CONVERSATION WITH JEFF
ON BEING AND CREATION
By Vince Giuliano and Jeff Holcomb
This document is a compendium of e-mail
exchanges between the two authors dealing with a number of scientific, philosophical
and personal topics. The discussion was initiated by Jeff reading Vince’s essay On
Being and Creation. It is included here for the insights it contains as well as
revelations of what we do not know.
Preamble:
I have never met Jeff Holcomb face-to-face but I consider him to be good friend. Our interactions have always been via e-mail and our webs link to each other. Jeff is responsible for the creation of two computer programs, Kaleider and Liquib, programs that I have used for creation of much of my computer-based art. They are like no other programs I have seen. They are innovative in that they put generalized mathematical principles for image transformation at the disposal of the artist, projective geometry in the case of Kaleider, topology in the case of Liquib. We started our e-mail exchanges over 3 years ago when I helped Beta-test early versions of these programs and fed Jeff back suggestions. Since then we have had a number of e-mail exchanges including this one.
The text following is the result of a half-dozen e-mail exchanges, each round involving inserting more text at the proper place in an e-mail message in response to what was posted there in the previous round. To make matters clearer I have labeled each paragraph with who is talking and kept my comments (Vince’s) in this type font while Jeff’s comments are in this type font and indented. Working backwards from the most recent, my latest comments are in purple like this. They are in response to Jeff’s latest comments in green like this. Prior to those were my comments in red like this, and prior to those were Jeff’s comments in blue like this. Earlier-yet exchanges are in black. I hope you don’t find this too confusing. You should be able to follow most of the dialog by simply reading in normal sequence.
(The conversation picks up from an
earlier e-mail exchange about the bra-ket notation in
quantum mechanics and the possibility that quantum waves could move backwards
in time.)
Jeff: I vaguely remember seeing that sort of notation
in my quantum mechanics text books back in college, and at the time I probably
had some feel for how it represented quantum operators and states, though I
never got too deep into the actual math. But now I'll have to take your
word for the time interpretation. I do remember that at the level of the
basic physical laws (according to both quantum mechanics and relativity) all
processes are supposedly time reversible -- there's no distinction between the
forward and backward time directions. But at the level where us humans
exist time always seems to advance -- otherwise there might be paradoxes with
causes and effects, the principle of entropy would be violated, etc.
Vince: Yes. And
this paradox is discussed in a number of books I have read over the years on
the nature of time. There is a basic asymmetry in nature with
respect to time. Entropy is a big issue - you don't ever see smoke in the sky
gathering itself up and going down a smokestack. And interpreting
the effect of applying a quantum operator going backwards in time, you apply
the conjugate of the operator. However I don't see a really basic issue
with cause and effect. We commonly say A caused B, such as "the car
crash caused Pete's death." But in fact it is always the aggregate
of many things that causes B, such for example as a failure in the Pete's car
air bag system, how exactly was Pete sitting at the time, whether Pete had a
heart condition, whether the auto fuel exploded, etc.. It can be argued
that just about everything leading up to B caused it. So, when we talk
about A causing B it’s generally just a handy approximation to a very complex
set of antecedent conditions and processes. Now can we run causation
backwards and say "Pete's death caused the car crash?"
No. But neither can you accurately say "the car crash caused Pete's
death." But we can say, extending the concept of cause, that
the totality of what existed and was going on at the time of the car crash
caused what came before it.
Jeff: If you extend the
concept of cause to apply in both directions of time then it almost seems to
have no meaning -- there would be no cause and effect.
