Please note that Peter’s correspondence below was written by the feeling-being ‘Peter’ while ‘he’ lived in a pragmatic (methodological), still-in-control/same-way-of-being Virtual Freedom before becoming actually free.
> Selected Correspondence Peter The universe PETER: As part of my investigation I also delved into theoretical physics and cosmology in order to ascertain whether any evidence had emerged that contradicted Richard’s experience that the physical universe is eternal and infinite. That it had no beginning, can only be actually experienced in this moment of time and has no end, that it has no centre, no ‘holes’ or edges to it other than imaginary ones – and therefore there is no ‘outside’ to it. Reading a few books and scouting around a bit was enough for me to ascertain that, while all sorts of fanciful theories and spurious evidence abounds in theoretical physics and speculative cosmology, no empirical evidence has been found to contradict what Richard says and what everyone has directly experienced in a PCE sometime in their life – that the universe is infinite and eternal and hence peerless both in its perfection and purity. What did amaze me at the time was how much Eastern philosophy and spiritual belief had permeated into science. As a practicing actualist I have since come to understand that the human condition is inherently awash with spiritual belief and can clearly see that the current fashion for Eastern polytheistic belief is popular only in that it offers an apparent freedom from the constraints of monotheistic dogma. So much am I out of the spiritual world, that I am now amazed that I had been amazed about how much of scientific theory is awash with spiritualism and mysticism. But, then again, the process of actualism is about becoming free of belief – all belief. In hindsight, these investigations I conducted not only confirmed the facticity of what Richard was saying but also confirmed the fallacy of many of my own beliefs and none more so than in my understanding of the universe. Contemplating the physical nature of the universe – as distinct from investigating and contemplating the nature of ‘my’ psyche – can not only trigger memories of past PCEs, but this type of ‘me’-out-of-the-way contemplation when combined with softly-focussed wonderment of the sensual nature of the universe provides a potentiality that can evoke the onset of a PCE. Talking about contemplating the physical nature of the universe brings me to the point of my letter, which is to post a couple of links I thought you might be interested in. I don’t want to comment specifically on the subject matter of the links, as I would not want to pre-empt you from drawing your own conclusions as to whether the explanations offered make more sense than do the currently-fashionable theories and long-held beliefs about the physical nature of the universe – so I’ll leave it at that. http://www.holoscience.com/eu/eu.htm and http://www.electric-cosmos.org/ * PETER: As part of my investigation I also delved into theoretical physics and cosmology in order to ascertain whether any evidence had emerged that contradicted Richard’s experience that the physical universe is eternal and infinite. That it had no beginning, can only be actually experienced in this moment of time and has no end, that it has no centre, no ‘holes’ or edges to it other than imaginary ones – and therefore there is no ‘outside’ to it. Reading a few books and scouting around a bit was enough for me to ascertain that, while all sorts of fanciful theories and spurious evidence abounds in theoretical physics and speculative cosmology, no empirical evidence has been found to contradict what Richard says and what everyone has directly experienced in a PCE sometime in their life – that the universe is infinite and eternal and hence peerless both in its perfection and purity. RESPONDENT: To relevance to actualism: If in fact the universe is electric, or if in fact it is filled with rubber duckies ... how is it relevant to actualism? PETER: If you want to contemplate on life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, and your contemplations are based on the currently-fashionable pseudo-scientific theories of an expanding universe – replete with a Big Bang beginning, full of or even empty of, all sorts of unseen, unseeable and unmeasurable phenomena and which will suffer some Diabolical End – then you will remain in the grip of spiritual belief. When I first began to dig into these scientific theories I was amazed how unscientific they were, and I say this as a layman with only a basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The reason I posted the links about an alternative explanation to the empirical observations of the universe was that the explanations make far more sense to me than those currently held to be the truth. An obituary of Hannes Alfvén, the founder of plasma physics, reinforces my own layman understanding – [Eric G. Lerner]: ‘But Alfvén’s most significant contribution to science is his daring reformulation of cosmology, his critique of the Big Bang, and his posing of an alternative, the plasma universe-an evolving universe without beginning or end. To Alfvén, the most critical difference between his approach and that of the Big Bang cosmologists was one of method. ‘When men think about the universe, there is always a conflict between the mythical and the empirical scientific approach,’ he explained. ‘In myth, one tries to deduce how the gods must have created the world, what perfect principle must have been used.’ This, he said, is the method of conventional cosmology today: to begin from a mathematical theory, to deduce from that theory how the universe must have begun, and to work forward from the beginning to the present-day cosmos. The Big Bang fails scientifically because it seeks to derive the present, historically formed universe from a hypothetical perfection in the past. All the contradictions with observation stem from this fundamental flaw. The other method is the one Alfvén himself employed. ‘I have always believed that astrophysics should be the extrapolation of laboratory physics, that we must begin from the present universe and work our way backward to progressively more remote and uncertain epochs.’ This method begins with observation – observation in the laboratory, from space probes, observation of the universe at large, and derives theories from that observation rather than beginning from theory and pure mathematics. According to Alfvén, the evolution of the universe in the past must be explicable in terms of the processes occurring in the universe today; events occurring in the depths of space can be explained in terms of phenomena we study in the laboratory on earth. Such an approach rules out such concepts as an origin of the universe out of nothingness, a beginning to time, or a Big Bang. Since nowhere do we see something emerge from nothing, we have no reason to think this occurred in the distant past. Instead, plasma cosmology assumes that, because we now see an evolving, changing universe, the universe has always existed and always evolved, and will exist and evolve for an infinite time to come.’ Copyright © 1991, 1995 Eric J. Lerner. http://www.marxist.com/science/inmemory.html The other aspect I found of interest in my early explorations into mainstream cosmological theories of the 20th century was that many of the proponents of the theories were heavily influenced by the Eastern religious beliefs and philosophies that were particularly fashionable in European intellectual circles at the time. What really set the alarm bells ringing – my scepticism if you like – was when I discovered that the man who formulated the Big Bang creation theory was Abbé Georges LeMaître, a central figure in the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma. RESPONDENT: From an experiential point of view, it ‘can only be actually experienced in this moment of time’ is certainly true, but that does nothing to describe the universe’s physical evolution over time. PETER: Whilst there is ample empirical evidence in the fossil record of this planet to support the theory that vegetate matter emerged from the mineral matter of this planet due to a unique combination of physical conditions – and that it then further evolved into animate matter, conscious animate matter and apperceptive animate matter over time – it is a leap of pure imagination to propose that the universe itself has evolved over time. The physical universe is ever changing but it is not evolving, because implicit in the word evolution as it is commonly used is that the process of evolution has a beginning point. The universe, being eternal and infinite, had no beginning point, no creation event. Further, the physical universe is not evolving towards perfection – it is already perfect, as can clearly be experienced in a pure consciousness experience. RESPONDENT: While that experience implicitly involves my flesh-and-blood, hence can only be happening in this moment, I know also that the flesh-and-blood is subject to physical laws and will eventually become dust. Why would similar laws not apply to the universe too? PETER: The universe, being eternal, can have no ending, no doomsday event. To propose that because flesh and blood human beings are mortal – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ – it therefore follows that the universe is mortal – ‘will eventually become dust’ – is an anthropocentric viewpoint. Thus far in human history, all of humanity’s wisdoms and truths have been founded upon an anthropocentric viewpoint, be it that of the spiritualists’ much-vaunted search for immortality for the human spirit – the ‘Unborn’ state – or the scientists’ futile search for metaphysical spirit-like creationist forces. RESPONDENT: I ask this in all sincerity, and I’m not arguing the physical nature of the universe, nor its perfection and purity, just how it is pertinent to the matter at hand. PETER: Anyone who holds to an anthropocentric view of the universe and holds on to spiritual and/or creationist theories about the nature of the universe will, by the very nature of these ‘self’-centred and ‘self’-perpetuating views and beliefs, remain locked out from the pure consciousness experience of the perfection and purity of the infinite and eternal universe. It is as pertinent as that. (...) * PETER: Talking about contemplating the physical nature of the universe brings me to the point of my letter, which is to post a couple of links I thought you might be interested in. I don’t want to comment specifically on the subject matter of the links, as I would not want to pre-empt you from drawing your own conclusions as to whether the explanations offered make more sense than do the currently-fashionable theories and long-held beliefs about the physical nature of the universe – so I’ll leave it at that. http://www.holoscience.com/eu/eu.htm and http://www.electric-cosmos.org/ RESPONDENT: Of course, back to the original subject. As I said above, I need to do more reading to see how the math hangs together, but the argument is persuasive and interesting. PETER: As I read it, it was scientists’ reliance on mathematics that lead to the abandonment of common sense in the first place. RESPONDENT: I was put off at the initial screen for Holoscience as it said: [quote]: ‘The Electric Universe introduces a far richer science that has no rigid disciplinary boundaries. Instead it encompasses all human experience, arts and endeavour. Holistically, it embraces evidence from ancient civilisations as well as the latest space probes. The result is an astounding concordance between modern plasma physics and the ancient testimony of battling planets.’ [endquote]. My suspicions are aroused whenever I come across the word holistic, it’s typically used to capture a mish mosh of metaphysical gobbledygook. So, I thought, is this another Capra-esque affair? PETER: Indeed there is a good deal in the links I provided that make no sense to me – the supposed evolution of the universe being one. But I do find the explanation of the nature of the universe to be far more scientifically plausible than the creationist theories of a Big Bang and a Wimpy End, not to mention the Other Invisible Universes fantasies. What this group of scientists is saying is that what has thus far been empirically observed in the universe can be attributed to the combination of physical matter and the physical energies and forces associated with that matter. RESPONDENT: However, it quickly got back to real science. They go one to make some persuasive arguments about the plasma nature of the universe, and a very different take on the electrical, magnetic, gravitational, and nuclear characteristics. A couple of items that really piqued my interest: [quote]: ‘And if anyone believes that Newton’s laws guarantee a stable planetary system – think again! Any gravitational system with more than two orbiting bodies is unstable.’ [endquote]. I had puzzled that myself in the past – because gravity is attractive only, it seemed to me that any gravity based system (i.e. orbits) were eventually going to degrade. An electostatic system however, because of its bipolar nature, would theoretically be stable until perturbed by an outside force. PETER: As I have said I am a layman in these matters. Having said that, it seems to put me at an advantage because I am obliged to rely on common sense – something that is impossible for those who are driven by passion and blinkered by belief. RESPONDENT: And, [quote]: ‘What we measure as the speed of light is then a delayed response of bulk electric charge to an oscillating near-instantaneous electrostatic force.’ [endquote]. The implication here is that two bodies related across a distance by an electrostatic force would have essentially instantaneous communications. There’s an old modern physics conundrum: if you filled a tube with incompressible balls, all touching, and hit the end one with a hammer, the ball at the far end would move instantly, not constrained by the speed of light, or any other speed limit for that matter. PETER: I’ll pass on this one. The conundrums of theoretical physics do seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to Zen koans – Schroeder’s Cat comes to mind. RESPONDENT: As to pertinence to AF (no further comment needed): [quote]: ‘It has been well documented that modern institutions of science operate in such a way as to enforce conformity and prevent research and publication of revolutionary ideas. J. R. Saul argues that medieval scholasticism was re-established during the 20th century. If so, the new ‘Enlightenment’ will have to come, as before, from outside academia.’ [endquote]. PETER: Or some aspects of scientific research have to once again break free from the shackles of religious dogma, spiritual belief and metaphysical mysticism and get more down-to-earth again. RESPONDENT: OK, all great so far, but we get to the point that I was attempting to make some odd months ago. [quote]: ‘Sansbury’s electrical model of matter leads to a simple explanation of gravity that allows space to be three-dimensional and Euclidean – which is the way we perceive it.’ [endquote]. I’m all for simpler explanations, but I think it’s a bit scientifically naive to assume that just because something is the ‘way we perceive it’, it must be the whole truth. PETER: In my experience I found it useful to make a distinction between the many disciplines of science. The distinction I make is between what could be called the empirical sciences or applied sciences – engineering, mechanics, chemistry, geology, biology and so on – and the sciences that incorporate a good deal of theory or philosophical speculation – quantum physics, cosmology, climatology and so on. Simply by making this distinction it became clear that it is empirical science – the empirical understanding of physical matter and the physical forces and energies associated with physical matter – that has wrought the incredible progress in human safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. It also became clear that the sciences that are driven by theory and conjecture – speculating on the nature of matter and then devising scenarios, forces and energies to suit their theories – produce little that is of practical use to anyone. RESPONDENT: The Holoscience people discount the notion of higher dimensions, but I still maintain we may be constrained by our sensory apparatus to only those detectable inputs. Of course, I could be entirely wrong about that ... maybe we are seeing all that there is. Maybe it is adequate, and complete. I’ll have to mull this over some more and rein in my skeptical bent a tad. PETER: Human beings have an obsession with ‘the notion of higher dimensions’ – the belief that the world is subject to the influence of good forces and evil forces is prevalent in every tribe and every culture on the planet. This belief is somewhat understandable considering that it emerged in the days when it was universally believed that the world was three layered – a flat earthy plane full of dangerous animals and dangerous humans, a mystifying heavenly realm above and a mysterious underworld below. Eventually it was empirically observed that the earth was not flat but was spherical and subsequent explorations over centuries proved that this was in fact so. Nowadays photos of earth taken from spacecrafts have subsequently convinced all but the wacky that the earth is not flat. The next belief to be demolished by empirical observation was the notion that the earth was the centre of the solar system – an empirical observation only made possible by the invention of a mechanical enhancement of our ‘sensory apparatus’ – the telescope. As telescopes got bigger and better, the belief that our galaxy was all there was to the universe – a conviction held in Einstein’s time – was replaced by the discovery that there are in fact countless other galaxies in the universe. The subsequent invention of radio telescopes and the like has meant that we are now able to observe and measure spectrums of the electromagnetic energy of the universe that lay outside the range human eyes can detect. And yet, despite this long history of scientific discoveries about the extraordinary magic that is the physical universe, the eons-old search for some sort of ‘higher dimension’ or metaphysical energy – the famed spirit-energy of mythology – still persists. The same long trek from belief and