22 November 2008

The Question of Money as Government Issue Credit Versus Bank Issued Money

I fail to understand the difference in the two notions (1) The notion of a government making money versus (2) The notion of a government using the banking system to make money. All governments control money. It has got to be so because that is why the governments control who makes the currency or the paper or the coin or the mode of debt settlement. If the US Congress has the Constitutional power to make money I wonder who else would or could it ever be? The US Congress must use the banks to dispense the money, be it as credit or as physical currency. If it gives away that power then it has given the right away, right or wrong. But if any government ever wants it back, or if a government lacking any stated constitutional power over money wants such power in the first place, any government may do so by fiat backed by the army, as any government has the power to do anyway, if it is a government worth talking about seriously.

It was LaRouche who asserted the need for the USA Congress to take its constitutionally asserted power over money creation seriously. This LaRouche asserted as opposed to what he said was every other country which uses banks.

I love Lyndon Hermyle Larouche and his basic economic ideas.

But here, again, I find him odd. His argument bypasses the need for the US government to take control of the economy out of the hands of the gamblers (who do not run the economy but ruin it). If the US government wants to end the financial debacle it needs nothing more than its own power backed up with the military, which here is the people, which, in the end, IS the power.

I figure that what LaRouhe means is that Congress has the power built in without resort to invention. and they are not using it. And that they had better use it and use it right.

The problem is that no one seems to be listening to him too hard. He wants to cancel debt that makes no sense. NO money to finance bad debt. That is what happens in a bankruptcy, as properly done. And Congress has the given power to not pay anything to the bad debt holders. What seems to be happening is that "they" want to keep the bad debt and have us finance it. If it is bad, and the gambling debt they created while they, like gamblers out of control, played with our economy, is B A D, then Congress should refuse to pay it.

29 October 2008

A little early but ...


To Dutch and Flemish readers, een fijne Sinterklaas!
Sinterklaas (also called Sint-Nicolaas in Dutch and Saint Nicolas in French) is a holiday tradition in the Netherlands and Belgium, celebrated every year on Saint Nicholas' eve (December 5th) or, in Belgium, on the morning of December 6th. The feast celebrates the Saint Nicholas' name day the patron saint of, among other things, children.
It is also celebrated to a lesser extent in parts of France, as well as in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Germany and Austria. The traditions differ from country to country, even between Belgium and the Netherlands.
In the Netherlands, Saint Nicholas' Eve, (December 5) is the chief occasion for gift giving. The evening is called pakjesavond ("presents' evening").
Sinterklaas is the basis for the North American figure of Santa Claus. It was during the American War of Independence, that the inhabitants of New York City, a former Dutch colonial town (New Amsterdam) which had been swapped by the Dutch for other territories, reinvented their Sinterklaas tradition, as Saint Nicholas was a symbol of the city's non-English past. The name Santa Claus is derived from older Dutch Sinte Klaas.

The nonsense I was given as a child that “Santa” comes from the Spanish and “Clause” from the German and that the name “Santa Clause” had an inexplicably unknown source and at best a purely commercial source is shown to be absurd.

The fundamental error in environmentalism is three fold.

The fundamental error in environmentalism is three fold.

1) It is assumed that the so-called Law of Entropy actually is a dynamic of the universe that cannot be halted nor altered.
1)a) In fact, “they” assert that the law of entropy is absolute and even if alterable is not to be altered.
1)b) In fact, “they” assert that it is irrelevant that the so-called Law of Entropy is alterable and not a irreversible doom of physical systems but assert that the law of entropy should be morally the law of humanity.

2) It is assumed that the human ability to alter the universe is either impossible or irrelevant.
2)a) In fact, “they” assert that the universe should not be altered.
2)b) In fact, “they” assert that the very ability of humanity to alter the laws of the universe is immoral.

3) It is assumed that the reality principle is irrelevant.

[I am not even going to bother quoting chapter and verse on this as I have heard it from the environmentalists and their horses’ mouths for thirty years and I am not into writing a treatise here.]

I assert that humanity is the universe looking at itself and is the universe’s ability to know itself and that human ability to change the universe just is what humanity fundamentally is.

11 September 2008

How does a universe exist without an external creator?

I assert that the universe is the entirety of all, the totality of everything, the all of all else, and the one which includes all and is itself all inclusive. There is nothing “outside” to create anything or even exist for there is no outside. All time and space is within. All causes are within the universe and do not come from anywhere else. It and what there is does anything and everything that gets done and includes that which is gotten done.

The assumption that the universe is a reaction which must have a cause or action before it is a useless assumption. The assumption that the universe is a “thing” such that it can be acted on from something somewhere or somehow elsewhere or else wise is a useless assumption. The assumption that the universe is an action which had to have an action before it is a useless assumption. None of these assumptions can ever be knowable. Since the universe contains and envelops and is composed of all actions and reactions, it is therefore impossible for anything to act before there was a universe, impossible for anything to have come before the universe to affect it, impossible for anything to exist outside the universe to act on it. It by definition includes all sides including all and any outsides. There is nothing left over to be “outside” the universe.

One thing we know of the world is that nothing is immutable. As far as we are aware of the way the world works: nothing remains the same and there is always the new and unpredictable even if we human beings have to create it ourselves. We human beings are always thinking of new ways of doing things and of new things to do ... and then trying to do them and often enough actually doing them. It is my personal guarantee that the universe will always have the new and unknown.

Is the new and unknown caused by the universe upon itself or by that which is within it? Or, is the universe such that it also contains itself and is a part of itself and has the ability to act on itself? Is it like people who grow and learn and come to know the world they live in and change as people?

But do I believe in spontaneous creation? Well, yes and no. (What other answer did anyone expect of me?) The universe does not have a mind of its own except for the intelligences, such as us ourselves, in the universe. The universe needs no plan for anything to happen in it as all plans, happenings, actions, reactions, energies, and exertions are all part of the all and of the universe. Where else but within the universe would and could anything new come from? The universe needs not “create” anything new. The universe, to be point blank about it, needs to give no account of its self to us anymore than god. We must deal with the new and the unusual and the novel and the unexpected and the unexplained just as we always have. There is the brute fact that this is a practical world we live in and we have to get on with life and make our life work and we have to live in spite of the all of it no matter how little we understand any of it at all. If things happen that have no explanation I won’t blame the universe for being mysterious. It is already mysterious and a new mystery won’t be surprisingly new. If something happens that cannot be ever explained and can be shown to have no explanation and shown to simply be utterly and forever unexplainable then there and right there is the explanation! Sorry, Charley! If something is finally shown to be unexplainable then no more can be nor need be known about it except it itself! Nothing on my part and nothing on anyone else’s part can or will change the reality of anything’s being, whatever it is being is shown to be. I assert that there is no need for phantasms such as angels, demons, gods, spirits, a dead nor any dead, a semi-dead, a partial-dead, or some undead to “explain” anything.

