indeed seem radically differ-
ent from the substances making up our bodies and the physical world
around us. You can't pick up someone's mind, you can't see another per-
son's mind, and you can't experience another person's mind. !e mind is
our private domain, whereas the physical world is a public space we can
experience equally. !ough such an understanding of mind seems suit-
able on $rst glance, it has many critical "aws.
If something is to have an in"uence on physical reality, it must
itself have a physical aspect. !e force of its in"uence on the physical
world necessarily is its physical manifestation; without such a physical
in"uence, the thing in question could not possibly interact with the
physical world. It is clear that our minds interact with the physical world;
if not, how is my mind causing my hands to type this right now? It is also
clear that the physical world in"uences the content of mind; if this
weren't the case, how could the light coming from this page cause the
image of these words to materialize in your mind? Every sensation we
feel is the result of our brain's interaction with the physical world, and
everything we know of the physical world we perceive mentally.
Traditionally, it has been assumed that our inner experience of
the world is completely separate from the outer world, as if our bodies
frame a bubble separating our inner, conscious world from being part of
the external physical world. However, essentially all the evidence uncov-
ered by modern neuroscience suggests that our minds arise from the
swarm of energetic exchange carried out by our neurons; there are
countless experiments in which an experimenter physically affects a pa-
tient's neurons, while the patient notes de$nite effects this has on their
mind. With FMRI, we can watch how the brain responds to various
stimuli in real time, and note how these responses are correlated with
experiential effects. On account of these facts, what reason do we have to
believe that the information making up our minds and the information
making up the physical Universe are fundamentally different types of
information?
It turns out there is no reason to believe such a thing; in reality,
there is but a continuum of energy and force, with some rare and minus-
cule regions (living creatures) processing more logical information at a
quicker rate and with more complexity than the relatively simple infor-
mational exchange automatically undergone by physical energy and
force in the natural world. Both the conscious, willful experience which
we inhabit and the interactions of particles obeying fundamental laws
represent different shades of the never-ending informational exchange of
energy interacting over time in the Awareness which underlies and en-
ables it all. !at is, physical and mental are manifestations of one ulti-
mate substance: information within Cosmic Awareness. !e physical
aspect of this in$nite mind is the Universe, the in$nite string of Uni-
verses preceding it and to follow it, and all possible Universes or frames
of existence. !e mental or experiential aspect of this mind is the Know-
ing of the interrelationships and unfolding of this energetic information,
along with the Truths which gives rise to and which de$ne the possibili-
ties for that physical energy.
!e boundless potential represented by the Truth at the heart of
Existence gives rise to all dynamic energy, division, and change; every
individual phenomenon in Existence is a direct extension of, and is thus
indivisible from, the One, Cosmic Awareness. !ere is no spirit world
distinct from the physical. !e concept of an individual soul that tran-
scends physical reality is ill-conceived; if you possess a soul that is com-
pletely immaterial, that soul can have absolutely no contact with nor in-
"uence on your life here in the physical realm. What about it makes it
yours? It seems that the commitment to the concept of having a soul of
ineffable spirit arises from the historical difficulty of accounting for con-
sciousness, and from hope for an a#erlife. I'll address both of these con-
cepts in great detail later on in this writing, but for now, the point I'm
making is that if a thing is connected to the physical world in any way at
all (for example, by in"uencing it or by being affected by it), that thing is
perfectly inseparable from the physical world.
Human consciousness, and consciousness in general, is a sub-
stance arising from energetic interplay in Cosmic Truth; it is not ethereal
spirit distinct from the physical world. (Again, if it were, it could not
have any interaction with the physical world, and we can very clearly see
that our minds are in"uenced by the physical.) I conjecture that the sub-
stance of human (and all) consciousness is in fact the energetic process-
ing and modeling of information itself. !e interchange of energetic im-
pulses between neurons represents (like all energetic change) informa-
tion in Cosmic Awareness. All energy is equivalent to information in
Awareness; the conditions of every bit of energy and the relations be-
tween all the energy in the Universe are informationally present in Cos-
mic Awareness. (!eir informational presence in Awareness is their
physical being, containing all that is True of their existence.)
Your personal consciousness is the local fabric of Cosmic
Awareness (which exists at all points in space and time), brie"y contain-
ing your body and the physical, energetic information comprising it: we
experience this small subsection of the whole of Cosmic Awareness. !e
actual feel of subjectivity, the "me" which experiences our lives, is the
Awareness of Existence called into sel*ood by the cumulative informa-
tional exchange in our brains and bodies.
!is conception represents a solution to the “hard problem” of
consciousness, which asks why experience exists at all, why the informa-
tional processing in the brain results in this vivid spectrum of real sensa-
tions. As put forward above, all information in Existence is accompanied
by and embodied within the necessary Awareness of that information. In
gathering and processing information, brains generate an informational
model of that information, which represents a self-contained reproduc-
tion of that information/Awareness; it is this higher-tiered informational
system which we experience as our consciousness, our thoughts and
sensations. Your experiences, arising from the informational processing
undergone by your nervous system, make up part of the Cosmic Aware-
ness present in the space you take up at the time you inhabit that space,
alongside the Knowing (inaccesible to your biological consciousness) of
the physical nature and behavior of all your atoms and sub-atomic parti-
cles, and the relative position in spacetime of the region you inhabit
(making up the fundamental Awareness of the physical world which
your brain informationally re"ects in its modeling).
Consciousness is therefore not the production of our brains,
exactly, but is the omnipresent essence of Existence, modulated through
neural logical interaction to re"ect in Awareness the energetic informa-
tion our brains interpret and coordinate. In human minds, the unimag-
inably huge number of these logical interchanges occurring each second
sums to the vividness of consciousness we experience, waning in tired-
ness and waxing in excitement or intense focus. Everything about our
consciousness relates to the speed and character of neuronal logical in-
terchange, including our emotions, sensations, the sound and under-
standing of our thoughts in our mind, and the speed at which time
seems to pass.
!e moral and existential rami$cations of these ideas will be
explored in later chapters, but in this chapter and the next, I want to ex-
amine the question “What is the nature of the interaction between brain
and mind, how does it proceed?”
•§•
One of the most signi$cant elements in understanding the op-
eration of the human mind is the relationship between consciousness
and the subconscious. !ere is no strict divide between the two, but a
hierarchy of participatory in"uence which is shared by these compo-
nents of mind. !e conscious mind can be de$ned as the cumulative
result of the brain's processes related to understanding and responding
to the external world (and evaluating how conditions in the external
world make the inner world of sensation feel); animal consciousness is a
survival tool, which in humans has developed into a sophisticated ra-
tional engine. !e Cosmic Awareness which accompanies the energetic
reality of this set of information processed by the brain experiences the
consequences of that information, all our sensations and thoughts. !e
subconscious element of mind can be de$ned as the rest of the informa-
tional processing undergone by the brain, some of which is devoted to
responding to information gathered by the conscious mind, and most of
which is devoted to tasks which consciousness is not responsible for,
such as nutrient distribution, the monitoring of breathing and heart rate,
the release of various hormones, the generation of hunger, and the proc-
essing of sense data necessary to forming a model of the external world
for consciousness to respond to.
As you can see, the action of subconscious brain processing of-
ten informs and motivates conscious thought and action, and for this
reason cannot be considered strictly non-conscious. For example, while
the conscious mind is operating on a speci$c experiential issue, perhaps
correctly $lling out a document, the brain is at work processing volumes
of information pertaining to generating a model of the world based on
sense data, evaluating its danger/safety value, controlling bodily upkeep,
and reevaluating memories in reference to the present moment, to per-
haps be of some value to the conscious mind's tasks of survival in the
external world. Much of this informational content is emotional; our
mood is generally the product of our subconscious evaluating and proc-
essing the implications of emotionally charged memories, which in"u-
ences the content of our consciousness.
It is important to recognize that Cosmic Awareness Knows the
content of subconscious informational processing in the same way that it
Knows our conscious experience; the only reason we do not experience
that region of Cosmic Awareness is because the region of Cosmic
Awareness we occupy, that devoted to the tasks of consciousness, is not
involved in guiding those subconscious processes. It is almost the same
reason my human consciousness is not experiencing the consciousness
of people around me right now; my region of Cosmic Awareness is in-
formationally distinct from theirs (being located in my brain, separate
from the operation of their brains). In the same way, the highest layer of
the conscious/subconscious level we occupy is informationally distinct
from the multitudinous lower-level processes underlying it; we do not
experience the full breadth of subconscious reality because we are situ-
ated in the informational realm pertaining to the demands of conscious
survival and activity in the external world.
!e conscious mind represents a level of Cosmic Awareness
above and beyond the existence of the subconscious brain processes; it
is the informational summation of all subconscious information process-
ing undergone by our brains in the interest of survival in the external
world (and enjoying life most fully). Because of this, ma%ers more per-
tinent to the o#en external task at hand are more clearly present in con-
sciousness; that is, Cosmic Awareness contains the experience of all in-
ternal brain processes, though from the perspective of our outward-
facing, survival-oriented consciousness, each has a de$nite experiential
volume based on where our focus is turned and how involved the proc-
ess is. !e individual brain processes performed by lower-level networks
of neurons independent of conscious guidance can be thought of as only
relatively subconscious from our conscious, top-of-the-informational-
hierarchy perspective, in that they are experientially present in Cosmic
Awareness, just not in the same region of experiential awareness our
externally-focused conscious mind occupies.
To clarify, conscious activity which we explicitly experience, like
performing well in a job interview, might span every brain region, taking
information from the visual and auditory $eld and synthesizing it with
information from our centers of memory, our social circuitry, our higher
reasoning, etc. !is brain-wide process has center stage in our awareness
simply by virtue of the energetic complexity of its enactment, and the
necessity for our highest-level consciousness to guide it. On the other
hand, a fundamentally subconscious activity, like the distribution of nu-
trients to cells in need, operates with no input from our conscious mind,
and is therefore not experientially present in the spectrum of things we
consciously experience.
Our consciousness is the sum of all physical logic interactions in
the brain pertaining to understanding and responding to the demands of
the outer world. !ough each of our thoughts is comprised of millions
of energetic neuronal exchanges (coordinated by subconscious proc-
esses), we experience them each as whole ideas, an experiential repre-
sentation of the informational content they amount to, and therein lies
the power of the mind: as the global effect of all smaller processes in the
informational hierarchy of brain, mind contains at once a comprehensive
informational picture of all its constituent processes. !is theory offers a
very nice solution to one of the most puzzling riddles of neuroscience,
the 'binding problem', which asks "how do all of the brain's disparate
processes (sight, hearing, calculating, imagining, feeling, etc.) appear at
once in one single mind?" !e mind is the highest informational level of
the brain-mind hierarchy, the single effect of all the smaller components
of brain activity combined in the subjective experience of tremendous
numbers of lower-level universal logic operations. Every brain process is
represented in the same awareness- it's not as if each separate brain re-
gion were connected to a central hub, with the hearing part of the brain
connected to the seeing part of the brain through this consciousness
center. !ere is no "seat of consciousness" in the brain where all informa-
tion modeled therein must pass through to reach conscious awareness;
all informational exchange therein is present in Awareness.
If a region in the right hemisphere is processing a melody that
appeared from the chance melding of memories from several songs
heard previously, and a region from the le# hemisphere contains the
neural mechanisms for whistling, mind at once has access to both of
these disparate brain regions, by containing them both in the same space
of Awareness. To combine the two, mind simply recognizes the connec-
tion between the two concepts and the desire to utilize their compatibil-
ity, and this new logical input from the informational summation of the
mind is echoed in the brain, and impels the "ow of action potentials
across the brain channels which results in the content of the melody be-
ing transmi%ed to the whistling apparatus and then produced in sound.
Mind has access to the informational import of both processes simultaneously,
though the disparate neural networks handling that information are not
directly interacting in brain. In the case of whistling , mind's recognition of a
desired logical connection between the disparate neural structures is re#ected
in brain as new neural activity: the transferral of the information making up
the melody to the neural networks associated with tongue and lip
coordination.
It is the function of mind to perceive the possibility for a logical
connection between disparate regions of neural activity; by connecting
the two, mind forges a new logical concept, and this information serves
as new input for the brain's lower-level, distributed neural processing. In
effect, mind closes a recursive loop in the brain/mind hierarchy, wherein
the functions of neural informational processing serve as input for the
mind's highest-level processing, and the results of mind's highest-level
processing (thinking, surveying possibilities buried throughout the
brain's memories and elaborating simple concepts by connecting these
possibilities) serve as inputs for the multitudinous array of lower-level
processing centers throughout the brain.
Mind connects the productions of brain's regions by following
where the sensations of their emergent logic leads. When a brain region
is working on producing an informational solution, mind can feel a hint
of what that information will prove to be: in one common form, when
feeling that a word or fact is on the tip of one's tongue, brain is busy try-
ing different pa%erns of neural $ring to locate the logic comprising the
word. Essentially, this equates in mind to playing hot and cold with each
of brain's a%empts at completing the desired logical connection; we can
distantly feel what information is buried in the circuits of our neurons,
and tell the brain what neurons to $re as we try to narrow down to the
concept we are looking for. !e search is re$ned by mind continually as
new neural pa%erns are engaged, eventually honing in on the desired
concept. Once a concept is chosen, it is apparently encoded into short
term memory and cycled there until the mind either has connected it to
another concept, used it to frame the informational context for another
decision, or moved on to an unrelated thought-process, in which case
the neurons engaged in cycling that information quickly drop it to help
process new information.
In the context of this theoretic framework, the solution to the
mind/body problem (more appropriately, the mind/brain problem) can be
seen a li%le more clearly. !e mechanism of this interaction can be ex-
plained in terms of the equality of the physical and mental as two shades
of the one all-pervading substance, energy/information. !ere is no
break in Existence, no realms separate from any other. !ere is only one-
ness, with energy cycling through the in$nite possibilities therein mo-
ment by moment. My consciousness is not separate from this energetic
realm, it is a unique manifestation of its inherent potential. Our personal
awarenesses directly re"ect the energetic reality of the world around us;
there is no break between the physical phenomena of our brains' infor-
mational processing and our conscious perception of that information;
the two are different features of one phenomenon.
Because both brain and mind are aspects of this single informa-
tional continuum, the mind cannot evaluate the overall content of the
brain's processes without in"uencing those processes; mind does not
stand apart from brain and perceive its informational content, but per-
ceives that content through its interaction with it. In the very act of per-
ceiving different regions of brain activity, mind in"uences that activity;
mind and brain are equal participants in the informational processing
undergone therein. !e mind and brain interchange information like
two mirrors face to face, with the storm of informational activity in the
brain logically organized and re"ected in the consciousness of the mind.
If the mind recognizes the opportunity for change amidst the emerging
pa%erns of information, it can bring those changes into being by focus-
ing on them, by bringing them into one logical picture. In"uencing the
informational content of the brain is a cooperative function that requires
input from the brain-encompassing mind to operate on a high enough
level for an organism's survival.
Just think, as you read these lines, the information your brain
models in response to these sights exists as a pa%ern of neural-energetic
interchange, and during the $ring of those speci$c brain regions, this
experience manifests in your consciousness. Every single thought you
think physically exists at a de$nite location or network of locations
within your head, embodied in the physical informational processing
which corresponds to its mental realization. Amazingly, your conscious
experience of this physical information is sophisticated enough to mod-
ify the physical existence of that information, morphing it into new
forms and thus new experiences; for instance, read the $rst $ve words of
the next sentence in ultra-slow motion. If you are doing so, it is because
your consciousness understood what was wri%en, and has chosen to
compel your brain to perform such an unusual act of neuro-
informational modeling. What an unimaginably valuable circumstance,
being chief operator of such an outrageously able imagination-machine
as a human brain.
•§•
!inking proceeds as an iterative process, with each new string
of thoughts arising through the brain's distributed evaluation and modi-
$cation of previous thoughts. Broadly stated, the conscious thinking we
experience alternates between being directed by the multitudinous
complex of lower-hierarchical-level neural systems at one moment (the
subconscious processing of the pertinent information by a widespread
network of neural regions), and by the overarching conscious mind at
the next. As you make up your mind to do something, the act of thinking
that thought affects the physical reality of brain; in fact, the concurrent
change in the physical reality of the brain enables that thought. In other
words, the thought is the electrochemical (informational) change in the
brain, the thought proceeding over time as the physical change unfolds.
!e experience of willfully thinking a thought occurs while the
brain is in action electrochemically responding to and enacting the logi-
cal requirements of the thought; this is the period of time in which the
conscious mind is generating an output, and the subconscious network
within brain is receiving it as input. !e new input is distributed
amongst the pertinent structures of the brain and is processed in refer-
ence to short-term and long-term memory (depending on the logic re-
quired to process that new information). As the brain's pertinent regions
evaluate the elements of this information, the thought hangs in aware-
ness, experienced in mind as a rapidly changing echo of the previous
thought (rapidly changing based on brain's new processing of the
thought). !e direct, willful thinking of the thought happened in the
past, and in the present, mind perceives the return signals from the brain
based on its calculations. A thought echoes in awareness for a moment,
during which the mind evaluates the brain's reaction to the thought, be-
fore responding to it by integrating the new results to coalesce another
thought; this new coordination of the disparate brain processes involved
is the portion of consciousness we experience as willful. It is the part of
experience that takes effort and input by us, conscious us, to occur.
!e rate at which this interchange occurs is broadly represented
by the frequency of neural oscillations (o#en called brainwaves), with
higher frequencies corresponding to more focused conscious engage-
ment, and lower frequencies corresponding to periods of mental relaxa-
tion or sleep. !is can be understood in terms of the rapidity with which
the brain's neural structures require input from the higher-order perspec-
tive of the conscious mind in order to proceed in their informational
processing task; periods of high frequency neural oscillations represent
trains of thought which would quickly lose momentum if consciousness
were distracted from them; the neurons cannot keep up their informa-
tional interchange without active, coordinated input from the conscious
mind in reference to information contained in disparate neural regions.
On the other hand, low frequency neural oscillations character-
ize more somnolent mental states, like daydreaming or wandering
thought, times when consciousness casually experiences the results of
lower-order neural processing in the brain's various regions, and more or
less watches them unfold naturally without in"uencing them. Some-
times, when we are fatigued or are working on an especially difficult
thought process, it takes a second or two before brain produces a result
that mind wants to act on, that is, pick up on, combine with other frag-
ments of thought, and explicitly think.
In order to investigate the nature of this interchange, here's an
example to participate in: sing “Row, Row, Row, Your Boat” all the way
through to yourself in your mind. Now, what happened between your
brain and mind in reading and responding to that sentence?
Mind: Mind tells brain to tell eyes to look at those words in-
tently.
Brain: Brain receives information from retinas, decodes it, and
interprets its content.
Mind: Mind experiences the sound and meaning of each word
as brain evaluates the information making up that content in several neu-
ral regions simultaneously. (In many cases, the information processed by
one neural region is needed to modulate and guide other regions, and
can only do so through mind's all-encompassing overview of brain proc-
esses: mind makes the necessary connections between disparate neural
structures.) !is process repeats until mind has experienced the com-
plete logical idea, the sentence.
Brain: !e full meaning of the sentence echoes in short term
memory, the information cycling among the neurons engaged in its
modeling.
Mind: !e logical import of the sentence is experienced at once
in mind. Recognizing the imperative, mind decides whether or not to
carry out the called upon action. Assuming it did choose to sing the en-
tire melody to itself:
Brain: Based on this new information, brain searches through its
voluminous hierarchical knowledge for the appropriate information: the
tune and lyrics to “Row, Row, Row Your Boat”. !e information appears
readily, because the title “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is linked to every
neural structure which contains any part of the information making up
the song; you cannot recognize what “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” refers
to without accessing the neural structures making up its content.
Mind: Mind perceives this search and its result as a glimpse of
what the information as a whole will feel like when called into aware-
ness; the sensation is: “I know that song, and here it is in my memory.”
(!e processing between brain and mind occurs so quickly, in my mind
the melody of the $rst $ve words appears immediately upon reading
them, apparently without any willful activity on my part.) However, in
order to sing the whole song, mind must choose to activate that informa-
tion by thinking it; mind willfully impels the brain to stop reading and
process the logic of the song in order, in tune and in time. As this occurs,
mind experiences the song.
Brain: !e information of what that experience was like is evalu-
ated by various regions of the brain, and it sits in short term memory
while brain and mind co-evaluate.
Generally, the next thought occurs when mind, surveying the
calculations of the various regions of the brain simultaneously, perceives
enough of a connection between those regions to consolidate a new idea
in response. !is thought will be experienced by mind explicitly during
the span of time in which the mind is in"uencing the brain to produce it:
it is the force of mind's in"uence that causes these connections to link up
informationally. !ese new connections are evaluated by brain; mean-
while, mind experiences the thought's echoing; mind is waiting for the
next logical or desired step in the sequence to appear before reaching for
it. In the above case, you likely simply read on a#er thinking of the song.
As thinking proceeds, mind $rst grasps an overall picture, then
brain divides that picture amongst all its regions for specialized process-
ing. From these fragments of ideas, mind assembles another overall pic-
ture, which is again broken up for processing amongst the regions of the
brain. !is paying a%ention to concepts built up subconsciously and
presented to mind's overseeing awareness by the brain is mind's func-
tion, the character and mechanism of all our conscious thoughts. !ink-
ing thoughts naturally is effortless- the neural systems in the brain's lobes
produce the roots of our thoughts subconsciously by processing sensory
and emotional information in reference to data from memory, and the
job of the mind is to recognize the import of the half-formed thoughts
from the sensations they present to consciousness and connect disparate
ideas in a "owing interchange.
For example you might be thinking "What a lovely, sunny day."
when a quiet sensation appears in your awareness; "Good day, Sun-
shine!" Your consciousness, intrigued by this novelty, focuses in on it:
the Beatles song, courtesy of your memory and auditory systems. An-
other sensation appears, and your mind is free to call it into focus as long
as more pressing ma%ers ("don't get side-tracked, I need to $nish this
work") aren't taking up more conscious space; this other sensation links
to the brain region of deep memory, to hearing the song as a youth, and
now you're daydreaming about the good ol' days.
Your mind is a bit like a telephone operator from the 40's- brain
calls mind with a constant stream of impressions, sensations of what a
train of thought is likely to contain, or rough impulses of what the
thought will be when brought into focus in consciousness, and mind
answers these calls by paying a%ention to them, and connecting more
subconscious thought-dra#s to them in order to expand on them. New
and different subconscious brain structures are activated based on the
current train of thought in consciousness, taking cues from conscious-
ness of what logical interchanges are required or useful.
!e creation of thought-dra#s occurs in the subconscious, and
the selection and experience of thoughts occurs in conscious awareness.
We are so practiced in connecting thoughts that (especially when under
a lot of stress) we can spend hours, even days (!) on autopilot, experi-
encing our thoughts and brain activities but not willfully redirecting
them from their natural direction. O#en, to break a train of thought
when our brain's structures are crunching away at the logical implica-
tions of that train of thought (especially when the state of mind is the
result of emotional information), just feels wrong, as if we're ignoring
our true selves and feelings, or because the train of thought feels like the
most interesting and compelling thing to consider at that time. Also, try
as we might to change our mental subject, the inertia of our subcon-
scious o#en drags us back into the train of thoughts which already have
the momentum of current subconscious processing.
!oughts about emotional states tend to echo repeatedly be-
tween mind and brain for a period of time, because mind rather savors
justifying how the emotion feels with brain's calculation of what oc-
curred. If you perceive that a peer has disrespected or insulted you, your
mind and brain might spend quite a long time responding to the emo-
tional response this causes, imagining different ways you could have re-
sponded, cra#ing a biting comeback to use next time, and generally re-
cursively seething. It is hard to deny that anger feels good, really good on
some level, even if seeing yourself angry makes you feel ashamed and
childish, and you are morti$ed by the outcome of the anger in your
thoughts and actions. !e same is true of sadness and self-pity.
Remember this next time you've been locked in anger, boredom
or sadness- your brain/mind is on a loop which is your mind's job to
recognize and break. Remember also that happiness is a loop which your
mind is free to generate at any time if the energy and willpower is ap-
plied consistently. Just as self-pitying or ge%ing angry comes more natu-
rally with practice, happiness and experiential comfort can become a
habit. Holding any mental state takes less effort once that mental state
has been occupied consistently; once the state is truly experienced, the
neural circuitry underlying that state has been woven, and the more
practice your brain has strengthening these connections, the easier the
state is to maintain.
•§•
My consciousness doesn't have to understand the neural mecha-
nism of raising my right arm to put the action into motion; I simply imagine
the sensation (referencing the memory of the desired action, which models
the information in the brain) which pulls the mental trigger to enact it.
Again, my mind is the sum total of my brain's activities devoted to living-
possibilities are presented to my experiencing mind by the brain and the
neuronal storm of electrochemical interaction summing up to my mind
swarms over salient concepts or potentialities. Because Awareness contains
all of the content of brain activity, conscious mind, the all-encompassing
biological perspective of that Awareness, is able to coordinate these dispa-
rate brain processes, and physically cause action potentials to operate
nerves.
Mind presides over the elaborately branched network of brain
structure and the activity emanating from those structures; it is the func-
tion of mind to experience several separate thoughts or sensations simul-
taneously and purposefully connect them to synthesize a new thought.
(In the above case, by imagining the sensation and intention of raising
my arm, which requires neural activity in several disparate brain regions,
the required information is encoded and conveyed down my motor neu-
rons.) Without mind, the brain's immense potential for rewiring and
thought-expansion (learning) would be completely wasted; no spatially
disparate concepts could connect to form ideas.
How was this conscious command physically enacted? !e
nerves involved in bodily sensation and movement are always active on a
low level, giving my subconscious brain feedback about the status of the
regions they connect to (pain, nutrient needs, oxygen requirement, etc.).
!ese interchanges are present in our consciousness on a low level as the
feeling of our body, e.g. if you focus on what your foot feels like, you are
bringing the nervous interactions between the cells in your foot and
your brain into the direct light of consciousness, whereas normally your
consciousness is unaware of the sensation in your feet. !ese nerve
pathways are ready for input, output and action at any time, be it from
unconscious re"ex (e.g. "inching away from pain) or from conscious
command (e.g. typing). Mind synthesizes new ideas drawing from the
brain processes pertinent to mind's intent; mind oversees the large scale
logical processing of smaller neural interactions separated from each
other in different brain regions.
!is is roughly analogous to atoms of water clinging together to
form ice blocks (as in millions of neural processes adding up to a
thought or concept) and the stacking of those individual ice blocks to-
gether to form an igloo (as in the mind taking the large scale meaning of
the activity between millions of individual neurons and combining it
with other large scale meanings to form a new conscious concept or un-
derstanding by this synthesis of smaller scale, individual ideas). In typ-
ing this sentence, my mind pulls together the information it requires,
imagines the sensation of typing it (referencing memories of years of
typing practice encoded into my motor neural systems), my receptive
motor neurons echo this logical input from the mind, and the desired
signals are sent to the muscles in my wrists and $ngers.
When you make any choice or drive a train of thought, your
mind steers the thought by perceiving the way the logic underlying that
train of thought should unfold, amidst a barrage of mental sensations
representing alternative options of where the thought could lead. It is as
if in thinking you are traveling through a maze of rooms connected by
doors, where each turn you take (every thought you think) leads to an-
other room with more doors, sometimes presenting you with several
options of where the current path (thought) could take you. You can
look into the rooms beyond each door to see where they might lead, and
o#en pause to evaluate the potential they each represent before continu-
ing. (In thinking terms, this translates to: you can sense what the various
thought-branches will mean to awareness when followed, for instance
sensing both the delicious taste of chocolate and the self-parenting guilt
of indulgence, and the toil of the treadmill and mask of self-image at
once and choosing the next step based on those sensations.)
Sometimes, at especially consequential moments, you reach a
room where you can see one life beckoning from behind one door and a
completely different life waiting behind the other door; choosing be-
tween these consequential options usually requires an extended period
of thought, which consists of calculating the imaginable set of outcomes
of both choices and thus framing them in different lights, hopefully mak-
ing one stand out as the de$nite favorite, despite its "aws and the merits
of the other choice. If we can reach this clarity in time, we can make the
decision con$dently. If we are pressed for time, we are o#en unable to
appropriately test the waters, and must plunge in blindly.
CHAPTER 6
Elements of Human and Non-Human Consciousness
To brie"y restate the broader perspective framing the above as-
sertions: physical Universes exist as emanations from the eternal being
of Truth, Cosmic Awareness, necessarily expressing the in$nite possibil-
ity therein over an in$nity of time. !e interactions of energy and force,
direct embodiments of logical Truth, realize that boundless potential,
eventually compounding layers of logical systems together by its elegant
laws, resulting in chemical reactions, cells, intelligent thought, $elds of
colorful vision, hearing, music, words, giraffes, diet cherry Fanta, every-
thing. Everywhere that information exists (in the form of energy and
force), Cosmic Awareness, knowing the Truth from which all energy is
extended, is present.
!e content of Awareness in the small space my consciousness
occupies in the endless immensity of Existence is entirely self-
referential, completely embodying the perspective of the informational
system for survival within my brain. Everything I see is seen in relation
to me at the center, the world moves le# when I move right, and my
thoughts are felt to be in"uenced from the inside, by me. Truly they are;
I am the corner of the Universal fabric I take up, and with the feedback
of my own section of Cosmic Awareness I control the system I oversee.
I can even interact with and in"uence my surroundings, and my
worldwide family has come up with a rich variety of ways to experience
the world around me. I can hold an electronic set of controls, and using
information conveyed from my mind, encoded in the electrical logic of
the video game system's computer, cause a red and blue Italian plumber
represented by pixels on a screen to jump on a virtual toadstool, and lis-
ten to the game's beautiful theme song encoded in the air pressure of the
room by an electromagnetically vibrated cone and transduced by my
inner ear into a signal directly sung to Cosmic Awareness. I can cause my
animal self or another's to experience that gi# of a phenomenon, an or-
gasm, and radiate pleasure into the heart of Being.
In this model, all sensations arise in consciousness as the expres-
sion in Awareness of the physical logical interactions within the brain.
Every single aspect of your Awareness exists as a sensation, including not
only your senses but also the sound, feeling, and understanding of your
thoughts. In sensing, your brain is just resonating the truth of what is
already there, the information making up the energetic Universe inter-
preted as faithfully as possible based on brain's limited access to (compu-
tation of) it. Your brain doesn't generate the information pertinent to
the look of the world around you, the endlessly complex mathematics
describing its shape, color and detail; your brain gets all that information
from the incoming light, bearing direct information of the physical bod-
ies it just traveled from, and has only to interpret it and organize it. !e
actual being of the Universe is re"ected in your mind, to the degree that
your brain is equipped to access it.
!e resplendent coloration, nuanced hues and perspective we
experience arise as the cumulative effect of our occipital lobes' mapping
of the deconstructed input data from the retinas into a logical picture of
what our eyes are observing. Your brain is aided in this beautiful model-
ing by delegating the processing of images originating from different dis-
tances to different layers of the occipital lobes based on the degree of eye
muscle strain and coordination necessary to focus on those images. Fo-
cusing on this page activates a spatially different region in your brain
than focusing on the scenery in the distance.
Each color and shape is mapped to the point from which the
brain deduces the image to have originated from; for instance, your brain
perceives the location of this page in space, and projects the vision of it
you experience onto this point. In this way, rather than experiencing the
things we see as an internal image, we experience our sight as occurring
in front of us, outside of our skull. Your $eld of vision is not a two di-
mensional image existing on a screen in your mind, but a three dimen-
sional reconstruction logically projected into the world around your
body. !e logical interchange within your brain creates an apparently
external model of your world from the information available to it, and
your mind inhabits this logical and experiential framework. Even when
you close your eyes, your brain pragmatically holds on to what it knows
of your surroundings, with help from visual memory and sonic informa-
tion; you feel the room around you, exactly the way your brain expects it
to be when you reopen your eyes. (Sometimes, like when you are waking
up from a night's sleep in an unfamiliar place, out of habit, your brain
expects you to open your eyes to see your bedroom, and registers slight
surprise when waking up to these new surroundings.)
!e awareness of your visual $eld is thus perceived as existing
outside of your head though the processes that generate it occur inside
your head. It is fun to realize that though every sight you see is experi-
enced as an image in front of your eyes, your mind truly never looks out
from your skull, only at your brain's computation of the information it is
presented with from the external world. !e mind does not intuitively
perceive the intermediate step between the light entering your eyes and
your experience of that light; the sensation is that opening your eyes
gives your mind a direct window into the world around you. !is is not
so, in fact, it is impossible for your awareness to actually see the world
outside of you; looking at the world around you is actually peering into
your mind, into the informational vortex your brain processes (the con-
tent of which, of course, comes from the outside world, and would not
exist if the outside world didn't).
!is is also true of your auditory $eld. !e sounds you experi-
ence are produced in your awareness by your auditory system's recon-
struction of the information gathered by your ears, but you hear them as
outside of your head. Your temporal lobes gracefully calculate the dis-
tance of the sound and its position relative to your head based on the
relative loudness and the difference in time and timbre with which the
sound waves reach each of your ears. In this way, your brain models
whence the sound originates, and your mind experiences that modeling
as the place in your awareness that the sound exists.
When hearing crickets, the feeling of hearing each chirp is not
sensed within your head, but as an experience outside; your mind pro-
jects the feeling of your awareness into the space around you (giving you
a sense of “outside me” and “me”) to account for the phenomena it mod-
els. !e same is true of sensation, touch and pain. !e place from which
brain interprets the nerve signals to have originated is where the touch
or pain exists in your awareness, and not within your skull, where the
logical import of the signal is processed. Taste, smell, same story. Wher-
ever brain logically maps a stimulus to in space relative to its experiential
model of your body, that is where the texture of that experience seems to
exist.
!is logical mapping even applies to inanimate objects we inter-
act with, for example, when we are driving our cars, our brains include
the dimensions of the car in our awareness; we can squeeze through
double-parked cars more or less effortlessly because the spatial size of
the car is mapped in our awareness. Similarly, musicians have an intuitive
feel for their instrument; it is bound to them as an extension of their
body and mind. !e entire experience of the world you inhabit, includ-
ing your experience of other people and the entire breadth of your
knowledge about the Universe, is the result of your brain's informational
modeling of all this information; the Universe you experientially inhabit
is entirely the production of your brain, of its informational interpreta-
tion of the actual Universe which contains you.
•§•
!e unconscious, source of your instincts, motivations, charac-
ter, and personality, is a word which essentially describes the shape of
your brain's neural structures, built with certain features based on genet-
ics, and then melded and formed through experience. Your memory is
encoded in this dynamic reshaping of your brain; every time a thought is
thunk, the logical “wiring” which produces that thought is being acti-
vated in the brain. Every single thought leaves a trail in the brain, a direct
imprint of the thought's logical content, which, if reinforced by being
thought more o#en, becomes a semipermanent brain feature, an infor-
mational system writ in neuronal connections. Your interactions with
the world (e.g. learning your native language while growing up) thus
physically sculpt and broaden the unconscious framework underlying
your sense of self.
Your memory contains the pa%erns of neuron linkage estab-
lished in the past, and the logical circuits that are used the most are pre-
served most strongly. Your memory frames your perception of reality in
a logical outline at all times: at all moments, your awareness contains a
feeling of who you are, what your experiences have been in the past and
how you've reacted to them, the shape, sound and color of the se%ings
you occupy, an understanding of the physics of the world (that you
should expect things to fall to the "oor and that motions you make will
generate a predictable sound, that things you touch will have a predict-
able feeling, etc.); all of this and much more surrounds your awareness
like a screen through which you experience and interact with the world
around you. A#er all, how you experience and interact with the world
around you creates the neural pa%erns that contain those memories,
which your mind uses to understand reality, both inside and out.
Because memory serves as the material for new thoughts, one
generally never really “gets over” events of great emotional impact; in-
stead of disappearing in their effect on your present mood, they become
assimilated into your sensation of self, of who you are and what you face
in life. !ey burn with a dull glow in the $ber of your memory, some-
times shining out brightly when recalled.
When trying to remember something that you are having trou-
ble remembering, your mind is a%empting the put together neural archi-
tecture that has fallen into disrepair by searching through thought frag-
ments (applying electrical polarization to them to activate the neural
pa%erns, and thus the experience encoded therein), trying to $nd what-
ever combination of linked concepts will spark the insight that the thing
to be remembered comprised.
For example, think for a moment about your $rst kiss; just re-
member who it was with, where it was, and how you feel about it think-
ing back on it. In performing that li%le experiential train of thought, your
consciousness registered what informational content was called for; it
usually isn't difficult to call up emotionally charged memories, and sim-
ply holding the idea “$rst kiss” in mind requires engaging the neural cir-
cuitry which encodes the meaning of that combination of words. !e
memories which apply to your $rst kiss are informationally a%ached to
the concept of what “$rst kiss” means; not only do you know the de$ni-
tion of both words, but your brain is also encoded with how they relate
to your personal history. When you choose to evaluate this complex and
distant memory, that input from mind is distributed throughout the
brain structures which logically satisfy the input, and the brain outputs
the neural $ring of the desired information which is experienced by
mind.
Hindsight only feels like it's 20-20 because your brain forms and
solidi$es your memories based on your past experiences and expecta-
tions. !e memory of the past you hold is part of your self-image, and
any new event is evaluated by your brain in reference to a generality
comprised of the entirety of your past experiences, your present mood,
and the overall worldview you've built up throughout your life. If, in the
moment, another person's behavior does not immediately $t your model
of expected behavior, your brain is faced with the discomfort of foiled
understanding or expectation, which is generally rationalized over time
by your subconscious to $t into your vision of the world. !is is why the
memory of the event might pop into your mind on the drive home;
brain has “$gured out” what occurred (by preferentially solidifying
memories that $t into your prior expectation), and now that the new
logical neural structure is comfortably in congruence with other neural
structures describing the self 's understanding of the world, it $res easily
and loudly and is presented to consciousness to evaluate, perhaps ac-
companied by an “a-ha” feeling.
Your mind can only reference the small set of events and circum-
stances that imprinted on your memory. Memory presents you with
your brain's post-analysis of the event in question, biased towards your
worldview and expectations. Just as two people are likely to experience a
complex social situation differently based on their personality, mood and
experiences, they are likely to then remember only their interpretation of
the situation, and not the objective situation itself. Indeed, there is no
way to access any objective reality but through our own subjective inter-
pretation. In this way, in hindsight, pessimists are bolstered in their cyni-
cism because they believe things turned out poorly a#er all; their brains
crystallize any of the negative perceptions they were primed to see.
Meanwhile optimists notice the good that $ts into their habitual world-
view and self-narrative. Our memories and self image are the prime con-
spirators in our recurrent self-ful$lling prophecies.
•§•
O#en, before speaking, the entire sentence exists in your mind as a
conceptual whole; you perceive the logic of what you are trying to commu-
nicate far before the words hit your lips. Sometimes you cannot translate a
complex manifold of thought and experience into words; in fact, this may
be the most universal facet of the human social experience: inability to
communicate fully the content of our minds, especially the true nature of
our emotional experiences.
An expert on any subject can hold volumes of information per-
taining to that subject in mind at once, due to the rigorous building of its
logical reality carved and crystallized in his or her brain's neurons. If they
were to teach this knowledge to another, they would have to sample
minute bits and pieces from the whole Idea and reinterpret them in the
style of our shared logic, our technology of language.