superstition to actuality and wonder can be seen in the discoveries about the creation of animate life. The process of animal reproduction was unknown to early humans and all sorts of beliefs and superstitions flourished in ignorance. Now, thousands of years later, the science of observation and investigation – mightily boosted by the invention of the inverted telescope, the microscope – has revealed the facts to be far more wondrous than the puerile myths dependant upon the belief in supernatural spirit forces. I could go on tripping through other fields of scientific discovery and endeavour, but you probably have got the gist of what I am saying – human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks. RESPONDENT: I also need to read some more on the premise about close planetary encounters in recent history ... that does sound a bit wild at first. PETER: Unless someone discovers some substantive empirical evidence to back up a theory, I am also sceptical of many of the suppositions that are presented along with the theory of a plasma universe or an electric universe. But I see these as add-ons to the central thrust of what is presented – an alternative evidence-based explanation for the thus-far empirically observed matter of the universe as opposed to the fashionable creationist explanations of Einsteinian Cosmology. Well, that’s been good fun. Nice to chat about these matters. PETER: When I first began to dig into these scientific theories I was amazed how unscientific they were, and I say this as a layman with only a basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The reason I posted the links about an alternative explanation to the empirical observations of the universe was that the explanations make far more sense to me than those currently held to be the truth. RESPONDENT: Granted that the present Big Bang theory has many holes, and that the electric universe contingent makes some compelling arguments. This is the scientific method at work: conjecture (aka guess at) a scenario hitherto opaque, conduct experiments to test the scenario, and assess the scenario given the acquired data. Some of these are easy (right angle theorem), some more complex (fundamental nature of the universe). The Big Bang theorem is still a theorem as it has not yet passed the test of the scientific method. Nor has the electric universe theorem. A key element of this process (particularly the first step) is common sense, as you use the term. PETER: You may have missed the fact from the last post that the man who formulated the Big Bang creation theory was Abbé Georges LeMaître, a central figure in the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma. In other words, the very first step in the process of the formulation of the Big Bang theory, was LeMaître’s religious belief that God created the world out of nothing, that the universe had a beginning – a creation event. The ‘scientific method’ employed in this case was to take a transparently creationist religious belief, create mathematical formula to support the belief, assess any empirical observations solely in the light of the belief and, when holes appear in theory, persist by adding complications to the theory. After nearly a century of theories built upon LeMaître’s initial theory, some scientists have even come out claiming that they see the Mind of God at work in the universe. The Vatican must be mightily pleased with the current score line in cosmology – Vatican 1/ Empirical science 0. You might have noticed Richard’s recent post where he posted documentary evidence that the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama is deliberately meddling in, and influencing, what could be termed the human behavioural sciences in precisely the same way that the Catholic Pope meddled in, and influenced, theoretical cosmology. It’s a good ploy on the part of the churches because the distinction between science and religion – between fact and fantasy – remains so blurred in most people’s minds that it is impossible for common sense to even begin to get a toehold, let alone a leg in. RESPONDENT: So far, note that this process is a-personal, and a not-too-bad approach to satisfying curiosity. PETER: Scientists, being human beings, can do nothing in an a-personal manner, but if the process they follow produces verifiable down-to-earth results with leads to things that work, or criteria that can be applied to produce results that work in similar situations, it can reliably be said that the theory then becomes fact. As for curiosity, if it isn’t a down-to-earth curiosity, then curiosity very quickly turns into a flight of fantasy – naught but impassioned imagination. A bit from my journal is relevant – [Peter]: ... ‘We know that death is an inevitable fact. This is the fact of the situation, but we have avoided this fact largely by making ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘What happens after death?’ into great religious, philosophical and scientific questions. Indeed, for many humans the pursuit of the answer to these meaningless questions is deemed to be the very meaning of life. The search for what happens after life becomes the point of life and the Search is endless. One is forever on the Path. One never arrives. That always seemed some sort of perversity to me. All that the religious and spiritual meanings of life have offered us is that they point to life after death – that’s where it is really at! ‘When you die, then you can really live!’’ Peter’s Journal Death RESPONDENT: When scientist’s egos get involved and they become defensive of ‘their’ theories, the waters are muddied and extricating real truth becomes much more difficult. PETER: Contrary to spiritual belief, t’is not the obstinacy of the ego that is the bane of humanity, t’is the tenacity of the soul. You may have observed that many scientists are very wary of treading on the toes of spiritualists lest they be seen as ‘soul’-less. * RESPONDENT: From an experiential point of view, it ‘can only be actually experienced in this moment of time’ is certainly true, but that does nothing to describe the universe’s physical evolution over time. PETER: Whilst there is ample empirical evidence in the fossil record of this planet to support the theory that vegetate matter emerged from the mineral matter of this planet due to a unique combination of physical conditions – and that it then further evolved into animate matter, conscious animate matter and apperceptive animate matter over time – it is a leap of pure imagination to propose that the universe itself has evolved over time. The physical universe is ever changing but it is not evolving, because implicit in the word evolution as it is commonly used is that the process of evolution has a beginning point. The universe, being eternal and infinite, had no beginning point, no creation event. Further, the physical universe is not evolving towards perfection – it is already perfect, as can clearly be experienced in a pure consciousness experience. RESPONDENT: In checking the dictionary, I find no specific indication that evolution implies a beginning point. However, it is defined as (generally) an increase in complexity. Clearly that is presumptuous, and I used the term incorrectly. But, whether the universe is becoming more or less complex, or is static, does not imply that the universe has a beginning or an end, or is finite. They are possibly related but exclusive. PETER: If I read you right, you seem to be willing to acknowledge that the universe may not have had a beginning, i.e. was not created by someone or something out of nothing, but you are hedging your bets by saying it does not necessarily follow that the universe won’t have an end – an extinction caused by someone or something whereby the universe wimps or bangs into nothing. I am left wondering why you would abandon half of a belief and yet hold on to the other half? RESPONDENT: At this point I do acknowledge that my common sense tells me that the universe is likely infinite in both time and space, but that is more opinion than scientific fact. PETER: Perhaps, in the interest of getting to the root of this issue, you would like to post the scientific facts that provide evidence that the universe is not ‘infinite in both time and space’. Then we can put them on the table and see if they make sense or not. Just as a point of interest, you will have noticed I am not alone in questioning the common popular theories in cosmology. You will have noticed that I have previously posted some comments made by Hannes Alfvén, astrophysicist and joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 in which he questioned not only the methodology but the substance of the scientific rationale for a finite created universe with a beginning and end. * RESPONDENT: To relevance to actualism: If in fact the universe is electric, or if in fact it is filled with rubber duckies ... how is it relevant to actualism? From an experiential point of view, it ‘can only be actually experienced in this moment of time’ is certainly true, but that does nothing to describe the universe’s physical evolution over time. PETER: The universe, being eternal, can have no ending, no doomsday event. RESPONDENT: Can you offer a scientific argument as to why the universe should have no end? Common sense or a PCE is adequate to propose the hypothesis, but not the proof. PETER: I don’t have a scientific argument to offer because it is impossible to refute the arguments of those who believe in a creationist beginning event or a doomsday ending event to the universe. This is akin to believers asking for scientific proof that God doesn’t exist or proof that there isn’t life after death. It is beholden upon those who believe to provide empirical scientific evidence to back up their theories and beliefs – after all, it’s their belief, their conviction, their fantasy. To be stuck between a hypothesis and a belief is a hard place as I remember it, but out of this confusion came the understanding that certainty lies in the observable facts of down-to-earth matters. Or to put it another way, once I realized that actualism had nothing to do with any spiritual belief whatsoever, it gradually dawned on me that actualism is completely and utterly down-to-earth. Having said that I don’t have a scientific argument to make, I will offer the scientific explanation as to why – [Tom Van Flandern]: ‘Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form. Growth requires accretion, nourishment, or energy input. Fragmentation ranges from chipping to evaporation to explosion into bits so tiny that we can no longer see or detect them. Changing form includes changes of state, such as solids, liquids, gases, or plasmas.’ <Snip> ‘The counterpart of not allowing the creation of something from nothing is ‘No Demise as nihil’; i.e., something cannot become nothing. However finely a thing may dissolve, however undetectable the bits of ‘energy’ into which a thing may explode, if all the individual bits were brought together again with the same ordering, the original thing would be recovered. In other words, nothing has ceased to exist; it has merely changed its appearance or form.’ Tom Van Flandern, ‘Physics Has Its Principles’ * RESPONDENT: While that experience implicitly involves my flesh-and-blood, hence can only be happening in this moment, I know also that the flesh-and-blood is subject to physical laws and will eventually become dust. Why would similar laws not apply to the universe too? PETER: To propose that because flesh and blood human beings are mortal – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ – it therefore follows that the universe is mortal – ‘will eventually become dust’ – is an anthropocentric viewpoint. Thus far in human history, all of humanity’s wisdoms and truths have been founded upon an anthropocentric viewpoint, be it that of the spiritualists’ much-vaunted search for immortality for the human spirit – the ‘Unborn’ state – or the scientists’ futile search for metaphysical spirit-like creationist forces. RESPONDENT: You have applied the scientific method to my hypothesis and it has failed. My argument is flawed. PETER: Flawed or not, you still seem to be arguing for the belief in creationist cosmology, albeit as half a belief. On one side you offer ‘granted that the present Big Bang theory has many holes’ and yet on the other you ask ‘can you offer a scientific argument as to why the universe should have no end?’ As I’ve said before, this is not an argument as to who is right or wrong, nor is it really even about the scientific explanations about the nature of the universe – this is a discussion between two fellow human beings, two actualists, about the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs. If you want an example of scientific method in action this is it – examining the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs, in this case using creationist cosmology as an example. We could conduct exactly the same scientific method examination of any other beliefs – the pantheistic beliefs that underpins much of environmental science is another example that comes to mind. (...) * RESPONDENT: Of course, back to the original subject. As I said above, I need to do more reading to see how the math hangs together, but the argument is persuasive and interesting. PETER: As I read it, it was scientists’ reliance on mathematics that lead to the abandonment of common sense in the first place. RESPONDENT: In my experience, mathematics has been subject to much more rigor than the ‘wilder’ branches, such as cosmology. Maybe science has abandoned common sense, but mathematics is (by and large) quite concrete, and forms the underpinnings for most other branches. I suspect that what is really happening is that in formulating pet theories, scientists ‘pick and choose’ bits of mathematics that appear to support their arguments, while disregarding the bits that contradict them. While mathematics may be concrete, the spin that ego-driven scientists put on it can distort the truth. PETER: Again a distinction needs to be made between applied mathematics and pure or abstract mathematics. Applied mathematics is an essential tool utilized by many practical scientists and professions including those of engineering and architecture. When mathematics is divested of down-to-earth applications all sorts of fantasies can result, including the search for mathematical ‘Elegance’ and ‘Truth’. I would refer you to the following link, which makes this point far more concisely than I am capable of doing – http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/PhysicsHasItsPrinciples.asp You might also find further reading on this site useful in your research as it essential that you make your own sense of such matters and not just believe what I, or others, are saying. (...) * PETER: I could go on tripping through other fields of scientific discovery and endeavour, but you probably have got the gist of what I am saying – human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks. RESPONDENT: I guess I don’t really like the term ‘higher dimensions’ – maybe a better term is ‘characteristics of the universe that are not perceptible at present with the available human senses and tools’. PETER: Maybe you would like to refect on what characteristics of the universe have changed since the beginning of human awareness of the universe? Such reflection might lead you to the conclusion that the characteristics of the universe exist independently of human sensory perception, and are unaffected in any way by human sensory perception. Anthropocentricity runs deep within the human psyche, manifested in each and every human being as ‘self’-centredness. Contrary to popular belief, the universe was not ‘created’ especially for human beings – the human species is manifestly a species of animate life that has evolved from the matter of the universe. So predominant is anthropocentric belief that early humans, out of ignorance, believed the earth to be the centre of our solar system – a geocentric belief – but it has been discovered over time that the earth is but one of a number of planets that orbit the sun, which is but one sun in a galaxy full of suns, which is but one galaxy in an endless cosmos of countless galaxies. And yet these physical characteristics of the universe have always been so despite the early beliefs and superstitions that the earth was the centre of the world and that this world must have been created by a Someone or Something. I don’t know wether you came across the modern ‘Fingers of God’ tabulation – if this didn’t send the alarm bells ringing amongst creationist cosmology as to how geocentric, hence anthropocentric, their observations are then nothing will. http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm RESPONDENT: Again, I emphasize that none of what I am talking about has anything to do with metaphysics or spiritual belief. PETER: And yet, despite your disclaimer, you have said previously in this post – [Respondent]: ‘The Big Bang theorem is still a theorem as it has not yet passed the test of the scientific method.’ [endquote]. The Big Bang theory is a creationist theory. The Big Bang theory is metaphysical in that it presumes there was a force or energy existing prior to the existence of physical matter and that this non-material force or energy then created the physical matter of the universe. The Big Bang theory is spiritual at root in that ancient spiritual belief was the prior source of all metaphysical science. And just a note to finish with – Personally I didn’t try to understand the science of all this too much. Simply contemplating on what would have existed before the universe was supposedly created, what would exist after in supposedly ended and what I would see if I got to the supposed edge of the universe was enough to convince me that the creationist cosmologists were off with the fairies. RESPONDENT: You will, of course, correct my use of the word ‘believe’ in that statement as you have direct experience of the infinite / eternal nature of the universe, and your common sense tells you so. PETER: Indeed, and the reason I have had many direct experiences of the infinitude of the physical universe is that I stopped believing the cosmological theories and spiritual fantasies that propose that the physical universe is other than infinite and eternal. And it was not ‘my’ common sense that told me so – it was common sense itself that led me to experientially discover that it is so. RESPONDENT: How can you possibly ‘experience’ that the universe is infinite and eternal? PETER: In a pure consciousness experience the universe is experienced as-it-is, infinite and eternal, boundless and happening in this very moment. In a pure consciousness experience, temporarily there is no ‘I’ present, which means the consciousness of this body is no longer ‘self’-centred, which means that there is no ‘me’ present to be the centre of ‘my’ world. This means that I, this flesh and blood body, is bereft of an affective point of reference … then, the experience is that this body is no-where in particular in boundless space and no-when in particular in perpetual time. It is an experience of unparalleled freedom for it is a direct experience of the infinitude of the peerless actual world we flesh and blood humans live in. RESPONDENT: Can you sensately experience its lack of bounds? PETER: From my experience, I would say that what is experienced in a PCE is a lack of a centre, as in ‘self’-centred feelings or thoughts, which results in the sensate experience that the actual world has no bounds i.e. is in fact boundless. In a PCE the actual world is also experienced as eternal in that it can only ever be experienced now (and it is always now). And further, the actual world of the physical universe is experienced as perfect in that it is without peer, and it is experienced as pure in that it is without comparison. T’is little wonder that a PCE is sometimes referred to as a mind-blowing experience. RESPONDENT: Did you travel back in time far enough to know that there was no beginning? (Don’t bother responding to these questions... I’ve heard it before.) You suggest that maintaining an open mind about the nature of the cosmos smacks of spiritualism or metaphysics, but to me your stance sounds much more that way. PETER: If I may point out it is you who are asking rhetorical questions and then telling me not to bother to answer as you have heard it all before, in other words you demonstrating that you are unwilling to change your mind no matter what my response. This means that rather being open minded as you claim, you are being closed minded to even considering the possibility that the physical universe is both infinite and eternal. You have also made your close-minded stance clear in the past – [Respondent]: Whereas you may have been ‘gullible in my spiritual years – my faith was indeed blind’, I tended to the other extreme, that of sceptic to a fault. Nothing was ever true, a cold place to be indeed. [endquote]. To maintain that nothing is ever true is to remain closed minded to the possibility that something may be true or that something you dismiss as being a belief may indeed be a fact. [Respondent]: I don’t believe either that the universe is finite or infinite, or that it is filled with gods or fairies. [endquote]. To maintain that you ‘don’t believe either that the universe is finite or infinite’ is to be closed-minded to even entertaining the possibility that it might be in fact infinite. RESPONDENT: All the cults made the same kinds of final decisions, and any questioning thereof is off-limits. This sounds just the same. PETER: Being a member of a cult necessitates that one always believes what the cult authority says to be the truth, which in turn means that one always rejects what non-cult members believe to be the truth as being mere beliefs. The process of actualism on the other hand involves an actualist setting aside all of his or her own beliefs in order to be able to clearly see and understand the facts of the matter, no matter what the consequences. Actualism is not about believing others, actualism is about finding out by oneself, for oneself. RESPONDENT: Tangentially, Vineeto wrote to No 45 recently: [Vineeto]: ‘In an infinite universe energy does not ‘become less’, therefore it appears that the 2nd law of thermodynamics works to describe local events and does not apply to the universe as a whole.’ Vineeto to No 45, 31.7.2003 PETER: Just a point of correction here, I am told that it is more accurate to say that the 2nd law of thermodynamics works to describe a closed system – which means that it cannot apply to the universe as a whole given that an infinite system is, per definition, not a closed (as in finite) system. RESPONDENT: This is interesting, particularly in light of the recent dialog between No 37 and myself. To synopsize that ... No 37 made a compelling case for the lack of reference points in an infinite universe, which implies that all points are the same, and the universe perceives itself through my senses. That I grasp. Yet, I can clearly walk in to the wall, which is a most specific reference point, and which doesn’t jibe directly with the previous statement. Walking into the wall sounds like it describes a ‘local event’ and doesn’t ‘apply to the universe as a whole’. PETER: I think the point that No 37 was making was that in an infinite universe any reference points are purely arbitrary, hence one is always nowhere in particular. Similarly in an eternal universe there are no reference points – no beginning, middle or end of time – which means this moment is always no-when in particular. I’ll give you a practical example of being no-where in particular – one that I found useful to contemplate upon because it is a down-to-earth example, i.e. it doesn’t require imagination nor does it depend on mathematical logic. As I take it, you and I are presently located somewhere on the planet. Now depending entirely on where one determines ‘up’ to be you may well be on the top of the globe whilst I may well be hanging off the bottom of it, or vice versa, or you may be hanging off one side of it and I the other. And whilst you look at the sky above and call it up, I look at an entirely different sector of the sky and call that up. I remember laying on my back in a field one day and looking ‘up’ into the sky but then I started to think about the fact that I could well be looking ‘out’ sideways at the sky, or if I was on the bottom of the earth, I would be looking ‘down’ into the sky. In my twenties, when I went to live on a different part of the planet, the sun was always in the sector of sky called ‘south’, whereas I was born in a part of the planet where the sun was always in a part of the sky called ‘north’. Despite the fact that I lived in that other part for years it still seemed strange to me – it was as though the sun had moved relative to me, not the other way round. In one part of the world when I faced the part of the sky where the sun tracked it rose from the right and set to the left whereas another part of the planet it rose to the left and set to the right! To take this lack of reference points further – we are on a planet that is hurtling through space, whilst orbiting a star which is one of billions of stars that make up what is called a galaxy of stars which in turn is but one of a cluster of galaxies … ad infinitum. Now what do you use as a point of reference in this limitless vastness – the centre of a cluster of galaxies, the centre of the galaxy, the biggest local star or sun, the moon, the earth, the magnetic field of the earth, the gravitational field of the earth, your living room, my living room? This is not the stuff of intellectual theorizing or meta-physical fantasy – this is matter-of-fact thinking about the physical universe. Personally I found that such thinking eventually led me to intellectually understand that I was no-where in particular and this in turn led me to intellectually understand that ‘my’ view of the universe was, and could only be, ‘self’-centred. Needless to say this then led to an experiential liberation from my normal ‘self’-centred thinking and feeling … and a PCE was the result. RESPONDENT: Similarly, the universe could exhibit red shift, to be interpreted by some as evidence of the big bang (the ‘local event’), while still being infinite, eternal, placid, static. Different ‘views’ depending on the present frame of reference or model of perception? PETER: Human beings, being ‘self’-centred, can’t help but having a ‘self’-centred perception of the physical universe which in turn leads to them thinking and feeling all sorts of weird things about the physical universe. RESPONDENT: How does one perceive of oneself as the very stuff of the universe and still manage to make it through the doorway. I know this is a bit abstract, but I think there’s something in there that might help me understand the gap between our POVs. PETER: If you start to think and feel you are the universe then all sorts of megalomaniacal thoughts and feelings follow. One can even imagine one’s ‘self’ to be so huge that one can suffer an altered state of consciousness whereby ‘I’ think and feel that ‘I’ am the universe, or that ‘I’ am the creator of the universe – which in turn leads to ‘me’ thinking and feeling that ‘I’ am infinite, as in omnipresent … and that ‘I’ am eternal, as in immortal. Such people have no difficulty making it through the doorway – they waft through the doorway as their feet never ever touch the ground – unlike us mortals. If you want to understand the gap between us, I can only suggest what worked for me – keeping my contemplations more down-to-earth and less ‘self’-oriented. When ‘I’ stop thinking, feeling and believing that ‘I’ am the central reference point of the universe, ‘I’ then allow the possibility that something utterly magical can happen – ‘me’, at the core of my being, can disappear from commanding centre-stage and, as if a veil has been lifted, the splendour and wonder of the actual world can become vibrantly apparent. It is as though one enters another world, a fairy-tale like magical world, but it has a familiarity to it because it has always been here – right under my very nose as it were. In the actual world of the senses, there is a direct and sensuous experience that matter is not merely passive – that there is a palpable life-force that permeates all the matter of the universe … and it is further patently obvious that this life-force is a physical life-force … and not a meta-physical force. Nice to chat, again. I appreciate your persistence. RESPONDENT: May I please have your attention? There is readiness to begin the study that you warmly offered to assist with. PETER: To repeat, for the second time, the offer I made to you – [Peter]: Should you have any questions regarding the process of actualism I would be only too pleased to share my expertise but I have zilch interest in indulging in meaningless dialogues with recalcitrant defenders of their own personal version of Godship. (28.12.2000) Nowhere in this offer have I offered to assist with your study of ‘the world view being called actualism’. To indulge in an academic/ semantic only type study of your own invented ‘world view called actualism’ is to remain aloof from, separate from, outside of, or in your case ‘above and beyond’ what is on offer in actualism – the get-down and get-dirty business of investigating one’s own psyche in action. RESPONDENT: In order to best understand what I encounter on the second page of the introduction recommended to all newcomers, I would like to ask some preliminary questions that may not be found in the content of that same second page. In the understanding you are of the world view being called actualism, what is the best definition of ‘matter’ as it is used in: [Peter]: ... and thus matter becomes animate matter ... [endquote]. In the understanding you are of the world view being called actualism, what is the best definition of the word ‘universe’ as it used in: [Peter]: ‘this astonishing universe...’ [endquote]. PETER: For ‘this astonishing universe’, see http://www.nasa.gov/gallery/photo/index.html. I recently watched a television program documenting the first Voyageur spacecraft flyby of the planets in our solar system. It was intriguing to watch the scientists’ reactions as the first photos and data streamed in from the first planet. They were stunned at what they saw as the pictures began coming in – what was actual was indeed beyond their wildest imaginations and theories. As each successive flyby happened the scientists’ astonishment only increased to the point that by the last flyby of the outermost planet they had already abandoned their theories and concepts and were utterly fascinated by what they were seeing with their eyes. In a similar vein, I heard an entomologist say that the insects that exist in the average rubbish bin are far more astonishing than any imagined creature from another planet thus far dreamt up by any science fiction afflictionados. RESPONDENT: In the understanding you are of the world view being called actualism, would it be correct to understand the posit: [Peter]: ‘this astonishing universe has manifested an event of no little significance...’ [endquote]. to be factually equal with the posit: [Peter]: ‘through the utterly chance arrangement of random material substance, a resulting circumstance of the same significance as every other resulting circumstance, appeared’ [endquote]. If the posits are found not to be factually equal, could you please provide the differences observed between the facts described by the former posit and the later? PETER: As for the quote – ‘this astonishing universe has manifested an event of no little significance...’ – have you ever simply sat down and looked at your hand and contemplated upon the amazing physicality of it? Wave it through the air and you will notice that the whole of the surface is a sensate receptor, touch one finger with another and you will notice that not only can the hand feel the texture of the skin of the hand but that you can be aware of the texture. And not only the texture, but the temperature, the moistness and the softness as well. I find animate life an event of no little significance and that I am it, that I can think about it, that I can be aware of knowing it and that I can write about is extraordinary to say the least. I know that in your current state you regard all that is physical, palpable, tangible, touchable, seeable, smellable, tasteable and audible as so insignificant as to be illusionary, so writing this to you is as meaningful as trying to sell coloured pencils to a blind man. As for your own posit – ‘through the utterly chance arrangement of random material substance, a resulting circumstance of the same significance as every other resulting circumstance that appeared’ – this does sound a bit like that dismal materialist-nihilist view that human beings are but randomly produced scum infecting a randomly produced planet in a random event called the universe ... or something like that. RESPONDENT: In the understanding you are of the world view being called actualism, would the tenets of that world view include the following posits: Animate life originated as the inevitable (specifically: Impossible to avoid or prevent) result of random circumstance acting on in-animate material? PETER: You could try ‘inevitable’ as in – it has obviously happened and it exists in fact. According to one estimate – [quote]: The total number of animal and plant species is estimated at between 2,000,000 and 4,500,000; authoritative estimates of the number of extinct species range from 15,000,000 up to 16,000,000,000. Encyclopedia Britannica I would say that the inevitability has blossomed into a copious cornucopia of bewildering diversity. As for randomness it does seem that quite specific and, as far as we know, quite unique circumstances existed on this planet for matter to become animate matter. RESPONDENT: present animate life is a direct advancement of previous, simpler animate life? PETER: Physical evidence such as fossils and skeletal remains does indeed support this statement. It is certainly the only explanation that is supported by tangible substantiated evidence. There are many other theories as to the origins of human existence – about as many as there are religions or philosophies on the planet. The only proviso I would have is that ‘advancement’, as you put it, appears to have occurred as the result of spontaneous genetic mutations and not as some gradual process, as is commonly believed. In other words, the ‘missing link’ from animal to human is still a missing link. RESPONDENT: Further, the advancement of animate life from simple to more complex is a result of random circumstances acting on nascent, but animate organisms. PETER: ‘Simple to more complex’ is not a description I would use to describe the manifestation of both consciousness and intelligence in the human animal. It is only humans who see these attributes as increased complexity, for humans have a predisposition to always make what is simple into something complex. You do seem to be fixated on randomness as being the only alternative to being premeditated, as in deliberately created, controlled or ordered by Someone or Something. RESPONDENT: Consciousness is separate from the objects on which it acts, or the objects of which it perceives. PETER: When you refer to consciousness being separate from matter you are referring to ‘I’, as a disembodied consciousness, looking out through the eyes at the physical world and feeling separate from it? A pure consciousness experience is an experience where this separation simply does not exist for it is evident that ‘I’ am an illusion and my consciousness is a none other than this physical body’s consciousness. Or, to put it succinctly for you, this flesh and blood body is conscious animate life. However if you really go with this feeling of ‘you’ being a separate disembodied entity and practice dissociation from the physical world, ‘you’ can feel as though you are Real and the outer world can appear unreal or illusionary. I have had a few of these experiences myself but when a God-man confirmed I was ‘on the right track’ I started to seriously doubt the sensibility of my glorious, ‘I am the centre of all existence’, experience. I began to see that becoming a God-man was a poor career choice because I had seen enough of the God-men up close to know that I did not like how they were with their women, I didn’t like their lifestyle, and I didn’t like how they were with their disciples and with each other. RESPONDENT: Objects have, of them selves, the characteristics revealed by the senses when they are not the subject of sensory perception. PETER: Has this got something to do with that solipsistic nonsense that goes something like ‘if nobody sees a tree falling in the forest, does it really fall?’ I remember walking around the house once and turning around very quickly to see if I could catch some object that was a little slow in appearing to my senses. I gave up pretty quickly as I realized how foolish I was and how totally ‘self’-centred my neurosis was. RESPONDENT: Consciousness is the result of nascent material processes. Specifically, conscious processes (recognition, memory, logic, spatial awareness, sensory perception, calculation, reaction, response, deduction, induction, communication, awareness, morality, personality etc.) results from the interaction of the material substratum of the brain which is composed of varying chemicals which in and of there own chemical properties, and through and through the same chemical properties, no characteristic of conscious processes can be found. PETER: As I said, humans have a predisposition to always make what is simple into something complex. In a normal person consciousness is what is happening when one is alive and awake. Unconsciousness is what is happening when alive and in deep sleep, concussed or anaesthetized and is epitomized by oblivion. But I do understand your particular problem. The common interpretation of consciousness is self-consciousness or self-awareness and is epitomized by three faculties – the sensate awareness of what appears to be a separate ‘outer’ world and the cerebral awareness and affective awareness of one’s inner ‘self’. Thus in a normal person, consciousness usually refers to the consciousness of the psychological and psychic entity only. Thus ‘I’ am conscious of ‘me’ only – the normal ‘self’-centredness of normal people. It is only in a Pure Consciousness Experience when the psychological and psychic entity’s affective and cerebral dominance is temporarily absent that the extraordinary perfection and purity of the actual is directly and sensately experienced. Whereas, as you well know, in an Altered State of Consciousness the psychological and psychic entity’s affective and cerebral dominance becomes total and ‘I’ think and feel ‘I’ am absolutely Real and totally disembodied, and what is actual as in physical, tangible and palpable is experienced by ‘me’ as being unreal, dreamlike or illusionary. RESPONDENT: The sharing of explanations you believe would add clarification to either actualism’s agreement or disagreement with the above posits is greatly appreciated. Also, I am deep appreciation of the attention you have offered to provide. In truth, there are several more preliminary enquiries I would like to share with you, but being the awareness of the complexity that may arise from what has been asked here above, will wait until these basic matters are addressed and distilled before adding to them. PETER: I can assure you the complexity is all yours. There are approximately 10,000 words in the Introduction to Actualism and thus far you are busy studying the meaning of 17 of them. You are certainly not joking when you talk about ‘preliminary enquiries’. But given that both the words on this screen and the screen itself are but illusionary matter to ‘you’, as a disembodied Consciousness only, answering any of your posits is as useful as ringing the doorbell of a deaf man’s house. * RESPONDENT: Is the posit: ‘The universe is a random event’ factually correct? PETER: To bring the discussion down-to-earth a bit, I see nothing at all random in the earth’s orbit around the sun or the fact that its rotation causes a very reliable and constant cycle of sunlight and darkness that we humans call day and night. Further, the earth’s axis is tilted in relation to the plane of this orbit which gives rise to the regular cyclic 365 day fluctuation that we call the seasons, as in summer, autumn, winter and spring. The moon that orbits the earth has a regular cycle as do the tides of the oceans. Whenever we drop something it falls down to the earth and not up to the sky. I remember being surprised as a child to discover that babies were not the result of a random event – they were only produced by a male human sperm fertilizing a female human egg. I won’t go on as you have probably got the gist of what I am saying. This is very much a cause and effect universe and an actualist’s obsession is in eliminating the cause that produces human malice and sorrow. RESPONDENT: would it be a posit of actualism that: the ‘quite specific’ circumstances and ‘quite unique circumstances’ were the result of random causes? PETER: Firstly to avoid confusion, I would make it clear that, as far as I can ascertain, the quotes in your posits are your own – random? – quotation marks and do not refer to anything I have written. Secondly, I presume you are talking about inanimate matter becoming animate matter, and if so, how can something that has already happened be the result of random causes? One can only take it as a fact that the circumstances for the event to happen were ripe, otherwise the event would not have happened all those billions of years ago. The very point of actualism is to gaily abandon these useless, senseless and meaningless posits – actualism is about discovering and acknowledging facts in order that one can directly experience the innate purity and perfection of actuality. No 22, so far you’re not studying actualism at all – you are merely following a long tradition of indulging in archetypal philosophical, metaphysical or spiritual questioning that has done nothing but perpetuate human misery and suffering by constantly diverting attention away from the main challenge that the human species faces – eliminating instinctual malice and instinctual sorrow. RESPONDENT: (do) Objects have, of them selves, the characteristics revealed by the senses when they are not the subjects of sensory perception? PETER: I have already made comment on the non-sense of solipsistic viewpoints. But I’ll give it another whirl. In order to ascertain the answer experimentally, stand up from your seat and walk over and stand close to a wall. Then turn your back on the wall so that you no longer have any sensory perception of the wall. Take that same hand you have said you have never really looked at, and being careful to keep looking the other way while you are doing this, punch the wall as hard as you can with the clenched fist of your hand. A sensible person would attribute the characteristic of hardness to the wall before, during and after sensory perception. According to your posit you would only know that the wall had the characteristic of hardness when your hand hurt. Another less personal example is the driver who is looking the other way and doesn’t see the pedestrian – i.e. he or she has no sensory perception of the object – and then hits the pedestrian. The pedestrian’s characteristics remain the same before and after ‘sensory perception’ except that he or she may be a bit bruised and battered. (...) RESPONDENT: is the consciousness that you describe as ‘what is happening when one is alive and awake’ the result of nescient material processes? Specifically, does the consciousness that you describe as ‘what is happening when one is alive and awake’ result from the interaction of the material substratum of the brain which is composed of varying chemicals which in and of there own chemical properties, and through and through out the same chemical properties, no characteristic of conscious processes can be found? PETER: This makes about as much sense as asking ‘can you find the characteristics of breathing in the material substratum of the lungs’. The function of the lungs is to breathe air in and out. Similarly, the function of the heart is to pump blood around the body. Similarly, the function of the brain is to be the receptor for the sensory system of the body – in fact the senses are stalks or tentacles of the brain – and one of the brain’s functions is to make sense of this sensory input. This function of making sense is called thinking and the body’s awareness of itself being alive and wake is called consciousness. I know these facts may be inconceivable to you but they are facts, all of which can be confirmed experimentally and by direct observation. The process of actualism is aimed at stripping this bodily consciousness free of all of ‘my’ self-centred neuroses and instinctual passions – to eradicate the real but non-actual parasitical alien entity that has taken up residence inside this body, ‘I’ as the thinker and ‘me’ as the feeler. This entity usurps the bodily function of consciousness and claims consciousness for itself – giving rise to the unavoidable and commonly-accepted ‘self’-centred view that ‘I’ am consciousness and ‘I’ am not the body. Actualism is about breaking this stranglehold by undertaking a process aimed at actively diminishing this social and instinctual identity to the point where ‘self’-immolation is the inevitable result. The only way to make sense of what I am saying is to remember a pure consciousness experience where the ‘self’-less functioning of consciousness is made startlingly clear simply because there is no psychological or psychic identity whatsoever to be found. PETER: I liked what I have heard about the success of cognitive therapy, but I have little knowledge in psychology/ psychiatry/ sociology fields. At some stage, no doubt, more will be investigated and written about this particular area of study of the Human Condition. Gradually the emphasis in investigation and dealing with neurosis and psychosis will have to turn from coping and ‘normalizing’ – as in reducing the more extreme symptoms – to finding fixes and cures and thus eventually to seeking elimination – and actualism provides the method to completely eradicate one’s own malice and sorrow. The next 30 years are going to be fascinating indeed ... GARY: Yes, I agree, if we do not blow each other up in the mean time. PETER: Given that all life on this planet is estimated to cease when the life-sustaining sun burns out and ceases to be in a period estimated in terms of millions of years, and that the universe has always been here and always will be here, this would be of no significance whatsoever. Human beings have a pointless fascination with the past, a morbid anxiety about the future and a compulsive disregard for what is happening now. This neurosis is a universal neurosis, blindly driven by the instinctual drive to survive – at all costs. Given that this drive is species-specific, human beings think and feel themselves collectively to be the centre of existence – that Humanity is primary and of central importance and significance and ‘the rest’ – the physical universe, the actual world, is peripheral, remote and alien. The instinctual drive is also ‘self’-centred, which results in the perverseness of each and every human inevitably regarding the actual world, including their fellow human beings as separate, remote and alien. RESPONDENT: On the other hand, achieving Actual Freedom being as important (since I can’t think of a better word right now, I will go with important) as it is, does not answer, I think, the questions about mechanisms involved in ‘one is this very actual universe experiencing itself in all its magnificence as a sensate and reflective human being.’ Or does it? Or does it become a moot question to ask? PETER: What the practical, down-to-earth scientists are indicating is that the mechanism involved in achieving an Actual Freedom from the Human Condition is all of this very actual, earthly, physical universe, is located in the human brain and capable of being tampered with. What actualists are busy pursuing is an active ‘self’-immolation to the point of a mutation or a physical disconnection from the instinctual primitive brain areas. These are all factually scientifically substantiated activities – nothing esoteric or other-worldly – no intervention of a mythical Higher Force or Greater Intelligence required. But what an extraordinary set-up, what a magical evolutionary device. This physical universe is indeed actual as in not merely passive, and evolutionary change is the most startling evidence of this fact. That consciousness and intelligence evolve from physical matter, and are ever evolving – albeit in 40,000 years or so jumps. And for a conscious, sensate, reflective human being, what an incredible voyage and adventure to be involved in! The cutting edge ... As No 3 would say ‘Thank goodness not Godness for that’. When the human flesh and blood body is free of the psychological and psychic entity then ‘one is this very actual universe experiencing itself in all its magnificence as a sensate and reflective human being.’ And what an extraordinary adventure. PETER: As for ‘The universe will experience itself in them, thus this ‘experiencing’ will go on and on.’ – it seems that you are attributing to the physical universe anthropomorphic and/or anthropocentric values. There is a common belief that attributes to the physical universe the divine values that were once attributed to individual human-like Gods or the forces of nature type Gods. Thus the earth becomes Mother Earth and the universe becomes Intelligent. I recently saw some film footage of the Apollo moon program where the astronaut described the surface of the moon as like a barren desert made of grey beach sand. They looked back at earth awed by the magnificence of a planet obviously abundant with life. As stunning as the images produced of far distant nebulae, galaxies and the like may be, there is no evidence of carbon-based life anywhere else in the universe, let alone anything as intelligent as the human brain. RESPONDENT: What I meant by saying that was that there will be, with a high dose of certainty, humans living here after we are gone. PETER: Oh, yeah? You do realize that the current new set of ‘tribal groups’ who are developing and acquiring nuclear weapons and long-range missiles are those whose passionate beliefs include re-incarnation and holy wars. They care not a fig for their own personal existence on earth let alone anyone else’s. For most an exit is a welcome relief and if this exit is for a noble or holy cause – even better. I would say that there is ‘a high dose of certainty’ that the MAD (mutually agreed destruction) policy of the cold war will eventuate in some other insane form, unless ... Unless sufficient people devote their lives to breaking free from the instinctual program of fear and aggression that gives rise to the Human Condition of sorrow and malice. You could regard Actual Freedom as sensibly planning your exit from the world of fear and aggression for a spurt in the actual world of purity and perfection, before the final exit when your heart stops pumping blood and the brain dies. (...) * RESPONDENT: So, the only time ‘I am alive’ is whenever a body is being alive, the body which produces the sensation of being. So life is immortal because ‘I’ can exist only whenever a body exists, and one ‘I’ is not significantly different from another ‘I’. PETER: It seems to me that your ‘life is immortal’ idea should be written as ‘Life is Immortal’, which is a common spiritual / religious belief. An actualist takes ‘life’ to be what it means factually. At present it is the 30th anniversary of the Apollo moon landing, the first of a series of seven expeditions to the barren, life-less surface of the moon. So boring a desert, in fact, that by the sixth mission the astronauts were reduced to hitting golf balls to see how far they went and doing wheelies in a dune buggy they had taken with them. By the time a geologist went on the seventh mission he was able to confirm what was already known – there is no life on the moon. No carbon-based life forms of any description were evident. It inevitably proved to be the last mission, but the images of the earth taken from space helped fire a passionate ‘save the earth’ program, as it was realized that there was no evidence, and bugger-all possibility, of life anywhere else in the universe. Human beings, being as perverse as they are, then proceeded to be concerned with ‘saving’ wild animals – the rarer, wilder and more bizarre the better – rather than ‘saving’ the human species. But that’s another story. Just as there is no evidence of intelligence anywhere else in the universe there is no evidence, whatsoever, of life anywhere else in the universe. Some sixteen SETI (Search for Extra-terrestrial Intelligence) programs are currently in operation in a search that began over 50 years ago. The current range of their search extends out some 50,000,000 light years from earth and still no messages received. Meanwhile carbon-based life, on earth, is most definitely mortal, not immortal. Modern medicine, increased hygiene and better living conditions have stretched human life expectancy to some 74 years, particularly in countries that no longer rely on ‘traditional’ ancient healing such as divination, exorcism, ‘energy’ release, blood-letting, herbal infusions, prayer, etc. There is ever-mounting scientific evidence that humans are indeed mortal, that carbon-based cell decay is inevitable – but then again, a tippee toe through the local cemetery would readily confirm that fact anyway. RESPONDENT: Hi Peter & No 37, I am following the conversation with interest (not 100% attention as I give to other matters involving consciousness, but I am intending to give it a thorough thought/read soon). Some points I observed/request for comment/ clarification: Peter as I understand says: Relativity and Quantum Physics are mathematical models of this universe whose conclusions (like Big Bang proviso Expanding Universe, No matter Only Energy) are in contradiction to our normal experiencing of this Universe (and using our common sense, the sense we use to deal with everyday matters). PETER: Normal human experiencing of the physical universe is that ‘I’, as a non-physical entity parasitically residing in a physical body, thinks and feels the physical universe to be an alien and fearful place (contrary to anthropocentric/ geocentric thinking, the physical universe is not limited to what is out there, it includes this planet and its oceans, clouds, earth, trees, animals, human beings, rivers, cities, buildings and so on). It is only because human beings think and feel themselves to be separate from the physical world of the senses that they have long imagined and felt that there is an underlying reality the physical world – an underlying reality that is metaphysical in nature. When you take this on board it is clear that Einsteinian subjective relativity is but the latest