The question comes up about the grand and super grand unified theories of the universe as if there can be a one and only one and also a definite theory of how the universe operates. I assert that the very notion is unnecessary. The universe needs no phantasms such as angels, demons, gods, spirits, a dead, a semi-dead, a partial-dead, nor any dead or some undead to “explain” anything. If the universe is self reflexive and self changing and if it acts on itself and needs no outside prompting, as if it has a mind of its own, then so be it. The universe has now a mind of its own or within itself by any human and its mind and that being needs no more than the universe it is acquainted with to change the world as it knows it. That is sufficient self reflexivity. The very idea of the universe collapsing in upon itself and ending everything, the popular science cosmic apocalypse, would require us humans to figure out an exception for ourselves, the rest be gone and done if that be so. We won’t go without an effort to stay!

For these reasons I can not see god as outside but necessarily either in the universe or as the universe itself, in the one case not being god and the other being unnecessary. Summarily, then, there is: the immutable, incommensurate, all encompassing, timeless, placeless, everywhere and nowhere at once, creative and creating, ultimately unknowable, utterly and fundamentally mysterious universe or god. Exploring one can be said to be exploring the other. That is the sort of exploring we will have to go on ceaselessly forever. (Please forgive me: amen.)

04 September 2008

The Love of God

Why love something that only exists in the mind?

Where else would love be? Of necessity: love is in the mind and what is loved is figured to be somewhere else even if it is an idea or notion only in the mind. God, being a social thing, does exist elsewhere than one’s mind: it is in others’ minds.

I used to ask “Who created god if god created everything else?” because I figured, as many do, that everything needs a separate creator. So I just dumped the god and was left with everything as a given just as god was a given.

Since people insisted there be a creator of everything I figured that the universe would work very nicely as its own creator. Since it encompasses time and space it does not exist in time and does not exist in space. Therefore it has neither a beginning nor an end in time. Nor does it have any measurable spatial boundary to allow any measurement to be made of it. Since it encompasses all finites and infinities it is neither infinite nor finite. It is therefore as non commensurable as god.

No one was satisfied. So I said that the universe impregnates itself and gives birth to itself anew. I said that it is the creator of everything including itself. I said that it does this as often and whenever it simply does. It is its own big bang. And it is its own self progenitor forever and ever. And I said “amen”.

I love god. I do not believe a word of any of it. And I would rather not pay for any of it. It is a real question. But most people want answers that are not requisite of actual work. They would rather kill you than think. They would rather fight mindlessly, even if they might fight well and bravely, and would rather then die than think. Most intellectuals are cud lipped cattle and want intellectual shepherds to tell them what to do.

My religion is just as important and at least as real as yours. So all you human holier than thou self righteous intellectual lightning bolts: F. U. !!! Come on!!!

20 August 2008

Is There Money In Philosophy?


Is there money in Philosophy? Is there any money in the creation and exploration of ideas? Do they not charge you to hear their ideas? Do they not insist that their way of thinking is right? Do they not assert that it is their way only and other ways are wrong? Do they not pass the hat, pass the plate, pass the blank checks, pass the credit card forms, pass the money laws, and collect the taxes and the fees? Do not those with Power show their contempt for those without? Do they not hunt down and kill those who think and thus act differently? In the land of free speech do they not assault those who speak out and demand freedom in the land of the free?

Ideas move humanity at least as much as boredom, hunger, cold, rage, sex, and any want and desire. What of Christians who do not believe in Christmas, even if such Christians are not very interesting and wonder why they are shunned by regulars?
What of Atheists who do not believe in any holiday of religious origin be it Christian, Muslim, Buddhist, or otherwise, and how they are shunned and hated and even hunted down for murder?

05 August 2008

Honesty and Socrates

Honesty was what Socrates instructed. He came up with the refrain "I know nothing" but in the course of conversations demonstrated that it was the partner in the conversations that knew nothing that they said they did. [Others wrote down the dialogues or conversations. It was a skill highly prized in those days to be able to repeat verbatim entire conversations, whole speeches, or sets of instructions while someone else could write it down.] The famous were confronted in public and the public listened while Socrates would very politely but very thoroughly demonstrate that though he claimed to know nothing that it was the famous-for-something who had no good nor sufficient reason to be famous for anything. They were publicly shown to be mendacious in their claims of skills and abilities and knowledge. Thus publicly humiliated they walked away angry. They eventually managed to kill the become old man, Socrates, at 72. It was not just personal. The power depended on the hoi polloi being duped and kept that way. 2500 years later we learn ... something!

11 July 2008

Beauty is utterly and completely real even if ephemeral

Beauty is utterly and completely real even if ephemeral

Human beings are not perfect. Not only are we imperfect we are odd and are made up of many odd things, physically, mentally, and, gulp, socially. We also die and / or get old. We get older and if we get old enough we get ugly and sick if we were not ugly and / or sick already. Proof Positive that intelligent design does not exist.

Intelligent Design believers want us to see mousetraps and the faces cut into Mount Rushmore as proof that there must be intelligent design. They say “if you saw this on Mars you would know it was intelligently designed, designed by intelligence” and then conclude that since everything else, especially living things, looks so complicated, even more so than a mousetrap and the faces cut into Mount Rushmore, there must be another intelligent designer for the more complicated everything.

I assert here that they are just acting infantile and are being stupid on purpose. They know better. Or they are so angry at the world they no longer think intelligently. They still know better.

Shuck them and shuck the intelligent design. Their entire idea is a waste of time and not worth the time to even reply to them. Since they know better they are being mendacious and shucking with our minds, they deserve nothing.

25 June 2008

I thank the god I do not believe

I thank the god I do not believe in for all the efforts all have taken to even try, whatever their motives. My tears are real and honest and I am not ashamed. Some of that which I have seen is proof of the wonderfulness of the universe, however horrible it has been for me personally. Some are just so “perfect” I am thusly made certain that the world is good for humanity and not an enemy of human existence, however morbid my own situation. I am gladly assured that my final end is to leave behind my futilities and die happier knowing there are the wonders of the world’s greatness physically demonstrated by the very existence of human beauty. There is no intelligent design for beauteous perfection. The world is beauteously self-provident. It needs no more than its own beauty by itself to represent its selfless beauty all the time in the human form, however imperfect, forever, &c, amen.

24 June 2008

Believe it ... or not !!

Science is not a rejection of Religion. Science is not a rejection of God. The notion of our human physical origin from other life forms is derived from the fact that we are made of the same stuff, carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, and other atoms, and are made of living cells, and so on, that we do physically require substenance, and that we can reproduce our selves. It is not based on a belief in that. Since we were not always here we must have started somehow and what of but out of the material we are made up of. If God stuck us here fully formed then God made us all made up of that same stuff all other life is made up of. Now I really do not care, personally, if "God did it" or if "it" was a result of "nature" or "something else". We are made up of the same stuff.
We act rather differently than other life forms. And other life forms act differently from each other which is how we know there are different forms of life. But we are physically made up of the same materials.
God is not made up of any of that stuff. That is why science can not study God as a physical thing. God can be studied only as a study of beliefs, as a study of one out of the very many beliefs human beings have. Since God is not made up of atoms and not made up of any physical "stuff" we cannot study God as if God was a frog in dissection class.
I do not know how we got here except as a phenomenon of one of a variety of sexual acts, the several that leave male sperm in a female vagina, although, actually, sexual action on the part of the human participants is not necessary: all that is required is the introduction of sperm and egg and that THEY join. God is not involved in any of that. God is not necessary in any of that.