Vince: Not necessarily so. The Transactional
Interaction interpretation of quantum physics preserves cause and effect as a
boundary condition as do most other interpretations. And this theory
clearly features quantum waves reaching backwards in time. I have just
finished a rewrite and expansion of On Being and Creation,
including a dialog with a brilliant intellectual, Jim Seltzer. It is now
up on my web. I treat the subject of causality and time asymmetry further
in that piece. In terms of the Transactional Interaction
interpretation of quantum theory I say: "Crudely put, macroscopic-level
creation in this framework would be the transactional outcome of quantum-like
waves going both backwards and forwards in time from the instant of creation,
essentially negotiating between past and future situations so that the creation
comes about through causality. "
Jeff: I read your reworked
On Being and Creation document. You've really improved and clarified many
areas. The running dialog with Jim Seltzer was also very helpful and even
entertaining. He raised several points that I had also wondered about,
plus many others that never occurred to me. I hadn't heard of the
Transactional Interaction interpretation. Yes, I can see how the
Offer-Wave / Response-Wave model, at least at the level of quantum
measurements, might preserve cause and effect. A potential event could
only occur if one it’s OWs into the past (advanced waves) properly resonates
with a RW, which I guess essentially means that the proposed current event is a
'possible' state given past configurations. But does the TI
interpretation really allow for making alterations to the past, especially to
the degree that would be needed at the macro level? Wouldn't you still
need to invoke the concept of Parallel Universes to make the process of
Macroscopic Reality Creation work?
Vince: This is an excellent question. In
my model of reality creation the past is vastly undetermined and thus itself
subject to creation. In my paper I propose a strong model of
under-determination, which is that I live in a present with what I call an
"experience record" in a large manifold of possible universes
with numerous alternative pasts, all consistent with my experience
record. when I create something new, some things and events will
likely have to be placed into the past so the new thing will evolve as the
result of cause and effect. This is accomplished by selecting me into a
sub-manifold of universes, a sub-manifold in which all of the universes have
those required things and events in the past. The way this would
have to work in the TI interpretation is simply to say the past is undetermined
except as in my experience record. If the OW wave into the
past for a new creation found nothing inconsistent with my experience record
the past would respond with a resonant RW and at the same time simply create
the requisite things and events locating them appropriately in the past.
So TI could be used to explain Macroscopic Reality Creation. I do admit it requires an intellectual
stretch.
Jeff: I can see that to
fully account for a particular effect you might need to consider an aggregate
of many causes. But are you really saying that the totality of the
current state of the universe is the 'cause' for both what happened in the past
and what will happen in the future?
Vince: No. I am saying that in the
parallel universe manifold that the instantly-current me exists in, there is an
infinity of very high order of possible futures and possible pasts consistent
with the present that could be seen eventually as causing those various
futures. When I create a future reality of some kind, I select myself
into a universe sub-manifold where the previously undetermined part of my past
manifests past creations that in a cause-and-effect manner lead to the desired
future reality. Looked at in terms of quantum waves, it is as in my
previous comment. You might enjoy reading the final Section VIII of On
Being and Creation that talks about how this goes on both on a quantum and
macroscopic scale.
Jeff: Maybe a sort of
hybrid of the Parallel Universe and Transactional Interaction interpretations
is needed to fully account for MRC.
Vince: Quite possibly so, probably easier to
accept than requisite past events being created ad-hoc to satisfy a future
creation. I am starting to feel comfortable going back and forth from one
interpretation to the other.
Jeff: PUI allows the
possibility of switching into alternate you-niverses with pasts that support a
desired creation, and TI provides the mechanism for negotiating an allowable
you-niverse that properly maintains cause/effect and preserves your experience
record. If so, then I suppose that would mean the nonlocal OWs and RWs
must travel between universes?
Vince: Yes, if we accept a hybrid PUI and TI
model, which seems reasonable to me. Non-locality is a characteristic of
the
Jeff: Even if that's true
at the quantum level for a simple, isolated system of particles, it seems
implausible in the complex, macro world that we live in.
Vince: True. That same implausibility has
caused much intellectual struggle among physicists and philosophers for almost
a century. The only thing that has kept quantum physics alive is that it
without-doubt works.
Jeff: t would essentially
mean that at any given moment of time, if you had total knowledge about the
state of the universe at that instant then you could theoretically fully and
accurately reconstruct the entire history of the universe, and also fully and
accurately predict the entire future of the universe.
Vince: I don't mean to imply any such knowledge
and I think it is impossible to have. I reject such determinism because
of the known role of probability at the most basic level. Rather, what I
am getting at is that there are principles at work in the universe which
automatically adjust things to make them come out right in the creation
process. An analogy: I throw a stone into a quiet pond.