in a long line of mathematical/ philosophical/ mystical theories that propose that there is a metaphysical underlying reality (a timeless, spaceless and formless reality) to the physical matter and space that is this infinite and eternal universe. RESPONDENT: Moreover, everybody in these circles have tried to fit common sense with these models and seem to have failed and only ask us to abandon the common sense and use principles of logic and experimental evidence(?), not imagination based on common sense (that which we use to conduct our everyday life). PETER: I take it from what you have written that you have had a pure consciousness experience whereby you have directly experienced the infinitude of the actual universe. If this is the case, you would know by your own direct experience that it is only ‘me’, the parasitical entity, who thinks and feels himself to be separate from, and alien to, the physical universe … and when ‘I’ am temporarily absent in a PCE all feelings of separation and alienation disappears. Perhaps I can put it this way – a PCE is the direct sensate experience of the actuality of the physical universe because ‘he’ of ‘she’ who desperately seek a metaphysical underlying reality to the physical universe, is temporality in abeyance. This is the antithesis to an altered state of consciousness whereby the supposed underlying metaphysical reality of the universe is imaginatively and passionately revealed because ‘I’ think and feel myself to be a part of the illusionary underlying metaphysical reality (or in some cases even the creator of this Reality). RESPONDENT: As a layman (outsider to the understanding of intrinsic nuts and bolts of how these works), one is concerned here how it translates to this everyday world... I am not particularly interested in how well the foundations are supported using logic and mathematics. PETER: Nor am I. Whether people think this underlying reality is religious or mystical or mathematical in nature does not interest me at all. It’s their fantasy after all. What is on offer on this mailing list is an actual freedom from the human condition including a freedom from all of the fantasies that propose that there is an underlying metaphysical reality to the physical universe. And the very first step in becoming actually free of the human condition is to abandon all of these religious or mystical or mathematical fantasies and start to come down-to-earth to the world of the senses where we humans actually live. RESPONDENT: Back to me: If I have understood the line of thought somewhat correctly, I am also in favour of that currently as it relates to my quest for direct experience. I had realized long ago when I corresponded to Richard that I was defending science based on my strong belief in scientists (no other discipline relies on objectivity and explicitly stated goals and experiment as the final arbiter) and decided to step out of my defence till I understand them myself to a great detail (I have good mathematical and scientific training and I have the toolkit to expand my knowledge if I find it necessary). PETER: A very sensible approach – and this is the approach I took. When I first came across Richard there were many things that jarred with ‘me’ but it soon became obvious that the only way I could find out if what he was saying was factual was to conduct my own investigation as to the nature of the human psyche (including its innate cunningness to do whatever it can to survive) – otherwise I was relying on either believing what others say or rejecting what others say, pathetically dependant upon ‘my’ own beliefs and predilections. RESPONDENT: My intrigue though (loosely stated objections and not strongly felt): I think that the space is curved (as a result of space time being curved) can be measured empirically by instruments. This may not have any effect or visible result or even an interest as the curvature is too small... just like we can’t see the bacteria. But it might have an effect as in resulting in some properties of matter like ‘mass energy equivalence’ that is demonstrated in the destruction. That the time is relative (I am not going into the origins of how this theory came about by Einstein’s imagination: a separate mail) whilst unimaginable (all the scientists struggled with this concept and did not like it and made fun of it at some point and decided to give up common sense in favour of the empirical proofs of the consequences of this theory) is measured in the subatomic world. Again, it has no or almost nil consequence in our everyday functioning as it applies only to fast moving (as fast as light... only subatomic particles can do it) world... so one can divide one’s experience into everyday stuff where one uses common sense and when it comes to subatomic world one says: oh I can’t use my common sense, it is beyond my understanding, here is some mathematical model explaining and predicting stuff that goes as far as creating an atomic bomb, sending space crafts: so I give up my common sense and use logic and mathematics here. And then comes a stage where one says: Logic and Mathematics have succeeded where a common sense approach have not (in explaining subatomic stuff and fast moving stuff). Therefore I will buy the consequences of Logic and Mathematics even if it means that I have to lay down my common sense. I will use the same principles that helped me to get beyond in the subatomic and fast-moving universe and extrapolate and apply to this everyday world (and probably justify my spiritual fantasies). This is where Richard says (I think): Direct experience of the everyday world if you are willing to lay down in favour of your success in micro-worlds, you land up in imaginary world justified by mathematics and logic. The current models may be great in predictions but they are useful models... that’s all... do not justify one to jump to imagination sacrificing the common sense. Moreover these models that are based on logic and mathematics themselves use common sense at some level and nothing is just a standalone ‘logic and mathematics’ (as in there is no God that is running the world according to ‘logic and mathematics’). I have just written my thoughts and let me see how all this goes... will refine these stuff based on what you think. I know I am talking a lot out of my hat :) but after some great successes in actualism, I have become much more cheerful and talkative :). PETER: Einsteinian relativity theory relies upon imagining that time is a fourth dimension to the three dimensions of space, thereby allowing that time can be an abstract entity (t) having a hypothetical numerical value in abstract relativistic mathematics. A PCE experientially reveals that time is not an abstract dimension because a pure consciousness experience is the direct experience that this very moment is the only moment that is happening and that this very moment is perpetually happening. Whilst past moments did happen and future moments will happen, only this moment is actual – one is perpetually locked into this seamless moment of time as it were. It is always this moment of time, one cannot actually experience any other moment of time but this very moment. This is not an esoteric or philosophical wisdom as one can also become aware of this fact in one’s normal daily life – in fact the actualism method is specifically designed to bring one’s attention to this fact as an on-going experience. As an example, if you care to remember back to the moment when you first opened this post and began to read it, it is obvious that when you did so you could experience that the opening of the post was happening in this moment and now that you are reading these words it is also this moment. As Richard puts it – this very moment is the arena in which actual events happen. To keep with this practical observation, if you look at the computer monitor that you are reading these words on you will see that it has three spatial dimensions – width, length and depth – and that your observation of this is happening in this moment. The very spontaneity and instantaneity of this very moment gives vibrancy to the things and events that one sensately experiences in this moment of time. In short, in actuality, time is not a fourth dimension, space and time are not a continuum, space is not bent, nor is it expanding – all of these concepts and theories are nought but impassioned (subjective) fantasies. To get back to your comment, I take it that you are aware that the theoretical subatomic particles described in quantum physics are mathematical suppositions that have no material existence. Quantum physics deals with abstracted models of hypothetical subatomic realms in exactly the same way that relativistic cosmology deals with abstracted models of hypothetical universes that have no material existence. For me, once I understood that much of science masquerades theory as being fact and imaginary models as being things that actually exist, I also understood the absurdity of calling an internally-logical subjective theory an objective scientifically-verifiable fact. But then again, I have no emotional investment in supporting relativistic theory because I was not indoctrinated into believing that it is true, and nowadays I know by direct on-going experience that there is no underlying metaphysical reality to the universe. My ongoing objective attentiveness reveals that this is the only moment I can experience and this objective observation itself makes a nonsense of Einsteinian relativistic subjective observations and theoretical calculations. The actuality of the infinitude of the physical universe compared to the fantasies of metaphysical beliefs is such a good subject to contemplate upon. Who knows, it may even provoke the males of the species to get out of their heads and in touch with their feelings – after all taking such a step is an essential prerequisite to beginning to become free of the insidious grip of the instinctual passions. PETER: There is a world of difference between cultivating a seemingly new identity as a ‘watcher’ to ‘the human drama’ and being actually free of the human condition. At one stage when the list was quiet I posted a series of critiques of the spiritual tradition of creating a new ‘watcher’ identity based on my experience of being a watcher and how this translates in practical down-to-earth lived practice. They may be of interest to you. RESPONDENT: Now, how did the PCE reveal anything about the origin, composition, extent, or duration of the actual universe? PETER: As I said above, in a PCE it is clearly experienced that there is nothing at all mystical, nor spiritual about this actual world we live in and this direct sensual experience of actuality is all the more magical because it is devoid of the fears and fantasies of mysticism. What the PCE reveals is that if one at all aspires to live the PCE 24/7 then, when one inevitably returns to being ‘normal’, there is much work to be done – one needs to set out about becoming free of all mystical and spiritual beliefs, no matter what the consequences. Seemingly the most difficult of these beliefs for many is the belief that the physical universe is ephemeral rather than being substantive, as in eternal and infinite. It’s not for nothing that the first topic I wrote about in my journal was death. RESPONDENT: How can the few cubic centimetres of brain inside your skull ever be privy to the ultimate nature of something that is too vast (and too small) for the senses to perceive directly, or the mind to reason about? PETER: ‘The few cubic centimetres of brain’ inside this skull is the matter of the universe as much as is the plant beside my computer, as much as is the soil in which the plant is growing and as much as is the pot in which it is growing. Contrary to common belief and one’s own atavistic feeling, human flesh and blood bodies are not alien to, or separate from, the physical universe – they are in fact animate matter and our very mortality ensures that we – as what we are not ‘who’ we think and feel we are – are inseparable from the physical universe. To propose that these few centimetres of matter with its millions upon millions of sensory receptors is incapable of making sense of this unfiltered sensory input during a PCE is to denigrate the magnificence and the wonder of the physical universe – not only can these few centimetres of matter make sense of what it is physically sensing but it can also be aware not only of the matter that it is sensing but also be aware that it is aware that it is sensing – or to be aware that it was not being aware if that was the case at the time. RESPONDENT: I start from the position that there is an actual universe that is mind-bendingly immense in its scope. PETER: I do appreciate that thinking about the infinite of the universe is a mind-bending exercise and a therefore appears to be a futile one. In a PCE, however, one can directly experience the infinitude of the universe because not only does ‘my’ egocentric view of the world disappear but ‘my’ atavistic anthropocentric beliefs about the nature of the universe disappear as well. Because I remembered having had such an experience, I followed Richard’s lead and set about patiently dismantling both ‘my’ egocentric view of the world as well as ‘my’ atavistic anthropocentric beliefs about the nature of the universe so as to be more able to experience the actuality of the infinitude of the universe. Another hint I can pass on is that if one puts one’s ‘self’-centredness aside for a while and muses about the infinitude of the physical universe then such contemplation may occasion the onset of a PCE – but as you would know such musings can also bring about an ASC so I am usually somewhat hesitant in recommending such experiments to those who still retain a fascination for things mystical. RESPONDENT: An infinitesimal fraction of existing facts, existing actualities, are directly knowable by us. PETER: This is what the mystics would have us believe. Human beings have thus far done an amazing job in exploring the inanimate and animate matter that is this planet and by developing instruments they have been able to do so in microscopic and macroscopic detail. The development of the telescope in its various forms has extended this exploration to an area of some 12 billion light years’ diameter around this planet and the development of rocketry has seen human beings journey to the moon some 40 years ago. All of this that was unknown and hence inexplicable and mysterious to earlier human beings is now known to be fact. Whilst there can be no doubt that there is more to be discovered and that more will be discovered, sufficient has already been discovered to put paid to the superstitions and myths that gave credence to mystical and spiritual beliefs … but apparently not for those human beings who desperately cling on to these beliefs, come what may. RESPONDENT: The portion that is knowable to us is seen ‘through a glass darkly’ as it were, distorted by sensory limitations, conceptual models, and sheer cognitive power. PETER: Again this is what the mystics would have us believe. Their presumption is that there is ‘something’ mysterious in the universe that is by its very supernatural nature beyond detection by human perception or instrumentation and beyond our limited understanding. As Paul Davies says in the quoted passage below [Paul Davies]: ‘philosophers and scientists refused to give up speculating about what *really lies behind* the surface appearance of the phenomenal world.’ Paul Davies. Professor of Mathematical Physics. University of Adelaide. p 32, Reason and Belief, The Mind of God, Penguin Books 1992 What the PCE reveals is that there is another world other than the affective human world of grim reality but this world is not a mystical creation, it is a magical fairytale like actuality, this actual world is not a metaphysical world, it is nothing other than a physical world, this actual world is not ephemeral, it is perpetually ever-changing … and that this actual world can only be sensately experienced when one’s affective and imaginary faculties cease ruling the roost. RESPONDENT: The temporary abeyance of the instinctual passions that produce ‘self’-hood (and all of its illusions and delusions) enables a stunningly clear perception of our little slice of actuality, including the mind that perceives it, but it does not remove our limitations entirely. It does not magically make the entire universe knowable. That in itself smells of mysticism. PETER: You are bending over backwards in trying to make a PCE something that it is not – one does not become omnipresent, omnipotent and omniscient when one has a pure consciousness experience nor when one is actually free of the human condition. I have had PCEs in several parts of this planet that I can remember – several at sea, once in the mountains, once by a lake, several in the hills, several on beaches and so on. Whilst they definitely occurred in a specific location relative to say where the nearest town was, or were the sea was or which hemisphere I was in, I never had the experience that I was experiencing ‘my little slice of actuality’ for I was cognizant of the fact that in the infinitude of the universe I was no-where in particular – in other words both ‘my’ egocentric view of reality and ‘my’ atavistic anthropocentric view of the universe had temporarily ceased. This is how I described one such set of experiences –
> [Peter]: ‘The sky was velvet black, carelessly strewn with diamond stars, the moonlight dancing on the dark ocean. The sky was intense, endless in depth; the ocean fluid, also seemingly endless in depth, and I and the boat I was on, insignificant in size and location. The nights were superb; it was a constant pleasure and delight just to be alive – just to be here! These were nights when I experienced the vast endlessness of the physical universe and there was no question of a god or an ‘energy’ or a ‘creator’ of any sort. It was all actually sensational – purely of the senses. The warm feel of the tropical air, the salty smell of the ocean, the movement of the boat, the sound of the water on the hull, the delightful feast to the eyes – the vast stillness and purity of it all. I was no-where in particular, a mere speck on the globe of the earth, hanging somewhere in an infinite black space. The days had no names, the hours no numbers, so time had no reference, I was simply here.’ Peter’s Journal The universe.