Believe it or not!

Teaching evolution is useless in the teaching of physical reality. Seeing animals fornicate and knowing that such behavior is what human physical creatures also do is shocking enough. "WOW! That is what mommy and daddy did!"
The evolutionists are not "wrong", just irritating. The God made us people are not "wrong", they are just not useful. And: who, really, cares, anyway? Is it evolution that f'd in the bedroom or the back seat or was it God back there f'ing around? Sorry folks, neither one works. "God wasn't there and there were no apes! Honest, honey, it WAS mommy and it WAS daddy!"

What does love have to do with it? That's another story.

12 June 2008

“Intelligent Design” Basic “Theory”

“IT” is the result of intelligent design and no further explanation is required, say the intelligent design believers. Explained simply, Intelligent Design is the assertion that the problems encountered in understanding things in the universe can be explained by the intelligent design that intelligently designed the unexplained things. There is no need for any reason to explain anything further. As anything else is explained, such as by further experimentation and observation and study, intelligent design requires no study, no experiments, no getting the hands dirty with any of that! OH! NO!! The intelligent design solution can be applied to anything not explained. “IT”, whatever the “IT” may be, is “explained” as having intelligent design being the explanation. Therefore, if you do not know anything about some “it” you can assert that the unexplained “it” is “explained” by the intelligent design which “designed” “it” and that is all you really need to “know”. Therefore, for all and any thing that exists, then for every “it” that exists, “it” is explained as being intelligently designed by intelligent design. You need know nothing nor work for any explanation nor even bother searching for one.

The most extreme version of intelligent design is the assertion that the universe and everything in it, especially life but not excluding anything else, is too complicated to have anything but an intelligent design having designed it. It, whatever it may be, was intelligently designed. Intelligent design is considered the sufficient and necessary cause for the existence of anything and thereby everything. Intelligent design is considered the sufficient and necessary explanation for the existence of anything and thereby everything.

If there is the commission of murder of a hundred people by torture and rape and mutilation, each lasting for each of the deceased twenty days or so, you could always say that the reason “it” was done has too complicated an explanation and that “it” all must have been intelligently designed. Adolf Hitler and his henchmen did not kill four million or whatever number of Jews and Gypsies and whoever else. OH! NO! It was all intelligently designed, you see. “IT” did “IT”. Stalin, Mao, the Red Brigades, any serial killer can use this explanation. “I couldn’t have done such a thing! It’s too complicated for me to have done it. It did it!”

No god is even required! No god, no devil, no agent of destruction, no voices, no dog barking from a hole in the wall is necessary.

10 June 2008

Socializing versus Politicizing

People are trained to think of politics as being about government. Politics is usually considered about government officials. Politicians are considered to be such as: elected officials (from the justice of the peace to national president), advisors, the IRS, lobbyists, judges, and ambassadors. People in politics are not necessarily in government. And political people may never have ANYTHING to do with civil government.

Consider the top powers in General Motors and IBM: they did not get there by being good at installing automobile side panels or writing good programs for computers. They were good at wheeling and dealing stock values and investments and setting up departments which made money, showing up those with new ideas who were too slow to get there first, getting and keeping the right ears, as examples. In short, they were actively political. They worked at it and their jobs too, and the two were made part of each other. They were also aware that they were being political. The leaders of church groups did not get to lead by being good at prayer. The science fiction book club will have the one who wants the floor and their ideas to top out all the others and win the praise if not the prize. And in the chess club there is the chess player who simply will win and win more often. And they use all the participants and necessarily use them for they are a group who share each other to get to whatever is the top if they can. Little League Baseball has its stars every year beyond the game itself as so and so is announced as having got so many girls’ emails (as if no one else got any for none others were so mentioned) and another is announced as being wanted at 13 years old to coach his school’s senior baseball team at home, as two examples I saw.

There is nothing wrong in any of this. It is as natural as being the best at or at the top of whatever you can do. It is as natural as you making useful friends who can do you favors or introduce you to the right people versus the other friends you have. Such “other” friends just might be to talk to and let off steam. They also might just come up with ideas you can use. And you would naturally and you would be right to use the ideas. Yes, use their ideas for your own use with those useful friends and make yourself useful to them, quid pro quo, or on your own. And: this is politics. Like it or not.

I have met homeless people and street bums and YES they have their cliques, in-fights, victories, top dogs, enforcers, bullies and victims, smooth talkers, manipulators, whores, fringe members, and more, as any other group of people anywhere.

You MUST be political, wither you be successful or an abject failure, as a street bum or as a student or a teacher, for good, ill, mediocrity, at your loss, even to your destruction: You WILL take political action because you as a social being MUST make political choices and thereby by that alone if nothing else take or make political action. The decision to not rock the social boat and to socially conform is a political decision. To decide to change minds and rock the boat and convince others and get “them” to go along and live and let you live differently is a political decision.


As someone somewhere pointed out long before me, even the reclusive total loner on the mountain top had to leave a social group to be alone. And the loner has to go and get a meal somehow from somewhere now and then and presumably from someone else ... I add here: the loner made a choice and is also left alone by those who know of the reclusion, a decision, or maybe a lack of one, a choice made by at least one group of OTHERS in the know ...

07 June 2008

If the universe is required to have a creator

If the universe is required to have a creator it is we ourselves for there is no universe unless we ourselves experience it and we ourselves experience ourselves living as a part of it and come to know that. If we are not then there is no universe for there is no knowing it nor knowing anything. If any universe-creator exists within the universe then any universe-creator will of necessity be known as we come to know the world we are a part of. If any universe-creator does not exist within the universe then there can be no knowledge of any universe-creator and there is nothing to say about the unknown and the unknowable except that the unknowable is never to be known and the unknown is already unknown. Arguments to the contrary are necessarily arguments and are not knowledge. Arguments for or arguments against the existence of that which is unknown and, or, or unknowable yield no knowledge.

Belief, opinion, point of view, argument, faith, assumption, and conjecture: none of these are knowledge.

There is the assertion that there was that which predated our human presence in the universe and that that makes us as the creators of the ALL an impossibility. There is further the assertion that since we came of non-knowing materials, such as carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen, to name an atomic three, or from non-knowing living entities, such as microbes, animals in general, and some pre-human or simply definitely non-human living material, that therefore we are not our own creators and not the creators of the universe, and that there is “something else” “somehow” “involved” in the creation of humankind and the creation of the universe and not human kind at all.