Ripples spread out on the surface. Trillions of trillions of water
molecules are displaced. I don't have to know their initial positions and
could never follow their movements. Due to the combined effects of
gravity and friction, soon the surface quiets down again. The pond is now
different. The surface is higher because the stone is in it. Every
molecule is displaced from where it would have been. I did it oblivious
of what went on. I just picked up and threw the stone. I see the
process of creation as a similar thing, easy to do, and profoundly
difficult to fathom and impossible to calculate.
Jeff: An excellent example
of the complexity of macro-level processes, how they evolve irreversibly over
time. We know that the stone entering the pond triggered an enormous
chain of interactions at the molecular level that resulted in the observed
ripples, displacements, etc. We might in principle understand each
interaction, but it's totally impractical to calculate the aggregate
effect. And the same would be true for reality creation.
Vince: Exactly.
Jeff: Now, I tend to
believe that there must be some validity to your assertion of limited reality
creation, and that you are expressing something extremely profound with your
linkage of consciousness to an entity that you call Source. You have made
a valiant attempt at justifying and fitting these concepts into the existing
framework of quantum physics. Perhaps you have succeeded -- I am
certainly not qualified to judge. But I do also wonder if our current theories
are just not adequate to explain what you have experienced.
Vince: Your wondering is well-taken
Jeff. I have tried to build a model of MRC using ordinary language but
draws on some current theories in physics. Being a model it may be useful
in lending insight but is necessarily incomplete and possible inaccurate in
some respects. I may come back to that model again and again as my years
roll on. Better or more complete theories of physics could come into
play. The dialogs I have had in the last two months with you and Jim
Seltzer have been very helpful in facilitating the current formulation of the
model and I thank you both for that.
Jeff: There would be no
random chance or free will (kind of like pre-destination, a Presbyterian
tenet). But I think that doesn't take into account chaotic, complex
systems that follow mathematical rules but are inherently unpredictable and
irreversible.
Vince: Precisely, because you can't tell exactly
what sub-universes are the next ones you are going into. The process is
inherently probabilistic. Many chaotic processes are known to be able to
generate random numbers.
Jeff: Truly though, time is something that we don't
understand.
Vince: I don't think anybody
does.
Jeff: Nearly everything in physics involves time --
everything 'happens' in time. We treat time as a dimension for some
purposes, similar to distance, but it's clearly different from distance.
We assume that it 'flows' at a certain rate, but that can actually vary with
acceleration and in the presence of mass/energy. The fundamental speed of
light constant itself is dependent on the constancy of the rate of time flow --
but what is that exactly?
Vince: Here is where I think
there is a basic disconnect between common-sense experience and abstract
theory. Subjective, perceived and entropy-related time flow is an
inexplicable one-way street related to memory and expectation. One can't
get back to yesterday with a detour through tomorrow. If we bury ourselves in an 11 or 23
dimensional string, gage or brane theory where time is one of many exotic
dimensions, within this model there is beauty, explanation and no problems with
time other than those of mathematical consistency. But the disconnect
between experienced ordinary-reality time and abstract-model time
remains. (This is a good example of the duality of sensation vs.
abstraction detailed in my Ah,
to be Jung Again paper). This kind of disconnect between
common-sense experience and theory has many precedents in the history of
science. Isn't it obvious that the earth is flat? And, starting in
the early 20th century, quantum theory could not be correlated with common
experience driving many great thinkers including Einstein nearly nuts. Humans
are in fact quite used to reconciling off-the-wall theories of what exists with
their experienced reality. I am talking about the theories embodied in
religions. Now we have to get used to reconciling what seem to be
off-the-wall theories in the domain of science instead of religion. It’s
a hard sell but this computer, my HDTV and the network that sends you these
signals depend on quantum effects completely unperceived by any of our
sensations.
Jeff: I can somewhat grasp
the concept of treating time as a dimension, at least in the sense that
Einstein did with relativity. Each point in space forms a 'world line'
through time, and every event at that location is a 4-dimensional point along
that world line. Each person follows their own unique world line through
space and time. Us conscious beings perceive the sequence of events along
our world lines as a sort of flow through time, always forward.