And this is how you described a similar experience –

> [Respondent]: I must still have had some sense of identity because at one point I wondered: where am I? I knew that I was walking on a country road outside town, but when I tried to precisely locate myself in relation to the river and the town, found I could not. I could not hold an abstract map in my mind at all. But it didn’t matter in the slightest. Where am I? I’m here! The whole question of where ‘here’ is only makes sense in relation to where somewhere else is, and what’s the point of that? Respondent, PCE/ASC/psylobin, 7.11.2003

PETER: Hi Everyone,

Just a note with some more about theoretical scientists. I had dug out some relevant quotes but Richard was quicker to reply. I thought I would leave it but a recent meeting twigged me to post them anyway.

Vineeto and I were invited out to dinner recently, and after the meal the evening turned to an interesting discussion on life and the universe. We merrily talked of what is actual and they merrily talked of what is spiritual, so few alleys of conversation were pursued to any depth. The woman was particularly interested in the ‘method’ we were using and I asked her: ‘method to do what?’ As it turned out, she didn’t have an aim in life but was just interested in finding a new method per se. She was simply on a spiritual quest for methods, paths and teachers.

That conversation soon dwindled, and in an attempt to inject a bit of common sense into the evening I steered the discussion back to the actual – tapping the arm of the chair to give an illustration of what is actual. The man immediately told me it was a scientifically proven fact that the chair did not exist as the essence of matter was ethereal and constantly fluctuating between here and there – pointing over there – and as such could not be actual. Needless to say I nearly fell off my chair, literally, as what I was comfortably sitting on had magically been transported, by scientific theory and this man’s belief, over to the opposite corner of the veranda.

Which only goes to prove that believing what theoretical scientists say could be a danger to one’s health – as well as one’s sanity.