Even the theologians of the so called dark ages knew better than to give an “intelligent design” “answer” to the existence of the universe, life, or human life. I INSIST THAT IT REQUIRES HONESTY. Honest people know what honesty is and work to be aware of their ignorance and know the limits to their knowledge. Since god was assumed to have created the universe, god then of course created life in all its forms, including, if there is a question, human life. Either version in the Christian book of genesis will do. NO further inquiry is required. Honest theologians even of the so-called dark ages knew the difference between knowledge and belief and faith. God did not “cause” the universe. God CREATED cause and intelligence as god created the ALL, which includes “causes” and "intelligence". Only in human terms is god a “cause”. Since god is not a measly human, ascribing human intelligence and other mere human qualities to god is absurd and done only because we pathetic earthlings are so limited. Honest people know they are being anthropomorphic and know better and that they cannot know god.

Honest people will admit that creationism and intelligent design would be defining the universe in terms of human written versions of creation and of god, to the belief in those writings, and to the faith in the authority, backed by the sword, and that such can yield no answer to any honest question.

The “moments of existence” of human life is yet to be discovered. It is not an answer to say “god did it”. That is a dishonest answer for it assumes that it is an answer and it is not. It is dishonest for it gives no detail as to the how. If the human written version in the Christian books of genesis, or any other, is accepted as a sufficient answer, then, though accepting this as an answer would be dishonest, that is all the acceptor needs and there is nothing more for them to say: they believe and have stopped asking. Such an acceptance is dishonest because it assumes belief is knowledge. Most believers are dishonest for that reason. If this describes any reader as mendacious, if the shoe fits, maybe such a dishonest reader can wear the mendacity shoe.

The universe has the intelligent design only if there are human beings. For humans have the mind to know design. Humans are the intelligence in the universe. There was no intelligent anything before intelligence came to be. As far as we earthlings are aware there is no other intelligence than we ourselves: and none more is required than we ourselves for there to be the “proof” of intelligence: and if there is more, then any of that “more” have their “earth” to deal with, and we two or more have yet to know more than the selves we know.

Honest people stop “iffing” around and get on with living.

02 June 2008

God is not a measly “intelligent”

For god to be “intelligent” we have to assume that god is human. That is blasphemy if I ever heard any. For only human beings are intelligent. If god created the universe then god created intelligence. AND GOD IS NOT SUBJECT TO GOD’S OWN CREATION! To assume an intelligent design to the universe is to assume that there was a post-god creation. To assert a “creative intelligence” causing human life is to assume a creator after god. Even the most darkly aged of the dark ages’ monastery monks would not be so stupid. For god cannot be measured in human terms and is beyond mere measly human intelligence for it was god that created intelligence in the first place! Therefore, there was no creative intelligent design to anything. Except as human beings did it.

01 June 2008

God gave us the freedom to choose, fail or succeed.

God gave us the mind to learn, figure, re-figure, and hypothesize, and come to know. God gave us a physical ability to try, retry, experiment, build, rebuild, and change, to improvise, adapt, and overcome. God gave us a universe to play in, play with, live in, change, re-change, alter, re-alter, and learn from, to adapt to, to improvise meanwhile we overcome its limits on us by changing or changing it. And if we live and die short miserable little lives, well, it is not any fault. It would be reality. It is life and life is what the WE, humanity, makes of it. If we all die out on the earth there are always more where we came from for the world is full of life.

And people insist on a heaven!? And a soul!? And miracles!? And divine interventions!? And an after life!? And a new life after all that!? Such [selfish] creatures do not deserve more that what they have. Humanity shall never get more than what humanity itself creates. It is all there for us. It is all there need be. Anything else is presumptuous and fantasy.

♪♂♫♪♀♫♯♫♪♪“Love is a many-splendored thing!”♪♂♫♪♀♫♯♫♪♪



If the human object of your lust and, or, or love does not reciprocate and chooses else wise and other than you then you should be happy to “let go and let live” and yield to them their space to be free to exercise their choice. If you are not happy about it you need to get over it and get on with your life: you should GET happy about their exercise of freedom to choose even if their exercise of free will breaks your heart. Be honest with the fact that you cannot know better than they do what they want ... even if you believe you actually do “know better”, as if that even matters. What does matter? They won't be really human without acting freely and won't be really free if they must do what you want. Remember Svengali? He said "I could MAKE you love me ... but then: I would only be making love to myself!" ... he was at least that honest! You are being dishonest if you think another way! And then Svengali refused to exercise his power. He was honest enough to admit his utter impotence in the face of reality! You should be so honest! You should try to be better than a fictional character! You should not just “allow” others to be free to make their choices. You should be HAPPY to let them go on and be free. If you dwell on them you forget yourself: you risk being a slave to your passions and you risk forgetting reality and risk the loss of your own freedom. For “Love is a many-splendored thing!”. ♪♂♀♫♯♫♪♪

24 May 2008

I shall stick with my god and ignore all the rest.

“The universe having a past before any of us being born is not evidence of anything but us as the creator because the past did not exist until there was an 'us' to know of it.” But …

It is known that we can know of a past before ourselves and we did not physically create that past as we create cars. What is insisted on is an “objective” physical reality without human existence. OH! Is that all? A universe first and THEN we came out of it somehow? There “must” have been a brain around to “know” of the universe back then is what is argued. But a brainless universe before human brains came? Either we are the brains or not. IF before us there were not any brains then simply there were not any brains. IF there was at least one brain then there was. A useless tautology. DUH! “IF” is not the beginning of a rational argument. “WHY is it being asked” or “WHAT is the problem such that the question is being asked” IS part of a rational argument. If the brain is there go get some of it. If it ain’t there there’s no use in looking for it. Is there a need for a brain for the existence of anything? If it is knowledge sought then the use of a brain might be useful, your own for example. If not then no brain is necessary and thus as I have stated irrelevant. If no brain is necessary then it is irrelevant to argue for one. If no brains came before ours and nevertheless we have ours from that brainlessness then it is obvious that it does not and did not require brains for the existence of the world. If the world exists then it has a “necessary being” otherwise it does not exist does it? But it does and so do we! Gasp and surprise. If there is no reason for some assumption there is not a reason to make it. If the universe is considered to have been made from the universe making factory it should be findable so let someone go find it.

If god is not part of the universe then we cannot know of god. If god is part of the universe then any thing we know of the universe IS knowing something of god or something we know of the universe IS of god or maybe sometime we shall overcome and come to know some part of god or all of god as we come to know more of the universe of which we are a part. If god is not part of the universe then there is no way to know of god no matter what we do.

The books and literature of humankind that are written about god are humankind made and I trust none of them and I shall let the writers go out and do some looking and some digging and some actual finding and get some god. God did not create the “god problem”. God did not create ANY of OUR problems. God cannot be blamed. Meanwhile I shall stick with my god and ignore all the rest.

22 May 2008

IF NOT US, WHAT DOES IT MATTER?