Vince: Yes. Yes. Geometric relativity
theory is a still-elegant model. But we know now that Einstein's 4-space
model of reality is limiting - a straight jacket to our thinking as was
Jeff: I'm somewhat
familiar with the EPR 'paradox', how that was supposed to be a killer argument
against quantum theory, and then how it was proven experimentally that
correlated particles actually behave non-locally, coordinating faster that
light. But as you say, no communication is involved. Isn't it still
believed that the transfer of information, cause/effect actions, etc. are
limited by the speed of light? Again, that would be according to current,
conventional 'laws' of physics. Maybe we need to go further.
Jeff: As you say, our
memories and expectations play a role in converting the raw input from our
senses into a continuous stream of experience that our minds interpret as the
passing of time from past to current to future. In fact, that sense of
moving through time seems intimately related to the meaning of consciousness --
being aware of the current moment, remembrance of how past occurrences led to
the present and understanding the need to prepare for the future.
Vince: Right. I do think time and
consciousness are related. I don't have a good sense of how, however,
other than to observe that we perceive time as having a direction, that we act
and generate creations at instances of time, and that creations can affect both
past and future.
Jeff: But do the string/brane theories really contribute
anything new to the understanding of time? How do they deal with
entropy? Is time (and space) quantized? These are all still things
that I wonder about.
Vince: These theories contribute to the extent
that they provide intellectual models of how these things time, space and
energy could be related. They embody distinctions we otherwise don't have
and, by grasping those distinctions, further understanding and possible further
mastery over the world can be achieved. Just like quantum theory provided
distinctions that have led to so many technological achievements. All our
thinking and communicating is in terms of intellectual models; they are all we
have to think with about anything. (I took a break at this point in our
discussion and had to leave the house but this discussion kept going around in
my head. I realized that there is a whole extension of this discussion
into epistemology: what do we know and how, and how does that affect our
consciousness? A whole essay on that topic has started to form in my
mind. I will possibly write this up over the weekend.) As to
quantization of time and space, I have an interactive discussion about this
with Jim Seltzer embodied in the latest version of the On Being and Creation
paper. There is reason to believe they are quantized in that beyond a
minimum size there is too much uncertainty. However I believe an infinite
number of possible quantization schemes exist in parallel universes.
Jeff: I hope those string/brane theories will eventually become
practical enough to contribute to technological advancement. You know, if
you concede the existence of infinite parallel universes, then literally
anything and everything is possible. The question is, do they really
exist? And if so, do us humans have access to any of them, aside from the
one we were born in -- are we able to switch between them. Your own
experiences are perhaps circumstantial evidence to support such transfers.
Or again, there might be other explanations that we can't yet imagine.
Vince: True. True. All we have to work
with are mental constructs and infinite parallel universes is one of
them as are the holy spirit, phlogiston, dark matter, sin, God, space
and time. Some of these constructs are more useful than
others, and some may be superseded as our theories evolve. Infinite
parallel universes has been a very useful construct for explaining quantum
phenomena for some 90 years now and the construct has gained rather than lost
strength among theoreticians during this time. They exist as mental
constructs as does dark matter, quarks and gluons. In my MRC model we do
have limited access to them and are constantly switching between them. I
believe string theorists would say something similar for the behavior of
matter. It's not that we switch from one particular universe to
another. It's that we need to be simultaneously in lots of them to just
keep going. And yes, I cannot begin to imagine what can be imagined.
Jeff: I have just been
reading a book titled The Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot
(haven't finished it yet). Very quickly I began to notice similarities
between many of your ideas and the Holographic Model described in that
book. Are you familiar with the holographic concept? There are
supposedly 2 levels of existence, the Implicate order and the Explicate
order. The Implicate order seems somewhat parallel to your
Everything-Nothing -- a sort of potential for all possibilities. The Explicate
order is the reality that we perceive as humans -- it is the interpretation or
manifestation of the Implicate that is continually generated by our
consciousness. Again, that seems roughly similar to your creation of
realities from E-N by Source and our own conscious minds. The universe is
a sort of hologram, and we, our minds and bodies, along with all other matter,
energy, space and time, are part of that hologram. The holograms are
nonlocal, and everything is interconnected. Everything is in the form of
frequencies, wave fronts -- our perception of solidity is really just a
convenience. Truthfully, much of this is still very vague and fuzzy to
me. From what I gather, none of these concepts have been expressed in
mathematical terms, so the holographic model probably can't be considered a
proper scientific theory, but just a framework for ideas.