So a few quotes – from the late Darryl Reanney’s book – The Death of Forever – A New Future for Human Consciousness. Longman 1991

While his teaching background is microbiology and biochemistry he draws on a broad range of theoretical sciences to substantiate his vision in understandable form.. As such, he reveals much that is usually ‘hidden’ from the lay person by scientific jargon and bewildering mathematical complexity.

> [Daryl Reanney]: Now, however, we reach the threshold of the truly mysterious, for we must look to the far reaches of physics, to the paradox-ridden realms of the very small and the very large. There await us bejewelled creatures, strange beyond dreaming, that are born of the highest faculties of the human mind. In this mirror, we will see almost nothing we recognize. Does this mean that we are abandoning reality for illusion? Not at all: we are doing just the reverse. In reaching this far into the realm of the invisible, away from the homely metaphors of everyday life, we are approaching reality. We must not complain if we find it strange. Indeed, it is this very strangeness that tells us that we are ‘on the right track’. When science was young common sense was our guide. The model of the world we built up from new discoveries was based on familiar objects – clocks, pistons, billiard balls. As science has progressed through its great conceptual revolutions – relativity, quantum mechanics, super symmetry – its discoveries have become more exotic, more remote from everyday experience. Easily recognizable images based on familiar things have given way to abstract theorems which tell of particles moving backwards in time, of a universe structured in eleven dimensions and so on. During this process, the status of common sense has been inverted: no longer our guide in the search for truth, it has become our adversary. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 138

Hard to even make a comment on that one, given that science is reaching far into the realms of the invisible – and apparently the realms of the unmeasurable – exotic imagination runs riot in the search for the truth.

> [Daryl Reanney]: Mathematics is like a fishing line which we can cast into the future by virtue of its logical coherence and predicative power. When we analyze the cargo of information it brings back into the present, we find ourselves struggling to understand concepts for which there are no words, no images, no layers of reinforced experience. What we see in these mathematical cryptograms are signals from the future which our brains, at this verbal, ego-self stage of their evolution, cannot hope to comprehend. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 140

No words for the truth as we try to interpret the signals from the future? No words to describe the truth from the further shore?

> [Daryl Reanney]: ... quantum mechanics is par excellence the field of science where commonsense breaks down completely. In particular, the link between cause and effect blurs. In our everyday world of ordinary experience, we take it for granted that a ball will not move unless some force (like a kick) is imparted to it. In the micro world of the quantum, an electron on one side of a barrier can simply ‘reappear’ on the other, without physically ‘moving’ – an effect called quantum tunnelling. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145

Now we get to the crux of the matter as to why I nearly fell off my chair – it was being ‘quantum tunnelled’ at the time. In a bid to inject a degree of common sense (?) into this I’ll risk a quote from Paul Davies about Quantum Theory.

> [Paul Davies]: ‘The basis of this theory is that in nature there is an inherent uncertainty or unpredictability that manifests itself only on an atomic scale. For example, the position of a subatomic particle such as an electron may not be a well-defined concept at all; it should be envisaged as jiggling around in a random sort of a way. Energy, too, becomes a slightly nebulous concept, subject to capricious and unpredictable changes.’ – ‘The Edge of Infinity’ ... Beyond the Black Hole. Penguin, p 90

Now, if we note the word theory and Mr. Davies words ‘... only on an atomic scale ..., ... may not be ..., ... should be envisaged ..., ... slightly nebulous ...,’ then I am quite happy for them to imagine, invasive and theorize for all they will, as long as the chair doesn’t fly across the room and the coffee cup becomes so nebulous that it can’t hold coffee. It is a far, far stretch from Mr. Davies description of the ‘theory of things so small that we can’t actually substantiate them’ to the fantasies of Mr. Reanney and the Mystics. They are frantically clutching at straws in order to turn the actual into an illusion, the substantial into the insubstantial, the obvious into the apparent, the material into the ethereal – in short to escape from this actual world, as evidenced by the senses into ‘another’ world of imagination.

> [Daryl Reanney]: Quantum mechanics also demolishes another commonsense concept – the idea of ‘nothing’. The quantum view of ‘nothing’ is crucial to our understanding of Genesis, which requires us to believe that ‘nothing’ is where ‘everything’ came from. <snip> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 145

> It is important to remember that the vacuum is the dominant structure in physical reality – the particles of the so-called ‘real’ world are only minor blips in this ocean of incessant virtual action, with its paradoxical background of spacetime foam. Across the breadth of the cosmos, the familiar building blocks of matter are outnumbered by the infinity of come-and-go ghost particles that boil in the vacuum state.

> The almost unthinkable amount of energy locked up in the quantum vacuum may turn out to be the key that unlocks the penultimate secrets of Genesis. If a bulb of vacuum contains enough energy to destroy a universe, surely something equally small must contain enough energy to create one, under the right circumstances.

> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 146

> [Daryl Reanney]: As the cosmos shrinks beyond atomic dimensions, the matter it contains will become dense beyond imagination and the radius of spacetime will contract towards zero. At its ultimate limit, this process leads to a spacetime singularity in which the curvature of spacetime becomes infinite, enfolding in its vanished embrace a universe of imploded matter. Like an image fading in the mind of God, reality itself dies and the sum of all things ceases to be.

> Some faint hint of what this means can be garnered from an examination of Figure 7.2, which shows that an ordinary black hole is smoothly connected to the ‘flat’ spacetime structure of the surrounding universe. It is this matrix of surrounding spacetime that enables science to measure properties of black holes such as mass. However, if the cosmos is closed, everything is ‘inside’ a black hole. Thus, as the cosmos implodes inwards, there is absolutely no frame of reference to serve as a guide.

> Here, then, is the Shiva of cosmology, the destroyer of worlds. Nothing can survive transit through a singularity. The spacetime fabric with its embedded ‘memories’ of past events (in which billions of human lives lie encrystallised) is annihilated. The fine structure of matter, everything which gives form to physics, is unremittingly ‘ground out of existence’. By this, I do not simply mean that it is destroyed in a physical sense, overwhelmed by the colossal tides of gravity: rather, infinitely warped spacetime sunders us completely from anything that might have gone ‘before’, just as it does from anything that might come ‘after’. The present incarnation of the cosmos can never remember its parents (if there were any) or transmit a legacy to its children (if it has any).

D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, pp. 148-9

What to say? It appears that cosmology has invented the lot. The cataclysmic ‘end’ of the world, the black hole of hell, the ‘parallel’ universes as in levels of consciousness and reincarnation on a universal scale!

I guess we will soon see a rash of Past-Universe Therapies for the ‘therapeutically under-nourished’. Alan, if you ever get to this side of the world we could make a bob or two running ‘Meet the other-you’ sessions. We could connect people to their other selves that exist in parallel universes. We could issue certificates to people who could wave them at their partners or the police and say ‘It wasn’t me – It was the me that is now in a parallel universe that did it!’

Could be a winner ...

> [Daryl Reanney]: In order to bring spacetime back into the realm of physics, Hawking is forced to abandon ‘real’ numbers and use ‘imaginary’ ones. Real numbers give a positive quantity when multiplied by themselves; pure imaginary numbers give negative values when multiplied by themselves. The special virtue of imaginary numbers in this context is that they cause the distinction between space and time to disappear. This makes it possible to use Euclidean geometry to build models of the cosmos because, in this representation, time has no privileged status. <snip> Hawking defends the use of imaginary numbers on the grounds that it is ‘merely a mathematical device (or trick) to calculate answers about real space-time’. However, the universe we live in exists in real time. Hawking’s model predicts that in real time, ‘it [the universe] would collapse again into what looks like a singularity in real time. Thus, in a sense, we are still all doomed, even if we keep away from black holes’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 154

Does that also mean that if somehow we could all manage to avoid living in ‘real’ time and hang out in ‘imaginary’ time we would avoid being ‘doomed’ and avoid the black hole? Having invented black holes – a mathematical supposition given credence by the discovery of some, as yet, unexplained observational irregularities in the vast depths of space, the theoreticians are indeed having a field day. I find it telling that the scientists have to resort to fanciful speculation as they approach ‘nothing’, the subatomic where mass (as in substantially evident) disappears; and when they explore the ‘vast’ – the more distant (as in substantially evident) realms of the infinite universe.

> [Daryl Reanney]: Some years ago, Stephen Hawking was elected to the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University, the chair once occupied by Isaac Newton. Hawking’s inaugural lecture had the ambitious title ‘Is the end in sight for theoretical physics?’ That is, Hawking was suggesting that science was close to accomplishing its ultimate goal – the unification of all the laws of physics into one coherent, consistent framework which would define and encompass the whole of reality. Such a unified scheme would not just ‘represent’ truth in some abstract way, it would in an important sense be truth. By now, this should not surprise us. As we have seen, the homely metaphors of commonsense and everyday life offer us no guidance when we look at the bewildering cosmos in which we find ourselves. Only mathematics, in whose code nature writes her secrets, can tell us what is ‘real’. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 156

It comes as no surprise that science is firmly rooted in mysticism, shamanism and alchemy and steeped in the search for the meaning of life. It has been a bare few centuries since science has very hesitantly emerged from the control of the church in Europe. Galileo was forced to publicly recant his finding that the earth orbited the sun because it did not fit with the flat-earth version of the universe described in Genesis. Nowadays we have the ability to eliminate many hereditary diseases with the simple manipulation of genetic codes but research has been curtailed as ‘unethical’ – religion still reigns supreme. One should not meddle with ‘Mother Nature’ or God, or whatever – or there will be Hell to pay!

Well, I’m busy meddling with Mother Nature’s implanted instincts – and the rewards are extraordinary. Those who think genetic engineering is the answer to the human dilemma ignore the stranglehold that morals and ethics have on the Human Condition. Better to get on with the job yourself – neither God nor science will be of help.

Well there are a few more quotes so I will just tootle on and finish ...

> [Daryl Reanney]: As Fred Allen Wolf says in Parallel Universes:

> > [Fred Allen Wolf]: The past, present, and future exist side by side. If we were totally able to ‘marry’ corresponding times each and every moment of our time-bound existences, there would indeed be no sense of time and we would all realize the timeless state, which is taken to be our true or base state of reality by many spiritual practices. [endquote].

> Through mathematics and experiment, we have deduced the existence of a fourth spacetime dimension but we do not experience it as it is. We see it in glimpses, strangely fractured into ever-dissolving, non-dimensional planes called ‘now’.

> We know this is less-than-perfect because our reality is locked into fiction – this Dali-esque ‘now you see it, now its gone’ trick-state called the present.

> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 203

It would seem to me that Mr. Einstein’s greatest contribution to physics is to theoretically propose ‘another’ dimension – space-time – which gave validity to the mystics ‘other’ dimension. Interestingly after the publication of his theory it was Herman Minkowski who offered a geometric picture of this new spacetime and it was only reluctantly that Albert accepted it. On my reading he seemed wary of the many extrapolations that resulted from his theory but by then Fame and Fortune were his for the basking in. Mr. Hawkings recently added imaginary time to the space-time dimension and ‘Bingo’, the theoreticians have completed the scenario of the actual being illusionary – both in matter and space, as well as time.

> [Daryl Reanney]: At this stage in the evolution of our minds, our experience of reality is like that of the shadow, a limited, impoverished ghost-image projected into the three-dimensions of our present (average) mode of consciousness by the invisible (to us) four-dimensional ‘truth structure’ that lies beyond and behind it, extended in time as we are extended in space. I cannot stress too strongly that it is this four-dimensional truth structure which is the universe’s reality. What we call objective reality, our everyday commonsense world, is but a dim phantom construct of the timeless hyperstructure that exists, in or perhaps as, the ‘mind of God’, to use religious imagery. Yet, just as our present three-dimensional state of consciousness evolved from the one dimensional mode of our remote ancestors, so there is abundant evidence that the four-dimensional mode is struggling to be born in the homo sapiens species at this human moment in the cosmic story. We are almost there.

> Whether a four-dimensional state of consciousness is the ultimate truth of the universe or whether beyond this lie higher states of being that extend into an infinitely rich, multi-dimensional hyperspace and hypertime we do not know. One day our descendants may. D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 205

Having ‘confirmed’ that matter, space and time are illusionary we then have to evolve to a four-dimensional state of consciousness to access the ultimate truth. This theory gels so neatly with the mystical Altered State of Consciousness or Higher Consciousness as to make a mockery of theoretical mathematics, physics and cosmology.