We are the universe looking at itself, we are the universe thinking of itself, we are the universe communicating and we are the universe thinking and talking and being made real and if the cosmos is required to show an intelligence it shall of necessity be ourselves and if it is required to show an immortality it shall of necessity be our children and if it shall be required to have a purpose it shall be of necessity our caring for each other and our love which is why we care in the first place and our happiness which is our peace and proof of success and if it is required to have a master it shall be all of these together forever for we are that which is the commensuration and final measure of anything, everything and of the ALL. We are the cosmogony for we define the cosmology. If any of this is found to be wanting we shall redo and recreate the thing all over again as we shall configure it.

21 May 2008

Oh! You wish you knew then what you know now?

You cannot go back. You wouldn’t if you could. OH! No! You simply wouldn’t be the one you are today if you became that young one way back then again. I do not mean a “no” in terms of time travel, as neither do you. Since you did not mean that you grew out of a garden of a paradise from back then nor did you mean that you came from a better world from back then, since you did not argue from either of them, then neither shall I. If the knowledge you have today were yours back then you would have been alone in the world with it. Was the world ready for you as you are now back then? If the world is not ready for you now would it have been ready for you back then? What ever you have learned the hard way or some other way was maybe not even known back then and that is why you never got it then. Those who taught you and exampled for you did not know to teach you or did not bother to teach you, either could not or refused to set examples for you to learn from. The knowledge in those senses I give means the knowledge wasn’t, effectively, even there. Now you know from your life time, such as it is, and life experiences, such as they have been, and from your ruminations, reflections, conclusions, and your desiderata, what you claim you now know.

The child with such knowledge as you have now and living amongst the rest of the world back then would be pitifully outcast. I do not mean with knowledge of computers and modern accoutrements, nor did you, but who would possess more social and human relationship knowledge, skills, and abilities than anyone around them. No one would understand such a one who would be called something akin to “child-being” and who would be an alien in the social arena.

To put it crudely and in the extreme, if you were now a younger but knowledgeable you set among anywhere anytime, you would not be alive long amongst the most advanced of any ancient time, even with also a collection of the most modern accoutrements. Either you would end it from being so incongruous or they would end you.

All of this I guess you already vaguely figure intuitively.

The “you” that is you sits and sees from atop the summit of an accumulated mound of the entirety of the memory, the entirety of the how you came to think and came to know anything. You are the result also of the struggles to come to have what you have. You are the result also of the struggles to come to know what you know. You are the result also of the struggles to come to be whatever it is you are. You are the end result of your struggles to survive. You are the end result of your disappointments, embarrassments, humiliations, and failures. You are the end result of your successes, earnings, learning, and works. You should not wish that changed. OH! No! You shouldn’t! Because such a change would entail and guarantee that you would, very simply, not be you. Such a change would entail and guarantee you would not know yourself, would not recognize yourself, and would not have any knowledge at all. No, you wouldn’t, no, not without all of, may we just say, all of “that”. All of “that” is what you really are. All of “that” is what made you “you”. Even if you are a monster or some disgusting freak, you are still even if undeservedly but nevertheless necessarily all of “that”.

To put it crudely and in the extreme, if you were now a younger but knowledgeable you set among an anywhere at anytime, either you would end it from being incongruous or they would end you. If you should impart what you now know to some one now as young as you want, that one would still have to come to understand what you know plus live and learn and come to know the world as it now is. They might be better for all you impart but would have to have a new list of problems and puzzles and complaints all new to you. And you would necessarily become incongruous to them. Such is so that you would become what is called the dinosaur or "old". That it seems is the result in even societies that supposedly never change.

And you wish you could live a thousand years!

10 May 2008

Free Choice

If you are rejected by the choice of your love life or your choice for the love of your life you have made a free will act and this is the essence of being human, not the choice of a love of your life but the ability to freely choose at all.

If the love choice does not reciprocate, and instead chooses elsewise then you have witnessed the essence of that lover: exercising the freedom to choose.

Being human does not mean being a genius and being human does not mean being rational. Being human entails or requires the ability to effect choices, to make choices, to make decisions, to do things that are not programmed in, to be perhaps and usually unaware of the origins of the desire for the choice but the choice freely made, right, wrong, self destructive, silly, contrary, or whatever.

If you want a mindless and choice free entity to use as a lust object then get a dog. Animals have no free will and do not make choices. We can not “allow” them to make choices nor expect them to as they have no self awareness so there is no “them” there to make a choice. We make them into pets and we train them to do as we want. If they do not like what we do to them it is the nervous system reacting not “them”. That is why some animals are not trainable for pets and are not amenable as a substitute for human affection and lust. At least some dogs are so trainable.

If the human object of your lust and, or, or love does not reciprocate and chooses elsewise you should let them be free to exercise that choice, even if you are sent from heaven as their personal love and, or, or lust object. You should get happy about their exercise of freedom to choose even if their choice is self destructive.

People must be free to fail else they learn nothing. People must be free to fail even self destructively or we shall have no lessons to learn from. If all was a rose garden and free of pain and suffering we would be unable to learn anything.

When someone goes out into the middle of a field during a storm and gets hit by lightning we should in addition to whatever else we do and say declare that they set a lesson for us to learn from and that they did us a service by giving an example of what we could then understand as a wrong action and then understand as a bad choice.

This is also why we must just sit back and allow a nation to choose even bad and self destructive actions. Otherwise our notion of freedom is not one of allowing and encouraging freedom but allowing only what WE want as if that other nation is our child. If a nation chooses to hurt us and, or, or our interests then we must defend ourselves and our interests and this is why war can be a necessary and even a very good thing. If the other nation chooses to walk into the storm unprotected, so to speak, at their own risk, then so be it. We are not the parents except of our own children and only as long as they are children. A free nation must suffer the fate of their failure and even their self destructive failure. We might argue with them over their “stupidity” as we might even rightly call it. We cannot say “Oh! But your people will suffer because of the leadership’s bad choices!” and intervene on behalf of those people FOR THEY ARE NOT OUR PEOPLE. We must let every nation learn the lessons of their failures even if we are the ones left doing the learning
.

07 May 2008

Censorship, Information Control, Shutting Us Up

Censorship, Information Control, Shutting Us Up ...
It is the old problem of censorship: as John Milton maintained, if you censor what you believe is corrupting, you must first see the corruption, and you are thus corrupted, and therefore cannot be trusted to censor anything! If you take away my mind you control me and I am already damaged as a free person before any damage to me can possibly happen! Either you are lying about protecting anyone or you are corrupt, say what you will about “knowing better” than anyone else. I remember that character who always says he wants to protect children and who somehow “knew” about a web site where a live rape was happening: now how did he find out about THAT without, gasp, looking, and without, gasp again, looking for it?!?! “Either they are lying or trying to steal your mind” … or both … etcetera ...