Vince: I have not read this book though your
description makes me want to. It does seem to sound very parallel to my
MRC formulation. I have tried not to use concepts such as waves and
frequencies in a metaphorical sense though some hard scientists might see my
references to quantum physics as being mainly metaphorical
Jeff: It seems very
coincidental to me that I happened to begin reading this book in the midst of
our exchanges about such similar subjects. You see, I had purchased the
book several months ago, and because of a large backlog of books to read was
just getting around to reading it. Much of the book recounts miracles, human
energy fields and other paranormal occurrences that might be explained by our
minds as holograms, connected to the universal hologram. Maybe I'll
understand it all better by the time I finish the book, maybe not. Well,
I don't quite know what to make of it all, and was curious what you thought.
Vince: Sounds like the usage of holograms is
mainly metaphorical.
Jeff: I've read about some
theories of time which claim that our human perception of time flowing is
illusory. That our concepts of past, present and future are
meaningless. All events along the dimension of time at each location in
space have always existed, and always will exist. We are each just
experiencing our own unique sequence of events as we progress point by point
along our world lines of space/time, and we perceive that continuous sequence
as passing through time. It's very difficult for me to accept that,
though I realize that might just be due to the limitations of my own mind.
Vince: Was it Bertrand Russell who said "Damn, I am only a
tram?" I have trouble with that geometric world-line view of things
too. It does not embody considerations of probability, entropy or
information flow (shown by
Jeff: Somebody once
wrote: "Time is the fire in which we burn".
Vince: Yes. And we never see a pile of
ashes unburn itself while attracting smoke from the sky to re-compose itself as
a pile of discarded wicker porch furniture. Has to do with entropy.
The information embodied in the structure of the wicker chairs that were burnt
was lost, the entropy was increased.
Jeff: I have personally had experiences with seeing
into the future. Usually those were just deja vu type events that
possibly could have other explanations. But once in 1971, just before I
awoke, I dreamt of watching a football game in a stadium. The team with
the ball kept running it on every play, using the same back, not really trying
to score, which puzzled me. The scoreboard showed 40 - 6 as the score,
and the game was nearly over. Later that day (a Saturday), I drove to a Laundromat
to do my weekly clothes washing. On the way, I listened to a football
game on the car radio -- it was Colorado (CU) playing
Vince: It's so easy to brush
stories such as yours away as coincidence or faulty memory. I think there
is much more to it than that. But what more I can't say?
Vince: As for me, a Harvard Ph.D. in Applied Physics and a long career
associated with science and rationality, I too believe I have had time-travel
experiences. Some of these were as a boy of 8-14 when I was living with
my mother without a present father in a working-class part of
Jeff: Very
interesting. I hope you do find time to write about that some day.
Your encounter as a boy with your mature self sounds a lot like one of the
paradoxes that is often raised with time travel -- the possibility of going
back in time, meeting yourself and changing your past, thus affecting your
future. Do you actually remember seeing a man that you later identified
as yourself? Did you know at the time that he was the future you?
As an adult, how did you experience the meeting with your young self? Or
did it happen in the form of a dream?
Vince: As I remember it, I did not see a man but
on many occasions I heard an internal voice of self-confidence and
self-assurance. The voice was there when I needed it, when I made basic
decisions. I think I even had repeated thoughts of that voice coming from
the future but I generally discarded that idea as too far out. I believed
in science then as providing the ultimate answers, and time travel did not seem
scientific to me then. Of course perhaps my memory is playing tricks and
I just made this all up later.
Jeff: Now, I don't expect you or anyone else to accept
that incident as fact, but for me that experience 'proved' the possibility of
receiving knowledge from the future. Even then, just beginning college, I
knew what had happened was 'impossible' -- not allowed by the laws of
physics. That meant to me that our current laws of physics were
inadequate. After thinking about that for a while, I changed my major
from electrical engineering to physics. I was determined at the time to
understand what made that transfer of information through time and distance
possible. I expected myself to develop new theories that would fully
explain the nature of time and it's function in the processes of forces and
mass/energy.