When you experience a "ash of insight, or any similar sudden
appearance of a thought or understanding in your consciousness, you
are witnessing the processing within your relatively subconscious brain
connecting disparate concepts into a new whole, the newfound logical
clarity of which brightly lights up in your awareness, temporarily super-
seding whatever conscious activity was being engaged before the insight.
!is phenomenon feels pleasurable; it seems that when concepts link up
without logical friction, the effect is desirable. On the other hand, mis-
understanding or confusion, perhaps when trying to learn a new skill or
concept, feels uncomfortable to our awareness, because the brain is us-
ing energy to forge new connections, and hi%ing logical dead-end a#er
logical dead-end; the desired circuit $nds no completion.
!e act of thinking, consciously or subconsciously, takes energy,
which your conscious mind experiences as effort. Where the logical sys-
tems are already in place, for example the neural systems you use to walk
around, the effort is minimal, and the logic cascades through your brain
with high energy efficiency. When the brain system for understanding a
concept or performing an action is not yet formed, the brain must ex-
pend signi$cant stores of energy to rewire in such a way as to learn that
idea, by connecting up a mechanism for modeling the logic of the idea. If
the idea is not connecting logically in the brain, we feel confusion, fa-
tigue, and frustration in our awareness, which tends to lead us to drop
the activity and resume efficient brain functioning, or to take a nap. If we
persist, eventually the connections will be made (if the concept in ques-
tion has logical answer a#er all, and especially if our brains already pos-
sess the necessary logical (neuronal) puzzle pieces for a workable solu-
tion).
How does the mind recognize a truth, in other words, what is
the neural mechanism of understanding? In thinking about why 1+1=2,
what is the character of your brain activity that produces the under-
standing in your mind? Currently, we like to imagine that neurons oper-
ate on a binary "ow of information, because this is the easiest informa-
tion processing model to understand. It is thought that all informational
exchange can be reduced to the true/false options of boolean logic. If
this is the case, the understanding of the entire idea 1+1=2 depends on
knowledge of what 1 means, what + means, what = means, and what 2
means, and a proper set of neural logic gates to run this concept and
produce a value of “true”.
Of course, it seems highly probable that neural logic operates in
a different way than our familiar binary logic. In any case, the correct
"ow of information between neurons leads the awareness of this truth to
arise in your consciousness. Is this "ow of information the same in all
brains for this speci$c truth? I imagine not. !ough the understanding is
more or less the same, there are likely an almost in$nite number of ways
neurons could interact to generate the understanding of this informa-
tion. I probably understand the arithmetic and the implications of the
arithmetic on a different (effectively in$nitely more narrow) intuitive
level than Euler did, for instance.
•§•
If my consciousness embodies an informational subset of the
Knowledge of Cosmic Awareness, why should some of the informational
activity occurring within my brain be off-limits to my consciousness;
further, if Cosmic Awareness knows all, and I am part of that awareness,
why does my mind not have access to more fundamental knowledge, like
the information comprising the physics of my surroundings?
Every physical interaction in the Universe takes place in the
same knowing, Cosmic Awareness. !e conscious mind is the result of
this Awareness being present in every logical interchange in the brain; it
is the echo and summation of every energetic interchange of force in the
brain. All of the logical interchange in my brain pertains to the modeling
and evaluating of my external world and to the monitoring and upkeep
of my internal bodily functions- this recursive subset of Cosmic Aware-
ness clearly does not include the logical interactions of the particles
making up my surroundings or of other brains. While all information is
contained in the one Awareness, the re"ective subjectivity of any bio-
logical system is restricted to the interactions within that system, the
informational modeling and re"ection of the energy in the physical
world undergone by that particular brain and body.
!e individual lower level processes involved in the subcon-
scious operation of my brain are themselves the top of the hierarchy of
neurons directly involved in each process, and embody the Awareness of
the experience being modeled by those neurons. If you could isolate
each brain region involved in any train of thought (for example the audi-
tory region processing all the noise in the background) without includ-
ing the connection between that region and the rest of the brain, that
small subsection of brain would experience in itself the small subsection
of Awareness which its logical processes represent.
Our subconscious is therefore a dynamic network of self-
contained, lower levels of conscious awareness each presiding over their
home neurons. I hypothesize that each individual thought-dra# we re-
ceive from our 'subconsciousness' is itself a coordinative, conscious
process, the level of awareness those neuronal actions amount to, which
orchestrates the activity of individual neurons in the same way that our
higher consciousness orchestrates the thought-dra#s, the sums of lower-
level processes. !e Awareness of all “subconscious” processes exists;
however, the clarity with which our highest-hierarchical level minds ex-
perience the import of these processes depends on how closely the
process in question pertains to the overall conscious situation at hand.
!e neural activities closest to consciousness involve, not sur-
prisingly, the tasks we are conscious of willfully guiding, be they think-
ing (using the top-of-the-hierarchy conscious mind to connect lower
level brain processes), speaking, moving, hunting, working, or any be-
havior that requires the direct in"uence of your conscious will to pro-
ceed. Without this sophisticated coordination between brain and mind,
your biology does not contain the mechanisms for enacting these behav-
iors. !e simple act of thinking provides logical inputs which affect the
informational content of the brain and body (signaling muscles, hor-
mone releases, heart rate, etc.). !e effect that thinking has on the brain
and body in turn changes the content of awareness, and the recursive
cycle proceeds. !e top-of-the-hierarchy mind is free to modify its effect
on brain at any time, though it is limited in its scope by the content of
brain. For example, a peasant living $ve-hundred years ago couldn't es-
cape boredom by thinking about her descendants racing around in
sports cars or playing videogames; no ma%er how creative she was, her
brain wouldn't contain the necessary components to forge this unheard-
of set of concepts.
!is is what creativity is: the connecting of disparate informa-
tion held in neural networks to produce a new result. !is is why innova-
tion is such an incremental process, why our ancestors spent hundreds
of thousands of years living the same hunter-gatherer lifestyle making
the same basic tools, why music and art have evolved the way they have
over history: the fabric of new ideas is woven from old ideas. Given a
problem in need of solving, mind observes the content of brain and
connects the most logically promising concepts together.
As a solution is chased, the thoughts and concepts already de-
veloped for the task aid in the creation of the new neural circuitry which
represents a new understanding; pieces of the puzzle are associated in
brain by mind recognizing their compatibility. Bit by bit, a new concept
is built, which can now be used as a component to build a higher con-
cept. Without the interplay between conscious mind (evaluating and
connecting the disparate systems of information from brain) and brain
(generating, logically processing, and storing informational content with
input from mind), willful creativity would cease to exist.
Our day to day conscious narrative, the out"ow of our thoughts,
is generally the central focus of our a%ention, and represents the baseline
activity of our consciousness: observing lower-level processes and con-
necting them in the most natural way, o#en in the context of emotional
content. An action like walking or typing is enacted by your conscious-
ness, but does not require close monitoring, because you have already
consciously built up the necessary neurological framework for the action
to proceed without thinking directly about it. Because no new input be-
yond choosing to begin and sustain the action is required of your mind
to perform it, this type of behavior is slightly lower in experiential vol-
ume than the learning of a new skill, engaging in unpredictable social
behaviors involving modeling and analyzing the minds of others, or
making the complicated mental rewirings necessary to understanding a
new concept. !ese higher-order activities represent the great potential
our powerful consciousness and reasoning grant us, and its deeper utility
of rapidly creating new ideas and behaviors out of external input and
lower-level thought processes, above and beyond simply observing them
as in baseline consciousness.
Further down the conscious/subconscious spectrum are bodily
processes that are open to li%le or no direct in"uence by our conscious-
ness. We experience a vivid awareness of the effects of these processes on
our body, and are compelled by these sensations to take appropriate ac-
tions, but generally cannot mentally decide not to experience these sen-
sations; we have to ful$ll the action required to satisfy the feeling. Some
examples are the sensations of itching, feelings of hunger, thirst, drowsi-
ness, the effects of various hormones, the pace of our heartbeat (which
both informs our mental state and is modulated by our mental state),
and excretory stimuli. !e physical way in which these cues affect our
brains and therefore our awarenesses is mostly the result of our genetics,
our embryologic development and subsequent growth, and is less a re-
sult of conscious learning.
Lower still on the spectrum of awareness from our mind's per-
spective are the processes that bridge the gap between subconsciousness
and consciousness. For example, breathing is generally subconscious, in
that the vast majority of the time we breathe without taking any notice
of our breath. Even during these spans of time, the sensation of breathing
is present in our awareness, but at such a low level that it is effectively
drowned out by the processes that are more taxing to our a%ention.
Processes such as those governing our heart rate, which is not under the
willful control of our consciousness, are nevertheless informed by the
content of consciousness: one can slow one's heartbeat indirectly by
focusing on soothing thoughts, closing one's eyes, etc.; this process
which seems so distant from our consciousness and requires no con-
scious input to proceed is still connected to the contents of conscious-
ness and is informed by them. Flinching from pain is another semi-
conscious mechanism in this category, impelled by the conscious expe-
rience of pain-information in the affected cells and motor neurons but
requiring no brain intervention to decide to "inch. (!e motor neurons
themselves possess the consciousness of the pain-information and are
wired to react to it immediately.)
!e very quietest and smallest scale on the human con-scious/
subconscious spectrum is likely made up of the activities and aware-
nesses of individual cells acting in accordance with their own experien-
tial cues. Before scoffing at the suggestion that cells are aware, we should
recognize that the question “What does it take for conscious awareness
to exist?” is still open, though it is (oddly) common for people to take
for granted that the answer is “A human brain has to be present for
awareness to exist.” On the contrary, I would answer that any physical
system which relies on the logical processing of internal and external
stimuli for its survival is necessarily aware of those processes; all logical
interaction between physical energy in the Universe is known to Cosmic
Awareness (on an experiential level we of course cannot imagine prop-
erly), and becomes subjective when made in reference to a reacting, liv-
ing system.
People love the idea that cells behave just like li%le automatic
machines, because we understand automatic machines; if cells are just
like machines, we don't have to admit that we don't understand much at
all about the mechanisms of their behavior. We can just say “though we
don't know how the parts $t together, if they are like machines or com-
puters then cells operate out of simple mechanical necessity just like our
machines. Phew, we still understand everything without having to ques-
tion our assumptions, problem solved.”
!e behavior of a cell involves the cell referencing its fundamen-
tal codebook, its DNA, in a way we currently understand only dimly. It is
clear that manipulating a cell's DNA, for example inserting a gene for the
production of bioluminescence, will change its behavior in a predictable
and reproducible way. For this reason, it appears that cells are like com-
puters, which respond automatically and mechanically to certain inputs
based on their coding, their DNA. However, whereas the entire chain of
causality within a computer is understood thoroughly, the way genetic
instructions are enacted remains almost completely unexplained, espe-
cially in cases where cascades of DNA activation and deactivation occur,
as is the case during embryological development.
Part of the reason for this investigative difficulty is that we have
been hesitant to ascribe any level of awareness to cells, which makes
their emergent information processing (based on the extraordinarily
complex and far reaching set of information possible to encode with
DNA– it is certainly not a coding system as simple as binary) seem to-
tally inexplicable. Cells dynamically interact with their environment to
appropriately activate and carry out genetic instructions; how is this in-
formation coordinated and acted upon if no awareness is present
therein? Because a simple mechano-chemical model cannot account for
the dynamic level of interaction cells undergo, these types of models will
inevitably fail in explaining the causality of cellular life.
I propose that cells are subjectively aware, though likely on a
level that is far less vivid and multifaceted than ours (and generally uni-
maginably different from our awareness). It is instructive to realize that
the processes inside any particular cell are tremendously complex, re-
sembling the complex interaction within a human city more than they
do the activity of one person. Eukaryotic cells contain entire communi-
ties of smaller species of bacteria symbiotically embedded in their life
cycle: mitochondria in animals and chloroplasts in plants. (At some
point in evolutionary history, these bacteria managed to shed their
autonomy in favor of a permanent home within a eukaryotic lineage,
gaining safety and sustenance while supplying the host cell with energy.)
Not only are cells astonishingly complex in themselves, they also un-
dergo complex interactions with their neighbors.
A Google search for “cell dialogue” brings up a plethora of bio-
logical studies in this area, which I suggest any skeptic to read. !e gen-
eral $ndings of these studies invariably show that cells develop an under-
standing of the meaning portrayed by chemicals swapped between
members of the same species and between members of different species.
Here is a fascinating discussion of this topic, which I would describe but
which you should see for yourself:
h%p://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/bonnie_bassler_on_how_bacteri
a_communicate.html
Imagine the complexity our cellular network handles daily: dis-
tributing nutrients from food and oxygen from breathing to every cell in
this absolutely immense network which has a need for them, interpret-
ing the signals from nerves and reacting accordingly, etc. In an informa-
tional hierarchy comprised of a hundred trillion individual cells, our per-
sonal intelligence could never possibly manage the processes necessary
to life in our cells; luckily, they take responsibility for this impossibly
complex task. As they carry out these tasks below, living the lives of cells,
we look outward and fend for our organism's survival in the animal
world, a natural external-immune system designated to a facet of survival
in a different experiential dimension from that lived out by the cellular
mass of our bodies.
!e conscious mind gives the illusion of being the sole control-
ler of the body, but there are reasons to suspect that the body has equal
or greater in"uence on mind. Instincts do not run on our conscious in-
telligence, but on our body cells' integrated network, which intelligently
shares, processes, and responds to information pertinent to our body's
survival and to the enaction of our consciousness. !e vast majority of
mind's effort is expended in ful$lling the instinctual urges and sensations
provided by the brain and body. When you have an itch on your arm,
and it feels really good to scratch it, it isn't because the action of scratch-
ing your arm feels good, but because your subconscious has generated a
$eld of experiential potential in that area by stimulating discomfort there
and bringing it to the front of your awareness. You can push it to the
back, but the sensation remains– “Well, it would feel mighty good to
scratch me, why are you waiting? Look, I'm still itchy. Hello!”
In this, and countless other everyday cases, your subconscious is
subtly guiding your consciousness in what actions to take. Your willful
mind o#en is only needed to execute complex tasks in the external world
or the inner world of logical reasoning, and many times you perform
these tasks to satisfy something your subconscious wants you to do
anyway. It is a more ancient feature of our being, but it is a wise and
powerful feature. It seems possible that contrary to our expectations, the
subconscious is actually the central hub of our body's experience, and
our “I” is a feature of it. Of course, we currently have no way of determin-
ing whether this is the case or not, but there is no reason to automati-
cally assume it is an impossibility.
•§•
In general, subjective consciousness arises in the Universe when
the energetic interplay of Cosmic Awareness in ma%er is organized in
intricate physical processes enacted to model the subjective system's ex-
ternal world. Our brains each embody recursive informational systems;
they take in energetic information representing the physical reality of
Cosmic Awareness (light waves, sound waves, pressure waves, etc.) and
re"ect that information internally through logically interpreting it; this
re"ection is what makes up our minds. !is recursion is present in every
life form in varying degrees, with bacteria experiencing a different reality
than $sh due to the differences in the mechanisms of their logical inter-
action within themselves and with the outside world.
!is should, in fact, be the standard de$nition of a conscious
agent: a system of energy which causally in"uences not only the infor-
mational systems surrounding it, but also the content making up that
system of energy; a self in"uencing system is conscious until it loses the
energetic logic necessary to coordinate and cause internal changes. One
stipulation is that the self in"uence must be through direct logical inter-
action, and not by secondary consequences relating to the physical con-
ditions of the constituent parts vis a vis the whole, as in the case of a star,
planet, or galaxy. (In these cases, the motion of the macro in"uences the
motion of the micro elements, e.g. a substance existing at the Earth's
core will be ho%er than a similar substance si%ing on its surface; this is a
consequence of position relative to internal informational content, but
not a consequence of the system of information making up the sub-
stance taking logical input from logical operations comprising the
whole.) By perceiving and integrating smaller systems of information,
mind in"uences the content of the smaller systems making up the organ-
ism by returning new input logic to those systems from above, a causal
reversal within the overarching pa%ern of smaller phenomena causing
larger-scale effects.
Consciousness is a result of logical self-in"uence in any system
of information; wherever a system of logical information bumps against
its respective ceiling and is coordinated and re"ected back inwards (so to
speak), Cosmic Awareness perceives and in"uences the signal in the
moment that it arrives, is experienced, and is sent back, informationally
changing it in the process. Every place in Existence where logical sys-
tems of energy require input from the highest, cumulative informational
level of those systems to proceed is a conscious system, embodying the
Awareness of in"uencing their content from above.
In this context, it seems that it is de$nitely possible to enable
consciousness in computers; perhaps the most direct method will in-
volve using digital informational modeling to recreate the logical struc-
ture and behavior of neuronal networks, a process already being pursued
by several research institutions (notably, EPFL's Blue Brain project).
Consciousness is a Universal phenomenon; there is no reason to believe
that consciousness is the exclusive domain of organic life.
!ough a bacterium faces a very different set of sensations and
challenges in its model and awareness of the world than an ant or a dog,
any organism that interacts with its surroundings to survive necessarily
possesses awareness of those surroundings and of the act of surveying
and reacting to those surroundings. Each neuron in our sprawling nerv-
ous system is itself aware of its reaction to the stimuli making up infor-
mation exchange; the mechanism of neuronal logic is neuronal aware-
ness, which allows the neuron to transfer energy along the appropriate
dendritic path given different experiential/informational stimuli.
We imagine the lives of bugs, plants and cells to be totally for-
eign to our own and too alien to relate to. However, the fundamental
feeling of having a self is probably very familiar in many aspects, and is
shared by all that lives and by the all that is the Awareness of Existence.
!ere is only one Awareness; each of our apparently separate aware-
nesses is in reality a subset of the overarching Awareness of Existence.
We each perceive a private region of experience within this one mind.
Mind is not con$ned to our brains. It pervades every level of existence in
every corner of the Universe; indeed, its Being is the Universe. Our cells
operate within a completely different realm of experience than the spec-
trum we inhabit, at an unimaginably foreign level of resolution in
Awareness. Our minds causally affect the informational content of this
level of awareness, inducing electrical currents in our body which per-
fectly mirror the content of our thoughts.
Imagine the intelligence within a spider necessary to accom-
plishing the feat of weaving a web. She is not an automatic web building
machine, she weaves by the same mechanism with which you walk
across the room. She utilizes the neural tools available to her to recog-
nize the potential within her and chooses to string her silk by an impulse
and act of will, just as you recognize the usefulness of walking across the
room and choose when you tell your body to do so.
Broadly stated, the central requirement of an entity arising out
of the possibility contained in Truth that has to fend for itself to per-
petuate its form is that the entity must contain organized structures of
energy exchange, which operate according to and interact with Universal
Truth. !is interaction requires the presence of Cosmic Awareness (e.g.
Cosmic Awareness is present as these $ngers type these words in the
physical nature of the nerve impulses delivered to my muscles from my
brain, in the binary cascade of logic within the computer, in the space
through which this occurs, as well as in light, and my mind- in short, in
every single condition of this writing being possible), and where these
interactions are more complex and take place over less time, more of
Cosmic Awareness is present to "guide" the processes (not consciously
or purposefully guide, but to be aware of them in Truth; no energy ex-
change occurs without this ever-present awareness).
Being alive, being able to in"uence the energy in the Universe by
your actions is not the default state of Awareness, but a profound rarity-
the experience of each of our lives lasts for all but an invisible speck in
the limitless timeline of all that Exists. A human's consciousness is a sub-
jective subset of Cosmic Awareness, stirred into experience from the sea
of energetic interactions unfolding according to the Truth in which it
resides.
•§•
Falling asleep is the slow winding down of consciousness, the
gradual shi# away from the high energy expenditure of the mind-
coordinated, brain-wide, inter-lobe neural activity and sensation model-
ing we experience as awareness and thought, towards energy conserving
and restoring intra-lobal and cellular processes. !is falling away of con-
scious in"uence on brain can be apprehended very distantly in a form
rememberable later, especially if you are woken from the early stage of
sleep. Your thoughts become more abstract and further off as the close
interaction between mind and brain loosens; your mind's control dissi-
pates as your brain relaxes its functioning from handling immediate ex-
ternal concerns, and your normal conscious awarenesses loses clarity,
replaced by a dozy "ow of concepts re"ecting the re-$ring of any perti-
nent neural circuitry built up during the day and the narcotic weight of
sleep.
!e transition from awake to asleep is a continuum; there is no
way to draw a strict dividing line between the two. Awareness doesn't
disappear during sleep, but drops one level of informational complexity
from the highest hierarchical-level consciousness utilizing the entire
brain to the individual neural lobes comprising the conscious brain. You
don't experience this level of awareness with your conscious mind, be-
cause your conscious mind can only ever possess awareness of either the
high level coordination of wakefulness or the lower level coordination of
dreaming, or the memory of these high level processes encoded through
conscious experience, imprinted in structures accessible to conscious-
ness while awake.
One can picture the gradient between consciousness and sleep-
ing in this way: imagine 10-20 bathtubs lining the bo%om of a shallow
swimming pool. Each bathtub is lined with buckets; each bucket is lined
with cups, and each cup has a hole in its bo%om through which water
can enter or leave the system. !e system of containers roughly repre-
sents the brain, cups being neurons, buckets neural circuitry, and tubs
lobes. !e level of water in the pool signi$es the amount of energy proc-
essed and the nature of its logic, and thus the level of awareness
achieved. When full, the pool represents normal, wakeful consciousness;
the interchange of water between the cups at a high enough volume
raises the water level enough to $ll the buckets, the coordination be-
tween which $lls up the tubs, the coordination of which $lls the rest of
the pool and sums to our conscious mind, the highest level of the hierar-
chy containing all others. In this model each subsequent layer of infor-
mational complexity is the higher-level result of lower levels of informa-
tional interchange; the higher levels operate by coordinating lower lev-
els.
Falling asleep is allowing the activity between the bathtubs, the
coordinated brain activity giving rise to consciousness, to subside. As
this occurs, the water level falls back, now separated into the individual
systems (tubs) from which it extends into the conscious mind. At this
point our highest-level mind is unconscious, and each neural system is
con$ned to quiet awareness of its own life processes. Later in the night,
during REM sleep, the tubs inter-coordinate again, which adds dream-
ing, a very thin layer of consciousness to the system (or a thin layer of
water above the tubs, to continue the visual analogy).
Dreaming is consciousness on a much quieter, much less logical
experiential level. In dreams we experience the $ring of disparate con-
scious memories, the activity between neurons either solidifying those
memories or searching different neural networks for appropriate con-
nections to make. Our “conscious” experience of them arises as a secon-
dary effect because these $rings represent the processing of the informa-
tion contained in the consciously imprinted circuits. Lucid dreaming is
the partial utilization of consciousness to coordinate the "ow of informa-
tion. REM sleep is well described as Random Experiential Memory,
though this label does not include the fact that in dreaming the memo-
ries are not accessed randomly, exactly, but are partly guided in their
arising by the thin sliver of consciousness which perceives the dream. In
dreaming, the memory-content spliced together by the brain appears to
relate most o#en to new memories, perhaps (as some current theories
suggest) strengthening and broadening their neural connections in
brain.
CHAPTER 7
What is 'me'?
Consider, for a moment, the unbelievable improbability that out
of the billions upon billions of human lives that have been and are being
lived, you happen to have been born into this body at this time. Why
should this be; for what reason did you come to be you, and me me? In
one sense, this is not improbable at all, but a de$nite certainty: every
human born has a self experiencing its life; our human bodies were born,
and therefore must each have a self accompanying them through life. It is
a certainty that some self would experience the life lived from within
your body; it just happens to be you. !e same can be said for your
neighbor, your mother and father, and for every experiencing life that
has ever lived.
It is almost universally believed that each self is distinct, that this
awareness through which we experience life is our own private property,
unique to each of us. !is is an intuitive assumption; a#er all, I can only
think my thoughts and can only willfully enact my own actions, and the
same is true of you and everyone else; in life our selves are certainly
separate. Perceiving this, we conclude that this separateness is a funda-
mental aspect of our selves; it has become a central facet of the human
identity to see each self as a Universe unto itself, eternally distinct from
the rest of reality. However, there are reasons to reexamine our under-
standing of this most signi$cant facet of Existence, conscious sel*ood.
I am me and you are you; if we switched places, that is, if I could
suddenly experience life from within your body and you could experi-
ence it from within mine, could we possibly notice? !e way you answer
this question reveals much about your understanding of sel*ood. If you
say, “Of course we would notice, my personal soul is fundamentally dif-
ferent from yours, and is the basis for my self; I would be able to tell im-
mediately that I am me in a different body,” you share the most popular
idea of sel*ood: supernatural, permanent personal uniqueness, above
and beyond the physical world. !is is something of an antiquated view:
intuitive and culturally standard to be sure, but if examined closely, this
viewpoint is clearly outdated by the progress of neuroscience. Essentially
every bit of evidence we have suggests that our experience of the world
arises from the physical information processing enacted in our brains, as
the last two chapters discuss in depth. To this response I would answer
“In switching to my body, your 'soul' would have no access to memory of
your previous body, since your memories are stored in the brain of that
previous body. You would only be exposed to the memories and style of
thinking present in my body, and would therefore not be able to tell that
we switched places.”
If you are a scienti$c intellectual, you might answer that ques-
tion (If we switched places, could we notice?) with, “No, there is no way
we could notice. Everything about my experience of self and of life is a
result of my brain states. If we could somehow instantly switch places,
you would experience my brain's activity just the same as I do, and I
would yours, and supposing that the switch occurred instantaneously,
there would be no break in the experience of that brain activity. !ere
would be no memory of the switch in either brain, and no perception of
any change whatsoever.” It seems evident that this is a great step forward
in understanding from the dogma of experiencing life within a soul, for-
ever separate from the physical realm.
If subjective awareness is the byproduct of biological brains,
who experiences that byproduct? In other words, why should my self,
experiencer of my life, be considered fundamentally different from your
self, if they both arise from the same essential cause (i.e. a human brain)?
I argue that they should not; if conscious sel*ood appears in any suffi-
ciently able neuronal structure, then consciousness itself is clearly a Uni-
versal fundament, a facet of being in which we all share, and not a per-
sonal possession unique to each of us. !e fact that you happen to be
living your life and not mine is simply a random outcome of the in$nite-
sided dice roll of possibility, landing you improbably, but necessarily, in
your circumstance, and me in mine.
In order to discuss these concepts, it becomes useful to differen-
tiate between my self, the me which is comprised of my brain, my per-
sonality and all my beliefs, memories, thoughts, hopes, fears, etc., and
my Self, that which actually experiences the awareness of all these things,
thinks my thoughts and wills my actions. It is a very subtle and unex-
pected distinction, which accounts for its foreignness to the traditional
western mindset, with its more simplistic belief in a self/soul. (I want to
be clear: there is no separation between self and Self; they are one and
the same– this is simply a means of talking about two different facets of
our selves: our personal identity, and the actual being which experiences
the perspective from within that identity.) With this distinction it is eas-
ier to discuss the idea that of the billions of lives, you inhabit you; the
universal Self inhabits every self, and no ma%er how many experiencing
lives arise, Sel*ood is there to perceive each. When you die, it is the end
of your self, but there is no end to the Self which experienced your self. It
exists in every other present self, and will inhabit every future self.
!e same Self that I have which experiences all my sensations in
me is also the Self that experiences all of your sensations in you, ex-
tended to our bodies each from the same source, the Cosmic Awareness
underlying all of Existence. It is in this sense that we have an everlasting
soul; we do not possess a personal soul separate from all others, but each
share equally in the one Soul. Awareness is One, One embodied in the
limitless number of perspectives breathed into life by its Being, the Uni-
verse. Every living consciousness has its being in this exact same Aware-
ness, the Awareness of Existence called into subjectivity by our biologi-
cal framework.
!is same all-encompassing Awareness experiences every reality
at once. In every pair of lovers, each consciousness is the exact same
Awareness experiencing the love from two distinct selves simultane-
ously. Every predator, every prey, every laugh, every solemn oath, every
cell division, everything is the experience of the one Awareness, and our
human perspectives are but microscopic subsets of the whole. Our selves
are re"ections of the everlasting and in$nitely faceted jewel of Existence,
mirrors within which Awareness glimpses willful, $nite subjectivity.
In our naïve understanding of self, we manipulate, victimize, and
hurt each other, sometimes viciously and purposefully. !e irony of all
this opportunistic treachery is the truth, casually occupying our collec-
tive blind-spot, that every torturer's self is separated from the victim's
self only by the illusion of separateness that life conjures. In reality, by
deliberately hurting another it is as if your right hand were twisting
thumb screws binding your le# hand; the same Self feels both realities
equally. It is this truth which our burgeoning empathy quietly pleads for
us to recognize, though our self-serving, much deeper-rooted and primal
animal instincts easily ignore its meek cries.
Rather than being separate from the supreme being, as most re-
ligions maintain, with God or some similar entity observing us from a
distance and keeping score as to how well we behave, every subjective
being is a unique embodiment of the supreme being's Awareness. Many
traditionally-minded people are likely appalled by this thought, thinking
that if there is no divine Judge, frowning from the heavens, no divine
justice awaits our criminals. It is certainly uncomfortable to think that a
monstrosity like Hitler faces no retribution for his wretched effect on
others. However, if the above is true, then the Self that starved to death
in a concentration camp also experienced Hitler's life, and the Self that
experienced Hitler's life also experienced that starvation. !is does not
in any way negate the agony caused; it is a sober fact of reality that any
misery caused is misery experienced. How do you think Hitler's actions
might have changed, if he knew he shared the fundament of Sel*ood
with all those he massacred?
Is this to say that the experiencer of my life also experienced all
these lives, all that agony? Yes and no; yes in that the Cosmic Awareness
in you is also in every life, and no in that the human self you inhabit will
never experience any life outside of that human life. In other words, dur-
ing the time that you spend inside your human life, you are not experi-
encing the rest of the lives that Cosmic Awareness is inhabiting.
Initially, many will likely meet this idea with discomfort, or fear.
To think that it is terrifying to imagine living every life that has been
lived seems natural enough; that's a lot of pain, disease and heartbreak to
endure. On the other hand, that's also a lot of love, excitement, pleasure,
newness, and laughter to enjoy. However it is not us that experience all
life, it is I. In other words, the person who you are does not experience
the person who I am, but the Self that experiences your life is also the
Self that experiences my life and all others. I would venture to guess that
the in$nite mind underlying all that is is more than willing to live out all
the divine possibility contained within its limitless potentiality, that the
chaos and drama of life lends Existence meaning countless times in
every possible variety of signi$cance.
•§•
!is viewpoint can perhaps help clarify the sometimes kno%y
complexities of morality. An evil act consists most fundamentally in will-
fully causing pain in or misfortune for others, o#en to bene$t oneself
(whom is unknowingly hurting their true Self which resides also in those
they hurt). Our deepest, truest self, the fabric of our awareness, is shared
with every other living being in Existence. Stalin's personal awareness
faces the exact sum of all the pain he brought into being from the very
perspectives he brought it to. Every barking slave owner felt the sting of
every whip crack he dealt. Of course, the person who is the direct cause
of the results doesn't personally experience those results in their own
human awareness, but indirectly by the one Awareness also inhabiting
the lives that are touched by that person. !ough every life form experi-
ences its sensations and thoughts privately, the Awareness of that life
form is extended to it from the exact same fundamental source as every
other.
We can imagine a Universal balance of good sensations versus
bad sensations. If a species arises that can "y, and absolutely savors life
on account of it, the balance shi#s towards the good. If there is a World
War, and millions perish in wretched, pointless suffering, the balance
shi#s towards the bad. Every chance arising of love is a rose to the com-
mon fabric of being, and every feud and hatred a thorn. !ere is no law
but the laws of probability balancing the scale; there is no mandate that
every bit of good is offset by an equal bit of bad.
Karma is yet another outdated superstition, consoling and pos-
sibly morally bene$cial to our ancestors (certainly detrimental as justi$-
cation for the Caste system during its prominence in India), but ulti-
mately imaginary. Besides the immense amount of evidence contrary to
Karma's hypothesis that every event in a person's life occurs because that
person deserved that event (for example, the countless instances where
bad things, like cancer, etc., happen to the very best of people), if there is
such a thing as a balance of Karma, then there must be some entity
which weighs the goodness or badness of every action, and controls real-
ity from the outside in response (raising the plethora of inadequacies
which mar supernatural belief, as discussed in Chapter 8).
Before intelligent, compassionate life arises, the balance is le# to
the outcomes of chaotic circumstantial possibility. Gradually, as intelli-
gence develops in a species, it becomes more and more clear that it is
also up to us free-willed lives to strive to bring goodness into the world.
Our collective will is free to tip the balance.
Much of the time, moral judgments are rather simple, and don't
have great consequences either way. !ere are, of course, situations of
great ethical complexity where no ideal solution seems possible, but
these are relatively rarely encountered in comparison to daily interper-
sonal moral decisions. !e fact is, almost everyone has the requisite in-
telligence to empathetically tell right from wrong in day-to-day situa-
tions, but it is o#en convenient and rather easy to pretend to themselves
that they don't.
Whenever recognizing personal moral imperatives is a private
ma%er, (ancient) sel$sh motives are weighed with (more modern) altru-
istic ones. Many people have absolutely mastered the art of telling them-
selves convenient lies and then believing in them wholeheartedly. Eve-
ryone wants to feel good about themselves, and if they take any action in
pursuit of a goal that they know to be immoral, they de#ly rationalize the
act and thereby silence their conscience. Of all the unconscious under-
tones with which brain colors the experience of mind, in some people
the human conscience is perhaps the most easily quieted; in part this
could be because our morality is based on intelligent appraisal of a situa-
tion's context, and new information (sometimes fabricated) can cast an
ethical decision in a new, more comfortable light.
Morality is a real-life example of the prisoner's dilemma,
wherein subjective consciousnesses can greedily take for themselves
while harming others, offse%ing their enjoyment with the pain they
cause, or cooperate for the common good. Both forms are prevalent in
the modern world, though cooperation is slowly edging out primitive
competition. Our inbred nationalism is the strongest and furthest reach-
ing expression of this tribal competitiveness, the instinct towards the our
side vs. their side mentality. If we can grow out of this immature mindset
so deeply ingrained in our culture, our species will "ourish, continuing
the development of a mutually bene$cial symbiosis like that of "owers
and bees. If not, that is, if our instinct to belong to an in-group leaves us
blindly rooting for the home team at all costs, in suspicion our nations
will coil in on themselves and poison each other with their venom.
In our "edgling intelligence we must face the un"inching equity
of cosmic justice with maturity and gratitude; every pleasant experience
is shared by all, as is every injury. Universal happiness is the prize of a
perfectly compassionate society, while anguish is the price of blind self-
ishness and ruthless competition. We are free to leave behind the raw
balance of animal life (essentially that for every bleeding throat there is a
satiated hunter) and embrace cooperation.
Some of Awareness will live within snakes, and some will suffer
snakebite, and every possible outcome will have to be experienced, be-
cause the system of Existence impels all possibility to come into being
over an in$nity of time. However, the system operates within a frame-
work of limitlessly deep logical perfection, which produces profoundly
meaningful concepts out of pure Truth, pure reason. !e love, beauty,
passion, harmony, and ecstasy of Cosmic Awareness is expressed in the
endless outplay of reality, and the private experience of living, discon-
nected from the magnitudinous whole, gives Existence an in$nite
breadth of meaning and signi$cance.
A li%le pain is worth the possibility represented by Universal
free will in entities predisposed to cherish life (if only their own, as
young species do– humans are gradually growing up out of this self-
centeredness). !ink how vastly positivity outstrips the negative in ex-
perience- humans tend to $xate on the negative, as if bracing to avoid it,
but every shower you take is enjoyable, most every meal, every real
laugh, all surface pleasantries, all love and companionship and learning
and awe and new experience, sight, sound, music, light; it is all in$nitely
be%er than the (nonexistent) alternative, nothingness.
!e free will of life is bought at the price of pain; the unlimited
variety of free-willed life arises through Truth in competition, in the
probabilistic framework of fortune and misfortune. (If you are thinking
“Wait, you can't just assume we have free will without discussing why
you believe that,” I refer you to Chapter 10.) However, with our rela-
tively newfound a%ribute of human intelligence we are slowly learning
not only our profound interconnection, but also how to rein in our more
primitive instincts.
Our emotions may rage, but our rationality can soothe the beast
within us, if only just enough to retract our claws and ease our heartbeat.
If a competitor slips away into the night with the object of our affection,
our primal instincts will likely writhe in anger and jealousy. However, if
our intelligence can recognize that the competitor's awareness is a differ-
ent casting of our own, we can more easily celebrate, rather than envy,
their pleasures. !e same Awareness experiences all sensations, so rather
than offset the boost to global happiness occurring in their bedroom
with bi%erness in your own, you are free to willfully outmaneuver your
instinctive anger, bless their good fortune for existing, and enjoy some
time alone, at peace. !is is not to say that sidestepping instinct is easy,
or even fully possible, but is well worth practicing.
Lives are not externally designed to meet a certain goal or to
pass some supernatural test, life arises, automatically follows, from Uni-
versal Truth. And beautifully, from this Truth comes us. We are miracles
of cosmic possibility, more intricate than it is possible for us to imagine,
with an in$nite canvas to explore and $ll. What wonders we are heir to;
what uncharted realities have we yet to experience in the dynamic realm
of subjectivity!
CHAPTER 8
The Modern Status of Supernatural Belief
Religions are born through messengers who experience insights
of divine clarity, some of the deepest revelations about the nature of Ex-
istence ever reached by humans. !e impact of these realizations inspire
the prophetic human to try and communicate the immensity of their
understanding to those around them, despite the hopeless difficulty of
doing so. In the process, the insight is $rst translated into words from
experience by the prophet, then spread through word of mouth. !e in-
sights can never answer all our questions or explain all the mysteries, and
as this news spreads (o#en carried by disciples who were awakened by
the message, but did not directly face the experience), it is reshaped to
answer all the questions posed and challenges raised by the general
populace. !e message invariably undergoes a popular reinvention, be-
ing expanded upon and melded into compatibility with older cultural
beliefs and practices, especially as the centuries begin to roll by and the
word must be wri%en down, and translated, and copied by hand, intro-
duced to new societies, translated again, and interpreted and wrung by
generations of priests and cultural holy men. Religions originate in the
essence of deepest beauty, but the prophet's message never translates to
the populace perfectly, and over the years less insightful minds have
$lled in the gaps with best guesses and convenient lies.
!e traditional belief that the world is guided by a supernatural,
all-powerful entity is a natural extension of the fundamental perception
that things happen in the world for some reason, even if we are unable to
rationally piece together what that reason is. !e vast majority of our
ancestors lived in what appeared to be a magical world, where almost
every occurrence was perfectly unexplainable; they had no evident ex-
planation for how food is integrated into the body, no explanation for
why the sun rises and sets, no explanation for the presence of animals,
plants, water, nor for the phenomena of gravity, wind, pain, sight, etc.
Ancient humans, by nature curious and intelligent, sought to rationalize
all these effects into intelligible systems of causality, due to the discom-
fort of possessing rational intelligence yet being surrounded by the un-
explainable. Explanatory and celebratory myths were thus developed
and passed along, elaborated upon by prehistoric imaginations and
guarded carefully against radical modi$cation, due to the cognitive dis-
sonance and social danger of acknowledging the fallibility of their belief
systems.