Global Warming Alert

I WANT the “Global Warming” so many are afraid of. I am waiting for the Ross Ice Shelf to slide into the ocean, Greenland to thaw out, all the useless snow to melt away, the ocean to rise up and flood out New York, Atlantic City, and other needs-to-re-new places places. The rocks, mountains, and general grounds at the South Pole would then be uncovered and the volcanic activity down there could happen unhindered by all the useless cold. Then tickets could be sold for holiday in … NEW HOT SPRINGS … ANTARCTICA. I want to be there for the health spas, casinos, and even, maybe, Iceberg Riding, Cold Water Athletics, Antarctica Mountain Skiing, fun time Penguin Hunting Parties and red hot Penguin Barbecue Feasts, YUM!!!!, and Hot Volcano Tours. YEOW!!!

25 April 2008

Be Happy

Don't worry about someone's happiness at the expense of your own. I hate to say it but shuck it if it's shuckable and if shucking it makes you happier. Otherwise, BE happier ... and shuck it off. If it's not avoidable, deal with it, shuck it. It is what we all do or want to do anyway --- so --- shuck it and worry about how to get happy about it.

Worry about the worth of a worry. Worry if it's worth it. If it's not worth it or you decide to not bother then shuck it. If it's worth it then you deal with it and you ought to be happy to deal with it and get it out of and away from your worrying self.

If it is not a solvable problem or will just take too long to deal with ... shuck it! One way or the other, shuck it. If it's either shuck you or shuck it, shuck one or shuck the other ... that's called tough and that's called life. But ... in the end ... get happy and BE HAPPY ABOUT IT. Shuck it! One or the other, shuck it!

Maybe you need a real good cry and maybe you need time alone and maybe you need a good semi-psychotic fit. Fine. In the end a choice must be made and you either get happy or not. Being happy is something you make happen and it cannot be given to you. Maybe you're an incurable alcoholic or an incurable drug addict or suffer intractible pain or... conundrums abound ... these demand you make a happier choice ... there is no help for you from me ... that's called tough and that's called life. Make a shucking decision and shuck it.

What else is there, really, to worry about, in the end, except to worry about being happy?

So ... WORRY ABOUT GETTING HAPPY.

If it isn' t worth it, don't worry about it. If you can't ever be happy you really don't have anything to worry about! Shuck it! Plain and simple in the end.

If you can't stop worrying then go crazy instead and be happy.

If you stop the world and get off ... GO! ... just get happy about it! ... or ...
Put a gun to your head ... Bang, but ... be happy about it! ... or ...
Jump into the sun ... Well! ... be happy about it! ...


Do the best you can and, shucks, get happy about it!
♪♪
Be Happy. ♪♪
♪♪
References:

"Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb" (1964)
"Grin And Bear It" (sports cartoonist George Lichtenstein in 1932, et al)
"Most people are about as happy as they make up their minds to be." [Abraham Lincoln]
"Don't Worry - Be Happy" (song and title)
"(If You Can't Be With The One You Love,) Love The One You're With" (song & title)
Desiderata (unknown)

16 April 2008

Stupidity

If you are talking and hear someone say something and you think: “no one can be so stupid as to believe that” you might be right: they cannot be that stupid and are being that stupid on purpose to interfere with your thinking. They are saboteurs. They find it either politically useful or just plain entertaining to play with you and confuse you. They may be serious saboteurs and be quite seriously after your sanity: do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of insane people!! And there are the fake insane who use “mental illness” to play with you and your wallet and your mind and these may also be serious saboteurs and be quite seriously after your sanity: do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of anyone!!! I have met fake crazies and the seriously insane. Do not underestimate the cleverness and intelligence of the sane to be “crazy” as it is useful to them to get your money, your body, your mind, and especially as they defend themselves in court after they kill you.

I was told once that the basic question of science is “What If?”. After a variety of arguments on various things I realized that I had been told that many times. Some people feel that any question and any idea that comes into their head, if in any way “different”, “qualifies” as an intelligent act. I came to understand that sometimes “No one can be so stupid as to believe that”, “NO one could be as stupid as to have said that” as correct and accurate. If they cannot be that stupid then if they ARE being so stupid then: they are being that stupid on purpose. They are stupid in order to interfere with your thinking. STUPIDITY is not an accident. No one is born stupid. People may get stupid and be in a state of stupefaction and get stupid from a lack of sleep, lust and love, thoughtless greed, street drug use, alcohol overuse, rage instead of anger, extreme anger, Rx drug use even if done right, just plain drug use, and mixtures of these. Otherwise, “stupid” people are saboteurs and find it politically useful to play with you and confuse you. Menticide is their form of hunt. I am not against the death penalty against them. Neither are they against death for you if they cannot kill your mind!!!

It takes work to save your mind from the menticidal maniacs who would kill you. It takes work to counter the tentative, develop the intuitive, work on the definite, and identify the stupid. Everyone gets stupid! You have to work to either get rid of it or, as “they” do, develop it to destroy others.

Are we a mutation of life forms or an evolvement into a new or a different life form? Are we a life form as an accident of nature? Is human life a freak of nature? Even if we are, we are anyway, so everything and anything else to the contrary is not relevant. Or, if any of this were so then ALL things are accidents of nature and EVERYTHING is a freak. If human life is a freak of nature then so is the sun and moon and every star. This kind of thinking makes every thing undifferentiated. It is as “the night in which all cows are black”. Nothing is all and each and every thing is the “same”. I consider such thinking evil. Or, if we are freaks or accidents of nature: what of it? What is the purpose of such a consideration? It is not a useful one and leads to no understanding of anything: it is used to derail real serious and worked on thinking by “lazy” and “stupid” people.

Permute, Mutate, Evolve

I assert that life is not a random process nor is it planned out according to a recipe. The world is neither a biscuit bakery nor an auto factory. Those kinds of things are human creations as they are also parts of the universe. We are each different. We none of us are universal-standard engineered machined parts from an assembly line. We are not little globs of dough from a bowl baked in temperature controlled ovens. Those kinds of things are human creations. That is obvious.

And no two biscuits based on the same recipe are the same nor are even two engineer-universal-standard auto parts quite the same. There is the simple fact of variation however small. Measurement is not exact it seems. No one was there to measure out the material used to make us. Even if there were then that measuring person could not make the precise same measure each time. That is an observation not inborn in us but figured out from our common human historical experience.

The biscuit or car that becomes after the baking or assembly line is at least slightly different from any and every other just as every person is different. If you ever worked in a quality control part of a factory you would be aware that even the most accurate of measurements ends up in endless variations. Some end results are inexplicably very different though often enough successful results none the less. Most cars run and most biscuits are edible. Many are tossed out as being too different, not up to some standard or other, or some other reason. We as human beings do that too to human beings.

Even if we should not do that with human beings we as human beings do. The anti-evolutionists would kill and non-create the already created. The anti-abortionists would kill and abort the already born. And the believers in one sort of things kill the believers in other sorts of things. Human beings are killers. We are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, back-stabbing, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are not just fighters. We are killers.