Vince: So your time-travel experience was transformative in your life, as
my experiences were. For whatever it is worth, I too thought that if I
really understood relativity and quantum physics I could fathom what the
universe was about. I read some popular books on these subjects while in
high school and in my freshman college year I carried Einstein's The Meaning
of Relativity around in my book bag and would from time to time try to
absorb a bit more of it. I focused on pure mathematics as an undergraduate
with minors in physics and philosophy.
Jeff: I'm certainly not
clairvoyant. I've never had another experience quite like that dream of
the game, in which I received information not only from the future, but also
from a distant location, as if viewed through someone else's eyes. And
yes, it did transform my life, since it caused me to change my major to
physics. It actually seemed to me that the dream was sent as a sort of
message about the nature of time and reality, intended to show me that our understanding
of those was very incomplete. I was meant to search for the
answers. If so, then I've been a dismal failure at that mission.
Vince: Here is a really far out
speculation. The now of you having this discussion with me wanted to
prepare yourself in physics so we could interact intelligently. My sense
is that you are still searching for answers and probably not failing less that
me, and neither of us are failing less than philosophers have been through the
ages. This might just be a projection of mine of course. If we are
to fail, let's at least fail brilliantly.
Jeff: If my college
physics classes were meant to help me converse with you now, then I wish I had
studied harder and kept better informed on more recent developments.
Because I often have trouble keeping up with you, especially on quantum, string
and brane stuff. To be honest, I haven't done much active searching for
answers -- I'm more of a puzzled observer, gawking in bewildered
wonderment.
Vince: Aren't we all! And I don't pretend to
have studied so hard either. My knowledge of string and brane theory is
very superficial. For me gawking in bewildered wonderment is fun. Some times
it leads to creating things, like short stories, screenplays or the Macroscopic
Reality Creation model. But I wonder if I will ever be other than a
bewildered gawker.
Jeff: Occasionally I read
books on physics theories and concepts, but those are dumbed-down to be
digestible by us laymen. Actually, these email exchanges with you the
past few weeks have forced my poor brain to think more on these subjects than I
have in years!
Vince: And these interactions have forced me to
think too.
Jeff: Well, after all
these year I have made zero progress! As you know, I didn't turn out to
be a brilliant physicist, but just a decent programmer.
Vince: I can attest to the second statement. But I see you
as more than a decent programmer; you have conceived and created some quite
unique programs.
Jeff: Maybe my ambition got dulled by all the booze
and drugs I indulged in during college. Also, I needed to work at least
part-time to pay my way through college, and by the time I graduated I was
already working full-time as a programmer -- that seemed like my best bet to
make a decent living in the 'real' world. I guess I'm telling you all this just to say
that I'm somewhat open to your fantastic assertion that a person can influence
the past as well as the future. Not that I'm able to immediately accept
it as fact, being a skeptical person by nature. But I do know that
phenomena occur that simply can't be explained by our current theories, and
even seemingly contradict those theories. We are very far from knowing
all the answers.
Vince: We are a hellovah lot
further away now than I thought we would be when I was in high school in
1946. Thus Giuliano’s Second Law of the Universe: In science, what we don’t
know we don’t know expands faster than what we know we don’t know which expands
faster than what we know. In other words our perceived
knowledge/ignorance ratio keeps going down as we learn more.
Jeff: Both of the above really amount to the same
thing -- living life to its fullest.
Vince: Yes, right,
absolutely, and on as many different dimensions as possible.
Jeff: But there seems to be a fundamental
duality with our minds (yin and yang) that makes it necessary to express the
concept from two aspects. The first represents the external, objective
and analytical. The second the internal, subjective and creative.
Vince: I absolutely agree and have concentrated
much thought on this duality. I believe the explanation lies in an
expanded interpretation of Karl Jung's Personality theory. I have laid
this out in another treatise on my website. See the Ahh to be Jung
Again treatise on my website www.vincegiuliano.name Living fully means full expression
from all viewpoints of the duality
Jeff: I really didn't know much about Jung, so it was
very interesting for me to read your Jung document. There are so many
ways to classify people and categorize them into personality types. Most
of them seem bogus to me and overly simplistic. Each individual is
incredibly complex, the result of unique combinations of genetics, culture,
education, experiences, etc. So I feel that I should consider each person
as a unique individual, or otherwise risk developing preconceived
notions. But there does seem to be some depth and validity to that
Vince: Actually, the theory
has helped me a lot in communicating and being with family members, friends and
business colleagues. Most other people, even when I think they are
behaving as assholes, are not wrong; they are just different than me.