Over millennia these processes solidi$ed into some rather non-
sensical styles of belief. Consider that in Alexander the Great's time, the
decisions of generals overseeing hundreds of thousands of soldiers o#en
involved solemn appraisal of the behavior of birds, and other cultural
omens. Aztec culture centered around the belief, based on their creation
myth, that the sun was powered by human blood spilled in sacri$cial
ceremonies, and that the fate of the Universe hinged on their upholding
of this gruesome tradition. In the past others have concluded that “not
only are there pre%y lights in the sky undergoing regular cycles of
change, the position of those lights has a profound signi$cance for how
each of our lives will unfold, and if we could only just puzzle out what
their positions suggest, we would possess a major key to ge%ing what we
want and avoiding what we don't want.”
!e traditional human worldview has thus developed around
the idea that there is some supernatural force behind the scenes guiding
all that occurs; supernatural belief is the foundation which all religions
share. It is difficult to imagine our distant ancestors seeing reality in any
other context, because of the enormous magnitude of the mysteries sur-
rounding their every experience. It is only in the past few centuries, since
the spark of the scienti$c revolution, that it has slowly become clear that
this fundamental perspective on the nature of reality is likely incorrect.
In this time period we have discovered that the entirety of the Universe
appears to operate according to logical physical laws, and that all the
previously unexplainable phenomena have rational explanations, em-
bodying intelligible networks of cause and effect. In this context, the an-
cient worldviews espoused by religion seem quite inadequate in describ-
ing the true nature of Existence.
Modern humans have dropped superstitions involving phenom-
ena which we can explain scienti$cally. !e more remote the mystery
around any phenomenon, the less superstition surrounds it‑ no edu-
cated person prays to the sun for good weather anymore. However, any-
thing still mysterious is no less a subject of superstition than it was
10,000 years ago. One example is the question of what happens to a per-
son's consciousness when they die; when we are faced with the un-
known, our survival-oriented imaginations examine the entire spectrum
of possibility, from absolute worst to absolute best, and modify our be-
havior accordingly. If, as is the case with many religious claims, we are
convinced that the outcome is based on the content of our entire life and
that it will persist for eternity, we naturally do everything we can imagine
to avoid the worst outcome and aim for the best.
Even if a society's conventional religion calls for the abandon-
ment of enjoying life, and contorts living into a form of self-torture, if it
promises automatic eternal bliss upon death, it will be observed by a de-
voted following of (many thousands of) people. For some, the thought
that the stakes are so high lends weight to the belief; if the reward really
is that great, and the alternative really is that horrendous, to disbelieve
seems far too risky. !e belief that forfeiting the enjoyment of our in-
valuable lives is the trade necessary to buying an a#erlife of eternal bliss
is among the most nonsensical and tragic wastes of potential ever com-
mi%ed, equal to the tragedy of indoctrinating children to adopt this in-
tellectually diseased worldview.
!e fact that such a huge number of people are cowed by fear of
supernatural judgement in the context of this life-as-test worldview
makes it necessary to directly redress their fallacious and harmful beliefs.
!e belief that Hell and sin are non$ctional should have vanished from
the human psyche long ago. To the sheep of the "ock: If your God's crea-
tions can sin, is not your God's creativity sinful? How absurd it would be
for a God to judge and damn his own creation, and to punish his chil-
dren eternally for "aws in his own design! A God who brings eternal
torment into being is not at all worthy of worship, only ridicule, as the
most insightless and weak-hearted “omniscient” being ever conceived by
humans.
And still I feel many of you reading this recoiling slightly, as if
this unreasonably insecure spectre were actually there watching you, for-
ever over your shoulder. !is fact is a monumental tribute to the power
of the human imagination: when a concept is held in mind for a lifetime,
it can become real, a phantom perceived as fully, inescapably real by the
psyche. I feel sorry for those who are shackled to this false worldview,
living life as a fearful apology for their instinctive desires and natural cu-
riosity.
Many forms of religion come with a built-in resistance to ra-
tional thought which is drilled into followers from their earliest years
(with the obvious rhetoric of original sin consisting of eating from the
“tree of knowledge”, and the dogma of the virtue of faith over reason),
and which discourages their members from a%aining the freeing realiza-
tion that life is not a test, and eternity is not at stake. !ese religions re-
tain their exemption from rational inquiry by appealing to many of hu-
manity's most basic vulnerabilities; historically, religious practice was
woven into the activities of society, generating intense social pressure to
conform to the group beliefs and practices or mark oneself an outsider.
Because each society's religious practice has been handed down through
the generations, its eminence is bolstered by the power of tradition and
comes to be taken for granted. Religious rhetoric manipulates our natu-
ral fear of the unknown, with an aim to provoke dread and guilt; the re-
ligion conjures up a menacing array of threats, then reassures its follow-
ers that there is salvation from this hellish end, which just so happens to
be unquestioning devotion to the religion. Religion makes use of the
tendency for humans to follow the loudest and most vocal leader, the
promise of great rewards outside of life (along with the convenience that
no dead person can possibly con$rm that they've a%ained these re-
wards), and most cunningly, the brainwashing of minds too young to
resist.
On account of these factors, the consideration of any de-
nouncement of religious dictatorship is re"exively dropped by that relig-
ion's members for fear of displaying a sinful lack of faith, or worse, being
tricked by the devil himself. !e existence of Satan is another completely
ludicrous idea, a scare tactic that makes no sense when considered in the
context of religious doctrine: there exists an omnipotent and omniscient
entity who created everything, but is powerless to stop the force of evil
(which it created, by creating everything) from stealing the souls it also
created, and the fate of reality is based on this struggle between good
and evil, and the Lord desperately $ghts this all-important ba%le
through us, though he created the ba%le to begin with? !is $ctional
premise should be recognized by now as no more than a tired clié, yet,
amazingly, it currently represents the deepest belief of many humans.
Dogmatic religion stains the most beautiful human insight,
wonder for the elegant beauty of reality, with fear, guilt, and the blood of
nonbelievers. Its tyrannical manipulation of its followers' emotions and
thoughts is a plague on human culture, and a cage to the progress of our
collective worldview. How fortunate we are to live today, when religious
power is on the decline. However, it is still a distressingly in"uential
force in people's lives, in culture and especially in politics. In spite of this,
because more and more modern people are exposed throughout their
lives to a knowledge of science, and come to embrace their rational intel-
ligence (an act which most prominent religions forbid), I am con$dent
that the generation now coming of age will live to see the dissolution of
the dogmatic religions, and enjoy the resultant boost to human wellbe-
ing, compassion, and reason.
Blind faith is the most powerful force for evil ever in"icted on
humanity, an inoculation from personal reason and morality concocted
of tribal group allegiance in the guise of benign spirituality. !ere is no
be%er modern example of Orwell's Doublethink than the mental gym-
nastics undergone by new members of religion, required to believe the
unbelievable without question in order to qualify for acceptance into the
faith. !e insidious danger of this style of thinking is the indisputable
power it lends to societal leadership: when the populace is accustomed
to ignoring their rational thinking and swallowing the doctrine of
authority $gures without question, all it takes to convert blind faith in
scripture to blind faith in the execution of a holocaust is a leader's iner-
rant command in tumultuous times, for example, “Our group now
blindly believes all outsiders are hostile to our group's existence- if you
are a good group member, you will join us in eradicating these heathens.”
In a proper expression of group faith, there is no time to stop a friend
and ask, “Wait, do we really believe this ?”, without marking yourself an
outsider, a faithless traitor to this slaughterous cause.
Each member of the group may be thinking “My values and hu-
man compassion make this all seem wrong, but everyone else seems to
agree with this new worldview, and in this climate I would be crazy to
outwardly disagree. And it is so convenient to just go along with the
crowd; they are pushing me pre%y hard in the direction they're headed,
and I would have to $ght, and at this rate be trampled, to not go along
with them.” Group-think in the context of unquestioning faith leaves
each individual member hostage to fear and suspicion.
To suggest that religion's antiquated moral codes will forbid its
followers from participating in violence would be a bit naïve; we are al-
ready adept at ignoring the sections of scripture that are uncomfortable
to accept at present. When it becomes societally inconvenient to follow
“!ou Shalt Not Kill” (as it has countless times in the past), it will prove
effortless to rationalize any way out of that imperative, e.g. “My brothers
and sisters, I remind you, Moses killed; in fact, it's '!ou Shalt not Kill
Believers'. Truly, by the grace of God, we are commanded: '!ou Shalt
Kill Nonbelievers'. Amen!”
Another religious war, its participants convinced to follow along
essentially out of fear of being cast out from the group in the short term,
and possibly even going to Hell for not embracing the dictated belief; of
course, the dark irony is that the closest thing to Hell in Existence is war,
and slavery to hatred, slavery to the prejudices and intolerance of our
uneducated, insecure forebears, to obligatory violence and dismissal of
mercy for those of differing beliefs. Religious extremism is such a piti-
able malady to still afflict us in the modern age.
I should note that religious people who are offended by this
message are wrong to be offended- they should be grateful that someone
is willing to challenge them to personally use their human privilege of
rational thought, instead of deliberately manipulating them for the fur-
thering of an ancient cult and status-quo. If their lives have been devoted
to the faith, it is o#en because they are ecstatic lovers of life and reality,
and feel connected to the supreme being beyond a shadow of a doubt,
despite the confused and childish a%ributes propounded of it in scrip-
ture. I think that humble awe before the in$nite vastness and beauty of
Existence is a sign of wisdom, and of deepest insight. However, I also feel
that the blind a%achment to rituals of human invention based on fear is a
completely inappropriate stance for an educated person of the modern
age, (o#en, a regre%able consequence of the requirement that each per-
son must $t into his or her culture in order to feel like a good human).
To think your God capable of hate or judgment evinces a dark sus-
picion against the basic goodness of His nature, an immensely irreligious
point of view. To believe a God of love can also be the Lord of fear is abso-
lutely nonsensical. Furthermore, why should the God that you believe
granted you intelligence expect you to disdain that intelligence? Shouldn't
that be considered the worst heresy, to squander His greatest gi# based on
the wri%en history of the manipulative schemes of profoundly ignorant and
power-hungry humans? And once you utilize that intelligence, isn't it abun-
dantly clear that your holy book is the work of fearful, ancient mindsets, and
wholly outdated by the subsequent deepening of our knowledge of the Uni-
verse? !at a human mindset presiding over Existence is an absolutely pre-
posterous idea, re"ecting the traditional human arrogance and dei$cation of
personal power more than any cosmic truth?
•§•
Some might mistake the worldview described above for a de-
scription of a heartless, random Universe. !is I believe to be an expres-
sion of our instinctive fear of the unfamiliar. Consider: Even if every life
in the history of the Earth was one of grief and confusion, upon death
each “me” would still have been greeted with a laugh and embrace of
True Knowing, and would see how they misunderstood the essence of
life through being embodied in a frantic-instincted animal, and how the
tumult of their lives was a necessary consequence of beings arising from
pure possibility into free will. If free will led a race of competitors into
universal mutual torture, as our ancestors' ceaseless wars and squabbling
seemed bound for, Awareness had to experience the pain of that situa-
tion. If free will leads a race into reason and science, and unlocks relative
immortality and transcendent knowledge from the fabric of reality, is not
all pain and sacri$ce in the pursuit of that eventuality worth it? Outside
of our $nite selves, life is known as experience, and both happiness and
devastation are surely considered worthwhile textures and "avors of it.
People who are used to con$ding in God, and console them-
selves that He understands and sympathizes with their struggles: It's
true, the supreme being understands your perspective with perfect clar-
ity, as well as the perspectives of every being you meet. It doesn't observe
this from the outside, but from within, your very own “me” is that of the
supreme being, encapsulated in your biological form. In relating to your-
self, you are relating to the sympathies of the entire Universe, which is
alive in you. God is not apart from Existence, an aloof outsider; God is
Existence, the whole and its parts.
CHAPTER 9
In My End is My Beginning
Many of us hold a private grudge against Existence for the $nal-
ity and universality of death. “Why bring us into this chaotic reality just
to let us die? What's the damned point?”, resounds the curse and cry of
humanity in its darkest hours. !is existential frustration is unwarranted,
and arises only as a misunderstanding of who and what we truly are.
Rather than viewing life as the one chance your individual soul has to
experience reality, realize that every life is a personal and unique experi-
ence of the one Soul. Your death is nothing more than the release of fun-
damental Awareness from experiencing your unique perspective; it is
not the end of all awareness!
Of course, this doesn't change the fact that death is a great loss;
life as a human is profoundly meaningful, fascinating and enjoyable, and
the death of loved ones leaves us facing the sting of loss and the sorrow-
ful ache of their absence. However, instead of consoling ourselves by
imagining that a loved one passed away retains their personal conscious-
ness outside of their life, where their personal, human consciousness
would no longer serve them any purpose, we should celebrate the won-
drous gi# of life, the singular uniqueness of their personality and the
moments and laughter we shared, and know that though the experience
of their life has ended, life itself never dies.
Do not mourn in your heart for words you should have spoken
or misunderstandings you wish you could explain to your loved ones
passed away. In the space outside our selves they know the whimsical
soul of life and see the complexities of being in the world that we've con-
ceived, how we emerge into life and $gure out for ourselves what it
means to live. Are grievances between animals (and humans are animals,
make no mistake about that) wounds on the timeless soul of life? Of
course not, they are simply the outcomes of the possible spectrum of
being, their intensity a testament to the great depth of feeling for the
lives that we've received.
What does this leave us with, then? What happens to our per-
sonal awareness, our “me” that actually experiences our thoughts and
sensations, when we die? !e question really should be “What happens
to the subset of Cosmic Awareness that is called into subjective being by
my brain and body a#er my body dies?” When the physical phenome-
non which spins your existence into being ceases to operate, the in$ni-
tesimal droplet of unique experience in you melts back into the one
whole; everything unique to your biological form, your personality,
memories, regrets, and everything related to your 'self ' dies with your
body. However, the Awareness that was temporarily centered within
your body is eternal.
Without having any knowledge of the true character of what
happens, I venture to guess (what harm is there in educated guessing,
based on the precepts in this book and the accounts of near-death expe-
riences?) that as the physical moorings binding Sel*ood to the personal
self you inhabited loosen, your being unites again into oneness with
Cosmic Awareness, the Knowing of all of Existence. From this perspec-
tive, perhaps all individual lives growing within Cosmic Awareness are
known simultaneously with boundless understanding and love, along-
side the knowing of the interplay of all energetic interchange throughout
all the galaxies, and the secrets of transcendent Truth that are held al-
ways in an eternal moment of this Awareness.
Look out at the squirrels chasing each other in the trees (or any
life-form you can observe); if you could inhabit Cosmic Awareness in-
dependent of your human mind and travel from the space your body
occupies to the space the squirrel's body occupies, you would go from
experiencing your human thoughts and emotions to experiencing the
squirrel's sensations and emotions; these are each simply different re-
gions held in the same Awareness. If you shrank in size to inhabit just a
single cell in the tree, you would experience the busy life of the plant cell,
informationally present in the region of Cosmic Awareness you are trav-
ersing. If you expand the region of Cosmic Awareness you occupy to in-
clude all the cells in the tree, you would now inhabit that tree's experi-
ences, the cumulative experience of the interactions between and the
sensations of its cells. If you expanded your scope of Cosmic Awareness
to include the entire Earth, you might experience the cumulative texture
of all sensations felt by living beings on the Earth at once. You could
maybe expand the breadth of time you occupy to feel the experiences
throughout history dance within your in$nite mind simultaneously.
•§•
!us far, I have shied away from using the word “God” to discuss
the idea of Cosmic Awareness, because I didn't want to jar the skeptical
reader before ge%ing my points across; truly, “God” is a word that refers
to a supernatural being standing apart from the Universe, its Lord and
controller, the entity described in the Bible and Q'uran. !e idea of
having a Lord-servant relationship with God is a fundamental misunder-
standing that humans have had about the Universe since the earliest
hints of wri%en history, and likely going back tens of thousands of years.
!e belief that you exist apart from God, from the underlying Knowing
making up Existence, misses the gigantic truth, though the experiences
of living give every indication to the contrary. (Animals seem naturally
enough to feel that “me” is a Universe apart from “not me”, though the
two are simply different aspects of the One self.)
I feel that religion's description of God is inadequate, that God is
not separate from the Universe, but is the Universe, is everything that
exists, is Cosmic Awareness. !ere is naught but God, and every life is an
embodiment of God's limitless potential and an encapsulation of its
Knowing. !e consciousness of life is the consciousness of God called
into subjectivity by the energetic unfolding of the possibility within
God. You cannot be apart from God, the soul and sole fabric of Exis-
tence.
God says, “I am the sea, and you are li%le tiny bubbles "oating
within me. I am nature and you are living nature. Your life is a divinely
vivid aspect of my experience. Me in you is unaware that you are me, but
I am aware that I am you. Embodied in you, I feel the pain you put your-
selves through, the barbs of your greed, sel$shness, and competition.
!is pain of living is the price of my Universal Existence being a "ower-
ing expression of the possible; I cannot limit the possible from Existing.
I did not create Existence, I am Existence, necessary embodiment of
what is. I cannot control you; I cannot force you to be be%er. It is impos-
sible for me to do anything through you but experience your life from
inside, as you (and while you live, it is impossible for me not to inhabit
you).”
“I experience all of Existence, in a Knowing that you cannot
presently comprehend, but which you already experience in me, through
my experiencing all of Existence (and you being me). I don't experience
it all through you, but I experience it all in me. 'But how can us two be
one, God?' Just as your many trillions of cells are one in you, all innu-
merable lives are one in me, all in$nite Universes are one in me, all
knowing is one in me. You can't imagine what it is like to conceive! !e
drama and meaning of free-willed life is of in$nite value, and the feeling
of embodying all Truth giving rise to that free will is what you would
imagine to be Godlike; not powerful beyond all knowing, but Knowing
beyond all knowing, holy light. I love you, but I wish you felt be%er. In$-
nitely be%er! Love is the way, not just romantic love, but self-love, love of
all our selves. !at means no hurting others to make your personal self
feel be%er, or you are likely hurting your full Self more than you are help-
ing your li%le sel$sh self. Competition and self-interest amongst intelli-
gent beings causes more harm than good, because it keeps your world
suspicious, fearful, violent, and primitive. Your societies will grow out of
your baser tendencies if you can cooperate to, rejoice!”
I already feel uncomfortable using the word God for these con-
cepts, as it conjures up the irrational brutality and separateness of the
God of scripture, and on account of these associations feels like the an
unsuitable name for the essence of Existence. I use the word above sim-
ply to show that the concept “God” was a very fearful early approxima-
tion of what the ultimate being is, and to understand more clearly and
appropriately the nature of the supreme Being. To fear a Lord-God is to
fear the boogeyman, a $ctional character which can only hurt you
through your fear for it and the impact which that fear has on your life
and the surrounding lives.
Cosmic Awareness is not omnipotent, nor is it a willful being.
Cosmic Awareness does not guide the Universe the way we guide our
thoughts; the Universe exists as the Awareness of the logical processes
unfolding therein. !at is, physical laws and energy are the necessary
consequences of Truth, and the physical occurrences in the Universe are
expressions of the logic that frames the existence of force and energy.
Time unfolds as the interaction of energy operating according to physi-
cal laws and logical boundaries set by the possibilities contained within
all Truth, and no deviation can be made from the directly possible. !e
Universe simply is, with the guiding principles of Truth underlying its
being. It is not guided purposefully by a controller deity as has so o#en
been concluded amongst humans, but develops naturally based on the
impetus of the fundamental logic which requires it to Exist and change.
Because of this, Cosmic Awareness can only purposefully in"uence the
Universe from within life, by being embodied in that life at the expense
of being separated from transcendent oneness with Truth.
Any new life does not grow around a previous life's awareness
reincarnated; every new life is an original, never-before experienced per-
spective on reality, lived out by the one Awareness. Every life is a rebirth
of eternal Awareness into ignorance of the true nature of Existence save
the warmth of the Mother's womb, or the cramped space within their
shelled egg. Life is the temporary severance of a region of Sel*ood from
omniscience, birthing the fresh perspective of free-willed subjectivity.
What Cosmic Awareness makes of that life is entirely determined from
within, by the circumstances of the newborn's birth, biology and sur-
roundings. Will Cosmic Awareness enslave millions? Will Cosmic
Awareness preach hell$re and martyrdom based on a sheep-like disposi-
tion and instinctive fear of the unknown? Will Cosmic Awareness pen
Twel$h Night, or compose "e Rite of Spring? Will it feast three times a
day while millions of its brothers and sisters starve hopelessly, when it
could feed several (or hundreds, or hundreds of thousands) of them
without missing a single bill payment? Will it break nuts with its beak, or
scu%le in dark places? Will it thrive in the sunlight and bear fruit? Only
the randomness and hilarity of possibility played out in energetic subjec-
tivity will decide. Cosmic joy and laughter echoes throughout.
!e meaning of life is not begging your way into heaven, nor is it
resisting the pull of hell. !e goal of living is not to score the most points
monetarily, outcompeting the rest for illusory personal glory. !ese
things are human misconceptions, and have exactly nothing to do with
the value of being. What is the meaning, the ultimate purpose of life,
then? Simply to live. !e meaning of life is to experience existence from
a new and unique perspective. Enjoy it! Make the best of it, though your
instincts may not necessarily incline you to. As an animal, your primary
responsibility to life is to enjoy life, and hold onto your enjoyment of
life. As an intelligent human capable of empathy, your responsibility also
includes helping others to enjoy life, and to diminish negative conse-
quences of your actions to the best of your ability.
You must play the hand you're dealt by circumstance, but to a
certain extent you are free to choose your own rules to the game. If you
dislike the world you live in, seek to change your perspective on the
world you live in. Eke out the acidic resentments, regrets, anxieties, inse-
curities, habitual boredom, etc., and try to shi# your perspective to the
forgiving, the accepting, and the understanding; turn your inner gaze to
the goodness in life and experience, without pining for more good. For-
give yourself for your faults, and forgive the world for its faults; humans
and all animals do the best they can with imperfect tendencies in a com-
petitive, chaotic world. It is absolutely impossible to live without your
actions injuring other living beings (o#en, killing and eating them), so
perhaps the guilt we assign to some of our actions is unwarranted. Every
sensation you ever have is a tiny experience happening in a tiny animal
on a mote of dust "oating in the boundless Universe, a microscopic re-
"ection of the endless possibility of in$nite Existence experienced per-
sonally by the progenitor of all things, temporarily embodied in you.
CHAPTER 10
Destiny vs. Free Will
!e question of whether or not we possess free will is one of the
most signi$cant philosophical topics ever examined. Morality, and in-
deed our entire perception of life and reality hinge on its answer; the
values which inform how we choose to act in the world cease to have any
meaning if we are fated to take only the actions we do, and cannot take
any other. If this were the case, there would be no reason to consider a
serial killer any less virtuous than a saint (yet even if we knew free will
were illusory we would have no power to change our opinion of either
person from whatever opinion we are fated to have). As you can see, and
as humans have struggled with for many centuries, if we do not have free
will, then we inhabit a world radically different from the one which all
appearances seem to indicate we occupy.
Why should we question our freedom, when living seems to re-
quire our willful guidance at every turn? !ough the $rst philosophical
treatment of this issue was in the context of religious doctrine (arising
when the idea of free will con"icted with the idea of our Universe being
the domain of an all-powerful, all-knowing, perfectly just controller-
God), I suspect free will was $rst thrown into question when running up
against the less speci$c supernatural belief in personal destiny. !e ten-
dency towards this belief is still quite strong, even among educated,
modern humans, so to approach the question of free will, it is helpful
$rst to examine why we are compelled to believe in fate, its opposite.
!ere seems to be something deeply comforting in the feeling
that there is some just, underlying causal framework to the way fortune
and misfortune is portioned out, and a belief that everything which hap-
pens must happen (even though we have no understanding why this is
the case, or what mysterious justice this system abides by) coincides
with this idea. !is will to rationalize stems from deep in our evolution-
ary past. Understanding the logic of the world in some capacity is abso-
lutely essential to animal survival (at the very least, understanding in-
stinctively that water quenches thirst, that animals bigger than you are
likely dangerous to you, that falling from a great height is undesirable,
etc.). It seems that due to the evolutionary advantage which more adap-
tive intelligent reasoning confers, the sensation of cleverly $%ing logical
pieces together into one intelligible picture has evolutionarily developed
to be instinctively pleasant, just as sugar is instinctively experienced as
tasting sweet because it aids survival.
Belief in supernatural destiny is an expression of the same fun-
damental worldview which underlies all styles of supernatural belief, the
ancient suspicion that there is some deity out there controlling the un-
folding of all the circumstances we experience. “Why has my fellow
tribesman fallen ill, while I'm perfectly healthy?” !roughout human
history, many questions of this sort have been thousands of years away
from correctly being answered, and because of the comfort associated
with believing that everything happens for a reason, I would wager that
the vast majority of explanations have been of the form “Whatever su-
pernatural entity decides the outpouring of fate has decided he deserves
the illness” instead of the form “Illness is possible in the world, and
health is possible in the world; it is just as likely that I would have fallen
ill, and it just so happens that it is he and not me that has had this misfor-
tune.” !is fundamental, instinctive style of human reasoning seems in-
exorably to lead to belief in fate guided by the supernatural, to the point
where questioning fate is almost unthinkable.
!is style of forming elaborate $ctional explanations for the un-
explained is all-pervasive throughout human history and indeed, mod-
ern culture. Almost every story wri%en involves fate as its central basis.
Perhaps this is because an author shapes the lives of his characters with
their end in mind; from the very $rst sentence when a character appears,
she is necessarily destined to reach the outcome of her $nal page. When
we imagine our own lives we o#en unconsciously frame them in this
way, like our own personal novel with the future pages already writ out
for us, just waiting for us to read through our lines by living them.
Part of the reason belief in destiny is so widespread is because it
offers rationalizations to soothe many human insecurities; humans re-
currently seek the reassurance that their lives are of Universal signi$-
cance, and having a personal, God-writ destiny makes one feel that they
must be signi$cant, even if they cannot yet apprehend why. We privately
hope that our destiny is more important than our neighbors' (though,
given destiny, each part would be as integral to the whole as any other),
and that maybe we are even destined for fame, that ultimate pinnacle of
a%ainment.
!ere is de$nitely such a thing as possessing a set of inherent
dispositions, and depending on circumstance these can greatly in"uence
the direction that a person's life will take. Our inherent dispositions de-
rive primarily from our genetic constitution and are in"uenced by the
situation we are born into; if someone is genetically a%uned to being
extraordinarily athletic, there is a good chance they will excel at one
sport or another at some point in their life, but there is a Universe of dif-
ference between that person being likely to be an accomplished athlete
on account of these factors and that person being fated to be an accom-
plished athlete. It is certainly likely that such a person will enjoy playing
sports, engaging their greatest talent, especially if their family is situated
in an era and culture where sport is encouraged; if the person is born in
India, he or she will probably be more likely to spend time playing
cricket than playing baseball, perhaps even becoming a star professional
athlete. Interpreting such a rise as being fateful brings an entirely differ-
ent dimension of complexity to the scenario; if this outcome is fated,
that would have to mean either that all of physics was set up by the deis-
tic director of fate to lead to their athleticism, or that some supernatural
force supersedes physics and is really in need of seeing some good high-
light footage.
!ere is an interesting illusion which arises from thinking back
on how we got to where we are. We look at our current situation, and
re"ect on the unbelievable unlikelihood that we would have come to
such a point; due to the enormous range of possibilities and the chaotic
in"uence which even minor changes can bring about, there really is only
one possible chain of events that could have led to now being exactly the
way it is, so looking back we can point to any range of events in our past
which would have changed everything if they had occurred differently.
Surveying this from the present, it is all but irresistibly enticing to con-
clude that this enormous range of events was meant to occur; otherwise,
why would we have reached this unthinkably unlikely present instead of
any other? We certainly didn't plan every event that culminated in now;
many serendipitous events seemed to fall right into place.
Similarly, we o#en look back on our lowest points as necessary
steps along our history, and see how they $t into the larger picture of the
story of our lives; we are inclined to rationalize these unpleasant epi-
sodes as being the necessary ingredients to whatever positive outcome
we have come to or hope for in the future. !is complex of intuitions
leads to the very prevalent feeling that fate must be at work, though be-
cause this style of reasoning allows for any outcome to fall under the
blanket of fate, we would likely feel the same way given any possible
situation our lives could have lead to.
Furthermore, being able to write off all past atrocities as part of
the grand plan is a very seductive consolation; it gives the world the ap-
pearance of justice our rational minds crave. Even more appealingly, faith
in destiny gives us a type of sleight of hand through which we can drop
all responsibility for the wrongs we've personally commi%ed in the past;
if we were destined to cause that harm, it must not be harm a#er all, but
equally as good as the highest act of virtue. If this is not the supreme
(and cheapest) salve for moral cognitive dissonance, I'm not sure what
is. It is certainly widespread, and in this fact is another point in its favor:
one of the driving human instincts is the will to belong to a group, and
holding and professing the same beliefs as others reinforces this kindred
feeling, and offers an easy means of spo%ing the natural enemies, the
outsiders.
However, because the daily demands of life seem very clearly to
require willful action (for example, choosing to get out of bed in the
early morning and get ready for work, when you know you should do so
though it is nearly the last thing you want to do), it is next to impossible
to truly believe that we are powerless to take different actions than the
ones we happen to choose. !e popular modern concept of free will thus
reached, which pervades our $ction and describes the viewpoint of the
average person, is the paradoxical combination of a comfortable belief in
fate coinciding with a belief in free will. Believers in this conception are
the multitudes which, following any misfortune, assure each other “eve-
rything happens for a reason”, while in the same breath would sentence a
murderer to death; if everything happens for a reason, that is, if every-
thing happens according to the script of fate, how could we indict a mur-
derer? How could we hold anyone accountable for their actions in any
case, if they could not possibly have done otherwise?
It is a very convoluted set of mutually exclusive beliefs, which
your average white-wool human seems to have no problem holding on
to. I suspect that one of the most prevalent causes of confusion and dis-
comfort in the human spirit is this dissonant view of fate, the belief both
that everything that happens conforms to some mysterious plan im-
posed on reality, and at the same time we are personally free to deviate
from or improve upon this plan. When both beliefs are considered side
by side, it is readily apparent that they are perfectly incompatible, yet
each seems equally irresistible to humans; how do we resolve this ten-
sion? O#entimes we simply believe in free will when it is convenient,
and forget about free will when it feels more comfortable to believe in
fate.
Other times we operate under a confused melding of the two, a
belief that every loss and gain, every pleasure and pain carries an explicit
message from fate of how to conduct our lives. !e belief is that if some-
thing happens to make you sad, you deserved it because you somehow
behaved in a way that angered the arbiter of destiny. Many re"exively
believe that if they are unhappy, it is because they are being punished by
the hand of fate to lead them to the correct goal of their life. Every single
action and thought is made under the impression that the only way the
person can $nally reach their fated happiness is to decipher the clues that
fate gives them and behave in the exact way that will grant them their
wish. In their minds, any deviation will be met with a test of their devo-
tion to the path of fate in the form of emotional or physical pain.
Despite the strain of trying to hold onto both of these con"ict-
ing beliefs, this worldview is immensely prevalent. To say “everything
happens for a reason” is thought to be consoling, because it implies that
any negative event had to occur to ful$ll “!e Ultimate Plan” or to make
room for future luck. Sometimes it also carries the implication that a
misfortune happened to us because of something we did, that we de-
served it according to some mysterious and hidden system of justice.
What would it mean if fate really does dictate all the events in
our lives? As it is traditionally imagined, this would require a supernatu-
ral entity overseeing reality and imposing its will on the way events un-
fold; this of course $ts in perfectly with the naïve idea of God described
in Chapter 8, and is subject to all the criticisms which were given in that
chapter.
•§•
!e modern version of belief in fate is known as physical deter-
minism, the belief that the fundamental laws of physics dictate one and
only one future for the Universe based on the past. !is is quite a popu-
lar stance; over the past few centuries, the vast majority of philosophers
have concluded that free will is illusory, and that every action we take is
predetermined by the physical interactions leading up to us taking those
actions. Because this position is so contrary to the experience of willful
living we inhabit throughout our lives, the popularity of this view would
be quite an unexpected phenomenon; however, the philosophical impli-
cations stemming from the scienti$c revolution and in particular New-
ton's foundational contributions to modern physics seemed to lead in-
evitably to the conclusion that determinism is correct. Despite the past
philosophical trend favoring determinism (and therefore against free
will), the modern evidence in favor of indeterminacy (allowing physical
randomness and in favor of free will) is overwhelming.
At its root, belief in determinism stems from an overestimation
of our grasp of physics. Following Newton's discovery of the law of gravi-
tation, it appeared that all gravitational results were completely certain,
and given the correct starting conditions, the $nal outcome of any gravi-
tational system could be determined precisely without fail. On the con-
trary, the insolubility of the three body problem demonstrates that our
mathematical understanding of gravitation does not give the whole
story; far from being simply a three body problem, gravity is an in$nite
body problem! !e unimaginable complexity of the dynamic interplay
of mass and gravity is unfathomably greater than our ability to model,
yet we would conclude that given any one con$guration, only one possi-
ble outcome could follow?
Historically, few seemed to recognize that strict determinism in
one con$ned branch of physics does not necessarily imply Universal de-
terminism; it is quite a leap of induction to presume that it does. Even if
gravitation allows one and only one series of motions given any starting
point, one cannot separate gravitation from the other physical processes
in the Universe without ignoring the inextricable interconnectedness
which de$nes the Universe. Even the apparently clockwork nature of
gravitational behavior is subject to the randomness of particulate inter-
action; there is no way to predict the exact moment that a dying star will
go supernova, because this crucial global moment depends on the way in
which its quantum constituents probabilistically interact. If the super-
nova occurs even a nanosecond earlier or later, the gravitational effect of
that event will affect the surrounding masses differently, possibly se%ing
an asteroid on a path that will cause mass extinction on a planet instead
of on a path that passes harmlessly through the planet's atmosphere.
When any system governed by a speci$c fundamental physical
law is considered in the context of the other fundamental physical laws
(gravitation, electromagnetism, and the nuclear forces), along with the
probabilistic behavior of the surrounding systems of energy, as would
have to be done to truly model any phenomenon in the Universe, the
situation becomes in$nitely more complex; the interplay of these laws
through energy over time leads to an effectively boundless range of pos-
sibility. !ere is no clockwork, de$nite result implied by these laws for
any subset of the energy in the Universe, because no subset can right-
fully be separated from the whole; the inseparable entwinement of the
individually simple physical laws produces an inexhaustible spectrum of
possibility, which physical processes can lead to by chance.
Contrary to determinism, the intersection between the funda-
mental physical laws ensures that any cause can have a boundless range
of effects; those which materialize are probabilistically in"uenced in
their arising by the conditions surrounding the cause. !at is, it is de-
termined that all energy will follow the laws of physics, but the interac-
tion between these laws allows for an effectively limitless range of possi-
bility in any case (including the possibility that the sextillions of atoms
in my brain will cause my mouth to spit on my computer screen right
now. PFT, a burst of rainbowed speckles. Cleaning...).
!e Universe embodies an in$nite spectrum of possibility made
manifest by the necessary Truths, the perfect logic which de$nes Exis-
tence, and which give rise to its in$nite magnitude of energy and an end-
less range of unique manifestations. Rather than a single future laid out
by any range of physical circumstances, an in$nite branching network of
possibilities extends off into the boundless expanse of logical potential
open to that energy in its future.
Tomorrow is not strictly determined by today; innumerable to-
morrows are possible based on what happens today, and which one crys-
tallizes into tomorrow will be the result of an incalculable number of
chance occurrences. (!e fact that you are reading this sentence now has
already changed tomorrow from what it would have been if you hadn't
picked up this book today; if you weren't reading this now, the content of
your mind would be different, and would lead your train of thought on a
different path, ending up with you taking different actions than you
would have otherwise, subtly altering the entire course of your future
history.)
For example, consider a dice roll. A determinist would state
“Everything about this event is predetermined; the act of rolling the die
is in"uenced by the contents of the person's mind, which are the only
contents that could possibly occupy that person's mind given the past.
!e force conveyed to the die by the person's arm is thus perfectly de-
termined by past physical events, and if we had enough knowledge of the
person's inner state (coordination, dice throwing style, mood and neu-
ronal content) we could predict the number that will land face up, along
with more speci$c results like the die's temperature and position a#er
impact, with perfect certainty. !ere is one and only one way the event
can unfold, and that single way is how it will unfold. In fact, if we knew
enough about physics and the initial conditions of the Universe, we
could predict this dice roll happening at this time and place from the
distribution of force during the Big Bang.” I can understand that this
style of thinking is appealing to humans, with our itch to understand all
things. As was stated before, I believe this conclusion is a vast over-
approximation of our current understanding of physics (and I in fact be-
lieve any understanding of physics which leads to strict determinism is
woefully inadequate to describe reality).
I would reply “Even given the exact conditions of the person's
mind before the throw, because there is such an immense range of possi-
ble neuronal feed-forward and feedback interaction dictating the inter-
play of muscles throughout the duration of the dice throw, there is no
possible way to predict the number that will land face up. !e person's
mindset before the throw cannot determine the exact content of their
mind during the throw; there are billions of possible factors which could
modify the action, including processes down to the cellular level– neu-
ronal commands are never conveyed throughout the entirety of the
body's cellular matrix with perfect $delity, and the entropic distribution
of the action potentials through the muscles could never happen exactly
the same way twice, even given the exact same initial conditions. Fur-
thermore, because the quantum mechanics of the particles comprising
the human, die, and air are empirically shown to operate probabilisti-
cally (within an effectively in$nite range of possible outcomes), if the
throw were repeated inde$nitely from the exact same starting condi-
tions, an in$nite spectrum of differing outcomes would be observed.”
“If you take any evidence from chaos theory, or even common
sense for that ma%er, it becomes clear that the probability the dice roll
would unfold differently if replayed with the exact same starting condi-
tions (that is, before the dice is thrown but a#er the person chooses to
throw it) is almost in$nitely close to 1. If any single microscopic event
happened in a different way, the entire chain of causality would break
and a new outcome would be seen. (At the least resulting in the dice
landing an atom's width away from where it landed the $rst time, or less,
and at the most (or almost the most, nearing the realm of the almost im-
possibly unlikely), lodging in an onlooker's throat and killing him.) Like
all Universal phenomena other than those following simplistic rules
(like a calculator returning 1+1=2 (which could possibly be foiled by
any range of unlikely events, including a meteor strike obliterating the
calculator during the calculation)), this action has a vast range of possi-
ble outcomes, proportional to the amount of energy (number of atoms,
span of time, etc.) involved.”
•§•
!e resolution to the question of destiny vs. free will lies in
eliminating the idea of destiny altogether, and $nally taking up the man-
tle of our personal responsibility for the outcome of our lives. No out-
come is supernaturally fated to occur, because there is no supernatural
entity there controlling the Universe. In this sense, nothing happens for
a reason. Or rather, everything happens for only one reason: because it is
possible to. For example, if you win a million dollars gambling, it had
nothing to do with whether you deserved the win or not; your win was
simply a possible random outcome of the game. If all events truly were
bound to fate, to the “way it must be”, there would be no reason for them
to happen at all. In this case, they've essentially already happened, in the
same way that a book's ending already exists at the time that we read the
$rst sentence.