Simply put: “We are here and grow and this demonstrates our necessary being”. If we did not exist who then is reading this? “I” therefore I am. But the phrase “necessary being” is used by some to mean that “we” have to be here by some guarantee built into the universe. This is a useless argument, I think. We are and that is sufficient. We are and that is necessary or else, well, there would be no “we”. Isn’t that complete?

11 April 2008

Big Bang

The only way I can answer religious doctrine is to ignore it. All I can do in reply to religious writings is to ignore them. Human beings wrote it down and human beings are the doctrinaires: there I rest my case: human beings are not god. Period.

I simply do not believe in any god / any religion. I do not hate them nor despise them. I do not believe there is no god. I simply do not believe in any god. I have no religion. I do not believe in a future life, a system of future rewards and/or punishments, nor in any master plan, nor in any singular nor in any origin of / for the universe. I believe in no prophets nor angels nor powers nor powers of the dead / “Other” nor any entity waiting to do me a favor if I only pray. None of it “took” and none of it “takes” now.

Belief is easy: just accept “it” as if “it” was true and no more thinking is required about “it”. Just as I shall say I believe so and so will make a good or the better or a less the worst for president: I cannot say “I Know”. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations. Knowledge takes work. Trying to know takes work. Honesty takes work. Being able to say “I don’t know” is part of being honest. I am not a good liar. Being a good liar takes work. It is a different kind of work. Making a decision based on belief alone is sometimes all that can be done: It is a belief about what the “real world” is. A belief in the “other” world, the other world of god / religion is another thing altogether. Making decisions based on beliefs in the “non-natural world” applying some way or other to the “natural world” is also done. Human beings are doing it. I rest my case.

I believe all kinds of things and I do not apologize. Or I am shown I only believe in something and do not know and have to apologize. If I do not know anything I am honest enough to say so. Or I lie.

I accept no apology, explanation, defense, nor argument for god / religion: You/he/she/they believe it or not: The fundamental basis for belief is belief. Belief is not knowledge. Period.

God is not taken out of scientific argument nor out of the realm of scientific inquiry. NO! NO! I in fact argue that gods and religions must be studied. They are included in the history of ideas, defended or derided as a part of philosophy, studied as a part of human history such as justification and/or excuse for war and pursuing peace, for examples. That is: studied anthropologically or as a class of idea. There are those who study religions very carefully and have there own or none. History is necessarily concerned with religion. There is in fact an extensive enumeration of “religious” practices called The Golden Bough in thirty five volumes and he was being selective.

The study of nature excludes a study of god and religion as there is nothing there to study. “They” do not personally exclude so and do not have to personally exclude anything and thereby need not justify anything: there is no thing there to take samples of to measure: there is nothing there to exclude and nothing there to include if they wanted to. Period. You and I can guarantee they would if they could. People would have “samples” of god on their table tops at every meal! I would too! Or, they would refuse or fail to so do such. As it is, they might put symbols of god / religion on the table. That can only be studied anthropologically. If the study of nature is the study of god then there is no shortage of study. If the study of nature must include the belief in god, that is political, not science.

“Religion” has never screwed up anybody. People do the screwing. Religion is a cultural expression and a popular expression amongst a group of people: a social thing: and as varied as are groups of people. Pick one belief and there are thousands of other beliefs. Pick one belief and there are thousands of variations.

I do not believe there is no god. I am not a believer in a god to not believe in. “They” insist I am an atheist anyway. “They” are angry at me for not accepting their “beliefs”. I could lie down and mash my face into the floor before any image and shout “I believe!” and there would some “them” who insist I shall go to hell anyway for some reason or other.

As for the big bang: there is no evidence of any such a thing: it is a “working generalization”. It is a sort of “working” “assumption”. A way of talking.

As I hinted before: the universe cannot have a “beginning” based on our notions of time and space: “It”, the universe, the ALL, includes all times and all spaces by definition. There is no time, space, cause, effect, or “thing” left over. To assert a “cause” or “beginning” to the universe entails some extra-universal thing. Call that god. But god did not “cause” the universe to exist. God had not created causes before god created the universe. Therefore god created the universe and did not “cause” it to be. God cannot exist in our world of causes and effects. God created causes and effects. God created time. It is “said” “when god created the world” only because we use our limited language. God did not “start” as there was no where for god to start and no time for god to start as god had not created times nor starts nor where’s nor there’s. God did not cause the universe by creating it because creation is not a cause. No thing can be a “reaction” to the “cause” of god because god had not created anything until god created it and that includes causes and effects and reactions. Therefore there is no “starting time” for the universe nor a "starting time" for god. Even the middle ages monks in monasteries knew that!

04 April 2008

The Cause Of Existence

I remember the phrase “existence is not a predicate” and that logically since something exists there is no question of causation for that requires an action to effect another action and mere existence is not an action. But cars do exist as the result of manufacture we students replied. We were speaking of the existence of the universe, however, the existence of all.

God’s creation is not your human scale creation.

Even the most medieval monastic monks had some ready answers. The sum total of all or The ALL exists but cannot be the result of something else except as a result of itself for the ALL must include all causes and results of causation by definition of it being the ALL. There are no causes left over, so to speak. God did not “cause” the universe to “be”: there was no action before god created it and therefore no causes either.

I Am Not What Made Me

At least some anti-evolutionists insist that the world began 3500 or some “written” number of years ago and maybe even tyrannosaurus and brontosaurus dinosaurs walked up the plank into Noah’s ark. Since their minds are made up they have stopped thinking. They are left with the repetition of old notions which end in quarrels, fist fights, and murder. The anti-evolutionists would kill others they do not like and end their creation. The anti-abortionists would kill anyone who disagreed with them and abort them. Typical humans.

As a bunch of biological warm blooded not so furry bodies we human beings are predatory, nasty, vicious, violent, raging, biting, scratching, and rip-it-apart creatures. We are killers.

Are we “mutants of” or “evolved from”? Honestly, I do not care. I do not care if we as a biological reality “came from” some goo out of the ice.

I do not care who my parents were. I am and that is the hard basic fact of life. And after a certain “point” in my life I took charge and moved on, creating and re-creating my self using what was available. I decided to stop the worry about people who were not “there” or “not there for me”. I do not bother about any of that anymore. BOO! Here I am. Get on with it!

I have little choice: to accusations of being a “freak” I shoo off them who so accuse and move on, fight them off if they bother me, go on making my life, and continue to live.

If WE, as bio-entities, “came from” mindless apes, muddy gravel, green sea weed, dinosaur poo, or whatever, what and why should I even care?

I fail to understand the concerns of creationists and pro-lifers. They were created and they are alive and no one is threatening them.

Simply put: I am here and grow and this demonstrates my necessary being. This happens by any means necessary. If I am a mutation of a life form or an evolution into this, a new or a different life form, what do I care? If I am an accident of nature or a freak of nature I am still as a matter of fact alive and here. I give no thanks to the “them” and none to the “that” which, however necessary they were to my being, are not me.