Also the last part if that paper deals with an extension I have expanded-on
further in a paper not yet on the web site: the sensation/concrete direction
corresponds to a particle representation in quantum physics and the
opposite intuition/abstract direction corresponds to the wave nature. A
similar duality exists with what was discussed above: time as observed
through our senses and time as an abstract entity. It is the fundamental
yin-yang duality that you mentioned that kicked off this discussion.
Jeff: That's a very
interesting linkage to the concept of yin-yang duality. Many years ago I
read a book titled The Tao of Physics. I think that touched on some
similar ideas, though I really don't remember much about it now. Maybe
there's also a fundamental duality with how quantum mechanics and general
relativity approach the nature of reality from such different perspectives.
Vince: I read that book too and was affected by
it. Also I was strongly affected by another book Stalking the Wild
Pendulum; on the Mechanics of Consciousness by Itzhak Bentov.
Seeds of many of the ideas in On Being and Consciousness came from that
book. Actually it is possible that Bentov helped me write that paper and
is helping me write this right now. Seven years after Bentov died I moved
into his house where I live now and where my office is, purchasing it from
Mirtala, his widow. While alive Itzhak repeatedly declared that his
spirit was going to stay around here on earth and keep in communication.
Some times I imagine I can perceive his presence, like now right behind my
shoulder feeding me words. At least I am experiencing great fluency in
this conversation.
Jeff: I had never heard of
Itzhak Bentov or that book. But then, very soon after first seeing his
name in your email, I came across in The Holographic Universe a quote by
Itzhak Bentov taken from Stalking the Wild Pendulum. I then found
an article on him in Wikipedia, which stated that he was one of the pioneers in
developing holographic concepts. Again, an odd coincidence, perhaps even
a case of synchronicity (a term originated by Jung, and mentioned by the H.U.
book as possibly being explained by holographic principles).
Vince: Damn! We could get into a great
discussion on synchronicity too. I think it is intrinsically wound up
with creation as in the MRC model. See my next comment.
Jeff: Did you
know Mr. Bentov personally? Did you intentionally seek to purchase his
house because of his impact on you, or was it more a matter of chance?
Vince: In fact It was a matter of pure
synchronicity following from powerful intentionality. I never knew Itzhak
personally though I met his widow when we accidentally ran across his house in
1984. Let me explain: first, way back in the 60s and 70s I had formed an
intention to explore any powers I had for creation that went beyond simple
causality. I had made notes for the first draft of the On Being and Creation
paper before then. And I had read Itzhak's book. Second, in 1984, I
had formed a strong intention to consolidate my two houses - one owned with
Judy where she and my son Joe lived, and another where I was living with Melody
and my son Mike. The two houses in Arlington Mass where about a mile
apart. The kids where little, 1 and 3. I wanted them to grow up in
the same house with their real dad day-to-day in an extended family, and
celebrate the rest of their lives as brothers. So I wanted to find a big
house where we could live both as individual families and as part of a larger
merged family. A normal two story flat was out because the apartments
were too separate. I wanted a house where there were two floors, stairs
but not doors between the floors, and kitchens and baths and bedrooms on both
floors. Judy, Melody and I looked and looked with the aid of real estate
agents and we could not find anything suitable. Then we saw an ad or a
piano for sale. This led us out to the Wayland suburb on a snowy
day. Melody had previously met Mirtala, Itzhak's wife in Sufi
circles. We had not idea she was the owner till we went to look at the
piano. Mirtala was very sad because the sale of her house had just fallen
through. We quickly recognized the house could be fitted with a second kitchen
and be perfect for our needs. It was big and was located in a wooded
country setting next to thousands of acres of conservation land. And Wayland had the best school system in the
State. And the price was good. The next day we made a formal
offer. We got the house but Mirtala decided to keep the piano. The
kids are now 28 and 30 and no longer live in the house though Melody and Judy
and I still do. I went to
Jeff: I'm beginning to
feel that you are having an influence on me somewhat comparable to how Mr.