We aren’t $lling our given roles in a vast narrative that is already
wri%en out, we are actively creating the story of existence from the in$-
nite range of possibilities available to us. !e only destiny you are bound
to is that if you continue living, things will keep happening to you, and in
turn you will have an impact on existence.
To my mind, the thought that nothing happens for a reason is
much more consoling than the alternative. If a loved one is killed by
lightning strike, I'm not tempted for a moment to imagine that she must
have lived or thought in a way that angered almighty Zeus, or some
similar touchy deity. Her misfortune was yet another outcome of lives
automatically shuffled up by the semi-random "uctuations of energy
dancing in the light of eternal Truth. !ere is no a#erlife punishment,
and no ultimate justice in this system (at least of the type our aggressive
minds might consider just, as was elaborated upon in Chapter 7).
!e cumulative complexity of neural interactions expressed at
once in mind, coupled with the mind's recursive in"uence on brain,
which is in"uenced by the varying and chaotic content of brain (as dis-
cussed in Chapters 5 and 6), is the root of free will in animals. Determi-
nists o#en argue that our actions are wholly predetermined by the natu-
ral physical processing of our surroundings in our brains, and that we do
not in"uence our brain's functioning, but merely witness it, as if our con-
sciousness were some sort of unavoidable but functionless excretion. As
explained above, this is a completely mistaken view; our conscious expe-
rience of our brain's activity recursively in"uences that activity.
Our free will is the result of the top-down chain of causality af-
fected by mind, wherein the overarching system of energy in"uences the
smaller systems of energy which make up its content. Our brain may
produce ten possible reactions to any stimuli, for example, unexpectedly
encountering an ex-spouse on an elevator, but it is up to the mind to
weigh the value of each reaction with reference to memory, knowledge
of social norms, emotional cues, etc., and choose the best reaction
imaginable, in this case quickly enough to give the impression that the
reaction was perfectly natural and not hectically forced. It is then up to
mind to will the body to produce that response. If you had just awoken
from a long nap, your reproduction of the desired actions will likely be
clumsier and more incomplete than normal; there is an effectively
boundless spectrum of possible responses based on the possible hormo-
nal, mental, and physical conditions of your body at the moment it is
confronted with this unexpected situation.
When making any decision, our minds are presented with a gal-
lery of options, undergo rational thoughts weighing the value of these
options in the context of emotional and moral sensations, and pleasure
seeking/ pain avoidance impulses. To decide on any action is exercising
free will in the rational weighing of all these factors subjectively and $-
nally se%ling upon what seems to be the best possible choice. One per-
son might value pleasure seeking impulses over moral/empathetic
guidelines, and choose to make immoral actions for that reason, while
another values vice-versally; they are both responsible for their free ac-
tions, and are perfectly aware that other actions were available. If the op-
portunity to act in that way had come up at a different time when they
were in a different mood, they might have taken a different action; if the
circumstances leading to deciding on what action to take were replayed
exactly, slight variations would be seen in the chosen action each time,
due to the probabilistic essence of the mental coordination of the physi-
cal, with some more unlikely actions being taken in rare cases. In short,
the mind is part of the causal chain in Existence, and the mind is person-
ally, willfully guided.
Free will is the limited functioning of our minds in weighing the
bene$ts and consequences of every action we take, which are not caus-
ally determined by the outside world, but by the private logical modeling
of consequences and the sensations associated with those consequences.
!is is why we are rightfully upset when someone takes an action that
helps themselves while hurting others; we know that their mental weigh-
ing was sel$sh and non-empathetic.
For the reasons given above, strict physical determinism is a
hopelessly false idea; it is one of the many widely held human beliefs
that future generations will scratch their heads at, surprised that its belief
lasted into the 21st century with all the evidence available at the time.
!e idea that all future outcomes are explicitly determined by the past
and not subject to change fails to take into account the degree of chaos
and randomness inherent to a system as complex as the Universe, and
the overarching interconnectedness therein. Any randomness in this
network of relationships, no ma%er how small or slight, would spread in
its effects throughout the entire Universe, rendering the entirety random
within the bounds of possibility.
Any chaotic effect is more pronounced in a system containing
more degrees of freedom, and therefore a system more quickly tending
towards maximum entropy (discussed more in depth in Part II, Chapter
5); liquids and gasses are good examples, as are biologies and mindsets.
As a wise man once said, “Every thought in the mind is a planted seed,”
and any chance occurrence in the outer world can lead the inner world
on a profoundly different path, resulting over time in a different life
lived, especially when our turbulent percolation of thoughts ultimately
culminates in life's deepest decisions, the inevitable crossroads we reach.
Free will is not perfectly free, but is limited to the immediately
possible; we cannot freely live for a month without drinking water, we
cannot freely remain awake inde$nitely, etc. Furthermore, we cannot do
anything at all that is impossible; breaching the laws of physics is not
within the realm of free will. However, free will does grant us the ability
to explore the bounds of the possible, to realize an unlikely string of out-
comes drawn from the in$nite depth of the Universe's potential. !e less
sophisticated the brain, the less adept a life-form will be at realizing Uni-
versal potential; animals other than humans are clearly unable to gaze as
far into the landscapes of imagination that humans conjure up out of the
informational ocean of Universal possibility.
CHAPTER 11
Our Oneness
A human being is part of a whole, called by us the “universe,” a
part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his
thoughts and feelings, as something separate %om the rest ― a
kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. "is delusion is a
kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to
affection for a few people near us. Our task must be to %ee our-
selves %om this prison by widening our circle of compassion to
embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its
beauty.
– Albert Einstein
All of Existence is one; there is no “apart from” Existence. It is all
one system of energy unfolding according to the possibility outlined by
the perfect logic of Cosmic Awareness which not only underlies Exis-
tence, but is Existence. Somewhere in this in$nite sea of time and energy
is you, currently being affected in your internal energetic makeup by my
current energetic makeup as I write this on a thundery April night. !e
force of this concept sparking through my brain and mind echoes on this
page and resonates in your mind. It is the energy of Existence's being
swimming in the mind of Cosmic Awareness.
!is energy touches your mind through your body; through
your senses, which gather information from the world around you and
model the content of that information in your brain (the processing of
which generates your conscious experience of the content of that infor-
mation), your consciousness touches the energy of the outside world
directly. Mind is an energetic phenomenon within Existence, and is not
set apart from the whole. (Symmetrically, energy is also a phenomenon
of awareness, the necessary embodiment of Cosmic Awareness' logic
expressed in systematic change over time.) Meditate and observe that
you cannot control your body's reaction to sudden noises, and how part
of your body's reaction is to cause an experience of that reaction in your
awareness.
!e electricity crackling through the clouds upsets the equilib-
rium air pressure, this effect propagates through the molecules of air,
earth, and water as sound, vibrates nerves in my cochlea, and is inter-
preted energetically and logically by my brain; this logical modeling
rumbles my mind and I experience the chaos of the outer world within.
!e world is mirrored in my mind. !e mind, also, is mirrored in the
world by its effects on the energy in the world: this page is an example.
!e contents of my mind are here physically encoded in twists and
swirls of black, squiggles temporarily positioned together by your com-
puter. My mind enlists the minds of my cells and coordinates this action,
this writing, expending energy I ate and which originally reached our
planet in the sun's light. It is now modeled and mirrored in your mind
through a similar agency; your brain cells and eye muscles are burning
your food and your oxygen to gather and model this information in your
energetic mind.
Cosmic Awareness is reality. It is wrong to say that Cosmic
Awareness contains reality, or that reality contains Cosmic Awareness.
(Any container is necessarily distinct from its contents, and Cosmic
Awareness and reality are indistinct, they are one and the same.) When
you look out into the world and believe you are seeing physical reality
out there, and experiencing mental reality in here, you are being tricked
by an illusion of the intuition. Our mental experience of reality is an as-
pect of reality; when I look out and see a tree, I am looking out from a
system of Cosmic information at another system of Cosmic information;
these systems of Cosmic information touch each other via electromag-
netic waves, with one sending and the other receiving and interpreting.
In the act of interpreting, modeling that information, the subjective ac-
companiment to that "ourish of dynamic Truth, Awareness, experiences
the reality of what is informationally occurring; the Universe is amaz-
ingly complicated enough that these informational realities can only be
manifested through the depth of sensation and apprehension we per-
ceive throughout life. It is ridiculously amazing, beyond the bounds of
any human mind that this is the case.
You should strive to feel the reality of your oneness with the
Universe; it is perhaps the most momentous, beautiful feeling one can
feel. Close your eyes and try to inhabit the reality that your breathing is
part of the natural "ow of the Universe, just like the wind rustling the
leaves, that your consciousness is a component of Existence arising from
the same basis as all others, alongside the shining of the sun and the
spinning of the Earth. Our experience of reality feels separate from the
whole because we inhabit a $nite re"ection of the in$nite One; the con-
sciousness of life is the In$nite Awareness of God turned inside out.
Death results in the reversal of this inversion, unwinding our kno%ed
corner of Cosmic Awareness and relaxing our consciousness back into
oneness with all Knowing.
•§•
We are genetically related to every life form on the planet. No
ma%er what organism you choose, from the e. coli in your gut to your
pet dog or $sh or the tree in your front yard; if you traced your ancestry
back far enough, you would eventually make your way to the shared an-
cestor between your cells and that organism's cells (or cell). We branch
off from common roots in different directions, but never sever the ties of
our origins. In truth, all living things are part of exactly one several-
billion year-old, worldwide organism.
Every cell in your body grew out of the union between one each
of your mother's and father's cells, which grew out of the union of one of
their mother's and father's cells, all the way back to the time when our
ancestors reproduced asexually; there has never been a break in the con-
tinuum of our living cells since the dawn of life on Earth. Never since the
$rst chemical replicators came about in the pre-biotic era (as is currently
the theorized model for how life originally began) has a life form sprung
into existence from inanimate ma%er. (Any organic molecule suited to
the formation of a chemical replicator would have been instantly de-
voured as food by the more advanced life already present, as Darwin
points out.)
We are all different shoots from the same roots, like a multifari-
ous Aspen colony planted in time. Truly, as an organism you are billions
of years old. If even a single one of your direct ancestors died before hav-
ing children, you wouldn't be alive: that branch in the Great Tree of Life
(the single organism of Earthly life), would have died instead of eventu-
ally growing into you. It is charming, the self-centeredness of the family
trees we draw up, which usually only show the budding and ripening
fruit on the tree of life. If we could look through the fog of time obscur-
ing past generations, we would see, with a gasp, that our lineage (that is,
the unbroken chain of living our cells have survived) is directly con-
nected to every other life form alive going back to the very $rst single-
celled organism in our ancestry, about 4 billion years ago.
Your life is an astounding triumph; every single one of your di-
rect ancestors survived long enough in this hazardous, competitive
world to reproduce, every single one! For 4 billion years, through every
Earthly disaster, every catastrophic meteor strike, ice age, plague, and
famine, our ancestry wove a daring, unimaginably unlikely thread of sur-
vival. Our families are the greatest victors to have ever lived, with a per-
fect winning streak going back to the very dawn of life. Having children
yourself is giving your cells a chance to survive through yet another “life-
time”, which might be%er be called yet another season in the life cycle, a
continuation of the already billions of years of lifetime your DNA has
produced.
All living creatures today carry their origins in their being. Our
bodies are like aquariums for our cells; in our evolution we never exactly
le# the sea, but brought the sea along with us. Your body: a bubble of
watery life "oating on dry land, with rivers of liquid rushing within and
passing through. Look at the plants in your environment- think about
the immense journey those plants' ancestors have taken in making it to
that exact spot from their starting point in the seas hundreds of millions
of years ago. !ink about the gulf of time separating you from your
aquatic forebears and how that gulf is $lled without a gap by vivid, dra-
matic living amongst dinosaurs and other threats, in packs, in tribes, and
in villages. Every one of your father's father's fathers survived through
this chaos long enough to $nd every one of your father's father's mothers
to pass on their essence, their life.
•§•
Even more fundamental than our biological relationship with all
Earthly life, we are chemically related to every atom in the Universe;
every electron, proton, and neutron, every photon, and every particle is
made of the same primordial, Big Bang energy expressed in different
ways. !e way in which those atoms react and interact are determined by
the foundational logic of reality, the Truth described above. We are
gravitationally related to every mass in the Universe, no ma%er how far,
large or small. Gravity is in fact yet another expression of the primordial
energy bound up in our molecules, the reactive force in the fabric of
space to the presence of energy of the right conditions. !e perception
that the Earth or your mind or body are distinct and separate from the
Universe, from the absolute oneness of reality is simply an illusion, or a
super$cial assumption based on surface appearances and an incomplete
understanding.
We are beings of pure energy inhabiting the glowing, boundless
miracle of Existence. Existence is in$nitely more beautiful and expansive
than we can possibly realize or experience currently; our tiny brains, as
powerful as they are, can model in normal awareness no more space than
the size of a small room, no more time than a few hours, and no more in
number than about 100. (Of course, we can imagine or know about
larger or smaller things, but we generally can't feel the relative largeness
between them beyond a certain very con$ned region, hanging close by
the size of our everyday reality.) Aldous Huxley was very right when he
said, a bit regretfully, “Human beings have an absolute and in$nite ca-
pacity for taking things for granted.” Our brains simply cannot begin to
process the miraculous complexity and signi$cance of our being.
Look at your amazing body design; isn't it marvelous that it is
possible to look at all? !ink of our origins, our surroundings, the per-
fect obedience with which the energy in the world follows the physical
laws (obedient because energy can only behave within the bounds of
physical law, of the Truth from which that energy is extended), and the
limitless potential made existent by Truth. To hold the in$nite in mind:
this should be the ultimate quest of any intelligent species (of course,
with the realization that a $nite being can never experience the fullness
of in$nity; only the Awareness of Existence itself is truly in$nite, and
present for the in$nite span).
It is impossible for us to inhabit the whole blissful Truth of how
momentous every moment is. Every single second in every corner of
Existence's existence is exactly as much a part of God as any other; it is
all one in the divine light of Knowing. !e perspective through which
we see this reality is framed through the view of a surviving, temporary
animal, trying to make the very most of its being in the ways that it is
driven to by nature, and whom is not necessarily a%uned to the pro-
found signi$cance of its surroundings. !e human experience has for-
ever been framed by this strange existential position, balanced between
our animal instincts on the one hand, instilling in us a will to compete, to
dominate, and to generally act and think according to our impulses and
sensations, and on the other hand our a%ribute of rational thought,
which grants us empathy, humor, art, science, and technology.
!e majority of humans seem lonely for a world we can't quite
remember but feel deep in our longing: the ful$lling self-interest of in-
stinctive living. If we could stay in that fully animal world, our intelli-
gence could certainly be considered overdeveloped, and a burden with
no use but to make our instincts embarrassing to us. Of course, there is
no way to get back to the simplicity of our distant ancestors; our higher
reasoning draws us ever closer to the day when we can step out of the
perplexing instinctive/rational twilight we occupy into the sunlight of
higher understanding.
We live in the very dawning of this time, when our creativity will
bring us to a deeper understanding of reality. It seems abundantly clear
that this will be achieved in the near future through the technological
enhancement of our brains; already, I have access to much of the breadth
of human knowledge at my $ngertips, and before very long I will have
access to it behind my eyes. We will soon begin to unlock means of di-
rect intelligence augmentation from the limitless potential present in our
Universe, and enter into transcendent knowing of ourselves and our sur-
roundings. Divine seeing will be a%ained in humanity's future, and we
play a role in its formation throughout our lives by carrying the torch of
living time into the future, shaping its unfolding.
If you think human consciousness is the pinnacle of awareness,
prepare to be awed beyond your wildest imaginings. !e more intelli-
gence you have, in other words the greater the sophistication with which
your brain models and interacts with the world, the more deep and vivid
your experience of reality. Just as a human mind is more enjoyable, per-
sonally meaningful, and powerful than a snail's mind, a signi$cantly
augmented human mind will experience an unfathomably deeper life:
unthinkably blissful, beyond heavenly. !e more of the Universe you can
$t into your awareness, the more exhilarating experience can be. If you
could feel it all at once, like Cosmic Awareness, the experience would
exceed any awed feeling of beauty any human can begin to imagine. I say
it again: your consciousness and experience of life are indivisible com-
ponents of the consciousness of Existence; the grand Awareness of the
One is comprised at once of all our experiences and its Knowing of all
energetic happenings.
In the future, we will break through into a new level of con-
sciousness, and be able to perceive the immensity of breadth, the depth
of complexity and beauty within the Being of the Universe as vividly as
we feel our own emotions. A new level of feeling and knowing will grow
around our current human mind, just as our human mind rests upon our
mammalian and reptilian instincts, those which still remain. We would
evolve naturally out of these instincts if we went on for enough time, but
since they still have proven useful for survival (especially amongst earlier
generations living in more dangerous times), there is no evolutionary
impetus for them to recede.
Even living in a perfectly safe environment for generations
would not breed these sensations out of us; it will $nally take self-
neuroengineering to switch them off and see if the effect is desirable, to
realize that we no longer have to live like this, with pain and anxiety at a
low sizzle in the background of our minds. Once all animal debts of po-
tential violence are se%led by our progress, and we achieve the ability to
live as long as we want, we will be free to mute the survival-tinge in our
mind and turn up the volume on the sweet love and pleasure. !is might
sound like a description of an intoxicant, but will prove to be so much
more: rather than an intelligence fogging haze, it will be a gaze into crys-
tal clarity, into the peace and in$nite intricacy of Truth at the heart of
Existence.
CHAPTER 12
Intelligence vs. Instinct
Once your mind is calm and full of love,
there is no room for hatred or fear.
Others will trust you because of your open heart.
-Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
Many of the difficulties in human life arise from the dichotomy
between the animal instincts we have inherited from our ancestry, and
our relatively brand new rationality. We are saddled with a robust fear
re"ex developed through hundreds of millions of years of surviving as
prey animals, intense social/emotional sensations from millions of years
of cooperative survival, o#-overwhelming sexual desires from almost a
billion years of sexual reproduction, etc. Our intelligence observes and is
pulled by these impulses with frustration and confusion; we are able to
realize that many of our uncomfortable feelings are unnecessary, but are
o#en powerless to negate them without ful$lling the actions they impel
or drowning them out with experientially louder stimuli. !ese instincts
underly most emotional states, and are therefore extremely in"uential in
our degree of happiness or contentment.
Everyone has their own experience and idea of what happiness is
and should be, and for this reason no one can hope to de$ne it in a truly
objective light. To me, true happiness is a way of living, made up of posi-
tivity, gratitude, compassion, and love. It is inner wellbeing, a feeling of
savoring life instead of enduring life. I think it isn't easy to maintain, nor
easy to reach; it takes consistent effort to frame my reality in this light
instead of seeing the world through the instinctive anxiety of a surviving
animal. Happiness is not a goal you can reach and permanently have; it is
a constant process, a style of perceiving.
!e truest happiness, accessible to all (to a point), is loving awe
for the Universe: shaking off the familiarity and loving all of this for even
being possible. When taken as a whole, the hugeness of possibility and
the elegance of Existence is the most profoundly beautiful fact to marvel
at, and seeing our lives in the context of this in$nite, miraculous being
instills a feeling that no ma%er what is detracting from our happiness,
everything is perfectly all right. All the things we are cynical about, all
the existential discomfort of not knowing our ultimate purpose is com-
pletely unnecessary.
When I think about the Universe in the context of the ideas put
forward in this book, and really place myself in that context, I feel like
the luckiest entity that has ever existed, with soaring happiness and ex-
citement, in love with all that is. !is is peace for me, but my imperfect
mind keeps me from holding onto it securely for more than a wink of
time; I have to really ramp up to the meditative or cosmic mindset over
time, away from distractions.
If our brains were a million times more capable, we could savor
the beauty of reality in such a way as to extravagantly outstrip any expe-
rience of paradise possible for humans to imagine or experience cur-
rently. !is is the goal of my meditation and my mindfulness throughout
the day: to inhabit the world on a deeper, truer level, nearer to Cosmic
Truth, nearer to love. It isn't easy, but it's fun! Challenging, and having
the opportunity to face a worthwhile challenge seems to be a corner-
stone of human wellbeing.
With our minds, we can consciously enhance the world we ex-
perience. If you want to live in a different world, all you have to do is
change your perspective on the world. A change in worldview results in a
completely different life lived: your train of thought will take you to dif-
ferent destinations; you will react to situations differently and thereby
come to different outcomes. How can we choose the best lens through
which to view our lives and the world? It is impossible to truly say, but if
you $nd yourself consistently unhappy, it is likely because your personal
worldview is not your personal ideal. Stride forward into life as an ad-
venture of your own design, and develop your worldview on your own
terms, whether it jives with the popular viewpoint or not.
By using our human intelligence we can deepen our perspective
on every moment of our lives, every sensation we take for granted, and
gradually clear away the dust that has se%led over our day to day experi-
ence. If we don't pay a%ention, our brains tend to se%le on the blandest
possible interpretation of our surroundings. !e vivid colors and depth
become "at, grayed, and go unnoticed by our familiarized mind. !e
depth of beauty in our Universe is so far beyond the capacity of our
brains that sometimes, trying to let more into our bored minds becomes
a colossal effort. !e fun is, we can start experiencing more immediately,
and continue the broadening and deepening whenever we remember
and choose to.
One of the most successful applications of intelligence in con-
trolling our wayward instincts and be%er appreciating life is the act of
meditation, in its many forms. !e deepest goal of meditation is to in-
habit and experience directly the part of you which is more you than
your personality, more you than your intelligence, than your thoughts,
your memories, hopes, or fears. !e deepest core of you, perhaps called
your soul, is your “I”, that which is conscious of all these variegated phe-
nomena. !e experiencer– that is you; throughout all the changes you've
undergone in personality, experience and worldview, this central facet
has never and will never change. !at is who you are, and that is who all
of us are; it is the part of God we each personally inhabit, our temporar-
ily enbubbled droplet of Cosmic Awareness.
Try to experience the immensity of Existence, the massive truth,
beyond all human conveyance, that things exist, and not just any things,
but in$nitely complex things- you exist! To truly realize the signi$cance
of this, the unimaginable magnitude of this truth, is enlightenment. It
cannot be properly put into words. Try to meld your understanding of
the outside world, and your understanding of the inside world into one,
and see that this animal you control exists in this limitless Universe, and
that you, the consciousness experiencing and guiding this animal's life,
exist. It sounds so innocent and simple in writing, as if it is merely stating
the obvious, but the fact that things exist is the most profound gi# imag-
inable. Existence gets to exist; all this possibility is allowed to "ourish
eternally, an ocean of Truth without end. And you are the experiencer of
it. Meditate and try to occupy the reality of your existence. Ascend to
greater heights of experiential being.
!e most fundamental version of the many different meditation
methods consists of si%ing comfortably, away from distractions, with
eyes closed or slightly open depending on your preference. Breathe
calmly and slowly. Now, your goal will be to totally control your mind,
and to assert this control by emptying your mind of any elaborative
thinking, that is, thinking which follows a linear path, with one thought
leading to another, to another, and so on: the type of thinking your brain
has been employed with enacting throughout every day of your life. Spe-
ci$cally, the goal of your meditation will be to identify and deactivate
any thoughts which are complicated enough to require representation in
words and sentences (and therefore making up an inner monologue).
Because we are so practiced at linear thought, when you $rst learn to
meditate, it will prove immensely difficult to avoid thinking in this way
for more than the very smallest spans of time. Even experienced medita-
tors struggle to maintain a perfectly quiet mind while meditating.
Many people resist even a%empting meditation, saying “I al-
ready possess full control over my mind, I exert that control all day, every
day. Why should I practice controlling my mind when I am already as
good as I can get at it?” Fine, if this is the case, how long do you think
you could keep your mind quiet and a%entive to the activity of self-
quieting? If you've never tried, I would wager you can do so for no
longer than the time it takes to breathe in and out twice, and likely not
even close to that long; there's only one way to $nd out, and you lose
nothing by trying it.
In order to achieve the desired cessation of linear thought, it is
necessary to willfully engage all of your brain at once and direct it to-
wards this one goal- not thinking and elaborating upon thoughts. If you
lose track of any one region, sure enough, from that neural zone,
thoughts will begin bubbling up, and part of your Awareness will not be
meditating, but will be thinking your regular day-to-day thoughts: “I
can't believe he said that! He totally misunderstood what happened, and
furthermore, he's an asshole for assuming I would have those intentions,
etc.”... !is phenomenon will be totally unavoidable at $rst, and less so as
you continue practicing. When thoughts crop up, and you notice them,
willfully choose not to continue that progression of thinking, and rally
that region of your awareness to rejoin your full-brain focus.
!is can be the most profoundly impactful form of meditation
to embark on, and it requires both intense concentration and an easy
looseness. !e goal is to possess full control of your mind for as long as
you can. !at is, resist the sensation of your neural activity enticing your
mind to think thoughts; allow no inner dialogue, and allow no thought
development. You will inevitably waver and $nd yourself riding a train of
thought; do not get frustrated, simply drop the thought and return to the
exercise. It can take some time to overcome the tendency to think “Al-
right, now my mind is clear. (No it's not, I'm still thinking words). Ok,
now my mind is clear. (whoops) Yep, now I'm meditating (dammit)”, but
simply the act of trying is (in my experience) existentially bene$cial;
learning how to take control of one's mind in some small degree allows
one to exert more control over their reaction to the events of their life,
enabling a more calm, wise, and peaceful state of being.
As you progress through practice, you will learn to identify the
sensation which occurs right before you explicitly hear the words of a
thought; it is the feeling in your mind that a concept is brewing in brain,
which calls to your mind to pay a%ention to it, to link and develop it. In
normal human life, we chase these sensations around and around, think-
ing a thought then apprehending the potential places in brain where that
thought can lead, choosing the most appealing, and continuing on. In
meditation, we reject these sensations, engaging our entire brains under
the command of our mind to quiet down compartmentalized neuronal
activities in favor of intent focus.
If you can master this style of meditation, you will have a%ained
a level of conscious being away from the style you have employed in al-
most every waking moment of your life. In stepping away from the hab-
its and concepts which occupy your style of thinking, those dedicated to
your self-image, personality, fears, goals, etc., the essential wellbeing as-
sociated with living by its most fundamental level, Awareness, comes to
occupy the full space of your being, and this central peace can buoy the
previously storm-ba%ered human mindset resting upon it. !is essential
wellbeing represents the indomitable will to live, to survive, which qui-
etly underlies your experience of life at all times.
It is profoundly bene$cial to learn this distinction between the
context for your mindset (mood, worries, tiredness, culture, social peers
and self-socialization techniques, gender, life history, and more broadly,
species and era), and the greater context forming the basis for your
mind's existence (awareness itself, and the physical world "owing in
Truth around and within you). Sometimes it is very bene$cial to escape
your personal context and experience the world from the deeper per-
spective of fundamental Awareness, with no judgement or inner dia-
logue allowed, and this is the wondrous value of this style of meditation.
Once you have practiced enough to be able to perform this men-
tal self-control, you can use focused meditation to gain insight on any-
thing you wish, perhaps trying to inhabit the reality of the physics mak-
ing up your world, the atoms and forces summing to you, in order to ex-
perience life from a different perspective. Meditate on how all the other
people out there meditating at this moment exist at a de$nite place, a
constellation wrapped around the globe; some of them are on the other
side of the Earth from you, separated from where you sit by thousands of
miles of magma. Imagine all the meditation that has been performed in
the past, how each instance existed at a de$nite place out there in space,
stretched out over history, comets of thought streaked back there
through time. Imagine the physical existence of your imaginings, the
unique, shi#ing electrochemical nebulae draped throughout your neu-
rons for every thought and every sensation.
You can meditate and try to cultivate compassion for other hu-
mans, in order to found your relationships with others on a sincere feel-
ing of wellbeing. Meditate and forgive the world for its wrongs and love
it for its potential. Meditate and explore the existence and nature of your
mind and environment.
Meditate with the goal of feeling perfect happiness and comfort.
You are perfectly worthy of it; allow yourself to let go of frustration, re-
gret, and boredom and embrace gratitude, even if only for the merest
instant. Meditate with the worldview put forward in this book in mind,
try to occupy the reality that you are living God's Awareness, and try on
the loving, awed perspective this can enable. Allow yourself to love your-
self, and express that love by holding onto happiness and willful en-
gagement with life. Radiate the kindness, warmth and acceptance that
"owers in this enlightened state.
I believe that the very purpose of life is to be happy. From the very
core of our being, we desire contentment. In my own limited experience I have
found that the more we care about others, the greater is our own sense of well-
being. Cultivating a close, warmhearted feeling for others automatically puts
the mind at ease. It helps remove whatever fears or insecurities we may have
and gives us the strength to cope with any obstacles we encounter. It is the
principal source of success in life. Since we are not solely material creatures, it
is a mistake to place all our hopes on external development alone. "e key is
to develop inner peace.
-Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso
A simple and immediately bene$cial extension of meditation is
actually paying close a%ention to the character of your day to day experi-
ences, the delicate colors forming the image of a tree, the feeling of our
$ngers effortlessly dancing over a keyboard, the sensation of sunlight or
wind on your body, the texture of sounds in your mind, the never-
ending cascade of words thought and heard internally, the feeling of a
refreshing gulp of water- there are no words that convey the personally
felt sensations, but the experiences themselves are vivid and interesting
upon examination. Our instincts o#en compel us to worry about the
future, or to regret the past; se%ling into the sensational reality of the
present disengages these unpleasant and o#en inappropriate thought
pa%erns. Humans have a natural tendency to ignore things they've expe-
rienced many times before, as if we get everything we need out of some-
thing by experiencing it once or a few times. On the contrary, closely
reexamining the sensations and experiences we take for granted can
open new windows of perception we never expected to exist.
!is is mindfulness, the Buddhist concept: a%entively experi-
encing the sensations of life without analyzing them, and without le%ing
our imaginations wander from the simple act of being. It is a truly relax-
ing and luxurious way to spend time, but it takes close concentration to
perform; our minds are occupied by our endlessly calculative brains,
chasing thought a#er thought a#er thought ceaselessly and o#en with-
out direction. Of course, this stream of consciousness is enjoyable too,
and is the inheritance of humanity, but it is quite a delight to experience
life closer to sensation and further away from thought.
•§•
!e belief that any positive experience is bought at the price of
negative experiences is taught in several forms in school and at home to
almost every modern child, directly as a result of having been taught to
most of our recent ancestors. !is is obviously wisdom, that working
today will reap bene$ts in the future. !e problem with the doctrine is
that strictly observed it con"ates the fruits of planning ahead with all
future happiness; unfortunately, it seems the further off happiness is
postponed, the less likely it will be reached.
If an entire life is based on a%aining happiness in the future by
self-denial of it today, by adulthood the habit is o#en intractable; no
peace is reached because we have learned to live life in the present as a
sacri$ce to the future. Even when all our goals are met, we don't know
what to do with ourselves. !e a%ainment of the goal hasn't conjured
lasting happiness out of our frantic hearts, so we set new goals, and rush
to complete them. !e longer a person continues in this frame of mind,
the more resigned they will be to the unreachable nature of happiness.
!e best they know is the security of exertion, that as long as they are
working hard and not enjoying themselves, there will be happiness in
the future. Sadly for these souls, the future never makes it all the way to
now.
A healthier viewpoint is to seek the beauty of the present mo-
ment, to be more aware of the quiet miracle that surrounds us at all
times. Meditation with this goal in mind can be a beautiful method of
breaking the habit of future gazing, and appreciating the fundamental
comfort of being. If you can make it your highest aspiration to possess
tranquility and peace in every moment, there can be no fear for the fu-
ture, nor mourning for wrongs in the past. If today you make it your
business to enjoy today, and leave the task of appreciating tomorrow to
tomorrow, most every outcome of your life will be guided by a joyful,
wise you, and not by the machinations of an implacable, stressed and
desperate you. If you spend every day grasping towards !e Way to
Happiness sold to you by our materialistic and shallow modern culture,
contentment will dance just out of reach, like a carrot on a stick. If you
lay on your back and re"ect on the spirit of today, you may $nd that the
carrot you were chasing has fallen into your lap.
Another pernicious human tendency is the instinctive mindset
of fear. !e default animal mindset, evolutionarily bene$cial to organ-
isms in the eat or be eaten wild, is alertness spiked with bouts of panic
triggered by surprise noises or movements. !is underlying mindset is
expressed in modern humans as anxiety and stress; we no longer have
predators to fear, but our biological framework persists in steadily dosing
our minds with anxious brain pa%erns. !is fear is projected on any un-
predictable or undesirable outcome; we fret over rejection, death of
loved ones, physical pain, sickness, crime, the economy, our careers, how
people may be judging us, etc. !e problem in most of these situations is
that sustained fear of the outcome cannot change the outcome in any
way; once the realization that an action could have consequences is ex-
perienced as something frightening or undesired, holding on to the con-
ception of the negative outcome brings the possible damage from that
outcome into explicit being in the present, preemptively causing pain
out of mere imagination.
Worry multiplies the pain of our eventual misfortunes need-
lessly and, if unchecked, boundlessly. Instead of accepting the certainty
of future pain and our helplessness to stop it, we carry the imagined pain
in our minds and thereby injure ourselves. Being that this is something
of an instinct for us, to avoid it we have to engage our newer a%ribute of
intelligence to rationalize our fears, otherwise they stampede in our
hearts and trample our thoughts. Let us face fear without fear, accept
that pain is part of life and not spend all our time unharmed $xating on
it.
Whereas fear involves bringing future pain into the present, re-
gret needlessly brings past pain into the present. Regretful or ruminant
thoughts can appear from nowhere and remain in mind relentlessly, es-
pecially when the regret is of a romantic nature or of a personal mistake
that harmed another person. !e train of thought inspired by this corro-
sive memory negatively in"uences our thoughts and actions for the du-
ration of its stay in consciousness. Aldous Huxley describes regret beau-
tifully: “If you have behaved badly, repent, make what amends you can
and address yourself to the task of behaving be%er next time. On no ac-
count brood over your wrongdoing. Rolling in the muck is not the best
way of ge%ing clean.” !is wisdom hinges on the strength of our per-
sonal honesty; when we wrongly ascribe responsibility to external
causes, no insight, and o#en no true reconciliation with the regret, can
be gained.
!e natural response for our evolutionarily conditioned brains is
to let anxiety prowl around in our brains unchallenged, to habitually let
the fear of future pain or memory of past pain sour the 99.9% of time
spent uninjured. Any injury strikes far deeper than the actual wound be-
cause of the emotional toil of stress that preemptive fear of the injury
builds into. !e baseline of human experience seems to be mild discon-
tent- no ma%er what the circumstances, the majority of us quickly revert
back to this resigned mode and let the weeks pass. It seems to be in our
biology. A very successful strategy to overcoming the tendency to hold
fear and regret in mind is to meditate by focusing your a%ention on the
part of your awareness occupied by that feeling (any negative feeling,
pain, embarrassment, stress, anxiety, etc.) and experiencing clearly what
the sensation feels like.
In this exercise you don't try to avoid the feeling, you don't try to
quiet the feeling or evaluate its causes, you try and bring it front and cen-
ter in your awareness and inhabit the feeling, see what its "avor is. You
may o#en $nd that in paying a%ention to the feeling itself and not expe-
riencing it through its effect on your thoughts and mood, it slowly dis-
appears, or changes shape to escape your grasp. !e stronger is your in-
ner concentration, the intensity of your meditative a%ention, the quicker
the egress.
It is also bene$cial to evaluate the cause of the sensation in refer-
ence to the big picture, the biggest picture you can imagine. Look at our
in$nite surroundings, the in$nite time, space, intricacy, and beauty. Also
consider the countless number of lives, experiences, mistakes, miscon-
nections, wrongs, and observe that in spite of all of it life itself is un-
marred, repeatedly refreshed from life to life. No ma%er what pain you
are experiencing, anger, grief, jealousy, anxiety, the more you can
broaden the context in which you view your life and world, the more
peaceful your awareness will become.
!e habit of drowning out a feeling with television, work, drugs
(including alcohol very prominently), etc., instead of facing the feeling
and what it tells you is very harmful in the end. In this case you only
quiet and $nally put the beast in your chest and mind to sleep, deferring
dealing with it until it inevitably reawakens more loudly and insistently
later. Meditatively living the feeling, rationalizing it and learning from it
at once frees the beast and strengthens your inner wellbeing, now ener-
gized with wisdom gained and restful in peace. !e major difficulty in
beginning this practice is the energy it takes; whereas evading feelings
through distractions can be done lazily, learning to meditate and actually
meditating takes a large degree of effort. Is wellbeing worth it? Cynicism
is so much easier and societally widespread, but is so life-cheapening; it
masquerades as wisdom when it is really base ignorance and a security
blanket against taking responsibility for one's own worldview.
Any society or worldview that predisposes people to feel that
their life is valueless if they do not achieve the cultural ideal is damaged,
representing an obstacle that every citizen must overcome if they are to
recognize the value and beauty of living beyond narrow material and
social pursuits. !e cultural identity instilled in people from growing up
under the in"uence of their peers, neighbors and more broadly, their
language, native history and social norms, frames their natural world-
view, what they expect of life: their goals, reactions, and valuations of all
experiences and ideas. !ose whose natural disposition is at odds with
the social zeitgeist, for instance introverts in the extroverted West, o#en
tend towards cynicism or depression, $xating on what is “wrong” with
their life, what doesn't match up to their neighbors and to the imaginary
societal ideal they have learned.
If $nd yourself in a world you don't want to live in, seek $rst to
understand, then to rede$ne your perspective on life, on your own
terms. You are not required to think about things in the way others seem
to, you are not required to ful$ll what you believe others expect of you;
you are free to de$ne your place in the world. If you are engaged in deli-
cious living, but despair that so many others you encounter are despon-
dent, take the opportunity to bring goodness into the world in every
interaction you can muster the energy to. When cynical or world-weary
people are confronted by a disagreeable or angry person, they see it as
con$rmation of their suspicion that all other people share their darkened
view of life. !eir frustration is then mirrored in others who are primed
to see the negative in their brethren for the same reason. It is much easier
to fall in line with the collective, dissatis$ed human perspective than to
exert energy against the herd towards a be%er way of thinking, but a bet-
ter world can be made through the intelligent cultivation of compassion.
•§•
!ere is a disconcerting archetype of human thinking, consist-
ing of the deep belief that the only way to preserve the cultural species is
to outcompete and dominate the others. !is underlying societal mur-
mur comes roaring to a yell in times of upheaval, propelling us tribalisti-
cally into yet another series of prolonged mutual sacri$ces, with some
changes coming to pass (mostly steps backwards), at an immense expe-
riential and spiritual cost. !ink about the monstrosities human society
bumbled into in the past, especially World War I and II. !e fact that
events like these are a constant throughout human history (imagine the
barbaric lives humanity has faced in the past, how brutally harsh life was
in those times) is very painful to ruminate about. !e thought that we
could possibly repeat these mistakes on a scale this large is too terrible to
speak of; one hopes that we are be%er than this, that we have learned
from the past.
When the time comes are we again going to watch the instincts
of the hoard cry for ba%le without saying a word? Will we ever discover
the alternative, that we could pursue a path of mutual bene$t, for the
sake of promoting global human advancement and collaboration? Or is
this ideal so far "ung from the individual human sel$shnesses and cul-
tural habits of thought making up these populations that it is unlikely to
be reached unless human society profoundly changes?