I am not that which made me.

01 April 2008

“God Created A Universe Of Mystery.”

“God did not create a universe of limitations.” The very problem asserted by Cantor of infinite numbers was the false infinity of mere extension. Cantor insisted that the real world requires particular principles of infinity creation not endless mindless infinity creation. Cantor insisted that the creation of principles of infinity is the infinity encompassing all infinities, not the endless “infinity if infinities”. God is not infinite nor an infinity. God is the creator of infinities. Infinities in motion or the principle of infinities in action: Action, Motion, Creation, Creativity, Infinity.

“God created a creative universe.” We are a part of the universe. We are a thinking part of the universe. We are a part of the universe that thinks. The universe has a mind of its own including yours at the very least. We are the mind of the universe and we are the universe looking at itself and changing itself. The universe is a creating universe not a collection of “things”. We are things that create things and not a mere collection of biologic parts.

“We will always create the new and re-create the old as we find ourselves able and willing. Forever. That is the reality for humanity.”

We will never know even collectively everything because the universe is forever not “finished”. We shall never be finished with creating and re-creating our world. We shall always and forever be confronted with the new and the unknown. There will always and forever be the permuted new and the unknown. This is our World without End. Amen. Amen.

“God created a universe of mystery.” The universe is neither finite nor infinite. It is a false issue.

“False Infinity”

Someone asked a judicious time later why I figured that the universe was finite. Where had I heard or read that? I replied that they told me it was. I simply did not know. They were ready to impale me with ridicule and humble me with humiliations if I stayed silent. So I thought about it a little for myself.

“I know nothing!” I repeated --- once too often. The HA-HA-HA had died out of that coming from me.

The explanation I was given that I remember best was that in an infinite universe there would presumably be an infinite number of shining stars in our sky such that we would be inundated with light. Since this was not so there could not be an infinite number of shining stars and there could not be an infinite universe. There would be an infinite number of stars the light of which would always be infinitely far away forever by their logic. Further, there is only so much light that could “fit” in a local or finite space. If the speed of light is finite then there may be other finites within the infinite.

This was an example of “linear infinity” and “false infinity”. If only a finite amount of light reaches us we have to find out why.

Can it be argued that the universe is infinite or not if it is not known that it cannot be infinite or not? Simply put, can it be known that the universe is infinite if we cannot ever complete a measure of it? Might there be a limit to knowability? Maybe we cannot come to know the answer. My “friends” were incredulous: how could I stop there and leave them ignorant. “Knowledge does not come on a silver platter” I answered. “Personality is a potential. Intelligence is a potential. Beauty is a potential. YOU must WORK at it to make it work.” So I replied. The fisticuffs of humiliation still awaited my answer. There was a beautiful face in the bunch that made me begin to cry.

There is the greater infinite amount of dust in the way of the infinite amount of light. Maybe there is an infinite number of “things” that can happen to “free” light freely gallivanting about the infinite universe such as an infinite amount of new things such an amount of light could do before it could get “too far”. Rather than travel about indefinitely all night the light might eventually “do” something. That would make “sense” in a universe of constant activity.

31 March 2008

The “Big Bang Theory”

This was part of a horrible quarrel amongst some “friends”. I hesitate to suggest that I do not believe they were friends of mine.

As a result of the quarreling, I asked them two questions.

Can we assign “time” to the universe and its “creation”?

Can we assign a “creation” to the “all” at all?

I suggested that there was a religious reply to this sort of question that even the most middle minded medieval monks were aware of.

+Since god created time and space and the universe that this obviates the question of time relating to the “when” of creation.

+Of necessity, the universe itself is neither subject to time nor space for both time and space are OF the universe and the universe may subsume time and space but is neither in time nor in space itself.

+To say the universe must have a “time” to “start” assumes that the universe is in time.

+Since god created the universe, the universe includes time but is not itself governed by any time.

+To assume that there was a creation of the creator or a creator of god assumes that the creator exists in time such that there would be a time for the creation of god.

+If god exists “outside” or “beyond” time and space then of necessity there can be no time for the creation of god.

+This obviates the question about the creation of god by anything at any time.

+There was no time before god created it and therefore no “before” god and therefore no creation of god (such as by another “thing” before god).

+The universe which subsumes time and space is not itself timed nor spaced.
I suggested that the universe is maybe spaced out and is always out of time.

Three Questions I Reduced To One

Three questions arose recently: about Love, Money, Ideas, and How do we know if the universe is expanding.

I do not know if the universe is expanding as how could I. But I wondered how any one could assert that, as it was asserted, which was how the question came up.

On the outside of the universe it could be seen to expand, so to speak, but, then, it wouldn’t be the universe seen to expand but a part of it, the part seen to expand, as the outside would be a part of the universe but not under observation. How could it be seen to expand from the inside? What measure could / would be there to measure it against?

It was a problem of extrinsic and intrinsic geometry. It all started with the question: is the universe finite or infinite. I could only wonder how it could be known, one way or the other. I said that I wondered how a finite universe could be finite but without an end.

My answer, as I was pressed to give one, was theological.

I said it was the similar to the question as to how anyone could know if god was infinite: a theological conundrum: regarding god and the universe as a unity. There actually historically was an answer figured out theologically but it was to the satisfaction of only a few. If the universe was infinite then it would be commensurable as an infinite thing would be known to have a number however infinite it might be. Since god was not considered commensurable then god could not be infinite. Anything finite was by definition commensurable so then an incommensurable god could not be finite.

Anything to be measured or assigned a number would have to be so described by human standards and could be known. Anything in the universe was actionable upon if it was known. Anything knowable must be subject to measure and must be subject to number and must be subject to action upon it. Anything acted upon was therefore subject to change. No action upon god was considered possible. “Obviously”, no one was considered able to change god.

If the universe was a one then it was indivisible infinitely and numbered and thus god could not be a one. If the universe was a many then it was enumerable and thusly numbered and thus god could not be a many.

Therefore god was beyond mortal measure. Harrumph!

What could be known of god? The honest theologians replied that nothing was knowable about god, it was believed or not, that god was an organizing principal for humanity, and humanity was forever organizing and reorganizing and thereby changing the belief in god but not losing the absolute necessity for organizing principals. They continued that the questions about life and existence started with beliefs and developed into knowledge which was the endless task for humanity and would take forever, and that we need to keep faith in goodness and justice and togetherness (… and so on …) within such eternally continually developed reason. Amen.

The universe was only knowable over time and thus only finite within the limits of our knowledge. The universe was assumed infinite as there was no known end to time nor space nor anything else needed to get to know it. If we ever found an end to the unknown then our questions would be answered. Until then, the universe would be knowable finitely at any time.

However, the issue of an infinite versus finite universe was a false issue as it assumed one or the other without evidence for either, except as argued above and before. There was no measure possible for a universe we have not completed measuring to conclusively figure outside of belief that there was an infinite universe.

And thusly I completed my answer.