> [Daryl Reanney]: I find it fascinating that Hawking himself recognizes that his use of imaginary time, far from being a ruse or trick, may in fact be a door to a higher order of insight. Listen to his own words:

> > [Stephen Hawking]: ‘This might suggest that the so-called imaginary time is really the real time and that what we call real time is just a figment of our imaginations. In real time, the universe has a beginning and an end at singularities that form a boundary to space-time and at which the laws of science break down. But in imaginary time, there are no singularities or boundaries. So maybe what we call imaginary time is really more basic, and what we call real is just an idea that we invent to help us describe what we think the universe is like.’ [endquote].

> This goes to the heart of the matter for the defining quality of the inner eye in its most highly evolved forms is that it can ‘see’ the deepest hidden structures of reality without impediment. If timeless-ness is an authentic feature of consciousness – and the evidence I have summarized in this book very strongly suggests that it is – then consciousness may just as well ‘exist’ in what the mathematicians call ‘imaginary’ time as in ‘real’ time. Indeed, it may be precisely because the ego-self lives in real time that it ‘knows’ death while it may be precisely because consciousness lives in imaginary time that it ‘knows’ eternity.

> D. Reanney, The Death of Forever, p. 207

And just to round off, the late Mr. Reanney managed to convince himself – with the help of theoretical science – that his consciousness is eternal. Of course, he will not be reporting back from the fourth dimension as no information can cross the space-time ‘boundary’ at a black hole or a naked singularity. Thus this theoretical (and mystical) forth-dimension will remain forever ‘unknown’ to mortal man in his state of ‘lower’ consciousness.

Well enough twaddle – time to kick back for a coffee and couch in three dimensions.

There is a ‘high probability’ that the couch is still where I left it, and the coffee is still in the jar. There is a lot to be said for what is actual and that’s a few more words for the case for the affirmative.

PETER: Hi Everyone,

Just a bit more from the meta-physicians of mathematics, theoretical physics and cosmology. I thought I would post some quotes on the subject of infinity as they reveal much about the tortured imagination of the human mind. Imaginative flights of fantasy, such as we see in children’s fairy stories, are well documented, fervently believed in, passionately defended and financially well supported in the ‘adult’ worlds of science, religion and philosophy. Much convoluted and twisted thinking has gone into making up stories about ‘what lies beyond’ – whether it be beyond the stars in the physical world, or beyond death in the spiritual world. The theoretical scientists realm is supposedly that of the physical world but when they encounter infinity – the fact that this physical universe has no limit, no ‘outside’, no edges, nothing ‘beyond’ – they eagerly succumb to the spiritual or ethereal.

I remember, it was a stunning realization when I contemplated on the fact that the universe is infinite. No outside ... this is it. And I am nowhere in particular – there is no bottom left-hand corner in infinite space. And there is no room for God.

I had had previous glimpses of the infinitude of the universe while sleeping out at night in the desert when the stars alone were as bright as a coastal full moon night. Or the evening when we stopped to camp and sat out on deckchairs to watch the sunset. As the sun was setting to a huge golden-red ball I turned to see the moon rising behind me – an equal sized golden-red ball on the opposite horizon. What a sight, I didn’t know which way to look, such was the magnificence of it all.

The actual leaves any paltry imagination for dead.

So, on to some quotes from – Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, Beyond the Black Hole, Penguin 1994, Chapter 2 – Measuring the Infinite

> [Paul Davies]: In science, however, infinity is frequently encountered, sometimes with dismay. Long ago mathematicians began attempts to get the measure of the infinite and to discover rules which would enable infinity to join the ranks of other mathematical objects as a well understood and disciplined logical concept. <snip>

> Even in science, for many purposes, infinity is only an idealization for a quantity which is actually so large that to treat it as strictly infinite involves negligible error. From time to time, though, the appearance of infinity in a physical theory denotes something much more dramatic – the end of either the theory, or the subject of its description. This is the case with spacetime singularities. There we are brought face to face with infinity, and it seems to be telling us something profound: that we have reached the end of the universe. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 22

The ‘end of the universe’, in spacetime terms, is an illusion built upon an illusion. Spacetime is an imaginary ‘other dimension’ invented by Mr. Einstein – so whatever is theorized to happen in spacetime is twice removed from the actual universe (with actual time and actual space) that we live in. All this nonsense is based on the stubborn and instinctual fear of acknowledging the fact that the physical universe is infinite and eternal – no other worlds, no other place, no other dimensions.

> [Paul Davies]: None of the results quoted will be rigorously proved, for the proofs would require many years study of advanced mathematics to comprehend. It is important to realize that the subject of discussion is not a theory about the world, but mathematics. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

A little disclaimer he slips in here but then proceeds to apply his mathematical theories to the real world – predicting the existence of black holes and singularities in the physical universe despite a stunning lack of any factual evidence.

> [Paul Davies]: Given the fundamental axioms on which all mathematics ultimately rest, the results are therefore correct, beyond any possibility of doubt, as all the proofs rest on concrete and universally accepted logic. This point is stressed because the results often seem impossible to believe; yet they are true. We shall see that measuring infinity can be a very strange experience indeed. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

‘... impossible to believe, yet they are true’. ‘True’ is a word that is currently so abused as to be useless. Christians believe the virgin birth was true, NDA-followers believe that inert planets hurtling through space affects their moods and behaviour, Trekkies believe in Warp-speed and wormholes, and Mr. Davies believes in an edge to the infinite universe. Strange tales, but ‘true’ ...?

> [Paul Davies]: The first step on the road to infinity is to discard any ideas about ‘very, very large’. Infinity is larger than any number, however large that number may be – and there is no limit to numbers. We shall see that not only is infinity beyond all limits, but is, in a sense, so large that it is almost impossible to make it larger. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

I hate to quibble about words, but Mr. Oxford says of infinity –

> ‘Having no limit or end; boundless, endless; immeasurably great in extent, duration, degree, etc’. Oxford Talking Dictionary

So how is it almost impossible to make it larger? Could it be by inventing a plug hole in the middle – a black hole – so we can all disappear down there one day? Or how about a hole that ‘new stuff’ comes flowing in one day? Of course, you would have to bend space a bit around the holes but ... then again ... why not? It is just a theory after all ... truly ... honestly ...

> [Paul Davies]: [The concept of infinity] in 1600 even contributed to the death sentence passed on Giordano Bruno at the hands of the Church. Bruno had declared a belief in the infinity of worlds, against the established doctrine that only God was infinite. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

How not to win friends in the church. Mr. Davies has no such trouble, as he collected a cool million dollars in 1995 for the ‘Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion’.

> [Paul Davies]: Many people first encounter the idea of infinity when thinking about the universe. Does it extend for ever? If space is not unlimited in extent, does that not mean that there exists a barrier somewhere – in which case the barrier must lie beyond, and something beyond that ...? Another question, frequently asked by children, is of the ‘what happened before that’ variety. It seems that every event must have been preceded by some cause, and every elapsed moment must have come after an earlier moment. We shall see that the answers to these questions can be bewilderingly different from the obvious. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 23

Questions ‘frequently asked by children’ and adult cosmologists? Answers provided by science fiction writers and cosmologists – if there is a difference between the two. The only difference between Paul Davies and George Lucas is that one writes science fiction books and the other makes science fiction movies.

As for the cosmological ‘answers’ – beyond the stars we see from earth have come pictures of vast nebula thousands of light years across, fantastic arrays of particles, rocks, gases, storms, eruptions, explosions, lights, clouds. All actual – requiring no imagination. All obvious – raising no question. All perfect – requiring no solution.

> [Paul Davies]: If the infinity of all even numbers is as numerous as all the even and odd numbers together, it looks, crudely speaking, as though doubling infinity still leaves us with the same infinity. Moreover, it is easily shown that trebling, quadrupling or any higher multiplication of infinity has equally little effect. In fact, even if we multiply infinity by infinity itself it still stubbornly refuses to grow any larger. The square of infinity is only as numerous as the natural numbers. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 27

> [Paul Davies]: Cantor’s great discovery was that the set of all decimals (i.e. all rational and irrational numbers) is a bigger infinity than the set of all fractions (i.e. rational numbers alone). These issues may appear to be mathematical quibbles, but they run very deep. Centuries of groping towards a proper understanding of time, space, order, number and topology lie behind the work of Cantor and others to grasp the infinite as an actual, concrete concept. Some of the greatest minds in human history have foundered on the rock of the infinite. Few ideas can have so challenged man’s intellect. <snip> Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 32

> [Paul Davies]: Measuring the infinite must rank as one of the greatest enterprises of the human intellect, comparable with the most magnificent forms of art or music. Mathematics, ‘eternal and perfect’ in the words of Lord Bertrand Russell, can be used to build structures more beautiful and satisfying than any sculpture. Yet Cantor’s edifice of infinity – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’, as his contemporary David Hilbert was moved to say – took its toll. Grappling with the infinite evidently proved such disconcerting experience that when the respected mathematician Leopold Kronecker pronounced Cantor’s work on set theory as ‘mathematically insane’, he seems to have struck a raw nerve. Cantor suffered several nervous breakdowns, and eventually died in a mental hospital in 1918. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, p. 37

Yep, insanity and madness prevail. And the passion and fervour of Holy Mathematics is indicated by the phrase – ‘a paradise from which no one will drive us’. Their search for God, ‘eternal and perfect’, involves trust, faith and belief in concepts that are held to be truths, all firmly based on the quick-sand of imagination. An imagined new dimension – spacetime that bends, folds and warps, that has holes and peaks; an imagined time that can run backwards, split into two or more and even loop the loop, imaginary numbers that are unreal, irrational and illogical; imaginary matter that is negative, uncertain, anti or virtual, particle and/or wave or even string-like.

And from this mish mash come theories which are ... ‘impossible to believe, yet they are true’.

‘True’ they may be called, but factual they are not – nobody has found a black hole, or a worm hole, let alone a naked singularity! It was nuclear chemists and engineers who developed nuclear energy and the bomb. According to the book,

> [Robert Jungk]: ‘Einstein assured the American reporter W. L. Lawrence that he did not believe in the release of atomic power’, Brighter Than a Thousand Suns by Robert Jungk – as late as 1939

i.e. he didn’t think it was possible. Further, Edward Teller states

> [Edward Teller]: ‘I believe at the time he had no very clear idea of what we were doing in nuclear physics’. Edward Teller

The Americans got to the moon with Newtonian physics and engineering, not Einsteinian theory.

> [Paul Davies]: Einstein’s general theory of relativity is regarded by many as the supreme intellectual achievement of the human species; certainly it surpasses Maxwell’s electromagnetic theory in elegance, economy and scope. <snip> Yet Einstein’s theory leads irresistibly to a singularity, to unbounded gravitational collapse. It is frequently proposed that the theory should be abandoned in the face of this absurdity. <snip> Tinkering with this great edifice of descriptive and predictive power in order to alleviate the singularity crisis seems like a ‘cop-out’. It was not the way out in 1911, and it would be surprising if it were the solution today. Paul Davies, The Edge of Infinity, pp. 176-7

The more I read and understand Mr. Einstein, the more mystical and Guru-like he becomes.

It’s all mythical tales and wishful thinking of anywhere but here, and anytime but now. Anything to avoid the fact that we are mortal and that neither goodness nor Godness can make us happy and harmless. Anything to avoid the instinctually-sourced malice and sorrow of the Human Condition. Anything to avoid the fact that this is the only moment one can experience being alive. Anything to avoid being here and now in this very actual world, happening at this very moment.

What a waste to bury one’s head in the sand or in the clouds when what is actual is perfect, benign, delightful, magnificent, tangible, tactile, tasty, vibrant, alive, immediate and right here on this planet.

And it is the destiny of all committed actualists to experience this actuality 24 hrs. a day, every day. To sacrifice one’s self – to psychologically and psychically self-immolate, in order that the perfection and purity of the infinitude of the physical universe can become actualized in a human being.

In order that the universe can experience itself as a human being.

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