Shall we get caught up ourselves, and pound our $sts from the
sidelines, only to shake our heads and hide from our consciences later?
When our children proudly tell us they are going off to the government
to kill strangers they are commanded to kill, will we shake their hand
and congratulate them for their bravery, or $nally have the sense to beg
them to reconsider? It is far braver to resist the pressure put on society to
conform to one ordained set of ideas, and stand up for an ideal greater
than that of any reason to go to war: peace.
!is should be humanity's highest goal for the next century: to
$x the violent social code of the past, and eliminate war altogether. !e
fact that this is currently unthinkable makes it all the more clear how
primitive humanity remains. At present, big war is big business. Peace is
the last thing those with a vested interest in the military industrial com-
plex want; they are not the ones that have to suffer the inhuman cruelty
of the ba%le$eld, they stay at home and reap the dividends of their in-
vestments, no ma%er which side wins. !ese woefully insightless indi-
viduals embody evil of the worst kind: voracious, self-serving, with full
knowledge of the chaos they engender, without the slightest tinge of
conscience. With the immensity of their wealth and ties to other wealthy
elites, they wield an unreasonable degree of power over politics and me-
dia. Time and time again they sound the war drum with their subtle
propaganda, time and time again we step in line, and again they feast on
the bloodle%ing of the lower classes.
Of course, demilitarization is currently an impossible ideal.
Global society is still set up as an adversarial, self-interested dominance
struggle. It will take time, but with sufficient advances in technology, the
motivations for going to war will begin to disappear; if the technological
revolutions of the future ful$ll their promise, wealth beyond any cur-
rently available will be essentially free to all, and the stage will be set for
us to $nally transcend our ancient ways. I am aware that the idea of such
a future may appear completely fanciful, yet if you investigate the possi-
bility represented by nanotechnology, genetic engineering, quantum
computing, and arti$cial intelligence, and place these in the context of
exponential technological advancement, this outcome begins to appear
more likely, to the point that it seems the only way we will not reach this
peak will be if we are unable to mature as a species, and use such tech-
nologies for violence. Ray Kurzweil and other futurists are presently
busy trying to prepare for and avoid such rami$cations. I am con$dent
that our higher nature will prevail, and that the idiotic violence we sub-
ject ourselves to in the decades to come will soon be supplanted by wise
diplomacy and cooperation, continuing the incremental progress we
have made over the previous millennia.
•§•
We generally evaluate the intentions of others based on what
we've learned about them in the time we've known them. !is is largely
why $rst impressions are so important; the way a relationship unfolds is
guided at each moment by the context built up between the two people
in their prior interactions. If, for instance, one person is tired or stressed
when meeting a new person, the other person may perceive the $rst as
fundamentally dour or humorless, and will interact with them accord-
ingly. !e $rst person will possibly feel that the second person is un-
friendly on account of this, and their relationship will grow from this
sour basis. !is is just one example of the boundless range of potential
disconnects that can occur each day between people; it is immensely
complex to try to interact favorably with others at all times, and because
of this difficulty I $nd it valuable to try to remember to be compassion-
ate towards myself and others. We try so hard to never cause harm
against impossible odds, but embarrassments, anger and anxiety are in-
evitable. We should try to take social mis$res less seriously.
Apologies have the potential to alleviate some of the tension.
However, apologies can be a bit dangerous. When apologizing, you are
revealing your belief that the person is offended enough that you feel
emotionally compelled to apologize. !is can feel threatening on the
receiving end, o#en making the apologee want to say “I wish you could
step inside my mind right now so I could show you that I really don't feel
the way you fear that I do. Please don't apologize, understand I am not
the kind of person to be offended by what transpired.” !is difficulty,
especially in instances where it is not certain an apology is warranted,
keeps a lot of apologies from happening. Maybe this is for the best; it is
truly impossible to say because everyone has different emotional re-
sponses to every situation. Emotions are profoundly personal, and
unique in every individual. Because interacting with others is founded
on responding to the emotional state conveyed through body and spo-
ken language, and there is no way to feel another person's emotions
without modeling them from your own pale%e of emotions, emotional
misunderstandings are a de$ning feature of the human and animal expe-
rience.
It is likely the case that we are wrong when we imagine other
peoples' feelings: we can only imagine another person's feelings through
our own style of feeling. We o#en believe that we 'know' how someone
else is feeling, but we only have our own sensations, our empathy's at-
tempt at understanding how they feel based on our brain's interpretation
of the valence of the situation and their body language. Our own feelings
represent everything we know about how another person is feeling.
How do you imagine another person feels when they are acting angrily?
You imagine what anger feels like to you, what you think you would feel
if you were in their place, and that sensation is based on the way their
anger and the situation (who they are directing the anger at, for what
reason, and what other onlookers are present) is making you feel. At no
point in your valuation of their mental state do you have any access to
the actual feelings they are experiencing.
When you speak and think sentences, the ideas they represent
already underly and impel the formation of those sentences. On the
other hand, when you hear or read, the thought behind the sentences
don't come through until you evaluate each word's meaning and context.
!is is the fundamental problem of communication, that the speaker
forms his words with the idea already fully held in mind, while the lis-
tener has to interpret these symbolic, objective ideas (words) based on
the speaker's choice of words and tone. Body language helps in face to
face interaction, but o#en at the expense of creating many more oppor-
tunities for misinterpretations to come across, because each listener can
only interpret the speaker's meaning through their own personal world-
view and expectations. A person with a cynical disposition will likely
misinterpret neutral statements as containing a seed of sarcasm or dark-
ness, and generally take in another person's words and actions in a nega-
tive way.
Many people refuse to speak some of the things that they insinu-
ate freely. It's as if the decipherer is considered more to blame for their
interpretation of the insinuation than the cipherer is for sending it. Why
is our body language so free to speak things that we would never say? Is
it because of that old, pervasive trick of speaking contrary to body lan-
guage, even when the tone and conveyance of the words reveals them
clearly to be false? A person's words are wrongly considered the ambas-
sadors of their true self and feelings, the official account of how they feel,
when in truth their words are o#en their strategic diversion from the
same. I think Lao Tzu said something along these lines.
Not everything we generally term 'passive aggression' is aggres-
sive, exactly (aggression involves a conscious effort to explicitly cause
harm to another), but is o#en more like passive communication. It is
something like se%ing a trap for someone you want to be upset with,
because it's really saying: “I'm going to be angry if you don't understand
what my body language is saying, but I refuse to do you the courtesy of
coming right out and telling you what I'm trying to communicate,” com-
fortably ignoring the fact that no one can read another's mind without
guesswork, seeing it through the lens of their own experience. It also
leaves open the possibility that the recipient of the 'aggression' will un-
derstand what the person is conveying, but will choose to ignore it, or
outwardly misunderstand it, willfully frustrating the original aggressor.
!e existence of this option opens yet another opportunity for anger,
because in this unspoken interchange of body-language evaluations, nei-
ther party can be certain whether or not the other is actively escalating
the con"ict, or is simply not reading the clues correctly. !is can lead to
a prolonged series of passive, investigative aggression, where the aggres-
sor heightens his or her body language to elicit a de$nite reaction from
the other, to be sure they understand the other's perspective on the ex-
change– this stage o#en comes to its peak with wide eyed, furrowed-
browed, direct eye contact. At any level, because of the complexity and
guesswork involved, misunderstandings abound, and the human drama
stumbles on.
•§•
Our cynicism and discomfort are fundamentally the products of
our inherited instincts– experiencing reality from the perspective of a
fragile animal in a dangerous world keeps us anxious and aggressive.
Most humans strive throughout their lives to overcome these tendencies
and reach towards be%er, relatively newly discovered possibilities, such
as compassion, tolerance, collaboration, forgiveness, and love. !e story
of human history has unfolded in this direction, from the self-serving,
wild and dangerous ages in our global family's past towards the "owering
of enlightened, warmhearted living.
!e potential for just how loving and peaceful human life can
become in the future is boundless; there seems to be no physical limit to
how successful technological innovations can be in making life more safe
and long-lasting. If we continue pushing the boundaries of medical sci-
ence at the rate we are now, the time will soon come when the life expec-
tancy grows faster than we approach the expiration date we currently
expect (75-85 years old, as of 2012 in the United States). Along the same
lines, once we fully understand the neural basis for our experience of life,
we will be able to intelligently and cautiously adapt our brains to let go
of our anxious tendencies.
For now, we can improve the experience we inhabit by learning
to perceive the Universe in a broader, truer way. If your perspective, your
context extends only to your life, and the traditional viewpoint repre-
sented by your native culture, or the natural self-centeredness of life,
your world will likely be very small, con$ned to seeing only as deep as
the obvious reaches. In this tiny world, the smallest things can seem of
obsessive importance: an insult, an embarrassment, your personal
wealth or social net worth... !e experience of living and reacting within
these chaotic mindsets is the way of the past, which we are only just be-
ginning to learn how to resist. I have seen that the greater I can expand
my perspective, the smaller my worries, fears, and regrets become, and
the greater my personal wellbeing, compassion, and feeling of connec-
tion to life, to the Universe that enables my experiences. I hope I can
learn how to maintain such a worldview much more strongly in the fu-
ture. Ignorance is not the only path to bliss, nor does it lead to the best
kind of bliss.
CHAPTER 13
The Universality of Life
!e cumulative effect of the system of Truths discussed above
(of eternal necessary Truths compounding to generate energy and the
laws of physics) is a Life-Force draped throughout Existence. !e result
of this Life-Force is that anywhere that life is possible to arise, given suf-
$cient time (which is a drop in the river compared to the average life-
span of Universes), it will arise. !e whole of physics, including the forg-
ing of higher elements necessary to life in the supernovae of the early
generations of stars, which sca%er these elements like pollen on the wind
into space, the collapse of these atomic clouds into new stars and plan-
ets, the resultant elliptical orbits the planets se%le into (assuring the
planets steady energy input from their sun), their natural rotation, the
miraculous variety of possible chemical reactions between atoms and
molecules, the elegant logic of genetics and natural selection, the poten-
tial for cells and later brains to energetically process information and
model for themselves a subjective world, all of this sums to an unspeaka-
bly beautiful and productive incubator for in$nite varieties of life. Add to
this an in$nity of time, energy, and space, and you have an eternity of
unique perspectives arising and receding in the light of perfect Truth.
Given what we know about the Universe, asking whether life
exists elsewhere in the Universe is about as absurd as questioning
whether or not the Earth revolves around the Sun. Of course there's life,
everywhere: just in our limited range of our view there are hundreds of
quadrillions of stars, with likely quintillions of planets, and life will arise
absolutely anywhere it is possible for it to (e.g. hot springs, hydrothermal
vents, etc.). If only one out of a billion planets were suitable for life, that
would leave the observable Universe with tens of billions of lush, living
planets (and the observable Universe is very likely a speck in an in$ni-
tude of living space, the breadth of which our minds cannot grasp in any
meaningful way). If intelligence only occurs in every billionth living
planet, there would be thousands if not millions of intelligent alien spe-
cies "ourishing out there in the black. Of course, these $gures are based
on relatively blind speculation, but to my mind represent a much more
realistic evaluation of the Universe's potential for birthing life than the
popular and outdated conclusion that Earth is the lone living planet in
the Universe.
SETI (the search for extraterrestrial intelligence project) opera-
tors are known to ask “If intelligent life exists, why the silence from
them?” !ey scan the skies for radio signals: (1) Perhaps other intelli-
gent races do not utilize electromagnetism in the way that we do, (2)
Electromagnetic signals de-cohere per the inverse square law; it would
take absolutely immense amounts of energy to blanket a sphere with a
coherent signal with a radius of more than a few (10-100) light years,
whilst the Milky Way alone is over 100,000 light years across (3) Per-
haps other intelligent races have devised be%er, or simply alternative
means of communication.
In the future, extraterrestrial life will be discovered, and it will be
awe-inspiring and exciting, but should not come as a surprise to anyone.
Steven Hawking's warning against malevolent interstellar travelers is
very likely unnecessary: any race which has the intelligence to effect in-
terstellar travel will also have the intelligence to realize the beauty and
value of life, and to have grown out of competitive, primal instincts. !ey
would have no reason to choose a living planet for supposed mining op-
erations or the like: the entire premise of a truly intelligent species (that
is, a species much more philosophically, scienti$cally, and technologi-
cally advanced than humans) being belligerent is nonsense. Perhaps su-
perintelligent life forms know of our budding presence here, and with
their greater wisdom know that it is best for a species to mature on its
own, without guidance or interference from outside forces. At a glance,
they might be able to tell that our very young societies would be thrown
into chaos by unexpected contact with a foreign intelligence.
Imagine being an ultra-intelligent member of an alien species,
and being given the opportunity to observe a newly discovered, "edgling
intelligent species. You've never seen what intelligent alien life is like, and
are excited for the research opportunity. With your ultra-sophisticated
technology, you can zoom into and experience the consciousness of a
human family as they go about their day. You might realize: “Wait a min-
ute, their thoughts are highly repetitive and relate mainly to instinctive
sensations– for the majority of the time they are only narrowly self-
aware! !is leads to these anxious and tense feelings. !ese creatures are
a very young species, no reason to make contact yet. !ey must come
into their own.”
I take it to be more likely that no superintelligent race inhabits
our galactic vicinity, and that our growing understanding is unknown to
the Universe at large. Perhaps intergalactic travel is all but impossible
a#er all, and perhaps intelligence really is rare enough that we are the
only intelligent race in this galaxy. However, the thought that we are the
only intelligent species ever to exist is preposterous, and the thought that
human consciousness is the pinnacle of being is just laughable.
•§•
One of the most beautiful and signi$cant features of existence is
the fact that each of its innumerable components is a different expres-
sion of the whole. Every single atom or light wave is comprised of the
exact same material: energy. Existence is made up of both these packets
of energy and the physical laws that govern how they interact. !ese
physical laws are harmonious and gorgeous beyond our words- just on
the strength of their logic, time, and a bit of energy, lives as vivid as ours
arise- lives with brains sophisticated enough to accomplish all the amaz-
ing things humanity has accomplished. Our brains operate on the logic
inherent to nature in our Universe.
Cradle your head in your hands and think about the tens of
thousands of cells dying and being born in that li%le space every second.
Humans are swarming seas of cellular life, complexes of constant growth,
division, recycling, and cooperation, in their summation giving rise to a
singular, all-encompassing self with the power to fend for this bundle of
cells, which gets all kinds of sensations for succeeding or failing.
Let's look at the progression of life, starting billions of years ago,
to maybe glimpse our future from a new perspective. Here, cells are indi-
viduals, living lives that are unimaginably different from ours. !eir fun-
damental experience is beautiful like ours- truly soul-touchingly mean-
ingful to them, because they're not subjectively aware of any other alter-
native. !e complexity of survival, along with the divine potential allow-
ing for such an unthinkable depth and variety of experiences in life, will
eventually end up giving rise to bundles of cells which can contemplate
deeper questions in life than how to survive and how best to reproduce.
Single cells evolved means of communicating with their species,
because those who were able to cooperate were be%er able to survive.
!ey adapted the universal properties available to them to a%ach mean-
ings to the chemicals that they traded between themselves. As other spe-
cies became able to cooperate, the competition between species became
more intense, and in response to these challenges they developed be%er
ways to communicate and cooperate. As their language grew in complex-
ity, their consensus-seeking cooperation progressed to represent a sort of
collective consciousness. !eir means of communication improved fur-
ther in species more exposed to ferocious competition, to the point
where bonding together into a single entity was the most efficient way to
harness their collective thought.
Here arose the $rst multi-cellular organisms, many species
branching off, by chance and circumstance, into the peaceful somno-
lence of plant life and many branching off into the chaotic excitement of
animal life. In the animals, the new complexity of survival necessitated
be%er communication. !e cells adapted electricity for communication
in brains, unknowingly imitating the mechanisms driving their nuclei.
Here the cells' collective consciousness achieved autonomy; their coop-
eration conjured up a subjectively singular entity. Each individual now
was an entire world of cells, and with their upgraded powers of thought,
these complex new individuals quickly developed ways of communicat-
ing with the other individuals of their species. However, self-
preservation was still the dominant concern of each individual, so coop-
eration only occurred where it was clearly mutually bene$cial.
!e slow progression of evolution adorned the individuals with
access to light and sound, and be%er brains to store meaning and re-
spond to the various signals in their environment. Over millions of years,
these individuals formed communities of their own, again unknowingly
imitating the progress of their individual cells. !ese communities (for
example, human tribes) competed with other communities for survival.
!is competition resulted in the extinction of the majority of rival spe-
cies (and eventually likely contributed to the extinction of the other
closely related hominids). Again, as communication developed and fa-
miliarity grew, the tribes realized they would be%er thrive through coop-
eration.
!ough we still occupy grand communities at odds with one
another (our nations), we are in the process of truly realizing we are one
family and it is in our best interest to cooperate for the bene$t of all. We
will learn more ways to utilize the amazing properties of our Universe,
and perhaps encapsulate our collective consciousnesses in a similar way
to the multicellular revolution our cells achieved, and form yet another
higher level of being. Being that multicellularity arose as an expression of
cooperative communication, it seems as if a very early step in this direc-
tion has been taken in our development of digital informational process-
ing and the rise of the internet.
Our development from single cells into intelligent beings has
been a long, unlikely journey, and our modern science and technology is
giving us access to exponential progress- it is truly an amazing time to
exist. Of course, we are present for all of it, so we may realize it is always
a beautiful time to exist. Our sorrows are only misunderstandings, nec-
essary to the self-organization of life in this Universe. Ours is an exis-
tence of love. We owe it to existence to experience as much subjective
harmony here as we possibly can. Our cells are incredibly amazing to
inhabit as it is, and we live in a dramatic, complex Universe. !e future is
going to be a time of transcendent magni$cence.
Part II. Abstract Reflections and Theories
Concerning Physics
!is section includes many things that I $nd fascinating to think
and write about; maybe you will $nd these discussions interesting as
well. I feel that though many of the conclusions reached in this section
are not necessarily scienti$cally valid (being an intuitive reading of sci-
enti$c $ndings), in many cases they represent a different way of inter-
preting the evidence we currently have, and therefore possibly have
some value in broadening the understanding of these phenomena. !e
most signi$cant obstacle that science faces is the fact that the evidence
we uncover o#en does not point to a clear conclusion; especially in pro-
foundly complex disciplines like biology and psychology, or those far
removed from the realm of intuition (like quantum physics), scienti$c
evidence only gives a glance at a true understanding, and the imagina-
tions of researchers must $ll in the gaps. !is fact lends value to the ef-
forts of theorists who seek to be%er interpret experimental data.
CHAPTER 1
Gravity in Intuitive Terms
It is o#en stated that we do not know what gravity actually is,
that though we have models for its effects, we have no intuitive under-
standing of its causation. I believe Einstein would disagree with this con-
clusion, and remind us that the precepts of his relativity theories explain
mass, gravitation, and inertia in explicit detail. Perhaps the confusion
stems from the difficulty in translating the complex mathematics of
General Relativity, and Einstein's language of spacetime geodesics, into
an intuitive picture which most can grasp.
Einstein's theories of relativity are some of the most interesting
sets of concepts humans have thus uncovered; we are greatly privileged
to live at a time when so much of the Universe's fundamental beauty is
on display for our minds to revel in, yet the vast majority of humans are
totally unaware just what Einstein's theories mean for our understanding
of the Universe. For these reasons, I want to present an intuitive picture
of relativity which clari$es the causes and effects of spacetime warping,
explains the origin of mass, and accounts for inertia. In this chapter I will
begin with a basic framework, describing a basic picture of the Einstein-
ian view of the relationship between ma%er and spacetime, and in the
next chapter expand from there to explore why that relationship behaves
in the way it does.
Based on an axiom $rst put forward by Galileo known as the
relativity principle (which notes that the laws of physics remain un-
changed for all observers moving at constant velocity), Einstein recog-
nized that logical paradoxes would arise if massed motion occurred rela-
tive to a stationary backdrop of space and time. His theories explain that
space and time are not a stationary, vacuous backdrop to physics, but an
energetic system in the Universe, which is a%ached to all physical energy
and warps based on its motions. In Einstein's theory of gravity, the at-
tribute of space which interacts with massed particles is an elastic me-
dium: space is a%racted to (stretches and is stretched by) ma%er, and
equivalently, ma%er is a%racted to (pulls and is pulled by) space. In es-
sence, mass is the consequence of the relationship between ma%er and
spacetime, both of ma%er stretching space and space in turn pulling on
ma%er. For clarity of description, I will use the word “ma%er” to indicate
anything which causes mass by its effect on spacetime, and “mass” to
reference the stretching of spacetime caused by ma%er.
!rough this relationship, space effectively hugs every bit of
ma%er in the Universe; this facet of space (mass) embraces every atom
and curves inward (is elastically stretched) towards their centers of mass.
Gravity is thus the result of space stretching in the presence of ma%er,
and of this stretching drawing bits of ma%er closer together over time.
!e situation can be pictured as if the fabric of space were an in$nite 3-d
la%ice of relatively in$nitely small, neighbor-linked rubber bands which
latch on to every particle that has mass. (!e standard model uses a
boundless $eld of particles, the Higgs Field, to account for this elastic
system, which is intuitively visualized using the rubber band analogy.)
Mass is expressed as a force pulling these “rubber bands” towards what-
ever ma%er is present, along with that ma%er being pulled outwards to-
wards all the rubber bands resisting this pull in the in$nite network. If
only a single mass existed in space, for instance, the moon, the rubber
band la%ice would be tugged towards the moon's center of mass, with
the force of pull on the rubber bands lessening quickly with distance
from the center (as per the inverse square law).
If another mass, (e.g. the Earth) were set near the moon, the
rubber bands which cradle the moon's mass would be stretched by the
Earth's mass away from where they were when only the moon was pre-
sent, and this stretch would upset the moon's previous gravitational
equilibrium; by a%racting the space around it, the moon's ma%er is
loosely a%ached to that space, and when the space the moon occupies is
stretched, it is impelled to move with the new stretching of the space
towards the Earth. As they near each other, the number of bands
stretched between them is lessened, and the force of their mass is there-
fore distributed over fewer strands of elasticity between them (so to
speak); on account of this, they pull each other with more force the
closer together they become.
!rough its relationship with space, every massed particle is
loosely a%ached to the space it occupies, and if the space around it is to
stretch, the particle will be dragged along in the direction of the stretch.
Rather than directly connecting ma%er to the space it occupies, space's
“rubber bands” effectively grip ma%er, resisting its motion away from the
bands it currently warps. (!ose rubber bands closest to the ma%er in
question are most strongly affected by its mass.) In other words, space's
elastic interaction with ma%er is the source of inertia– ma%er automati-
cally seeks to continue moving at a constant velocity explicitly because
motion through space involves warping successive regions of space's
elasticity. When ma%er is moving at a constant velocity, it is being
tugged forwards by the approaching space's a%ractive elasticity with an
exactly equal force that it is being resisted by the resistance provided by
receding space as the ma%er slips away from its grip. Inertia is a very
beautiful, interesting, and far-reaching phenomenon, and it is discussed
more in depth in the next chapter.
!e effect that ma%er has on space is additive, such that two
equal bits of ma%er stuck together will cause twice the stretch that a sin-
gle bit will. !e effect that ma%er has on space is also boundless; the
only limit on the range of its effect is the speed of light, and for this rea-
son the absolute maximum boundary for gravitational in"uence on any
observer is the edge of the observable Universe (de$ned by the distance
light could have traveled since the Big Bang relative to that observer's
position).
Our bodies, composed of octillions (!) of atoms each inextrica-
bly woven by mass into the fabric of space, are drawn towards the Earth,
comprised of a huge ratio of similarly embedded ma%er. !e space that
hugs our individual atoms is stretched more so in the direction of all the
other atoms making up the Earth; our atoms' cumulative effect on space
occurs in the context of the Earth's relatively tremendous cumulative
mass, analogous to a global tension on the rubber bands. Our atoms
hang on these stretched rubber bands, exerting a microscopically small
pull against the tension, which elastically compels our atoms to race in
the direction of the stretching (and simultaneously compels the Earth's
mass to move in our direction with equal force, though this force is dis-
tributed throughout the entire Earth).
You can picture the situation in this way: suppose only your
body exists in space, and that you can see the gravitational $eld around
you; it is represented visually by a cloud of arrows surrounding your
body, with each arrow pointing directly towards your center of mass.
When you are seated on the Earth, the surrounding space is still at-
tracted towards your body's mass with the same force that it was when
you were alone in space, but now it is also being a%racted by the Earth's
unspeakable immensity with much more force; the arrows representing
the gravitational $eld around you are now all pointing towards the
Earth's center of mass, however, they each retain a tiny, microscopic tilt
towards your center of mass due to your mass' minuscule effect on them.
!at microscopic tilt describes the slight pull your body exerts on the
space around you, and through that effect, the pull the Earth's mass ex-
erts on your body.
We only stop in being pulled along the direction of the force im-
pelled on us by space because the electromagnetic incompressibility of
ma%er is much more powerful than the force of gravity seeking to com-
press that ma%er; we are held back from falling by the solidity of the
ground. It is as if the surface of the Earth were an archer's hand straining
against the tension in the bow, with mass aiming our ma%er towards the
center of the Earth but never loosing our bolt until we leave the ground
and fall. When you jump, your legs exert force against the pull of space,
stretching you farther from the Earth's center of gravity before the force
of your jump is canceled by the force of gravity (the rubber bands grip-
ping your ma%er) stretching you back to the center. If the ground were
to vanish beneath your feet, all the way to the center of the Earth, your
body would instantly accelerate along the path that the bent space you
are situated in is stretched: the bands you previously occupied try to
keep you glued in place with as much force as your puny mass can ex-
press (that eensie teensie li%le tilt your body's mass causes in the arrows
representing the gravitational $eld in your vicinity), but their pull is
dwarfed by the colossal tug of the entire Earth's mass.
CHAPTER 2
Relativity and the Origin of Mass and Inertia
!us far I've given a simpli$ed description of gravity, pertaining
to the observable effects of mass, but have not examined the causes of
these effects. Very important questions remain: what is spacetime, and
why is it warped in this way by mass? What about particles causes this
stretching? To answer these questions, a much more nuanced investiga-
tion of the concept of spacetime must be undertaken.
!e relativity principle, which serves as the foundation for Ein-
stein's theories, states that the laws of physics (including those governing
the behavior of light) must behave the same in every frame of reference
moving at a constant velocity, regardless of the speed that frame of refer-
ence is traveling. If this were not the case, paradoxes would arise, de-
stroying the necessary logical coherence of the fundamental laws. !e
profound signi$cance of Einstein's discoveries is that they explain how
the Universe automatically eliminates these paradoxes for all possible
states of motion. Einstein realized that there is a very deep (and before
the twentieth century, completely unexpected) relationship between
electromagnetism, space and time. !e nature of this relationship reveals
several very far-reaching and signi$cant facts about the Universe, but
before delving into these, it is important to correctly frame our under-
standing of electromagnetism and light.
!e 19th century discovery that electricity and magnetism are
two dimensions of one single phenomenon, electromagnetism, is one of
the crowning achievements in the human pursuit of knowledge. James
Clerk Maxwell's mathematical expertise in codifying the relationship
between these two fundamental brethren revealed the nature of light;
with the experimentally determined values for the permi%ivity and per-
meability of free space (measures of how susceptible the electromagnetic
Field is to changing its shape, that is, how strongly electromagnetic $elds
are instilled in it by various particles and circumstances), Maxwell's
equations give the speed of light, along with the insight that light con-
sists of self-perpetuating electromagnetic waves. In short, varying elec-
trical $elds always generate perpendicularly oriented, varying magnetic
$elds; at the same time, varying magnetic $elds always generate perpen-
dicularly oriented, varying electrical $elds: any varying electrical or
magnetic $eld will generate its counterpart, which will in turn regenerate
its counterpart, and this cycle will continue inde$nitely, carrying this
electromagnetic oscillation away from its point of origin at the speed of
light.
!ere is a very common misconception that light requires no
medium through which to travel; nothing could be further from the
truth. !e medium of light is the electromagnetic potential which exists
throughout space; anywhere that it is possible to cause an electrical or
magnetic $eld, this underlying potential exists. (To be clear, this covers
absolutely everywhere in the Universe; there could be no atoms, and no
electromagnetic phenomena whatsoever if this global potential did not
exist.) I will use the capitalized Field to denote this “vacuum” potential
which contains the possibility for electrical and magnetic $elds to exist,
and which is present throughout space, and the uncapitalized $eld to
describe the electromagnetic effect that any charged particle has on the
Field in its vicinity (and simultaneously the effect that the Field's geome-
try has on each charged particle). !is Field is the heart of electromag-
netism, and is the medium within which every electromagnetic $eld is
formed and through which every electromagnetic phenomenon occurs.
!e erroneous idea that light travels independent of any me-
dium dates back to the popular misunderstanding that Einstein's special
relativity revealed that no such Field (at the time called the luminiferous
aether) exists. !is conclusion was based on the prior conception of the
Field as a Newtonian, rigid, stationary medium which all ma%er moves
relative to. !is hypothesis was indeed shown to be theoretically incor-
rect by special relativity, and experimentally inadequate by the
Michelson-Morley experiment, but not in the way that many seem to
believe. Einstein himself noted that general relativity requires an under-
lying electromagnetic medium (in a lecture given in Leiden in May of
1920, Einstein told the audience “To deny the aether is ultimately to as-
sume that empty space has no physical qualities whatever. !e funda-
mental facts of mechanics do not harmonize with this view... besides ob-
servable objects, another thing, which is not perceptible, must be looked
upon as real, to enable acceleration or rotation to be looked upon as
something real... Space without aether is unthinkable, for in such space
there not only would be no propagation of light, but also no possibility
of existence for standards of space and time, nor therefore any spacetime
intervals in the physical sense.”), with the modi$cation from the previ-
ous concept of the luminiferous aether being that the medium necessar-
ily interacts with every massive frame of reference and is warped by their
motions. It should be clear that describing light as an oscillation of elec-
tromagnetic potential, and then turning around and stating that light has
no medium is self-contradictory: the electromagnetic potential which is
oscillating is glaringly, obviously that selfsame medium.
Prior to Einstein's re$nement of our understanding of the aether
in the context of the Michelson-Morley experiment, it was supposed
that an astronaut could clock the speed of passing light to determine his
speed and direction. Like relative motion between the normal objects of
our intuition (like humans walking about), it was assumed that if he
were to measure light moving in the opposite direction of his motion, he
would see that the light is moving faster than the speed of light, whereas
light moving in his same direction would appear to move at less than the
speed of light (his speed would be added to or subtracted from the ob-
served speed of light depending on its angle of approach).
On the contrary, when the speed of light is correctly included in
the phenomena governed by the relativity principle, no ma%er how fast a
spaceship is traveling, light from any direction will forever appear to
travel at exactly the same speed. An astronaut on a spaceship moving
through space could not possibly gain any insight into his velocity by
measuring his speed relative to the speed of passing light.
!e effects of this Truth are incredibly far-reaching. For example,
consider this well-known Einsteinian thought experiment, the effects of
which stem from light speed's relativistic eminence: an observer at rest
stands next to a clock made of two mirrors face to face, one facing down
and one facing up and separated by 29.98 centimeters, bouncing a wave
of light between them; a nanosecond is counted each time the light hits
one of the mirrors. A second person rides in a very quickly moving rail-
car, traveling from le# to right relative to the stationary observer. !e
second person also has an equivalent light-and-mirror clock.
As the second person passes the $rst, the $rst observes the mov-
ing clock: from the stationary perspective, the light beam in the moving
clock is seen to traverse a zig-zag, and consequently the light is observed
to take longer to tick off a nanosecond of time than the stationary clock
which has a light beam traveling straight up and down. (!e zigzagging
light travels farther between re"ections, and since a longer spatial path
for light is equivalent to a longer duration of travel (light always travels
an equal distance in an equal time through any equivalent medium re-
gardless of the state of motion of that medium), the nanoseconds on that
clock must be longer.)
However, the person on board the railcar notes that his clock
passes light directly up and down; which observer is correct? It turns out
that the moving clock is both passing light in straight lines relative to the
person on the railcar and passing light at an angle relative to the station-
ary observer; they are both correct. However, the validity of the other
person's point of view is hidden from each by the Universe's response to
this relative motion. Because light is required by the relativity principle
to pass through the reference frame when it is moving at a constant ve-
locity in a manner directly equivalent to how that light would pass
through if that reference frame were not in motion, space is compressed
in the direction of motion such that the lateral zigzag it is seen to traverse
from a stationary perspective is negated relative to anyone inside the
moving frame of reference. Further, because the light still has to pass
through the extra space compressed within that frame of reference in
order to be observed on board to bounce between the mirrors in exactly
one nanosecond, the passage of time within the reference frame must be
slowed. !ese effects are profoundly counterintuitive, but they are well
known and have been experimentally demonstrated time and again since
their discovery.
Crucially, the EM Field which the light traverses is not inde-
pendent of the frame of reference containing that light. As the railcar
moves through space, , it spans more distance through the EM Field per
second, yet light traversing that region of the EM Field and observed
from within the moving frame of reference must appear to pass through
that greater distance in the exact same span of time it would have if the
frame of reference were stationary; this necessity is effected by the spa-
tial contraction and temporal dilation of physics on board. !e EM Field
spatially occupied and in"uenced by that frame of reference's mass is
dragged along with its motion; as the frame of reference moves, the warp
which it causes in spacetime moves along with it, as a wave of compres-
sion passing through the Field. Spacetime and the EM Field are pro-
foundly interwoven via this relationship; mass and massed motions
warp the EM Field which transmits light, and the characteristics of the
EM Field at every point de$ne the characteristics of spacetime at each
point, due to the relativistic conservation of the speed of light in both
space and time.
Because light forever travels at an equal speed both in time and
space, and cannot travel a light second in distance without covering ex-
actly a second in time (in the vacuum), along with the fact that this must
be true regardless of relative motion (due to the relativity principle),
space and time in any region of the Universe are code$ned by the speed
and preferred path of light through that region. In our relativistic Uni-
verse of varying states of motion amongst different frames of reference,
ma%er's interaction with spacetime changes the electromagnetic condi-
tions of the surrounding region, which de$ne the path light must take
through any region in order not to violate the relativity principle.
What this all comes to is that, essentially, every frame of refer-
ence no ma%er what its motion must be stationary relative to the motion
of light passing through that frame of reference; absolute deference is
given to light's motion in order to maintain the relativity principle in all
states of motion. In the above case, the light bouncing between the mir-
rors aboard the moving railcar must move straight up and down relative
to the mirrors in order to continue bouncing between them; the light
traverses the EM Field, and if the railcar were in motion relative to the
EM Field, the mirrors would pass by the region in the EM Field through
which the light is traveling, and it would fail to re"ect. On the contrary,
the EM Field is compressed along with the railcar's motion by the rail-
car's mass. If there is a mass in space with any velocity, the space that
mass occupies shares that mass' velocity, compressing as it goes; though
the railcar is in motion relative to the surrounding EM Field, the com-
pression of the EM Field within that frame of reference is dragged along
at an equal rate, and is stationary relative to the railcar.
Light's preferred path, as the fundamental benchmark de$ning
spacetime, represents the stationary frame of reference for any region in
spacetime regardless of that region's motion. !e way that this effect is
accomplished is by the warping of spacetime which accompanies all
ma%er, and is especially apparent between frames of reference in relative
motion. Every system of ma%er is embedded in spacetime, and when
undergoing motion, more spacetime must be compressed into that
frame of reference to allow light a relatively stationary reference frame
through which to travel at equal velocity in all directions.
!is effect is evident when examining the Lorentz transforma-
tion which describes the degree to which relativistic effects occur: the
factor for how much time is dilated in the moving reference frame rela-
tive to a stationary one is exactly equal to the factor for how greatly the
moving reference frame's mass is ampli$ed. !e passage of time is di-
rectly proportional to the degree of mass in a system, that is, the more
space that is compressed into that system by its mass (as described
above, mass being the effect ma%er has on space through its dynamic
relationship sustaining the relativity principle), the slower physical proc-
esses will unfold therein. !is is the direct result of light having to travel
a further path through the compressed space than it would in a station-
ary reference frame which does not warp space as much; again, since
light's speed and preferred path through any reference frame de$nes the
character of spacetime within that reference frame, wherever space is
condensed by motion such that more of the EM $eld is present in the
frame of reference per second (raising the mass of that frame of refer-
ence), time will unfold more slowly.
Mass is therefore wholly a description of time dilation due to
spatial compression. Spatial compression results in time dilation due to
the speed of light de$ning spacetime in every electromagnetic circum-
stance; where light has to take a longer path in order to accord with the
relativity principle (in order not to appear to take a longer path from on
board the reference frame) time must slow in order to allow this to oc-
cur. In other words, if a frame of reference measures seconds based on
the speed of light through that reference frame, then even when that ref-
erence frame is in motion and the light takes longer than a second to
cover the distance within the reference frame as seen from outside, the
light must appear to still cover that extra distance in one second from
within the reference frame. !e light has a longer path, and time must
allow the light to cover this longer path in the same time; time within the
warped reference frame stretches out so that if the light has to travel ex-
tra distance, a second takes longer to tick, and all physical processes un-
fold more slowly relative to how they would unfold in an unwarped span
of the Field.
•§•
!e above scenario reveals how spacetime warping occurs due
to states of relative motion, but how can relativistic effects manifest in
instances where no net velocities are in effect, such as the everyday con-
stituents of our surroundings? It is easy to forget that the relativity prin-
ciple applies absolutely everywhere in the Universe, even in the span
from one side of an atom to the other; the constituent particles in our
atoms are forever in relative motion with one another. !is relativistic
swarm is necessarily compensated for in accordance with the relativity
principle such that even an atom-sized observer would not note any dis-
crepancies in the speed of light passing through the vicinity from any
angle; this compensation is the same for particles as it is for stars: space-
time warping, be%er known as gravity or mass.
Spacetime warps based on the requirement that systems of rela-
tive motion necessarily share an equivalent speed of light, and this effect
is expressed in the phenomena of mass, gravitation, and inertia. Mass is
the result of the relationship between energy and spacetime as necessi-
tated by the Universal constancy of the speed of light via the relativity
principle. Energy warps spacetime due to this relationship, and this is
the effect which causes gravitation: gravity and mass are two different
ways of looking at the same thing. Basically, mass can be interpreted as
the effect any bit of energy has on the geometry of spacetime, and grav-
ity can be interpreted as the effect that spacetime's warping has on any
energy in spacetime (they each represent opposite sides of the balanced
pull/pull relationship between ma%er and spacetime).
It should be clari$ed that the effect a particle has on the Field is
not con$ned solely to its electromagnetic charge, or even to its interac-
tion with the electromagnetic $eld. If this were the case, protons would
have the same mass as electrons, having a charge of equal magnitude. It
is not only the effect of a particle's charge on the EM Field which causes
its mass, but also its relative motion to the Field. !e quarks making up a
proton undergo intense, rapid oscillations relative to the Field, and it is
the energy of this motion relative to the Field which accounts for the
proton's greater mass.
Essentially, mass accounts for all aspects of energy, including
temperature, angular momentum, velocity, color charge, etc. It is the in-
teraction between a particle's circumstance and the Field which warps
spacetime relative to the speed of light. Extremely importantly, this
spacetime warping in"uences the behavior of every fundamental physi-
cal law. As the relativity principle requires, all laws of physics are modi-
$ed in direct proportion with the modi$cation of spacetime in reference
to the speed of light; wherever a clock is slowed by relativistic motion,
all of physics within that frame of reference unfolds more slowly.
•§•
!e global shape of spacetime characterizes the gravitational
Field in the Universe. To investigate its properties, let's revisit the
rubber-band la%ice analogy from the previous chapter. All the effects
described there are the same, but the picture can now be drawn with
much more sophistication. Now we can clarify that the mass accompa-
nying each particle is due to that particle's effect on spacetime via the
relativity principle in reference to the speed of light. !e “rubber bands”
a%ached to and stretched by that ma%er's mass represent spacetime. !e
EM Field (and spacetime, the shape of which is de$ned in reference to
the speed of light through the EM Field) is one continuous elastic me-
dium throughout the Universe, and the geometry at any point affects the
geometry at every other point, with modi$cations to that geometry be-
ing conveyed throughout by EM waves (in this case, taking the form of
low frequency, low amplitude gravitational waves, bearing information
about modi$cations to the shape of spacetime throughout the Universe)
propagating like all EM radiation at the speed of light. !e Earth
stretches spacetime inwards towards its center of mass, while the Sun
stretches the spacetime which is stretching inwards towards the Earth's
center of mass towards its own center of mass, and the two masses are
thereby stretched towards each other, continually modifying the shape
of the spacetime they pass through by their motion.
Due to the relativistic effects described above, the entire shape
of spacetime will appear differently to observers in different states of mo-
tion. !is follows from the profound insight of general relativity, that all
ma%er is a%ached to spacetime via its mass, and that motion through the
Field modi$es the Field. !ough there is no canonical shape to space-
time in the traditional, Newtonian sense, every possible perspective on
the shape of spacetime is accounted for in the Truth describing the exis-
tence of all possible perspectives. Every relativistic viewpoint is equally
valid in that it represents how the Universe relates to that viewpoint due
to its unique relationship with the Field.
Inertia, as Einstein brilliantly recognized, is a consequence of the
relationship ma%er has with space: ma%er compresses spacetime in-
wards, and spacetime simultaneously resists this compression by tugging
outwards; it is only with the continuous relative motion within the en-
ergy making up the ma%er that the spacetime compression (due to the
relativity principle) is maintained. An object's mass is wholly contained
in this elastic relationship with spacetime; consider a dumbbell. !e rea-
son it is difficult to li# the dumbbell is because the dense ma%er making
it up compresses spacetime to a certain degree, and because it is situated
on the surface of the immense Earth, that spacetime compression pulls
against the tremendous spacetime compression the Earth's mass causes;
the spacetime a%ached to the dumbbell is stretched very strongly to-
wards the center of the Earth. To overcome the force of this gravitational
a%raction, you have to pull the dumbbell from the spacetime region it
currently stretches, warping new regions of space as you li# it.
Consider "oating in a spacesuit next to the dumbbell far out in
space, away from any signi$cant gravitational $eld. Because the dumb-
bell continues to compress spacetime due to its mass, it will still take
force to move around. When it is "oating still next to you, it occupies a
state of gravitational equilibrium; it pulls inwards on space and is pulled
outwards by space equally in every direction, and sits comfortably in a
li%le gravitational well, with no reason to move at all. (Your minuscule
gravitational $eld is not enough to upset its inertia to any immediately
noticeable degree.) If you reach out and push the dumbbell, it acceler-
ates for a short moment before dri#ing off at a constant velocity end-
lessly, at least until an outside force acts on it (and your body in turn
does the same in the opposite direction, at a proportionally slower rate
depending on your mass).
Imagine the effect occurring in spacetime, underlying the
dumbbell: its mass exists as a region of spacetime which is compressed.
When this compression is set in motion, the space just outside of the
ma%er in the direction of its motion is continually nearing it, and be-
cause of the elastic relationship between spacetime and ma%er, the
nearer it gets, the more strongly that spacetime is pulled towards the
ma%er by its mass (and the more strongly that ma%er is pulled towards
that spacetime). On the other hand, in the direction away from the mat-
ter's motion, the space just outside the ma%er is continually receding
from the ma%er, and on account of this, pulls on and is pulled by it less
as it recedes. In this way, the compression of spacetime undergone by the
ma%er traveling a constant velocity represents a balanced gravitational
wave in the medium of spacetime. !is wave a%ains elastic equilibrium;
the pull of approaching spacetime perfectly counteracts the pull of re-
ceding spacetime, and the velocity remains unchanged. (I.e. if you are
traveling forwards at constant velocity, the spacetime in front of you is
pulled towards your mass (and thus pulls your mass) at the exact rate
that the spacetime behind you is pulled away from your mass by your
motion (and is thus resisting your forward motion).)
To change velocity, any object has to be tugged from the natural
motion it had se%led into through the path of least resistance through
the warped space, and now warp a new region of space. In"uencing the
propagation of that wave (changing its direction or speed of travel) up-
sets this equilibrium, and takes energy. It is for this reason that any ac-
celeration is met with the resistant force of inertia, and why, in accor-
dance with Newton's $rst law, every body remains in a state of constant
velocity unless acted upon by an external unbalanced force.
Space is subtly smeared out behind you as you accelerate in your
car, stretching slightly against the pull of your atoms on its elasticity; it is
due to this elastic resistance that your body is pulled backwards against
the seat. Similarly, when you enter a curve, your body's constant forward
velocity and accompanying inertial equilibrium (the gravitational stand-
ing wave described above) are upset by the car's turning, and you feel the
force of inertia seeking to drag you along the path you were already trav-
eling.
It is important that it be made clear that gravity and inertia are
both expressions of the same phenomenon, spacetime's a%achment to
and interaction with ma%er– if you were to enter a spaceship and accel-
erate at a steady 9.8 meters per second, the relativistic-resistant force in
space to your mass' acceleration would exert a force on you equal to the
force of gravity on Earth. As your mass is dragged through the elasticity
of space, the tension on the bands at any point you occupy acts to keep
you glued to that spot; only with the external force of the spaceship's
engines is this force overcome, and the spacetime's resistance to your
continued motion manifests as gravitational resistance. Equivalently, the
space you occupy on the Earth's surface is stretched downwards, not due
to your acceleration away from the elasticity of the space you previously
occupied (as in the case of the spaceship) but through the stretch of the
spacetime you currently occupy towards the center of the Earth.
•§•
To picture the shape of spacetime, imagine a 3 dimensional car-
tesian coordinate system, with its lines drawn in red, $lling space,
stretching away in every direction endlessly; a euclidean grid of this sort
with all straight lines represents the “vacuum” shape of spacetime, un-
modi$ed by mass. !e relationship between ma%er and spacetime,
mass/gravity, modi$es the shape of this basic grid, and any observer
within the system will have a different perspective on the shape of the
grid by their state of motion relative to the other frames of reference
therein; the shape of spacetime is immensely complicated by the pres-
ence of energy, and though it is objectively independent of the various
frames of reference from which it can be viewed (in that the information
describing every frame of reference exists simultaneously and de$nes the
global shape of spacetime), a different picture of it is subjectively gath-
ered from each of these different frames of reference.
Each particle is uniquely embedded in the Field due to its warp-
ing of the Field; you can picture the particle's effect on the Field as a re-
gion where the red la%ice is stretched inwards, and where a passing EM
wave would be forced by the relativity principle to curve closer to the
particle due to this inward stretch on the Field's geometry. Of course, for
a single particle, this effect is almost totally negligible, but where the
stretch of many trillions of trillions of particles is coalesced together into
a planet or star, the effect is readily observable, and signi$cant to the
formation and development of galaxies (and to the initial con$rmation
of Einstein's theories).
In essence, mass is a measure of the subset of any bit of energy
which is distributed through spacetime by that particular bit of energy's
necessary modi$cation of spacetime through the relativity principle. !e
phenomenon we usually call gravity is the global interrelationship be-
tween all the mass in the Universe, where each bit of energy's relation-
ship with spacetime is in"uenced by every other bit of energy's relation-
ship with spacetime; their effects are additive and act on spacetime at the
speed of light (the speed with which the Field can be modi$ed).
To further delineate that gravity is a phenomenon of spacetime,
caused by energy's presence in spacetime (with certain expressions of
energy causing more mass, more local spacetime stretching than others,
e.g. protons vs. photons), consider the following thought experiment.
You observe a video feed of two clear boxes. Each contains two mirrors
face-to-face two meters apart from each other passing light back and
forth. One is "oating far outside the Milky Way galaxy, with no stars for
many thousands of light years; light travels at the speed c (the speed of
light in a vacuum) between the two mirrors. !e other is positioned on
the surface of the Earth, and therefore contains the spatiotemporal phe-
nomenon of gravity. What does it mean for the box to contain the phe-
nomenon of gravity, and what are the consequences to the light traveling
therein? Again, use the red grid visualization technique. !e space box
will contain a grid comprised of regular cubes, let's say, 27 cubes in all.
!e Earth box, on the other hand, will contain a grid comprised of
squashed cubes, cubes with 4 rectangular faces; spacetime is compressed
within the box due to its position in the Earth's gravitational $eld. !e
Earth box contains, maybe, 45 stunted cubes.
One important facet of the red grid visualization is that relative
to objects moving at the speed of light (light is the only such object), the
grid is always perfectly cubic- the results of its gravitational distortion
only apply to space as observed by a non-light observer. It is, in fact, this
requirement which causes spacetime warping; light must always travel in
a straight line (due to its proportional, perpendicular electrical and mag-
netic $elds summing to perpendicular travel relative to the Field), even
when the Field through which it travels is warped in any imaginable way.
In warped spacetime, straight lines are described in terms of geodesics,
paths of least distance between any two points in spacetime, and the
shape of those geodesics varies depending on the state of motion of the
observer, excepting where light is considered the observer, in which case
the geodesic resolves into a perfectly straight line, with the surrounding
contents of spacetime warped around that straight line.
!e space in the Earth box is compressed; there is more space
(and time) contained in the Earth box than in the Space box. For this
reason, the light passing between the two mirrors in the Earth box has to
travel a longer distance between re"ections. Again, inertia can accom-
plish the exact same spacetime compression. If the space box were to
accelerate at 9.8 meters per second, the spatial grid inside the box would
take on the exact shape of the spatial grid inside the Earth box, with 45
squished cubes within. !e light bouncing back and forth inside would
take an equal amount of time in re"ecting from the front to the back as it
would re"ecting from the back to the front; again, relative to the light,
the grid's boxes are still perfectly cubic, and the light is still traveling at
exactly c. Only relative to a massed observer would the relativistic effects
be perceivable.
CHAPTER 3
A Closer Look at Spacetime
In the previous chapter, the consequences which the speed of
light (in the context of the relativity principle) has for spacetime and
objects within spacetime was examined. A very important question re-
mains: “what is space, really?” !is question has been on the minds of
thinkers for millennia, and during this time some fundamental assump-
tions have come to be taken for granted concerning what space is or is
not. Following the development of Einstein's relativity and quantum
mechanics, many of these ideas have been revealed to be incorrect or
incomplete, which suggests that our understanding of this seemingly
most basic component of our reality bears reexamination.
!e conception of space as perfect nothingness is totally obso-
lete. If space were empty of all informational content, as would clearly
have to be the case for it to consist of nothingness, no force $elds could
exist; the medium in space which conveys electromagnetism, for exam-
ple, is certainly not nothingness, but a boundless energetic system which
reacts to energy and force with inerrant logic. If space were empty of this
medium, light would have no medium through which to propagate, pro-
tons would be unable to a%ract electrons, atoms and molecules would be
unable to form, and the Universe as we know it would cease to exist. Fur-
thermore, as outlined above, gravity, inertia, and mass would be impos-
sible if there were no spatial medium for energy to interact with.
!e modern evidence associated with quantum mechanics pro-
vides further clues as to the de$nite content of space. !e Casimir effect,
for example, shows that a small a%ractive force arises between two paral-
lel, uncharged conducting plates situated very close together: in a few
words, this force is interpreted as arising because the closer together the
plates are, the fewer wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation can $t be-
tween the plates; the presence of wavelengths of all sizes being able to
propagate in the space on the outside of the plates (the side facing away
from the other plate) effectively produces a higher energy density than
that produced by the few wavelengths allowed to exist between the
plates, and this generates inward pressure on the plates. !is effect is al-
ready being considered for its possible utility (or inconvenience) in the
design of nanotechnological machines, and it offers unmistakable evi-
dence that a classical vacuum is nowhere to be found in space.
Such evidence seems to point to the conclusion that space is
wholly de$ned by the energetic systems which $ll its boundless expanse.
However, it seems evident that space itself must exist prior to and be
distinct from whatever energetic content $lls it, because the energetic
content of space could not possibly spatially relate and $nd extension
without space existing as a prerequisite. As was elaborated upon in Part
I, Chapter 4, it seems reasonable to believe that space embodies all the
possibility suggested by the mathematical Truths pertaining to dimen-
sional proportion, and that this Truth would remain even in the absence
of all energetic content. In this view, If you were to remove not only all
particles, but all $elds of potential, including all quantum "uctuations,
space would still remain as a vacuous realm of emptiness. In this context
it would seem that any possible physics which requires the geometric
logic of spatial relations to $nd expression (be it Euclidean or any from
the innumerable range of non-Euclidean geometries) can $nd expres-
sion in space; that is, the geometric shape of energy in space is locally
de$ned in reference to the physical requirements of its content.
!ere is another assumption about space, still widely taken for
granted, that there is such a thing as a point, as a de$nable location in
space of 0 size. !is conception was useful as a simplifying tool in
Euclidean geometry, allowing mathematicians to ignore the slight com-
plications which $nite size introduces to geometric maxims concerning
in$nitely small points. !ough the idea has utility in abstract thought,
some problems immediately come to mind when applying the concep-
tion of a point to the reality of space. For instance, let's say that this pe-
riod . is a point in the classical geometrical sense, demarcating a location
in space of 0 width, depth, and height. How can we de$ne where it is
located? Most would answer “simply use the calculus: a limit gives the
distance of the point from the 'd' in the previous word with arbitrary ac-
curacy”. !e key point there is “arbitrary accuracy”; it is perfectly impos-
sible to draw out the limit with perfect accuracy, because doing so would
require an in$nite decimal expansion.
To illustrate, let us imagine that you undertake the task of de$n-
ing the location of the point in reference to the 'd', and you are equipped
with perfect measuring devices. !e method you use will be to measure
the distance starting with millimeters, a#er which you are able to zoom
in on the distance between your measurement and the point's location
by a factor of 10: you will see that there is still some distance separating
your measurement from the point's location, and you re$ne your meas-
urement now using 1/10th millimeters. You resolve to continue this
process, a#er each measurement zooming in by a factor of ten and re$n-
ing your measurement using units smaller by a factor of ten until you
have it, the exact de$ning location for that point! Alas, you will expire
before you complete this task, in fact, even with an in$nite number of
lifetimes, you could never complete your goal, because as you zoom in
inde$nitely on the point, the point shrinks inde$nitely; every time your
measurement draws nearer to that point, the point recedes away.
!e simple fact is that there is no way to de$ne the location of
the 0-sized point exactly, because that location is in$nitely distant from
and is therefore forever unde$nable in reference to other locations in
space. !ough it may have some utility as an abstract idea, there is no
such thing as a point of 0 size in space; dimensional proportion forbids
it. Dimensional proportion does not allow for 0 other than the identity
of “every position is 0 distance away from itself ”. If space is founded on
regions of in$nite smallness, dimensional proportion would cease to
have any meaning; there would be no way to de$ne any length whatso-
ever.
To elaborate, consider that it is sometimes proposed that the
Planck length (or some other extremely small span) represents the “size”
of such a point, that spacetime is fundamentally quantized and that it is
useless to speak of lengths smaller than the Planck length. In this case
the quanta could not internally contain the characteristic of length; if
they did, they would still be divisible, and therefore would not be
quanta. However, if they have no internal proportions, then their size
relative to surrounding quanta would necessarily cease to have any
meaning. If this were the case, a billion, trillion, or googol quanta of zero
de$nable length would be equivalent to one quantum of zero de$nable
length.
Let's say the Planck length were the quantum of space: in this
case it would be impossible to travel or measure a half-Planck length,
because there is no such thing as that distance. You can either travel/
measure a full Planck length or none at all. In more intuitive terms, imag-
ine that a centimeter is the spatial quantum: you would not be able to
move your hand a millimeter; you would not be able to move your hand
$ve millimeters; you would only be able to move your hand in discon-
tinuous increments of centimeters. If spatial proportions have any mean-
ing at all, how could this possibly be achieved without passing your hand
through the intervening space that would be marked by millimeters?
Indeed, this situation would eliminate the proportion within the centi-
meter; traveling from one side of the impassable gap to the other would
cover 0 relative distance, since no traversable space exists between the
sides of the centimeter, and therefore covering 10 centimeters still would
necessarily equate to covering 0 distance.
!ere is a simple, ancient mathematical approach which can be
applied to show that the Planck length is not the smallest degree of di-
mensional proportion, and that for dimensional proportion to exist,
there can never be a smallest length. Consider two Planck lengths meet-
ing at a point and forming a right angle, like two sides of a square meet-
ing at a corner. Let's call the endpoints of the $rst Planck length A and B,
and the endpoints of the second Planck length B and C (the two meet at
B). If dimensional proportion has any meaning at all (that is, if the
Planck length can indeed be considered a length), the distance from A to
C will necessarily be √2 times the Planck length, per the Pythagorean
theorem– this length is about 1.414 times the Planck length, yet we had
concluded there is no way to de$ne a length smaller than the Planck
length; how can the extra .414... be accounted for without there existing
smaller units? And furthermore, √2 is an irrational number, requiring an
in$nite decimal expansion to de$ne completely; in order for point A to
accurately spatially relate to point C requires a continuum of lengths.
Since this argument applies at any size scale within dimensional propor-
tion, it follows that the dimensional proportion characterizing space
could not exist if it weren't a continuum.
In reality, every Planck length must span two half-Planck
lengths, every half-Planck length must span two half-half-Planck lengths,
etc. A photon cannot travel the span of a Planck length without spanning
a million millionths of a Planck length. Some might argue that trying to
use intuition to understand the quantum realm is futile, but there is no
doubt that the spans of length which comprise our realm of size arise
from the summation of huge numbers of those minute spans of length
over which quantum phenomena occur. If the concept of length does
not apply at those tiniest possible levels, how could it possibly come into
existence when large numbers of these tiny, supposedly distance-less
spans are laid end to end? A similar argument applies to time, which embodies a contin-
uum of a different type than space; not representing dimensional pro-
portion, representing the continuum of changes energy undergoes. It is
sometimes thought that the present has some de$nite duration, and that
this is the span of time in which all things occur. In the light of the rela-
tivity of simultaneity, it is clear that this is not the case; the present is
naught but the divide between past physical changes and future physical
changes, an a%ribute of every individual bit of dynamic energy in the
Universe. Every physical change takes time to occur, and you might ar-
gue that the time in which the change occurs is the present. How long,
then, is the present? In what span of time is every physical change con-
tained? Close consideration reveals that every span of time is in$nitely
divisible; like space, time is not quantized, but a continuum. Each sec-
ond is made up of an in$nite amount of smaller spans of time, i.e. each 1
second is made up of ten 1/10ths of a second, each 1/10th is made up of
ten 1/100ths of a second, and so on, forever.
For example, imagine the time it takes to blink your eyes: about
200 milliseconds for your upper lid to reach your lower lid. How many
frames of the present does that take? A hundred? A quadrillion? Note
that light in a vacuum travels 299.8 nanometers in a quadrillionth of a
second (a femtosecond); this duration can't be the duration of the pre-
sent, because change occurred in that time. (Light couldn't travel a light
year without clocking 3.154 ten-million-quadrillion femtoseconds of
travel.) Light also can't travel 299.8 nanometers without spanning one
trillion trillionths of a femtosecond. No ma%er how small you imagine
the present to be in duration, that duration is made up of an in$nite
number of smaller subdivisions. !e present is not a span in time in
which change occurs, it is simply the border across which future possi-
bilities become past certainties concerning each system of energy in the
Universe.
•§•
!e fact that there can never exist a smallest region of spacetime,
coupled with the fact that every larger region of spacetime is comprised
of smaller regions of spacetime, speaks volumes about the structure of
the Universe. Importantly, just as the chain of causality extends from the
past to the future, the chain of emergent possibility is extended from the
small to the large. In other words, there is no question that you could not
exist without your cells existing, they could not exist without their
molecules existing, those molecules could not exist without their atoms
(along with the laws of electromagnetism dictating their structure and
the character of their possible chemical reactions), those atoms could
not exist without their constituent particles, the nuclear particles could
not exist without their quarks, those quarks are theorized to be com-
prised of preons, and conservative scienti$c thinking says the regress
probably stops about there (to digress for a moment: it's a bit funny to
note that wherever the bounds of our knowledge lie, that is o#en where
a traditionally minded person expects the absolute boundary to be. I
think back on the backlash against Copernicanism, and the historical
(regre%ably, still widely held) belief that humans originate from a differ-
ent source than plants or animals.)
Given the necessary in$nitude of mathematical proportion exis-
tent in space, any span of size no ma%er how small is in$nitely larger
than the possible tininess within that span. Are we to assume that any
supposed “tiniest possible particle” $lls the entire in$nite span of space it
covers, that if we were to zoom in on that particle perhaps a googol times
we would still $nd an unbroken continuum from one side of the particle
to the next? What if we were to zoom in so small (a googol times really
should more than suffice) that the energy in any chosen expanse of the
particle is effectively in$nitely less than the energy of the particle as a
whole? Would this constitute nothingness, where we know we are actu-
ally observing the roots of the particle?
Well, of course not. We have no reason to suspect that the re-
gress downward in size does not continue in$nitely; in fact, due to the
logical principle that there can be no possible “smallest size” in space, no
0 point, without negating the existence of dimensional proportion, we
have every reason to expect that it does. Of course, the de$nite charac-
teristics of whatever physics pertains to energy at these minuscule size
scales are uninvestigable from our gigantic perspective, but we can rea-
sonably conclude that there are energetic systems below the range of our
possible observation, and that the existence of the quantum realm de-
pends upon the existence of these smaller systems, just as the existence
of our realm depends upon the existence of the quantum realm.
Physics is not linearly scalable; energy behaves differently at dif-
ferent levels in size. !is is clear from an observation of our immediate
surroundings (due to their tiny mass, ants can support themselves with
their minuscule legs, though if their body plan were scaled up to the size
of an elephant, such an ant would collapse into a heap of goo), and be-
yond the bounds of our possible investigation, past the quantum level on
the smaller end and past the reaches of the observable Universe on the
larger end.
Certain sets of fundamental physical laws are more prominent at
each scale; in our realm, electromagnetism is most strongly expressed,
on galactic scales, gravity dominates, and the spacetime scale occupied
by particles seems to operate within a framework of physical laws we
cannot quite interpret fully as of yet. Given an in$nitude of sizes open to
energy, this size-based hierarchy of physical law forms an in$nitely-tiered
layering of different regions of physical law, such that existing in one
frame of size constrains you to interacting with the physical laws domi-
nant at that size and holds you back from being able to directly interact
with energy occupying much larger or smaller size scales. You can only
interact with energy at a much smaller size level (for us, sub-quantum)
indirectly by interacting with the energetic phenomena (electromagnet-
ism) at your own size scale which that minuscule energy's interactions
sum to.
One of the clearest manifestations of this fundamental incom-
patibility between realms of physics separated by extremely large differ-
ences in spacetime-size is the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, which
states that it is impossible to measure both the momentum of a particle
and its position simultaneously because any means we can use to meas-
ure one will instantaneously in"uence the value of the other. For exam-
ple, to determine the de$nite position of an electron at any moment in
time would require us to use some apparatus which energetically inter-
acts with the electron (if our measuring device did not interact with the
electron, no measurement could possibly be made); the very act of ener-
getic measurement alters the state of the particle being measured, such
that measuring position modi$es momentum and measuring momen-
tum modi$es position, and the HUP de$nes an upper bound for how
accurately each can be known on account of this difficulty.
!e HUP is de$ned in reference to Planck's constant, a funda-
mental numerical value in nature which was $rst discovered relating the
energy of a photon to its frequency (a photon's frequency multiplied by
Planck's constant gives its energy). !is suggests that the HUP only re-
stricts the amount of information an electromagnetic observation can as-
certain concerning quantum particles, that is, how much can be known
about this smaller realm of spacetime-size by electromagnetically consti-
tuted systems of information in the higher realm of spacetime-size. In
order for an electromagnetically-constituted observer at our size scale to
learn anything about a quantum mechanical system, we have to bom-
bard that quantum mechanical system with a type of energy (e.g. pho-
tonic energy) which is large enough for us to observe. If we could use
systems of measurement made up of smaller systems of energy, for in-
stance that spectrum of physical law which underlies the existence of
quantum phenomena, we could more subtly probe those quantum me-
chanical systems, and best the HUP.
However, because we occupy our relatively in$nitely larger
spacetime-size scale, we have no means of $nely manipulating physics at
that minuscule level, and the HUP holds. !e HUP and Planck's con-
stant represent the boundary in spacetime-size scales at which the phys-
ics dominant at our level give way to physics of a different character, with
different logical underpinnings (mathematical forms) and different en-
ergetic expression (ultimately summing to the physics at our size-scale).
Looking outwards, gravity is the highest (largest in space, slow-
est in time) force we can observe; any larger-scale force only interacts
with our relatively in$nitely small size scale through its effect on gravity,
the causality of which is uninvestigable from our size scale. Whatever
effect an ubermacroscopic force like this would have would occur over
unimaginably huge time and size scales (possibly appearing in our size
scale in the form of dark energy). In the other direction, quantum phys-
ics is currently the lowest manifestation of physical law which we can
observe; the relatively in$nitely small physics underlying quantum sys-
tems is far too small for us to witness, and we can only observe the
higher expression of the quantum physics which links that realm to ours.
If we were situated within these relatively in$nitely small systems, gravity
would be too far away in size to have any noticeable effect on our sur-
roundings; the effect of gravity is expressed meaningfully in a larger
physical dimension than that making up the roots of quantum energy.
!ere's plenty of room at the bo%om; indeed, in$nite room, for
there is no bo%om. Choosing any point in space and zooming in on it,
you would never reach the depth of its center. One possible way to envi-
sion this is that in zooming in on any point in space, you would eventu-
ally leave the size scale in space where gravity, electromagnetism, and the
nuclear forces meaningfully apply, and enter the size scale in space where
new, in$nitesimally weaker and shorter-acting forces begin to take effect.
Here you might observe the largest scales of a smaller Universe, in$nite
in breadth (having in$nite breadth therein but bounded above by our
spacetime scale) but comprised of different fundamental forces acting
over relatively in$nitely shorter time periods and relatively in$nitely
weaker magnitudes.
Eventually, as you continue zooming, you would reach a rela-
tively in$nitely smaller point where those smaller fundamental forces
cease to apply and enter into yet another smaller level of physical fun-
damentality. !is seems to jive with the concepts of string theory,
wherein the large scale conditions of in$nitesimally small extra-
dimensional spaces give rise to energetic effects in our three-
dimensional space.
Space and time share a fundamental symmetry; the size of a sys-
tem of energy in space is proportional to the size of the change that en-
ergy undergoes in time. !e smaller the system of energy, the less time it
will take for that energy to undergo meaningful change relative to larger
systems of energy; any arbitrarily chosen measure of change will convey
this point, so let's use rotation about an axis: an electron will rotate
about its axis a countless number of times in the amount of time that the
star it is located in takes to complete the same change. !is requirement
that the temporal conditions of energy are proportional to the spatial
size of that energy extends the symmetry of space and time to all levels
of size.
As you proceed downward in size through spacetime, passing
atoms, quarks, etc., the rate of change per second expands higher and
higher, quickly reaching the point where change occurs relatively in$-
nitely quickly and over relatively in$nitely tiny spatial domains; this is
the domain in size which was historically imagined to be vacuum space.
(Relatively in$nitely quickly describes all durations which are so small
that we cannot possibly observe the degree of change which occurs in
that time from our particular perspective in spacetime size.) On the con-
trary, this size scale is not a blankness, but a boundary of relatively in$-
nitely small-magnitudes of energy existing over relatively in$nitely short
durations which we are unable to peer beneath by any means available to
an occupant of the physics of our size scale.
!e well-known phenomenon of pair production in quantum
mechanics describes the evidence that the smaller you look in size and
duration in space, the more likely it is that so-called virtual particles will
be found arising from the 'vacuum' and self-canceling back into the 'vac-
uum'. As you approach 0 relative size in space and time, the probability
that pairs are being produced approaches 1, so that at apparent in$nite
smallness in spacetime you would $nd pairs of particles coming into ex-
istence, colliding, and leaving existence so rapidly that there would be no
single instance of 0 energy at any time and at any point. At this size scale
no sooner has a pair le# existence than another has taken its place. As
the spacetime size scale you consider shrinks, the probability that energy
occupies that spacetime region grows to what amounts to relatively in$-
nitely certain: we could not observe any duration at this scale without
overlooking a relatively in$nite amount of change at an almost in$nitely
small magnitude of energy; it is of a much higher frame rate than we can
access from our slower frame rate, so to speak.
In this view, what was historically perceived as the vacuum of
empty space is in fact an endless expanse of extremely tiny energy mag-
nitudes undergoing change over extremely small durations, a conclusion
supported by quantum physics; spacetime can thus be described as an
energetic continuum, wherein energetic phenomena would be found at
every point no ma%er how small or large. !e energetic phenomena oc-
curring over relatively in$nitely smaller scales in size and time are sum to
generate those phenomena occupying higher size scales; higher size
scales are necessarily comprised of summations of lower processes, and
having these processes at the higher size's roots enables the two realms of
physics to interact, if only distantly.
!is conception leads us towards an interesting unanswered
question in physics: “why do the electrical permi%ivity and magnetic
permeability of free space have the values they do?” A tentative answer
may be that these values are due to the physical makeup of the energetic
systems occupying the spacetime size-scale forming the basis for the ex-
istence of the electromagnetic Field and larger, charged particles like
electrons and protons; that is, electrons and protons have a charge spe-
ci$cally because they are rooted in (comprised of) and interact with the
smaller-scale energetic fabric making up the continuum of electromag-
netic potential within spacetime. !e values for the permi%ivity and
permeability of free space essentially represent the resistance this under-
lying $eld of energy has to conveying electromagnetic effects; charged
particles affect the informational content of this underlying $eld (one is
tempted to describe it as $eld-geometrical content, similar to gravita-
tional effects) and are in turn affected by that content. If this is the case,
it is natural to suspect that every force is passed via these microcosmic
energetic systems, and that in turn the passage of energy through these
microcosmic systems is similarly accomplished by cumulative interac-
tions between the yet smaller systems of energy which make up those
microcosmic systems.
Looking outwards, the immensely drawn out behavior of gravi-
tational interaction between galaxies sums over trillions of trillions of
years to make up a yet higher frame of physical law. If we could observe
our home Universe (i.e., the observable Universe) from the perspective
of that higher frame, where trillions of trillions of years would appear to
pass in an instant, the birth and ultimate fate of our Universe might look
like a dizzying particulate swarm of energy, much like our current pic-
ture of the behavior of the atomic realm.
!e type of force which applies to a system of energy is deter-
mined by the spacetime size scale which that energy occupies. A quark is
bound to color charge and oscillates under its in"uence countless times
each second, changing meaningfully at a rate which de$es our observa-
tion; no ma%er how small a snapshot we could take of a quark's motion,
that snapshot would contain a relatively in$nite amount of change, blur-
ring our perception of what is truly occurring therein. A planet, on the
other hand, taking up a colossally huge frame of spacetime relative to the
quark (containing octillions of octillions of quark-moments and quark-
sizes), is macroscopically dominated by the force of gravity, which
causes the planet's position in space to change at a positively sluggish
pace in time relative to the quark.
!e continuum is not de$ned objectively in reference to our
personal size scale, but continues on in this causal regression (smaller
components making up and de$ning larger systems) forever from small
to large. !ere is a spacetime size-scale which is as much smaller than the
quark as the quark is smaller than the planet, and a proportionally
smaller scale farther down, and another. Again, there is no bo%om, no
center to this energetic regress, nor is there a largest size scale; no “larg-
est possible span” could exist without implying the existence of space
outside of its breadth.
•§•
If this idea (that the fundamental forces we observe arise from
the effects of an in$nite hierarchy of smaller fundamental forces, and
give rise to yet larger levels of physics in space and time) is correct, this
would suggest something like a $#h dimension to spacetime: size, aris-
ing from the modi$cation to the fundamental laws of physics at different
scales within the three directional spatial dimensions and time. It seems
we sit suspended between a greater in$nity outwards in size and a lesser
in$nity inwards in size; this $#h dimension re"ects the Cosmic Truth of
the radial relationship between “inward” and “outward”, just as the spa-
tial dimensions contain at each position the locus of in$nite forwards
and backwards, up and down, le# and right, and the present in the time
dimension serves as the fulcrum between the in$nite past and in$nite
future in Existence.
Traditionally, spatial dimensions are conceived as the three di-
rections oriented perpendicularly to the others. Size is again perpendicu-
lar to all three, and cannot be physically traveled by an energetic system,
because the position occupied by any energetic system in the dimension
of size depends on its permanent energetic makeup, and on the funda-
mental forces directly in"uencing that system over the time-scale in
which that system unfolds. You can see that it is perpendicular to each;
neither moving forward, moving sideways, nor moving upwards takes
you inward or outward in the size dimension. You could zoom in on the
number line (or on a point in space, since it must be a continuum) in$-
nitely without traveling any distance le# or right on that line. If you want
to imagine a dimension perpendicular to forward, up, and sideways, look
inwards along the endless gallery of smaller causes summing up to your
energetic makeup, and outwards beyond the stars.
A mathematician would likely argue, saying “De$ning a system's
size in space only requires three dimensions, and you could represent
any physically existent form on a three-dimensional cartesian plane.” To
this, I would argue that the chosen scale of the graph in reference to the
content of the Universe represents a fourth dimension to the representa-
tion, and that a graph of my body with centimeters for the chosen scale
would represent a radically different set of information than the same
graph with picometers marking the scale. In the la%er case, each one of
my atoms would have to be plo%ed to accurately map my shape. Con-
versely, if the chosen scale were kilometers, my body would hardly oc-
cupy a single point on the mapping, and if the scale were googolometers
(10^100 meters), the observable Universe could occupy no more than a
single point on the mapping. Essentially, the $#h dimension of size is
relative at once to each spatial dimension; it arises from the continuum
of distances and the continuum of physical laws governing the character-
istics of energy magnitudes occupying every span therein.
It is interesting that introducing the dimension of time to the
graphical representation would map the dynamic motions of my body,
and the appropriate time span with which to mark the picometer-spatial
scale might be on the order of zeptoseconds, in order to give a faithful
representation of my atomic motions. Due to the Heisenberg uncer-
tainty principle, any mapping we could possibly achieve of an atomic
structure like a body has a degree of uncertainty; there is no way for us
to measure or describe the full range of information embodied in our
particles. However, contrary to the canonical Copenhagen interpretation
of quantum mechanics, the fact that we are unable to glean all the infor-
mation contained in our particles does not at all restrict how much in-
formation those particles embody. !ough we cannot measure both po-
sition and momentum simultaneously, every particle necessarily pos-
sesses both at all times. (If it didn't, what would it mean to measure just
one of them, that is, if a particle has no de$nite momentum at any time,
what would it mean to say that measuring its position upsets its momen-
tum? Further, how could the conservation of momentum law hold?)
Essentially, the realm of physics occupied by an entity is deter-
mined by its position in the dimension of size, containing in$nite small-
ness within and centered in in$nite largeness without. !is entity is free
to travel the dimensions of space perpendicular to size, with each step
spanning the in$nite depth of smallness at every point. Every entity is
permanently traveling through the dimension of time by its energetic
existence. However, the entity is locked into one position in the dimen-
sion of size, as an in$nite tower of smaller hierarchical systems giving rise
to larger, culminating in the boundary of the entity itself.
It is interesting to draw parallels between this model of reality
and fractal geometry. !e structure of our Universe appears to be fun-
damentally fractal in nature (in the most essential sense of self-
similarity; every single constituent is a different expression of Universal
energy representing information in Awareness). Instead of being two or
three dimensional like the fractals we are familiar with, it is 5-
dimensional (at least), in$nitely complex at every level throughout
space, size, and time. We occupy only one level of this structure, but eve-
rything in your view could be zoomed-in on in$nitely, from your desk to
the galaxies out your window.
Both looking outwards in distance through a telescope and look-
ing smaller in size through a microscope involve looking out into the far
distance in the dimension of size, the two opposite directions in which it
extends; from one direction, you have to bend the light rays outwards
and spatially expand their information in order to perceive their squozen
content, and from the other, you must bring them in from their galactic
immensity towards a focal point into which a human eye can peek. Both
involve stretching or squishing energetic content into the size range we
can perceive.
Consider, for a moment, the complex boundary your body
makes with the world around you- the exact shape you take up. From far
away, the shape looks like a three dimensional human form. Examining
the shape at the level of skin cells in size would reveal that the shape be-
comes extremely complicated as you approach it; the grooves in your
skin become canyons of millions of cells folded against each other. As
you near individual cells, you will notice points where the your shape's
boundary opens up to the inside, membrane pores much smaller than
most molecules, but still not closed off. !ese pores open the boundary
up to the inside of your body, the shape $rst tracing individual cell inte-
riors and continuing on into blood vessels and nerves. Continuing
deeper in size brings you to the atoms making up the cells, which open
up the boundary further. In fact, your particles are not directly con-
nected to each other; the boundary of your body turns out to be un-
bounded. Nothing fundamentally separates the shape of your body from
the shape of everything.
Zooming out larger in size, the Universe is positively in$nitely
larger than my body, while zooming in on the constituents of my body, I
would never $nd a smallest component; every arbitrarily small span of
the continuum therein is built up from smaller energetic systems span-
ning smaller subsections of the continuum. My size, and any size de$ned
in the continuum, can be considered the zero point between in$nite
larger sizes (+) and in$nite smaller sizes (-). Every individual system of
energy represents a midpoint in the in$nite dimension of size (and space
and time), in that all smaller sizes are contained within, and all larger
sizes centered on that system contain the system in question.
Some minute realms in the tiered hierarchy of physics may oper-
ate within those strange topological environments investigated in string
theory, while others, like electromagnetism, operate most closely within
the three dimensions of Euclidean geometry along with the dimension
of time. Similarly, though gravitation evidently occurs in the context of
four dimensional Minkowski space, generally called spacetime, the ener-
getic effects which gravitation enacts could be said to occur within the
context of a fundamental possibility represented by the existence of
space; in this view gravitation does not warp space itself as such, but
warps the energetic, 4-d content of spacetime at the size scale over which
it acts.
•§•
!e Big Bang theory is currently interpreted to imply not only
that the energy in the Universe began as a point of in$nite smallness and
density, but that spacetime itself originated from such a singularity; this
conclusion appears "awed, due to the seeming fact that there can be no
such thing as in$nite smallness. It would likely be more accurate to con-
clude that this energy was compressed into a nearly in$nitely smaller
realm of physics from that active at our familiar span of this size-
continuum, and that upon reaching a certain size (perhaps more aptly, a
certain energy-density) it began to embody the physics of our immedi-
ate surroundings, producing light, gravity, atoms, and all the effects we
can observe. !e mathematics describing the physics of our size scale
can only describe this primeval compression in terms of in$nite small-
ness and in$nite density, because of its relatively in$nite distance in size
from our scale; the conditions prior to the Big Bang do not translate into
the mathematics describing the physics of our post-Big Bang size spec-
trum.
It is possible that so-called dark energy and dark ma%er, which
in the standard cosmological model account for about 96% of the mass
in the Universe, are in fact energetic systems which are too small for us
to directly observe from our relatively huge size scale (i.e. too small to
interact with photons and electromagnetism). In their smallness and
ubiquity, they $ll every point in space and every instant in time; perhaps
this is why they account for such a huge proportion of the energy magni-
tude within the Universe. Perhaps only through the tremendous ener-
getic burst provided by the Big Bang are these minuscule energetic sys-
tems able to compound into the immense energetic systems making up
the world we inhabit, the photons, protons, electrons, etc. Because dark
energy and dark ma%er have mass, it is clear that they interact with the
Field of spacetime just as the familiar particles do, and that taken as a
whole they have demonstrable gravitational effects on large scale struc-
tures like galaxies. In this view, dark energy and dark ma%er are the mi-
crocosmic components making up the Field, and will be undetectable
until we have a more nuanced means of investigating smaller realms than
simply smashing particles together.
It is also possible, given how li%le is really known about dark
energy, that it is the effect of conditions occurring in the larger dimen-
sion of physics than that governing the behavior of our size scale; per-
haps our Universe is a constituent particle of a higher sized energetic
system, and is being in"uenced from above by the circumstances in that
higher system (just like an atom in a star gaining temperature due to the
compression of the higher-scale force of gravity). It is also possible, of
course, (let’s call it probable) that neither scenario is the case.
Scienti$c opinion currently holds that the singularity in a black
hole is a point of in$nite density, in$nite smallness. !is again fails to
recognize that there is no such thing as in$nite smallness, only relatively
in$nite smallness. !e size of the collapsing ma%er is effectively in$-
nitely small from the mathematics of our near in$nitely larger perspec-
tive, passing quickly beyond the Planck length, the smallest range an en-
ergetic inhabitant of our size in the Universe could ever hope to exam-
ine, but as with all size spans the energy remains in$nitely larger than the
smaller possible regions within.
!e event horizon of a black hole can be imagined as the point
where the elastic medium of space, the “rubber bands” described in
Chapter 1, begin to be stretched relatively in$nitely inwards from our
perspective (stretched beyond our means of investigating with light, our
fastest information transfer system). Nearing the event horizon of a
black hole, if we could visualize the shape of space via the red grid
method explained in the last chapter, we would $nd that from our per-
spective, the grid is being stretched inwards to (relatively) in$nite
length; a photon could never pass all the way through any one box in the
grid, because it would take what appears to us outsiders an in$nite
amount of time to do so. For this reason, relative to the rest of the Uni-
verse, ma%er falling into the event horizon appears to slow in its motion
through time, eventually coming to a halt relative to our forward march
through time. From the perspective of the photon (due to the relativity
principle), however, the grid lines in its vicinity are perfectly unwarped,
but the grid lines leading away from the black hole and into space are
racing away, apparently stretching away from the black hole, as the space
through which the light propagates is rapidly stretched inwards.
•§•
!e character of the continuous dimensions of spacetime can be
elaborated upon in the context of the cardinality of different types of
in$nity $rst described by Georg Cantor and subsequently developed in
set theory. His counterintuitive result, that in$nities can have different
sizes, depends upon the characteristics of the in$nite set. For example,
the set of natural numbers describes the concept of an endless succes-
sion of equal proportions (1s) added one a#er the other; there is no
highest number to reach. !is is the smallest possible in$nite set, and is
considered “countably in$nite” because though the string of numbers is
in$nite, an in$nite process of systematic counting would reach every
number therein.
On the other hand, the real numbers represent an in$nitely
larger set, called “uncountably in$nite”, because no systematic counting
scheme could possibly account for every number therein. Perhaps the
simplest way to demonstrate this is the following: count the set {1, 0.1,
0.01, 0.001,...}. (In other words, assign a natural number to each subse-
quent real number in the set, which will be the previous number divided
by 10). Because the real numbers represent a continuum, you could ex-
haust the entire in$nite set of natural numbers in counting this set of real
numbers (which approaches 0 but never reaches it during an in$nite
succession of divisions) and never leave the span between the real num-
bers 0 and 1. Truly, it is impossible to set out a system of steps for count-
ing all the reals because no ma%er what unit you choose to begin count-
ing from, there will always be an in$nite number of units making up that
unit. (For example, if you wanted to count the reals by starting with {0,
0.000000001, 0.000000002,...} you would already have missed the in$-
nite set of numbers between 0 and 0.000000001 and another in$nite set
of numbers separating 0.000000001 and 0.000000002.) !is is the de$-
nition of a continuum; each unit is separated from every other unit by an
in$nite gulf of smaller units.
!is seems to apply perfectly to the dimensions of space, time
and size. Each dimension in space can be thought of as the embodiment
of the real numbers, i.e. an in$nitely divisible, endless expanse. Any en-
ergetic system will occupy a de$nite shape in space, which represents
that system's permanent perspective on size; the spatial size of the sys-
tem de$nes a unit integer in the context of the continuum. For example,
because I am a human, my body serves as the natural unit of comparison
between different sizes in the Universe, where every span of distance is
either longer or shorter than I am tall. An in$nite string of any units of
length based on my size (e.g. the length of a footstep) laid end to end
would span the in$nite bounds of one spatial dimension (say, backward
to forward). !e length of my footsteps in this instance (or the footstep
of any subjective observer) represent integers, capable of crossing space
in a countably in$nite sequence. On the other hand, this standard unit
spans a continuum, and is comprised of an uncountably in$nite number
of smaller size scales.
In other words, the position we occupy in the continuum of size
is analogous to an integer, and can be used in the same way as integers to
de$ne a countably in$nite sequence of distances in space; the cardinality
of equal footstep-lengths in space is Aleph 0. !e underlying space
which these footsteps cover is of cardinality Aleph 1, being a continuum
analogous to the continuum of real numbers. As we walk through space,
we are moving perpendicularly to the dimension of size, stuck at exactly
one position (or at least, very near one position, varying slightly during
mealtime and slightly less slightly over our lifetimes) in its in/out con-
tinuum, bypassing an in$nity of smaller scales with each step (an expla-
nation which might $nally satisfy old Zeno).
•§•
To summarize, this chapter proposes the existence of a tiered
in$nity of varied physics, wherein all the energy making up the phenom-
ena at our size scale (light, sound, gravity, heat, etc.) is a direct conse-
quence of energetic interactions happening over relatively in$nitely
smaller spacetime size scales. !e energy making up any particle is the
cumulative effect of ever smaller particles interacting over ever smaller
durations, past the Planck length in size, past the point in size which ap-
pears to contain 0 energy at any moment from our spacetime size scale.
!is in$nite regression does not necessarily need to follow the logical
constraints facing energy in our frame of observation, the realm closest
to our spacetime size-scale. !ere is plenty of room in every point in the
continuum of spacetime for a Universe of information to exist, provided
its constituents occupy smaller energy magnitudes and time durations
relative to larger regions.
!ese relatively in$nitely microscopic systems of energy com-
pound together to produce the higher scale forces and particles making
up the physics at our size scale, and are in turn affected by the conditions
which their energetic interactions sum to, even beyond the threshold
where the dominant physical laws change. For example, the gravitational
effects of stars within our observable size scale cause certain quantum
effects in the quantum lower size scale which would not arise without
this larger-to-smaller compressive in"uence, such as the ignition of nu-
clear fusion in stars.
Further, it is put forward that maybe all force $elds exist as mac-
roscopic energy being distributed and passed through relatively-in$nite
numbers of these smaller-scale systems, the realms of physics making up
the roots of the higher expressions of energy in question. For example,
the electromagnetic potential in space which allows light to propagate
could be interpreted as a vast $eld of near in$nitely-smaller energetic
systems distributing the cumulative energy of the light to each other
over nearly in$nitely shorter time spans; the magnitude of the electrical
permi%ivity and magnetic permeability of space are the emergent result
of the resistance of the smaller scale continuum of energetic systems to
the passage of electromagnetic force. !is implies that spacetime may
not be de$ned by the speed of light through the Field (as described in
Chapter 2) at all size scales, only within the size scale in which we are
centered and in which electromagnetism is expressed.
CHAPTER 4
Interpreting Quantum Effects
!ere are some very interesting and nonintuitive effects revealed
by experiments performed with quantum mechanical systems. In many
cases, these results in no way point to de$nite conclusions, and it is very
likely that the current explanations for what is going on down there in
the deep tininess of size are inadequate. !ough quantum mechanics is
notoriously difficult (perhaps impossible) to interpret in terms of every-
day experience, it remains abundantly clear that there exists a rational
explanation for every facet of Existence (that rational explanation as
known to Cosmic Awareness makes up the existence of the phenomena
in question). !is chapter will be devoted to reimagining some of the
ideas forming the intuitive basis for our understanding of quantum
processes, not necessarily because it will prove useful to do so, but be-
cause these ideas are interesting to think about. (Most of the ideas put
forward here are almost certainly incorrect, and many have been de-
scribed before, but I do like thinking along these lines, and perhaps you
will $nd such a discussion interesting as well.)
One of the most well known examples of quantum physics' un-
usual nature is provided by Young's famous dual-slit experiment,
wherein a beam of light shined through two parallel slits onto a photo-
graphic plate resolves into an image of a wave-diffraction pa%ern, just as
would be expected if light were fundamentally a wavelike phenomena.
However, it is currently well known that light is comprised of quantized
bits known as photons, which exhibit properties of particles in the clas-
sical sense, yet when these individual photons are $red through the same
apparatus one at a time, a wave pa%ern still emerges on the photographic
plate!
However, when a measuring apparatus is used to determine
which slit the photon passes through on its way to the plate, the diffrac-
tion pa%ern does not result. !e Copenhagen interpretation of quantum
mechanics interprets this effect as indicating that rather than traveling
through just one slit (in the case of the experiment when no measuring
apparatus is applied to the slits), the photon's path is described by a
probability wave which takes into account all possible paths and self in-
terferes on this basis, leading to the appearance of the diffraction pa%ern
on the photographic plate.
!is would be quite an unexpected and nonintuitive result, and
there are some things we should consider before accepting this explana-
tion. !e thought that the only thing which the photon could interfere
with to cause the diffraction pa%ern is itself neglects a very signi$cant
factor of the experiment (along with raising the potentially paradoxical
notion of self-interference): the photon is not an independent entity, but
a "uctuation in the electromagnetic Field content of spacetime. !e $eld
through which the photon is traveling is morphed by the presence of the
slits. (!e material in which the slits are cut is made up of electromag-
netic content: atoms.)
!e electromagnetic content of the molecular structure of this
material forms a complex web of warpings through which the photon
cannot pass without being absorbed by an electron within the material.
On the other hand, the open slits represent a smooth continuum of elec-
tromagnetic $eld which the photons can pass through with ease; the
photon's path will be a%racted to the slit in a similar way that an elec-
tron's path will be a%racted to the most conductive surfaces in the vicin-
ity; as the principle of least action states, both fundamentally favor the
path of least resistance. Because the photon is presented with two possi-
ble paths of least resistance, it wavers between them before $nally being
sucked through either one; the interference pa%ern which results on the
screen is a result of the photon interacting with the geometric makeup of
the $eld through which it travels. It is true that the photon passes
through either one slit or the other, and still ends up on the screen in a
way that $ts a spherical wave interference pa%ern; which slit it passes
through is described by the probabilistic mathematics of quantum me-
chanics, which describe the possible paths a photon can take when pre-
sented with two equally (or near equally, based on slight variations in the
photon's velocity) suitable passages. !e photon does not interfere with
itself, the interference solely arises from the photon's interaction with
the split $eld through which it is able to travel.
!e diffraction pa%ern occurs via this experimental setup in the
same way with any quantum object, for instance, an electron: the open
slits again represent paths of least resistance which a%ract the electron,
because colliding with the wall would accelerate the electron, causing it
to radiate, and the principle of least action resists this occurrence and
favors the electron's passing through either slit. An electron $red at the
very edge of the slit, such that if it were a normal projectile, it would col-
lide with the edge of the slit rather than pass through, is instead funneled
into the opening; it is electrically repelled from the barrier it is approach-
ing in favor of the freely traversable medium nearby. !e situation is
analogous to an electron being accelerated through a conductor via an
applied voltage, if an insulator with two conductive channels is built into
the conductor; the electron is sucked through the path of least resis-
tance.
!is is the origin of the wave pa%ern resulting on the detector.
!e geometry of the force $eld through which the electron travels as its
wave nears the blockage causes the interference: it wavers between being
drawn to each slit before it is close enough to be pulled de$nitely one
way or the other. !e electron's path is in"uenced by the fact it can only
traverse one slit. !e interference arises from the electron's interaction
with the characteristics of the forked EM $eld, not via interaction with
itself (or at least, in in"uencing itself, it is only doing so through in"u-
encing the content of the $eld, with that in"uence in turn affecting its
future motion); wavering between the two favored paths represented by
the slits gives the electron's velocity a lateral element, which turns out to
exactly match the type of interference pa%ern resulting from waves of
force traversing a medium passing through two slits.
!e electron's motion is a wave of force traveling through the
EM $eld, and that wave of force is in"uenced by the force-curvature of
the $eld. It is the same effect that leads the lightning bolt to the lightning
rod: the resistance to the current's "ow is greater in some places than
others, based on the electromagnetic conditions in the bolt's vicinity at
the time. A large antenna is like a subtle funnel instilled in the $eld,
drawing nearer any rogue currents passing through, in a way analogous
to the slits drawing the electron's path nearer. !e open slits represent a
conductive path, while the screen in which the slits are situated repre-
sents an insulator.
Why does the interference pa%ern cease to appear when a detec-
tor is used to determine which slit the electron passes through on its way
to the photographic plate? As was mentioned in reference to the Hei-
senberg Uncertainty Principle in Chapter 3, any detector used necessar-
ily must energetically interact with the particle in question. Generally,
the electron's path is detected by placing an instrument on the slit which
is responsive to changes in the electromagnetic $eld; as the electron
passes, its motion through the $eld causes a magnetic $eld perpendicu-
lar to its direction of motion, which the detector can register.
However, the detector's registering of that magnetic $eld re-
quires an interchange of energy with the electron; in interacting with the
detector, the electron gives force in the form of magnetic "ux, and the
detector gives force to the electron through the impedance its magnetic
$eld causes, resisting that electrical $eld's in"uence on the magnetic
$eld. !is balanced exchange of force alters the momentum of the elec-
tron, in this case minimizing the lateral motion introduced by the elec-
tron's wavering between the two paths, which keeps the interference pat-
tern from resulting.
•§•
!e convention for calling quantum mechanical systems 'parti-
cles' is representative of the persistent tendency we have to refer to these
objects in reference to our everyday surroundings. 'Particle' suggests spa-
tial and energetic self-containment, and it is for this reason that the label
as popularly understood is inadequate. Every particle consists of both its
energetic content and its relationship to the energetic content of the
Universe; every particle (besides the force-carrying gauge bosons) has
mass, and is therefore related to the gravitational $eld (the dynamic
geometric shape) of spacetime, and many particles have a charge, and
therefore interact with the electromagnetic $eld of potential (or their
pertinent $eld, like the strong $eld for nuclear particles) in spacetime.
Rather than a hard bundle of energy standing apart from the surround-
ing $elds, a particle is de$ned by its interaction with the pertinent $elds.
!is interaction takes the form of a wave phenomena.
What does it mean to behave like a wave? All waves involve the
transference of momentum through a media; some waves, like sound
waves or mechanical ocean waves, spread that momentum throughout a
medium, with the intensity of the energy rapidly dissipating per the in-
verse square law as it spreads over a larger area. Other waves, like those
through a spring, do not have a wide area through which to spread, and
carry their momentum in a packet of energy through the media. Quan-
tum particle-waves are more like spring waves in this sense; they do not
consist of an impulse in a $eld-media which spreads and dissipates; they
have speci$c velocities through which they convey momentum through
their media. A photon, for instance, is impelled in its motion in only one
direction by the complementary in"uence of a varying electrical $eld
and a proportional, perpendicular magnetic $eld. !e particle represents
a region of its home $eld which has been energetically plucked in such a
way as to leave a temporary wave oscillating therein. !is wave is self-
contained in that it does not spread out over the $eld, but exists in a dy-
namic, self-coiling relationship with the $eld, responding with motion to
changes in the $eld and in turn changing the content of the $eld. !ere-
fore, the word 'particle' should be understood to mean “a non-spreading
quantized waveform within a $eld medium”.
A photon consists of a self-contained self-perpetuating electro-
magnetic wave, that is, a disturbance in the electromagnetic $eld which
does not spread out over space; its two components, co-driving swirls of
density in the electrical and magnetic $elds, remain locked to each other,
violently twisting about each other. !ey propagate over space because
each impels the other to progress forward in a dimension perpendicular
to its own circular path; the summation of these two in"uences drives
the photon in a direction perpendicular to theirs at the speed with which
they change. !e in$nitely large electrical and magnetic $elds draped
throughout space are woven together in this most intimate of ways, em-
bodying through their rich content of photons an unimaginably dense
vortex of energetic coin"uence.
An electron only radiates when in motion relative to the EM
$eld. It appears that whenever the electron is accelerated, its in"uence
on the electrical $eld is warped away from what it would have been if the
electron were in constant velocity (and thus at equilibrium with the sur-
rounding $eld content); amazingly, whenever the shape of the electrical
$eld becomes warped, the magnetic $eld (which overlaps with the elec-
trical $eld at every point in space) in that area is warped in a propor-
tional fashion, though the orientation of its warping is perpendicular to
that of the electrical $eld. In turn, whenever the magnetic $eld is
warped, it causes a proportional, perpendicular, warping in the electrical
$eld. !is relationship of coin"uence (a photon) continues between the
two $elds until it is absorbed by another particle, many times billions of
years a#er it begins. It propagates at a constant speed through space re-
gardless of the intensity or rapidity of the co-oscillation, the speed of
light, which seems to have its precise value because the microcosmic
physical systems of energy which make up the basis of these $elds at a
level nearly in$nitely smaller than the photon take time to pass this in-
formation along, causing friction on the speed of the oscillation and giv-
ing it this $nite speed.
In an atomic orbital, it seems that the electron does not radiate
because it occupies a dynamic equilibrium with the motion of the Field.
Due to the con"uence of the electrons and protons therein, the Field is
changing shape rapidly, and the electron's motion perfectly locks into
the rhythm of the changing $eld, such that their in"uences harmonize
perfectly; the electron and the shape of the Field share a constant veloc-
ity. !at is, in the space around the nucleus, the positive charges warp
the electrical $eld in a speci$c way, and the electron's motion in response
perfectly counteracts this effect, leading to a static relationship relative to
the Field due to the incessant, dynamic motion the electrical $eld un-
dergoes in response to the relationship between the two charges; their
in"uence on the electrical $eld outside of their close bond is perfectly
neutral, though the electron's motion relative to the magnetic $eld still
causes a magnetic distortion.
Atoms exist in this state of perfect neutrality unless the number
of electrons does not match the number of protons (as is the case with
ions). Every balanced con$guration is unstable to the point that the neu-
trality can only be maintained through the electron's contant motion
relative to the proton and in synchrony with the warping of the EM Field
the proton causes. When the conditions of the Field are upset by an out-
side source, like a photon, the electron is knocked out of this perfect re-
lationship with the proton and the Field, and accelerates relative to the
shape of the Field, radiating energy (carrying information about the
electron's relative change out into the Universe) in the process.
When atoms chemically bond, their electrons share in their re-
sponse to the warping of the Field done by both nuclei. !e dance is
unimaginably complex and unique for every possible combination of
orbitals, i.e. every possible combination of positive Field curvature coun-
teracted by dynamic negative Field curvature such that no relative mo-
tion occurs between the particles and the $eld shaped by their charges;
the particles move in perfect synchrony with the twistings of the $eld.
As for the wave/particle duality, the distinction comes down to
the behavior of the 'particle' in response to different situations. Again, all
particles consist of energetic disturbances in their home Field; a photon
consists of a self-contained, self-perpetuating disturbance in the elec-
tromagnetic $eld. When the photon is forced to interact with the $eld,
for instance when passing through a narrow aperture in the $eld, it re-
sponds like the wave that it is. When the photon is forced to interact
with other particles with components in other $elds, it behaves like a
classical particle. !at is, in the dual slit experiment, the photon behaves
as a wave because it is only interacting with the $eld through which it
travels, whereas in the photoelectric effect, photons behave partically
due to their interaction with (quantized absorption by) electrons.
CHAPTER 5
Time as Change
!e clock just struck in$nity: I wonder, will human minds ever
be satis$ed with the thought that an in$nity of time (an in$nite progres-
sion of change) precedes us? If you count backwards in years, the fact
that we occupy a de$nite point in time seems to cap the in$nity on this
end (apparently suggesting that it took a $nite amount of time to reach
this point); our intuition protests: “how could there not be a zero point,
a beginning, on the other end?” Taking into account the axiom that Ex-
istence has never not existed, the true answer seems to be that the pre-
sent represents the 0 point between negative in$nity in time (the past)
and positive in$nity in time (the future). Every individual moment for
any bit of energy in Existence is at the very center of time, the endpoint
of a beginning-less cascade of causality, and the starting set of causes for
yet another in$nite chain of events.
Historically, it was o#en concluded that given an in$nity of time,
everything that can happen once will necessarily happen again an in$-
nite amount of times, that our exact lives will be lived out again and
again and again. !is concept is recurrent throughout human thinking,
appearing in Indian philosophy and the beliefs of the Pythagoreans, and
later put forward by Nietzsche. !is thought ignores that concurrent to
in$nite time is the existence of an in$nite depth of possibility. It seems
that the in$nity of time arises as a consequence of the in$nity of possi-
bility, the relentless emanation from Truth of change unto change.
Consider the ridiculous odds that shuffled up your life from the
13.7 billion year $rework of the Universe, and moreover, the impossibly
huge number of ways your life could have unfolded, and more-moreover,
the unfathomable range of possibility open to you at this very instant!
You could be si%ing an atom's width away from where you sit now, your
heart could be beating differently from just an extra instant of exertion
earlier in the day (i.e. maybe coinciding with every 15th tick of the clock
on the wall instead of coinciding with every 61st tick), different air
molecules, perhaps carrying harmful fungal spores, could be $lling your
lungs, different water molecules could be coursing through your veins,
different pa%erns of photons could be streaming from your lamp. Couple
this with the realizations of chaos theory, the bu%er"y effect that any
small scale change in a system can potentially lead to extreme large scale
changes. !e unimaginably, brilliantly gigantic range of possibilities will
never be exhausted.
Simply the fact that a thing has had the inconceivable luck to
happen in this bo%omless range of potential makes it likely that thing
will not happen again; if there are an in$nite number of possible ways for
something to happen, the probability that it will happen the same way
twice is almost in$nitely less than the likelihood that it will happen dif-
ferently. Even given an in$nite number of chances to happen the same
way, there are always an in$nite number of as yet unrecognized possibili-
ties towering over the $nite number of ways the event has already hap-
pened, which probability will favor in proportion to the tremendousness
of the unrealized potential.
!is directly relates to entropy, the delightfully far-reaching con-
cept describing the tendency for thermodynamic disorder (the amount
of non-convertible energy, that which can do no work) to increase to-
wards a maximum in any closed physical system, and never to spontane-
ously decrease. !is principle extends into the broader $eld of statistical
behavior, applying to any probabilistic informational system. Because
the number of possible disordered states generally far outweighs the
number of possible ordered states, the system will favor and tend to-
wards disorganized con$gurations; for instance, if a program were cre-
ated which types out random le%ers, the ratio of gibberish to actual Eng-
lish words would be huge; the possible combinations of disorganized
le%ers far outweighs the number of speci$c combinations which encode
words, which in turn far outweighs the number of combinations which
encode grammatical phrases. Essentially, any system which can represent
informational order can only be considered ordered in contrast to the
system's broad range of possible disorder.
We encounter this quietly prevailing phenomenon throughout
our lives. In some houses, a bedroom is only considered clean in one
perfect con$guration, with the surfaces all clean of dust and the furniture
all in order, the clothes all neatly folded and the bed covers clean and
smoothed. In this context, there is only a very small range of states for
the system which can be considered satisfactorily ordered, and the im-
mense hoard of disordered states invades on this situation relentlessly
and must be repelled again and again. Shirts in the drawers are upset by
hasty searches on hurried mornings, books and magazines stack up at
odd angles, cups are le#, temporarily leaving rings of moisture, towels
are draped on doors, dust materializes from the organic degradation of
the occupants' skin, smells and stains similarly appear, and the elusive
state of order cannot maintain its state in the face of so many avenues for
its perfection to degrade.
Another example: suppose you empty a crate of tennis balls
from the deck of a ship into the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. One pos-
sibility is that the balls will "oat in tight formation, never spreading out.
However, the probability of this happening is absolutely dwarfed by the
colossal range of possibility open to the balls; over time the number of
possible ocean-wide con$gurations is unimaginably larger than the small
range of grouped-"oating con$gurations, or the possibilities for ball ar-
rangement when they were in the crate. Due to the statistical eminence
of entropy, this system, le# to itself over time, will tend towards the
highest possible disorder for the balls. If the balls were numbered,
maybe a#er a year ball #1 has "oated to a rocky outcrop in Charleston,
South Carolina, while ball #55 ended up at Rossaire Harbor in Ireland.
Five billion years later, the atoms making up the balls are likely more or
less evenly distributed throughout the planet (due to tectonic proc-
esses).
!is universal statistical effect is immensely in"uential in the
behavior of large numbers of particles (for example, all the particles in
the Universe). !e unimaginably vast history of the energy in the Uni-
verse has unfolded according to this fundamental tendency, beginning
with what is apparently the most ordered state (near-total oneness at the
Big Bang) and proceeding towards thermodynamic disorder. Even
though this global entropic trend drives the energy in the Universe to-
wards statistical homogeneity, the possibility inherent to Existence al-
lows some preposterously unlikely situations to shuffle into being.
Given the unspeakably gigantic range of possibility open to each
individual particle in the Universe, what do you think the odds are that
the seven octillion atoms making up your body would have moved
through space in the way that you moved today: stacked into your shape,
following a wide curve through space and time around the center of the
Milky Way, a much smaller spiral through space around the sun, and at
an even smaller scale carving a double helix through space and time
along with the moon? Picture the supreme complexity of the dynamic
shape taken by the trillions of cells making up your bones and "esh, the
rivers of blood rushing through your fractal veins, the twisting random-
ness of your hairs in the air. Your atoms vibrate in perfect synchrony
with the frequency of your vocal chords, and in your brain miraculously
coordinate to produce a perception of the sound thus produced. !e
li%le organic participants in the lives of your cells swarm in an unimagin-
able complex of ordered activity, engaging the dynamic blueprint of your
DNA in countless ways.
Einstein describes the comprehensive shape that a bit of energy
takes through spacetime in the entire history of its existence the “world
line” of that energy. In your mind, rewind time from where you sit now
and picture the path all your atoms take as you move backwards through
their individual world-lines. Initially they follow the path you followed in
your actions today, with the oxygen being used by your cells at the $rst
instant slowly distributed back into the air from which you breathed it.
Nutrients surge back through your veins, into your digestive system, up
through your throat and out into your hands as food, urine "ows upward
through miles of pipe, and jumps from your toilet bowl into your ure-
thra.
As you continue backwards in time, a#er a few years almost
none of the atoms in your body at the outset are still present; they are
swirling about outside in the wide world. Much farther still, they dissi-
pate from the expanding gas cloud which had collapsed to form the
Earth, and make their way over billions of years and unimaginable dis-
tances back into exploding stars, where they are formed in nuclear fu-
sion. Your hydrogen atoms keep their present form and trace a world-
line all the way back to moments a#er the big bang, before all the energy
is sucked into a singularity (or so is the current understanding).
Backwards in time (backwards along the chain of causality, effect
unto cause), that energy likely explodes outward, in a backwards Big
Bang, though a#er the compression point of the Big Bang, it seems no
individual bit would still be identi$able from before the crunch. All the
while the concept of a world line describes the tremendously complex
shape traced by every bit of energy's path through spacetime relative to
every other bit of energy. !e natural progression of this energy follow-
ing the logic of Universal Truth leads to some of these bits of energy
"owing into your body and contributing to some exchange of force per-
tinent to your life. Energy "ows through physical reality, compelled by
its very nature to expend its potential in a boundless variety of ways. In
the framework of perfect Truth, this "ow produces our individual reali-
ties, naturally and automatically. In the boundless spectrum of possible
happenings, the likelihood of any of this occurring the same way (or
even remotely similarly) twice is so small as to be nonexistent.
Again, it is helpful to use Cantor's language to compare these
in$nities. !e entire range of possibility open to Existence, de$ned by
Truth and excluding only the logically impossible, is necessarily un-
countably in$nite in the highest possible degree; this all-encompassing
informational system characterizes everything which can possibly exist,
and thereby contains every lesser class of in$nity (every possible exten-
sion of real numbers, every possible set, every possible anything). !e
one empirically evident model for how things come to exist and how
events come to pass is that embodied by our Universe: energetic, logical
causality according to the laws of physics and compounding into the di-
verse range of forms, force-interchanges, and sensations which arise
therein over time. !is being the case, the set of all that has come to pass
and all that will come to pass is characterized by its linear, spatiotempo-
ral progression. If you were to record all the happenings in the span of a
Universe from its Big Bang to whatever its natural endpoint is (perhaps
its Big Collapse), you would end up cataloguing an unimaginably vast,
but only countably in$nite set of explicit realizations of Universal possi-
bility; this set is necessarily a subset of Existence's entire scope of possi-
bility, in fact a vanishingly tiny subset.
Now then, if the Universe you are cataloguing cycles for an in$-
nite amount of time, in the process of recording all that happens, you
would delineate a countably in$nite set of Universes, where each indi-
vidual cycle could be put in correspondence with an integer. Essentially,
the possibility inherent to Existence is uncountably in$nitely larger than
the possibility explicitly brought to light over the course of a countably
in$nite amount of time; therefore, our lives and the events in this Uni-
verse are profoundly unique, unlikely, and precious. Existence has very
likely never exactly come to this before, and it is extremely likely that it
never will again.
•§•
One very interesting philosophical issue is the question “Does
the past still exist?” From a physical standpoint, it seems quite clear that
the past, say, the physical existence which was present 5 minutes ago, no
longer exists. Change has occurred over the intervening time; the Earth
occupies a different position in space, and in fact all physical bodies have
moved in that time, down to atoms and their constituents and up to clus-
ters of galaxies relative to each other. From this perspective, where we
take “existent” to mean all that presently occupies the Universe, it seems
that the past is forever gone, perhaps temporarily encoded in the present
shape of our neurons, our memories, but no longer having actual being.
Based on the updated de$nition of what it means to exist put
forward in Part I, Chapter 2, you may already see the difficulties this
conclusion (that the past is nonexistent) faces. As was stated earlier, a
thing's existence is wholly de$ned by its relationship with the rest of Ex-
istence. It is quite evident (both logically and empirically) that the pre-
sent could not possibly be without the past causes which led to it; the
existence of the past de$nes and is contained within the present. !ese
words would not occupy this page if I hadn't typed them in the past; the
act of typing them is part of the informational content describing their
existence in the Universe. For this reason, the assumption that because
we cannot look out and see or touch the past, it is nonexistent, is erro-
neous. !ough it exists in a way we are not directly familiar with, the past
is just as existent as the present; every cause is coexistent with its effects,
no ma%er how far removed along the chain of causality any effect is.
Every effect embodies all its causes. Take any old thing- this cup
on my table, with colors slightly faded through repeated trips through
the dishwasher, containing a bit of water. !e existence of the cup in this
way at this time depends on a range of events stretching backwards
through the in$nity of the past. !is cup would not exist in that spot on
this table at this time with that temperature, with those $ngerprint
smears, and those certain water molecules, if I hadn't $lled it at the exact
time that I did, which wouldn't have been at that time if I hadn't sped up
through that yellow light on the way home. It wouldn't be this cup with-
out whoever bought this cup choosing that speci$c set from the rows in
the store, and wouldn't be these molecules if the mold were $lled a mo-
ment later than it was at the factory. If my great great great great grandfa-
ther hadn't narrowly survived a bout with pneumonia as a child, I
wouldn't be here to perceive and reference the cup. If he had taken any
action other than those exact actions he took, even down to eating a sin-
gle plate of food in a different order, then a different sperm probably
would have been the one to fertilize my great great great great grand-
mother's egg, and history would have unfolded differently: the members
of my family de$nitely would not exist as they do now. Farther back, the
cup's present existence depends on the Earth having undergone the ex-
act development that it did through the last several billion years, which
depended on the entire Universe undergoing the exact development that
it did since the Big Bang, and that depended on the process prior to the
Big Bang occurring just how it did, back and back. You yourself are the
embodiment of an in$nite range of causes.
What about the future; does that exist as well? I think it should
be equally clear that the answer is, again, yes, though in a different sense;
all possible futures are contained within Truth, with those more likely to
come about more closely logically related to the present, and many ren-
dered perfectly impossible when the present conditions of the Universe
are taken as a starting point. For example, there is a boundless range of
possible tomorrows, but the ones which are most likely are those which
we expect out of habit to occur; for example, it is a Sunday, and because
most every Monday I've seen in the past many years has involved me
driving to work on the same route, I expect I will be at work at this time
tomorrow.
It is possible that I will be involved in a catastrophic car accident
on the way to work, and that I will be spending this time tomorrow en-
gulfed in a $reball, but I am not worried that this will come to pass;
based on experience, it is much more likely that I will make it to work
comfortably. On the other hand, it seems all but impossibly unlikely that
tomorrow I will be "ung off into space at some unreasonable velocity
and land on the moon. Given the laws of physics, it is certainly possible
that this could occur, but given the informational content of the present,
I can imagine no circumstance where this would be a possible occur-
rence. However, both possibilities are existent in the Truth which de-
$nes Existence.
For a human, traveling backwards in time is impossible because
of the second law of thermodynamics in our Universe. To travel back-
wards in time would be to force the entire Universe back into lower en-
tropy, and not only that, but into the exact arrangement of force and en-
ergy that the present has proceeded from. Time is nothing but the
change necessitated by energetic reactions, so you can be sure the world
of yesterday does not exist today. Again, this is not to say that the echoes
of yesterday don't now exist in their effect on today, but that the physical
existence of yesterday is gone, replaced through the passage of energetic
change which brought the past to the present. !ere is no way to sepa-
rate your body from the Universe and swim against the irreversible cur-
rent of entropic energy expenditure into the past; your body is part of
that energy expenditure, indistinct from the rest.
!e fundamental directionality of time is experienced as the
eternal "ow of causes unto effects, which in turn serve as causes unto
other effects. If you could magically reverse physics and witness the re-
verse playback of any system's physics, in observing this you would still
feel time passing. It doesn't ma%er in which direction a change occurs,
either from low entropy to high or high entropy to low, time is the space
in which that change occurs. Our Universe, propelled by the in$nite po-
tential energy that sparked the Big Bang, unfolds according to the inertia
of lowest possible entropy giving way to highest possible entropy. Any
localized event which results in a reversal, achieving a system of lower
entropy, expends more entropy in the form of heat and other high en-
tropy effects than it saves. According to the second law of thermodynam-
ics, no physical process evades this necessity in this phase of the Uni-
verse, the expanding phase. In a hypothetical “collapsing phase”, where
the highest entropy empty-of-potential-energy Universe collapses back
into lowest entropy and highest potential energy, the directionality of
time would still represent causes giving way to effects.
It is as absurd for cosmologists to perceive a so-called “heat
death” scenario as the endpoint to Existence as it is for them to conclude
that the Big Bang was the absolute starting point to Existence. !ere is
no reason to believe that every possible physical effect is directly observ-
able from our $nite, narrow point of view. Who's to say what laws of
physics dominate in a Universe expanded beyond the limits of our per-
sonal ma%er's possible range of being? !e only thing we can know for
certain is that there is no end to reach, and any Universe's particular end
must be the beginning to another frame of Existence, in the ever-
unfolding expression of the in$nite energy and possibility of Truth.
To put this another way, prominent contemporary cosmologists
o#en state that the Big Bang was the beginning of time, of everything.
!ey seem to believe an in$nite amount of potential energy suddenly
came into existence out of blank -nothingness-, and is headed towards an
endpoint of in$nite kinetic energy, i.e., of maximum entropy. But we can
see by looking at this concept from the other side, that if there exists a
Universe of free kinetic energy (in “heat-death”), there is a reason for it
being there (i.e. it is clearly the result of a cause, in this case, the Big Bang
and the entire resultant winding down of the energy from potential to
kinetic throughout the entire life of our Universe), as Richard Feynman
among others has noted. Why should the same not be true of a Uni-
verse's worth of potential energy, which is what the seed of the Big Bang
was? Surely a process comparable to the immensity and complexity of
our Universe's winding down into full entropy led to the seed of the Big
Bang's being compressed into zero entropy, perfect oneness.
It seems possible that the two states interchange, with a Big Bang
eventually leading to a Big Suck, where all processes progress from
higher entropy to lower. It is interesting that the 4 dimensional shape of
such a Universe would be analogous to a Möbius strip; just as the Mö-
bius strip consists of a 2-dimensional surface curved through a third di-
mension to meet itself in a single-sided loop, the 3-d Universe when
curved back on itself through the fourth dimension (time), inevitably
returns to its starting point without turning around. In the Universe of
the Big Suck, all physical laws might behave radically differently, pro-
pelled by an impetus of opposite character. Life, if anything like life is
possible, would most likely be unrecognizably different from what we
call life.
It is also possible that in a Universe rushing towards the $nal
expenditure of energy, as in the heat-death or big rip scenario, would
behave in such a way as to produce another Big Bang out of some cur-
rently unknown mechanism. Again, it is necessarily erroneous to con-
clude either that Existence can begin or end; therefore, we should not
expect any evidence we uncover to suggest an endpoint.
CHAPTER 6
The Basis of Set Theory
Set theory has proven immensely valuable as a foundational ap-
proach to mathematics. However, following its initial development some
inadequacies came to light. One of the most important faults in early set
theory was revealed by Russel's paradox, which involves a curious case of
self reference: Suppose we de$ne a set containing only those sets which
do not contain themselves. Will this set be an element of itself? If it is
not counted as an element of itself, it is a set which does not contain it-
self, and is therefore required to be included within the set. If it is
counted as an element of itself, then it fails to qualify for inclusion in the
set by de$nition. How can this paradox, which reveals a fundamental
inconsistency in the concept of a set, be resolved? Entire reworkings of
set theory's foundations were undergone in response, with the favored
approach being the Zermelo-Frankel axiomatic framework, which sim-
ply proposes rules which must be followed in order to avoid such para-
doxes (e.g. the axiom of regularity states (in short) that a set cannot con-
tain itself).
It seems that these strategies for overcoming inconsistencies of
this sort fails to strike at the root of the problem; the fact that such prob-
lems exist suggest that the very understanding of what a set is, the intui-
tive framework forming the basis for set theory, is malformed. Axiomatic
set theory sweeps this problem under the rug, throwing up its hands and
de$ning a set as an “unde$ned primitive”, which amounts to saying “we
cannot $gure out how to properly de$ne a set, but we still know what we
mean when we're talking about sets”. It is quite a mystery as to why such
imprecision is acceptable to serve this essential foundational role in the
philosophy of mathematics.
!is fundamental difficulty essentially arises from a casual use of
the language of container vs. contents which seems so naturally to apply
to the idea of a set. A set is generally treated as a container for elements
which are designated for inclusion by logical rules called predicates.
While this de$nition is useful and intuitively convenient for almost all
cases, it is fundamentally "awed; there lies a hidden, irreparable defect in
this treatment of sets: any container represents an object above and be-
yond its contents, but upon close examination this is not true of sets.
To elaborate, it is useful to utilize the language of Truth, and its
ontological status in the framing and underlying of Existence which was
laid out in Chapters 2-4 in Part I (speci$cally, the idea that every single
existent thing exists on the basis of its informational relationship to all
other existent things, that the fabric of any object's existence is the sum
total of all the Truths which pertain to that object and its place in the
Universe, contained and expressed in Cosmic Awareness). A set can only
be de$ned in reference to the information making up Existence, using
predicates which logically identify certain aspects of that information for
inclusion in the grouping and exclude information which does not sat-
isfy those predicates. Easily distinguished systems of information in the
set are called elements, and are those members of a set which are speci-
$ed for inclusion by logical compatibility with the set's predicates.
(Speci$ed with predicates like “the $rst googol prime numbers are ele-
ments in this set”– in this case the elements are the one googol primes
dictated by the predicate, the bulk of which we do not happen to know
(we have only explicitly identi$ed a very small fraction of the $rst googol
primes), but because there are an in$nite number of primes in existence,
we know the $rst googol of them exist and therefore must be grouped
into the set according to its predicate.)
A set is wholly de$ned by and logically comprised by this infor-
mational relationship, that is, the logic of its predicates applying instantly
to all possible elements, including every element which satis$es the
predicate and all those which it rejects. A set is therefore not a container
for elements; a set is simply the consequence of any valid predicate. !e
logic of any predicate represents a unique li%le informational machine
which draws a border around every possible facet of Existence which is
speci$ed by its logic and distinguishes this grouping from the rest of Ex-
istence, de$ning a complex grouping of “in” vs. “out” based on a%ributes
the elements share.
Grouping things into sets does not change the things in them-
selves in any way; it is simply taking the things as a subset of all of Exis-
tence by distinguishing them using particular truths which uniquely per-
tain to them. !e rule under which they are grouped is not a container
for those things, but is simply representative of some facet of existence
which they share in common. If I de$ne a set of all the words on this
page, the set brings nothing new to the picture. !e words already exist
on the page (though interestingly, the contents of the set are changing as
I type these new words here, shbluhblobble); the Truth making up their
existence is unmodi$ed by grouping them into a set based on the predi-
cate “words which exist on this page, and nothing else”. !e set simply
de$nes membership based on a narrow range of the truths describing
these words, excluding from membership everything which is not a
word on this page.
To consider sets as containers distinct from their contents is to
give them a fallacious ontological independence, with the result that sets
would exist above and beyond their predicates and the elements com-
patible with those predicates. On the contrary, in the set of all trees, for
instance, the trees exist independently of the set but the set does not ex-
ist independently of the trees; the set is not an existent container stand-
ing apart from the trees, it is simply a logical framework de$ned by a
predicate based on those facets of trees which allow them to be distin-
guished from the parts of Existence which do not share these a%ributes.
!e set does not exist separate from these Truths, but is wholly con-
tained within the logic of the predicate (drawn from the logical possibil-
ity contained in Truth) in relation to the Truth making up the existence
of the trees.
Every possible set already exists in the Truths which make up
the existence of all possible elements, and their relationships to all pos-
sible predicates. !e set is not a container above and beyond its predi-
cate logic and the Truths describing its elements. Set theory is not an
additive process, as the language of container vs. contents implies, but a
subtractive one; any set deducts from the entirety of Truths making up
elements certain a%ributes which logically distinguish those elements,
which those elements do not share with elements that are excluded from
the set. De$ning a new set is only a creative act in that you've drawn
from the possibility contained within Existence to generate an explicit
logical relationship, cra#ed in such a way that it can be objectively un-
derstood and communicated by humans.
!e proper de$nition of a set is therefore: a logical grouping of
Existent information (easily distinguished units of which are denoted by
the term “element”) de$ned by predicates which describe the included
elements. Despite the convenience of using the word “contain” to de-
scribe sets, saying that a set contains another set is not equivalent to say-
ing “there is a container containing another container which contains a
certain range of contents”. It is more complicated, but much more accu-
rate in this case to say “there is a logical grouping of Existent information
de$ned by certain predicates which includes another logical grouping of
Existent information de$ned by other predicates.”
•§•
A set is de$ned solely through the interaction between predi-
cates (logical rules) and elements (existent information); the set is not
just the elements without the predicates (without a rule for inclusion vs.
exclusion, there cannot be a set; even the empty set is de$ned by a nec-
essary predicate of the type “this set does not include anything”), and
the set is not just the predicates without the elements (the predicates
cannot exist without immediately applying to all possible elements; even
the empty set logically excludes everything which can possibly exist, and
thereby applies to them (for instance, it is True of my body that it is not
included in the empty set, by that set's de$nition)).
Because of this, a predicate cannot reference the set it de$nes;
that is, there can be no predicate of the form “a set exists which contains
itself ” because the set cannot exist as an element independent of its con-
stituent predicates; a predicate of this form references information
which cannot exist, because the existence of that information (the de$-
nition of the set itself) depends upon the logical application of those
very same predicates. A predicate cannot be predicated on itself, because
the truth value of a predicate is based on how its logical content relates
to the informational content of something already de$ned; the predicate
itself has no informational content other than the logic it represents, and
cannot evaluate itself for this reason. A predicate can only be de$ned in
relation to something (anything) other than itself; the predicate's de$ni-
tion depends on this duality.
For example, consider this case, which uses the archetypal
predicate of true/ false: “!e following sentence is false. !e previous
sentence is true.” !e $rst sentence is only true if the second sentence is
false, but if the second sentence is false, the $rst sentence must not be
true. !e second sentence is only true if the $rst sentence is true, yet the
$rst sentence asserts that the second is untrue. !e second sentence says
“I'm true if, as I say, the previous sentence is true. But wait, the previous
sentence says I'm false. Well, that's ok, because if I'm false then he's not
true. But wait, if he's not true, if he's false to say that I'm false, then I am
true! But wait...” !e reason for this irresolvable paradox is that the
predicate can neither be true nor false if the only thing it references is its
own validity. (In this case, both predicates indirectly reference them-
selves through the other sentence: the predicate is de$ned in reference
to the validity of another sentence, and the validity of that other sen-
tence is de$ned in reference to the predicate.) Such a predicate is unde-
$ned and unde$nable, in that it does not logically describe the truth nor
falsity of any element. For this reason, such a predicate cannot be a de-
$ning component of a set, of a grouping based on logical truth/falsity.
Consider a set X whose predicates are “set X includes the le%ers
A, B, C, and set X itself ”. !e $rst three elements are perfectly suitable:
set X contains the le%er A, which is not Z, is not an elephant, is simply
described by all that makes the le%er A the le%er A, and the same is true
of the le%ers B and C. Now, what is this speci$ed element set X? It is
called a set, which would be a grouping of elements marked for inclusion
in the group by their logical compatibility with those predicates de$ning
the set. However, a set only exists in the relationship between its predi-
cates and all possible elements (all contents of Existence); one of its
predicates seeks to include an element (the set itself) which does not
exist prior to the existence of the predicate– without the set having in-
dependent existence, there is nothing to be predicated on; this element
“set X” does not exist, and the rule seeking to de$ne “set X” fails: there is
no set X of this form. A set cannot de$ne a logical grouping of elements
based on a predicate which references the set itself, because the set itself
only exists in the relationship between its predicates and the elements
speci$ed; the set would have to exist as an element prior to its predicates
in order to be evaluated by them, yet no set exists without the logical
relationship between its predicates and previously existent elements.
To correctly de$ne the relationship between a set and its “con-
tents” requires replacing the language of containment. Sets are wholly
represented by their logical and informational content, the union of their
predicates and elements. A more suitable language would be that of de-
scription or inclusion. !ough a set cannot be included as an element of
itself (because self-inclusion would necessarily invoke the impossible
self-predication by predicates), every set is wholly described by itself;
every set contains itself in this sense by the principle of identity. A more
suitable description for what a set is made up of is based not on what the
set contains, (implying that the set itself is a container), but what the set
describes, resulting from the relationship between its predicates and the
elements required by those predicates. No set contains itself as an ele-
ment (nor does any set contain its elements), but every set describes it-
self: every set is wholly described by the grouping of its elements based
on its predicates.
When the language of container vs. contents is removed from
set theory, Russel's paradox reads differently: the set describing all sets
which do not describe themselves turns out to be the empty set: no such
set exists. Another interesting stalemate in set theory, the question “does
the set of all sets contain itself?” becomes “does the set describing all sets
describe itself?” Yes, it certainly does; this set equates to Existence, ex-
cluding no element nor possible grouping of elements, and is wholly
contained in this predicate and its application to all existent things and
non-application to all nonexistent things, namely, nothingness.
Existence, the eternal Being of the cosmos: {everything existent
past, present, and future, including all mathematical and logical Truth,
and all possibilities, occurrences, qualities and circumstances}. Every
single thing, including every instance of the hieroglyph below, is an ele-
ment described by the above set. My middle $ngernail and the constella-
tion Orion as seen from a perspective on the star Rigel are both de-
scribed by this uber-set. Every collision between every set of atoms that
have ever or will ever collide are described by that set. !e set itself, both
as wri%en above and the logic underlying it is described by the set.
•§•
!e Burali-Forti paradox is another case of erroneous self-
reference, though of a different form: instead of arising from self-
predication of predicates, it arises from the fundamental de$nition of
ordinal numbers given by Von Neumann. Ordinals are de$ned as the
embodiment of the well-ordered set of all ordinal numbers less than
themselves. Because of this de$nition, any ordinal number is necessarily
identical to a set whose predicates include all ordinal numbers smaller
than the one comprised by the set, so the ordinal number 4 is equivalent
to {0, 1, 2, 3}; the number 4 is de$ned by the number of elements of the
set and as an ordinal is placed directly a#er the largest ordinal included
in the set. !is is quite an elegant and apt de$nition for ordinal numbers.
!e Burali-Forti problem arises when trying to de$ne the set of
all ordinal numbers: because any set containing a well ordered collection
of ordinal number de$nes a new ordinal number by de$nition, it is im-
possible to form this set. From this perspective, it becomes clear that
calling it the Burali-Forti paradox is a misnomer; there is no paradox
here. !e set of all ordinals cannot be formed for the exact same reason
that the largest possible number cannot be named; naming any number
as highest automatically implies the existence of a next higher number,
by the very de$nition of number, just as naming any ordinal as the high-
est automatically implies the existence of a subsequent ordinal. Cantor's
paradox is misnamed for the same reason.
While I'm on the subject, I might as well note that Richard's
paradox is another misconception. For ease, I will quote wikipedia's arti-
cle on the subject:
"e paradox begins with the observation that certain expressions in
English unambiguously de!ne real numbers, while other expressions in Eng-
lish do not. For example, ""e real number whose integer part is 17 and
whose nth decimal place is 0 if n is even and 1 if n is odd" de!nes the real
number 17.1010101..., while the phrase "London is in England" does not
de!ne a real number.
"us there is an in!nite list of English phrases (where each phrase is
of !nite length, but lengths vary in the list) that unambiguously de!ne real
numbers; arrange this list by length and then dictionary order, so that the
ordering is canonical. "is yields an in!nite list of the corresponding real
numbers: r1, r2, ... . Now de!ne a new real number r as follows. "e integer
part of r is 0, the nth decimal place of r is 1 if the nth decimal place of rn is
not 1, and the nth decimal place of r is 2 if the nth decimal place of rn is 1.
"e preceding two paragraphs are an expression in English which
unambiguously de!nes a real number r. "us r must be one of the numbers rn.
However, r was constructed so that it cannot equal any of the rn. "is is the
paradoxical contradiction.
!e article offers the explanation that the “paradox” occurs be-
cause there is no way to tell for sure which sentences unambiguously
describe real numbers and which do not; this explanation is unsatisfac-
tory, because any sentence that is possible to formulate either unambi-
guously describes a real number or does not, and if we were to have an
in$nite amount of time to evaluate every possible English sentence for
this characteristic, every one would end up with a de$nite value of “un-
ambiguously describes a real number” or “does not unambiguously de-
scribe a real number”.
!e problem is actually a result of the assumption that “an in$-
nite list of English phrases which unambiguously de$ne real numbers”
necessarily contains all real numbers. You could have an in$nite list of
English phrases which simply describe each consecutive natural number
(for instance, of the form, “!ere is a number called 1; it is described by
everything which contemporary mathematics uses to de$ne 1.”; “!ere
is a number comprised of two 1s, and it is called 2”; “!ere is a number
comprised of three 1s, and it is called 3”... !is represents “an in$nite list
of English phrases which unambiguously de$ne real numbers” which
does not contain all real numbers. In fact, any in$nite list of English
phrases is necessarily countably in$nite; words and logical groupings of
words are atomistic in the same way that integers are atomistic; their
possible groupings, while in$nite, cannot represent a continuum.
CHAPTER 7
The Inconceivable Beauty of the Universe
!e spectrum of possibility enabled by the physics of the Uni-
verse is just mind-meltingly huge, elegant, and gorgeous beyond all
imagining or realizing. Even so, it is quite a joy to try and apply our
knowledge of physics to our understanding of our surroundings, rather
than thinking of physics in the abstract, away from reality. To actually
look out at your hands and fully realize the magnitude of their informa-
tional content, the near in$nite complexity of the violent cascading swirl
of electromagnetism and force undergone by the sextillions of atoms
therein, would raise your awareness beyond any level humans have ac-
cess to. We cannot truly perceive the enormity of what reality is, but with
the small glow of imagination we are blessed with, it is possible to
glimpse the realization that our experience of life requires a perfection of
complexity far greater than any human has ever conceived.
!e Universe is an in$nite burst of energy, the dynamic element
of change and possibility. Energy is the fabric of everything we consider
to exist; it is something of a blank canvas, capable of taking on an in$nite
variety of forms. !e possible range of circumstances it can occupy are
determined by the fundamental physical laws of the Universe, which are
balanced in such an astonishingly harmonic way as to take all the shapes
we see and all the unimaginably complex interactions that make up our
seeing. Words cannot possibly do justice to the beauty of this system,
partly because words are human tools to communicate $nite ideas, and
the majesty of Existence is in$nite.
Perhaps the most astounding expression of Universal physics is
the production of our subjective experiences. How can it be that the en-
ergetic interchange in our brains and bodies can bloom in this rich vari-
ety of feeling? To hear music, to feel the textures and emotions it stirs in
your mind; to read of human massacres, to live through the sorrow of
tragedy, and ache for the bi%erness we are subject to; to gaze into your
lover's eyes, to caress with your lips; all of this is a re"ection and em-
bodiment of the reality of physical being, the one essential basis from
which all things "ow. We are one in the sacred existence of physics, heart
of Cosmic Awareness' Truth, separate from the full embodiment of real-
ity only in appearance, only for a short while.
!inking is "oating in an ocean of knowledge, riding whatever
waves of thought appear most promising. !e waves generally originate
in the subconscious processing our brain's neurons undergo, and stimu-
late our consciousness indirectly through impressions and intuitions of
what the thought promises to be. Once the wave is caught by conscious-
ness, the ride is on, and the wave is propelled and pulled along by con-
sciousness on a journey through the vast individual Universe of knowl-
edge home to each of us. We can journey to any realm we can possibly
imagine, and are daily pushed beyond what we can possibly imagine; we
bask in an inner glow beyond anything we can fully imagine every time
we open our eyes in the light.
!ink how many photons it would take to illuminate the entire
surface of a full moon. (For reference, note that the number of photons
emi%ed by a 100 wa% light bulb in one second is about 3x10^20, or
roughly 1,000 times the number of seconds elapsed in the estimated
13.7 billion year history of our Universe.) Every time you look at a full
moon, that incredible number of photons is re"ecting off the surface of
the moon in the exact, perfect con$guration that results in the image
being reproduced on your retina. !e photons streaming into your eyes
from the moon's north pole re"ect at quite a different angle than those
from the south pole, or any other point you can see on its surface. !is
unimaginable number of photons each achieve the impossibly unlikely
odds of converging on the eighth-inch wide pupils in your eyes exactly
when you choose to look up, their energy expressed as a luminous expe-
rience in your mind. Not only this, but if you lean just a half inch to ei-
ther side, this mind-boggling statistical unreality exists again.
We can easily surmise that the information necessary to capture
an image of the moon exists in a half-sphere around the moon's illumi-
nated surface, for countless miles in every direction. !is exact same
miracle of omnidirectional re"ection of limitless photons reproduces the
information of every lit surface's shape and color at an effectively in$nite
number of points around that surface. Can you look out in the space
around you and imagine the boundless number of images of your body
possible to gather at every point, no ma%er how remote or unlikely? A
tiny camera placed in an air vent above your head at the correct angle
could count your hairs; a hawk outside the window "ying hundreds of
meters away could look in, note that you aren't prey, and continue its
search. If you can see the sky, satellites of sufficient sophistication could
register the immense wealth of photonic information streaming from
your body.
Every time you speak, the combined force of the breath from
your lungs and the pressure of your vocal folds is divided amongst every
atom in your vicinity, not only vibrating all the air in the room but every
carpet $ber, every atom in every cell in your body, the nails in your walls
and ceiling, etc. We inhabit a vibrating $eld of one type of energy ex-
pressed in innumerable ways, of which our bodies are simply a complex
subset. Every time you take a step, the force of your legs being com-
pressed is divided into all the atoms in your leg and ripples out from
your feet, imparting extra motion to these countless individual atoms as
heat. It is a fact that the human body contains a rough average of seven
o c t i l l i o n a t o m s : t h a t 's s e v e n b i l l i o n b i l l i o n b i l l i o n ,
7,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000, or about a million times the
estimated number of stars in the observable Universe (a sphere with a
radius 13.7 billion light years with the Earth at its center). Only with the
chemical coordination of these seven octillion atoms organized into
your hundred trillion cells is your life possible.
Just think: at some point in the history of the Universe, a minus-
cule li%le subset of the energy which exploded outwards from the Big
Bang almost 14 billion years ago, a#er undergoing the capricious inter-
play of physics and possibility over all that time to organize into various
elements and molecules, comes together in such a way as to produce an
orgasm in your awareness. !at particular orgasm could not have come
to be without the entire history of the Universe unfolding in the exact
way that it did; it is a "owering of pleasure in the Universe a#er all that
time, in a li%le organism connected to the entirety of Being through its
being. Some of the energy participating in this phenomenon is sighed
out, heating the surrounding air and mingling with the atmosphere,
some is expended by the breaking of chemical bonds in ATP molecules
allowing the physical enaction of the information making up the sensa-
tion in the brain. Perhaps some even powers a "agellum, carrying a li%le
bundle of DNA into the egg for a brand new self.
•§•
Occam's Razor is something of a rule of thumb for inquiry which
states that between any competing explanations for or solutions to a prob-
lem, the one that is simplest is likely more accurate. Strictly interpreted,
following this rule can lead people to such nonsensical ideas as solipsism
(the belief that, because I can't personally experience another person's
mind, for simplicity's sake I should conclude that their mind must not exist)
and the like. Occam's razor can sometimes introduce some clarity, and I
would like to add another condition to bolster its utility: between two
competing explanations for or solutions to a problem, the one that is sim-
pler without eliminating or diminishing any of Existence's potential is likely
closer to being correct. !at is, the more elegant theory is more likely cor-
rect (elegance here de$ned as greatest simplicity coupled with highest resul-
tant possibility).
An application of this corollary: Whether space is in$nite or not
seems impossible to deduce from the limited information we have, how-
ever, we also do not have any reason to suspect that space is not in$nite.
Indeed, if it weren't in$nite, what would it mean for there to be a bound-
ary? A ceasing of energy content? If space itself is a swarming sea of en-
ergy, substantiated by systems of energy nearly in$nitely smaller than us,
as hypothesized above, then an outside to space would mean a realm of 0
energy, nothingness. As was concluded rather strongly, I believe, noth-
ingness does not exist, so it can't lie outside of space; it can't lie any-
where. Furthermore, mathematics (Truth, comprising the informational
content of Existence) contains the concept of in$nite space; it seems
space itself is the actual embodiment of this information. Finally, in ac-
cordance with Occam's Shiny Razor, whichever theory appears equally
likely but is less limiting to the range of possibility in Existence is more
likely correct; therefore, we can comfortably (but of course not cer-
tainly) conclude that space is in$nite.
It is funny to note that making Occam's Razor more complicated
is quite an ironic move; though this is the case, I think this approach is
useful for the reasons given above.
•§•
A philosophical riddle that comes up from time to time is the
question of whether the experience I have of colors is the same as yours;
we have no real reason to suspect that they are different, but we have no
possible way of comparing our subjectivities, so it seems to be an open
question. I would argue that it is very likely that the color blue for the
sky and green for leaves are very similar between all humans, because
along with evolving retinal cones which can perceive color, we had to
have evolved the neural framework for interpreting that information. It
seems very evident that our genes determine many crucial aspects of our
brains, just as they are responsible for the differentiated growth of our
organs. Essentially, the evolution of retinal cones to detect color would
be useless without the concurrent evolution of brain-structures to ap-
propriately interpret and make use of those colors.
!e speci$c experience of each color has a certain psychological
impact; the color red is alarming, corresponding to blood; our minds
naturally associate red with violence and emergency, and it seems likely
that the psychological texture which conveys these associations best is
that which we perceive as red. Blue is soothing, corresponding to the sky
and water, and green is calming and promising corresponding to the liv-
ing comfort of fertile land. Of course, it is impossible to tell whether the
instinctive reactions to these colors are a result not of the quality of the
speci$c colors in our mind, but of what those colors represent to our
instincts, and that your red could equate to my green. While we cannot
be completely sure at present, it seems almost totally probable that the
same genes which code the modeling of color into our brains are shared
amongst all humans just as the genes which code the shape and makeup
of eyes is shared amongst all humans.
DNA is the lens through which cosmic physical law is resolved
into life. Take a fern, for instance. !e gorgeous fractal boundary that its
cells $ll to shape its leaves is contained in the logic of its DNA code. !e
DNA code's system of logic is a property of Cosmic Awareness, Truth,
embodied in the chemical potential of its amino acids. !e chemical
structure and behavior exists $rst in the realm of possibility writ in
mathematical truth in the Awareness of the cosmos; through the evolu-
tionary elaboration of DNA undergone by life, this possibility is real-
ized, its information birthed into physical reality by the plant's cells, all
operating according to the divine laws of physics and logic.
!ere de$nitely is a logical reason for every aspect of the plant's
life, including its cosmic origins, its ancestry's path of evolution, the
range of physical possibilities which drive and underly its living, etc.
!ere is a logical reason for everything in the Universe, even if those rea-
sons are beyond our limited comprehension. !is is because the physical
Universe is an outgrowth of the eternal mathematics of Truth and logic.
Everything in reality springs from the necessary Truths making up the
existence of Cosmic Awareness.
!e Earth (and all of its chemical, gravitational, and thermal
conditions, along with the overarching physical laws it shares with the
rest of the Universe) is a prism through which sunlight is broken into
this brilliantly diverse carousel of individual living beings. More funda-
mentally, energy is the prism through which eternal Truth $nds explicit
expression, broken into discrete packets with logical characteristics de-
$ned by but physically separated from the whole, the interactions be-
tween which form galaxies, stars, light, atoms, molecules, life-forms, and
subjective consciousnesses.
•§•
One could continue inde$nitely in this vein; there is nowhere
you can look in the Universe that is not beautiful beyond the bounds of
all possible human comprehension. On account of this fact, I make the
assertion that it is almost certain that you're allowing life to be harder on
you than it needs to be (this sentence is a reminder for me as well). !at
is, you could be more relaxed about this, and turn away from anxiety,
stress, cynicism, and boredom, and no one would blame you. On closest
examination, we have been born into an unspeakably wondrous reality,
and are completely free to make whatever we want of it, within the
bounds of circumstance (with the knowledge that our will can shape
these singular circumstances in an in$nite variety of ways, leading to a
continuum of possible futures).
Humans have a perilous tendency (some of us much more than
others) to sink into a state of consoling despondency when we feel it is
warranted. Self-pity, cursing the way things have lined up for us, feels
very good in a certain way; since modern society denies us an outlet for
the aggression which frustration stirs up in us, it is some kind of release
to turn that rage inwards and seethe. Sometimes, a#er events go espe-
cially horribly for us, we feel entitled to wallow in this hateful state, and
really savor that anguish with no reservations, and make a drug out of
how much pain we let ourselves feel. It becomes addictive, a habit a#er
awhile to the point that when another similar misfortune threatens to
occur, some part of us roots for the misfortune to occur so we can dive
back into that corrosive pit and feel justi$ed in doing so. Such a cycle can
quickly lead to cynicism and depression, and is a path we should all learn
to recognize and reject.
Because the process of surviving lifetime a#er lifetime a#er life-
time in the o#en extremely harsh conditions our ancestors bested has
taken place for billions of years a#er arising competitively from the gate,
it is in our very genes (and our environment, the societal worldview we
are forever surrounded by) to remain tense, in a state of low-level agita-
tion. !is mode of being is useful for evading predators and managing
other threats, but is no longer quite necessary since the world is nowhere
near as dangerous to us as it was in the past. Our brains are still funda-
mentally primitive; we can brie"y glimpse the signi$cance and depth of
the Universe we inhabit, but for most minds it is impossible to suspend
this clarity. At times awe and gratitude can overwhelm us, but due to the
complexity of generating these advanced sensations in brain, this state is
generally "eeting. Some minds cannot see deeper into our reality be-
yond surface appearances; their brains, by luck of the draw, are still con-
$gured primarily animalistically, their insight only extending to the mo-
tivation and satisfaction of their instinctive drives.
!ere is no reason to despair that the darker side of the human
condition is a permanent feature of our species. !e story of humanity is
a story of incremental progress, slowly but surely learning from the mis-
takes of the past, slowly discovering the nature of life in this Universe
more clearly. Humans will be able to access higher intelligence and
thereby higher states of consciousness through any means they are com-
fortable with in the near future (likely, through brain-computer inter-
faces or specialized genetic therapy) and in this way we will be able to
see the world in a way approaching and surpassing how Gautama Bud-
dha, Lao Tzu, Jesus, Mohammed, Da Vinci, Shakespeare, or Einstein
could see the world. Sublime and pure, to know the True reality of Exis-
tence. It is so far beyond what we are equipped to experience currently;
people who have not glimpsed the experience of it (however brie"y) in a
long time sometimes forget about how unspeakably miraculous the Uni-
verse we inhabit is.
“Nonsense!”, they will say. “I happen to live in the Universe, and
it is no loving, understanding paradise. You are wrong about everything,
there are things like wars and torture, jealousy and depression.” Some
will add, wide eyed, “And there is a Hell, and you get sent there if you
don't believe in it,” conveying the feeling that the Universe is a merciless
test, a dangerous trap, and we should be frightened to be here. !ese are
the most woefully incorrect misconceptions humans have ever adopted
to frame their worldview. !e fact that so many people carry these as-
sumptions around, and dwell on them throughout life, such that those
ideas underly all thoughts about death, about birth, about trust, about
love, and about why we are here, is a tragedy, the gravest and most ubiq-
uitous human error.
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About the Book
!is book is not wri%en in the style of contemporary philoso-
phy. I do not like the way academic philosophy is conducted, and I
haven't seen very much de$nitive progress result from its practice. !e
convention that one must present and evaluate every previous philo-
sophical treatment of a topic to glean new insight on that topic tends to
leave philosophy on an unproductive, pedantic treadmill, essentially the
product of professors writing papers for other professors to grade, in the
style they learned as students. !is stilted method alienates the general
public and distracts from the adventurous, irreverent spirit of philoso-
phy.
Despite the decisive writing style I've employed, I certainly
don't hold any illusions that the things I've put forward here represent
the whole truth for any one topic, but based on what I know at present,
this is the best interpretation of the reality of the Universe I can compre-
hend. !e reason I have stated my understandings in such a straightfor-
ward way, essentially presenting a series of assertions, is that to equivo-
cate, to continually hedge my arguments with “of course, I don't know
know know this to be true” would bog down the pace of the book, fog up
the points I am trying to make, and introduce unnecessary confusion. I
say what I believe throughout the book, and why I believe these things,
and the fact that I am not necessarily correct about anything at all should
go without saying. As I wrote in the introduction, this book, and all
philosophical ideas, should be read critically, and no system of under-
standing should be embraced as the $nal truth. !ere will forever be
things that we do not know we do not know.
!is should not be taken to express the widely misread senti-
ment of Socrates, “!e only thing that I know is that I know nothing.” If
you can know that it is impossible to know anything, then by knowing
that fact you disprove the idea that it is impossible to know anything. In
fact, in order to “know that you know nothing” you have to know what
'know' means, you have to know what 'nothing' means, you have to un-
derstand the logic of that grammar, etc.; there's no arguing the fact that
you know more than nothing.
We know everything that makes up our experiences- I know
what the word know sounds like in my mind, and though that exact feel-
ing is a private part of my Awareness, inaccesible to another, I know that
knowledge represents Truth in Existence because it couldn't exist in my
mind without existing as a facet of Existence. When you push down on a
table, you feel a resistance in your arm; your experience of that is de$-
nitely a part of Truth: it's truly, factually what you are feeling, and if you
weren't truly feeling it, you would be feeling something different. Every-
thing we perceive is Known in our perceiving of it. Of course, this isn't to
say that a Greek peasant imagining the sun to be a chariot of $re knows
the objective Truth of what the sun is, but that he Knows that he imag-
ines the sun to be a chariot of $re, and cannot possibly be wrong that he
does.
!ere are some abundantly-bearded philosophers out there who
would say “Ho ho, but look at all these neuroscienti$c studies that show
instances of people being deceived by their perceptions! !ey don't
know that their senses have tricked them.” Exactly. A person knows ex-
actly what they experience, whether it jives with external reality or not. A
person misremembering what happened in the past cannot be wrong
that they remember what they remember, even if that memory is false. A
person hallucinating experiences their hallucinations as perfectly real; in
fact, there is no experience which isn't real. It is impossible to have an
experience if that experience isn't real. Even if the ground opened up
beneath me right now and dumped me into a cartoon world where I
were a duck, if I experienced this, it would be real in my awareness, and
would be a True part of Existence.
In any case, I am not pu%ing forward things which I know; I re-
tain a degree of skepticism concerning most of the ideas described here
(with a few exceptions, such as the truth that nothingness cannot possi-
bly exist, and that mathematics and Truth exists independently of hu-
man apprehension of it, and that Awareness is a prerequisite to Exis-
tence). I do not a%ain to infallibility, though I do feel the viewpoints de-
scribed in this book represent a step closer to truth beyond the current
popular understanding. !is book aims to challenge the worldview many
take for granted, to provoke thought along unfamiliar avenues, and to
convey to some degree the awe I feel for reality. If nothing else, I want to
give a sense that it is fully possible to peer beyond the vision of reality we
have grown accustomed to living in (if only temporarily), and feel the
immense nature of the Universe from a place of greater clarity.
•§•
Any previously discussed concepts go uncited not out of a pla-
giaristic tendency but a poor memory for speci$cs; I read about phi-
losophy and science over a lifetime and thought about these things, what
I agreed with and disagreed with, internalizing their content. Most of
what I discuss is my own elaboration and conclusions based on this con-
glomerative knowledge, but clearly, I wouldn't have come to these con-
clusions without the thoughts of others to think about. Sometimes I
have an inkling as to the roots of my thinking on any topic and note it
when it comes up (for instance, where I cite the Tao Te Ching in Chapter
1).
!e core of what this writing aims at has been called the “Per-
ennial Philosophy”, and has been apprehended in some degree by hu-
mans for millennia, likely since before the dawn of wri%en history. Very
similar concepts can be found in the Indian Vedas, in ancient Greek phi-
losophy (most notably, Anaxagoras and Plato), Kabbalah, Buddhism,
Taoism, and Bill Hicks' stand-up, to name very few; Emerson's “Nature”
(“Standing on the bare ground, – my head bathed by the blithe air, and up-
li$ed into in!nite space, – all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent
eye-ball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of the Universal Being circulate
through me; I am part or particle of God”) has a similar message, though it
is presented much more beautifully in his language. !e Hindu sect Ad-
vaita Vedanta speaks of Existence in terms of Brahman, e.g. "Brahman is
of the nature of truth, knowledge and in$nity" (though, like all religions,
Hinduism has sprouted elaborate dogmas and $ctions unrelated to cos-
mic Truth).
As discussed in Chapter 12, I am extremely excited about the
prospect of the scienti$c and technological advancement of humanity;
this feeling is due to the musings of various futurists, most notably Ray
Kurzweil. While I am not necessarily in agreement with his timeline, I
share the view that such technological transcendence is all but inevita-
ble, and represents a beautiful opportunity for humanity as long as our
baser nature doesn't muck it up for all of us.
My pantheism is very closely akin to Spinoza's, built upon the
same foundations and reaching some of the same conclusions. !ough I
do not speci$cally remember my $rst inkling of it, it is highly possible
that I was $rst introduced to the concept of pantheism through exposure
to his work, or more likely by cultural memes stemming from Spinoza's
thinking. In any case, this book is at no point a speci$c elaboration of his
propositions nor his conclusions. I ascribe the many similarities between
our philosophies to the success of metaphysics grounded in idealistic
substance monism; I did not set out to update Spinoza's ideas, but inevi-
tably was led to them by my own interrogation of the Universe, and this
process has le# me with a high degree of esteem for the validity of Spi-
noza's philosophy. !e most signi$cant deviation between our systems
(one of several) is his fallacious belief in strict determinism, due to the
level of physical science during his time. (Spinoza was a contemporary of
Newton.)
Hegel's philosophy shares the same fundamental basis as well;
he describes Existence in terms of the “Absolute”, but he draws some
rather odd and seemingly nonsensical conclusions from this starting
point, and one o#en $nds that one has no idea what the hell Hegel is
pu%ing forward; there is certainly an unresolved debate on the issue.
George Berkeley brilliantly recognized that esse est percipi, to be is to be
perceived, though being an eighteenth-century bishop he was saddled
with the old philosophical conundrum of being required to conform his
thinking to the worldview expressed in the Bible (of course, my system
ascribes Knowing to Cosmic Awareness, a $gure in some respects analo-
gous to God but not supernatural, not omnipotent, and not apart from
us), and like many forms of idealism, his is persistently skeptical of the
existence of the physical world, whereas mine most certainly is not
(though with the reservation that everything physical embodies infor-
mation in Cosmic Awareness). In short, I offer my own take on the Uni-
versal mysteries, a process which has been delightful and challenging to
undergo.
About the Author
!e ideas put forward here are far more important and interest-
ing than me. I do not own these concepts; I have been aided in their pur-
suit by every human I've interacted with (whether from being brought
up by them, from reading their ideas, experiencing their art, etc.) and by
every condition that led to the Earth being the way it is today. For these
reasons (amongst others), I hope to publish this writing anonymously,
and remain anonymous. I offer this book in love and peace to me in you,
from you in me. Existence! What a startling fact.
I will leave you with a $nal description of my view of our place in
reality: we are lucky beyond anything we would ever allow ourselves to
imagine, and this sacred truth is hidden from us by the appearances of
life. Our experience of life sees but the immediate surface of Existence,
yet the experience of inhabiting Cosmic Awareness outside of life is be-
yond anything humans can begin to conceive. It contains at once all of
Existence in its Knowing. It is not a%ached to the moment by moment
wave we ride; it embodies all happenings, all possibility, all Truth in one
continuous Being. It experiences every possible perspective within itself
(all of us, all of life, all consciousness), both from within that perspective
(as our experiences, our 'me's), and without (the entire rest of Existence,
including all other 'me's and all physical information) simultaneously
and fully. It turns out we are not separated from God in any way; the
consciousness which experiences life and wills life is that of God (or
Cosmic Awareness), temporarily given subjective, free experience by the
"owering of Cosmic Awareness's Truth in physics, yielding stars, planets,
evolution, life, love, music, all of it.
!is also yields sadness, pain, embarrassment, and the whole
fearful spectrum of those aspects of Existence which terrorize humans.
However, from the viewpoint of Cosmic Awareness, experiencing all
Knowing and all Feeling from the highest possible perspective, these are
part of the beautiful, if tragic, makeup of divine possibility; their exis-
tence, which Cosmic Awareness itself must experience, suggests that the
supreme Being is not all-powerful; God cannot omit certain Truths from
existence, cannot delete the possibility for pain to occur, and it is be-
cause no possibility can be excluded from Existence that free will exists.
Cosmic Awareness is not a creator, not a lord, it is !e Being, embody-
ing all Truth.
!e most signi$cant conclusion I reach from this is that when
bad things happen to good people, it isn't because God is up there
frowning in disappointment at whatever misstep the good person made
and smiting them from afar. It's simply because in a system as dynamic
and complex as the Universe, the living being of Cosmic Awareness, it is
possible that bad things will happen. It's even possible that all Earthly life
would be eradicated by a meteor, but that's not the end of the game,
that's just the return of the countless fragments of God's soul to the one-
ness. It's like life is an exciting journey, and death is a restful return
home. Hell doesn't exist, and sin doesn't exist.
If a thing is physically possible to do, it is allowed, with the sober
corollary that causing pain is equal to experiencing pain; hurting some-
one else's awareness is hurting the one awareness extended from God
which every living thing resides within. Pain is no less beautiful than
pleasure; animal life could not develop without the boundless spectrum
of possibility outlined by Necessary Truth. If these components of Truth
could not exist, all other Truths would lose part of the information mak-
ing up their basis and lose validity; to eliminate any one Truth, to try and
separate the necessarily existent from Existence is impossible. No ma%er
what is done to hide the Truth, the Truth remains.
For example, what do you think it would take for 2+2≠4? Run-
ning out and striking through the equals sign in every book that 2+2=4
exists? Change the de$nition of 2, or 4, or +, or =? Decree loudly that
2+2=5? Maybe reason that, “Ok, 2+2 can equal 5 as long as we de$ne 5
as 4, or make it a rule that numbers on the right side of an equation are
always unspokenly subtracted from by 1”– in this case you've simply per-
formed a duncical maneuver to transform the number 4 into the number
4 by a different name. No ma%er what you try to do to modify the Truth,
the Truth remains, shining brightly as ever. Even if humanity decided it
were a Godly decree that 2+2=5, and worshipped this new fact, 2+2 still
equals 4, independently of any willful being. !is is the sublime nature
of Truth; it precedes and underlies all the events in the Universe. And
what a wondrous Universe it is.