Bentov must have affected you, causing me to think in different directions and
explore new concepts. Though I surely won't be able to afford buying your
house after you die (especially since inflation will likely make the value
astronomical by the time that happens 150-some years from now!).
Vince: Let's continue a dialog after we
publish this one on the web.
Jeff: The ideas of Individuation and a person's Dark
Side are especially intriguing. (I wonder if Dark Side might better be
thought of as a person's weak aspects.)
Vince: Yes in the sense that
development of the Dark Side is required to be a well-rounded effective
person. Some of us start out fairly well-rounded in the first
place. Others of us are dominated by our major typology.
Jeff: I suppose, like you, I would be considered a
Thinking Ethereal.
Vince: That is very
plausible to me given your familiarity and comfort with a wide range of
intellectual subjects and willingness to treat these on various levels of
abstraction.
Jeff: I recognize in myself an inability to adequately
express my emotions and feelings (the Volcanic) -- I tend to be fairly quiet
and reserved, partly because I'm extremely shy by nature.
Vince: That is how I was. I trained myself to bring this side
better to the fore by marrying a Sensation-Volcanic (my second wife), doing an
incredible number of encounter-group type trainings, plunging myself into
psychodrama and Gestalt Therapy, understanding the theory of it better (hence
my paper) and doing years if improvisational acting training. The later
requires a capacity to respond instantly to any situation on both an
intellectual and emotional level. Finally I am part of an ongoing men's
group where authenticity and openness is a sought-after norm and accepting and
dealing with raw emotion is critical for participation. This has been a
lifelong learning process and is still going on.
Jeff: You have clearly been exceptionally pro-active and
aggressive in expanding your abilities and improving your situation in
life. I very much doubt that I am capable of such boldness. My
character seems to be of a more passive nature. I tend to accept what
happens, and then react as best I can. Also, in contrast to you, I'm very
much a loner. Though I'm not the sort of loner who hates the world,
blames his problems on everybody else and plots revenge on society. I
really like almost everybody I meet, and can get along with nearly
anyone. It's just that, because of my extreme shyness, I don't feel very
comfortable around people. I consider that my worst flaw, perhaps even a
sort of personality disorder. But I don't mean to whine about it.
Surprisingly, I'm usually quite happy and enjoy life very much, though I
sometimes suspect there are levels of happiness far beyond anything I've
experienced.
Vince: What you describe is a side in me that is
very much alive too, Jeff. I absolutely love sitting here and exchanging
purely intellectual ideas with you and look forward to it with
enthusiasm. And I spent years where most of my time was doing art - just
me and my computer. I have found out, though, that for me to make a difference
in the world I need to connect to other people. So I force myself out,
and usually find that is rewarding. Also, for me, this dialog reflects a
very real connection.
Jeff: Yes, this dialog has
been significant for me too. As mentioned above, you seem to be jolting
me into considering new ideas and re-evaluating my perspectives. Of
course, I am much different from you as far as personality, character, ability
and talents, so I know I can't expect to emulate you. But in my own way, following
my own paths, I need to expand myself. This is perhaps a synchronicity
event that will impact my life in unforeseen ways.
Vince: Yes a synchronicity that is also
helping me take my ideas more seriously and be willing to share them more broadly.
Jeff: My mind seems to work fairly well at analytical
tasks, but is rather weak in artistic, creative areas. I have considered
these lacks as imbalances that should be improved -- a person should be as
balanced as possible in order to be healthy and happy.
Vince: I completely agree as
to need for balance. But my sense of you after this intense
correspondence and knowing your software work is that you are highly creative
just as you are. And you are a highly inquisitive person about all kinds
of things which will help keep you young long into your years.
Jeff: I hope you're right
about the keeping young comment. I do sometimes feel a spark of
creativity, but I don't have any talent for expressing it in any of the
conventional art forms. It's probably a corruption of the term 'art', but
I consider programming to be my art medium. My programs are a sort of
twisted outlet for expressing my artistic yearnings.
Vince: Yes, when I look at a Liuib or Kaleider
screen I see a work of art, like the dashboard of a fine car. This is a
work of art that can empower me, empower my creativity, allow me to do things I
could never do without it. What intellectual power to be able to embody
generalized projective geometry in a program (Kaleider) and two-dimensional topology
in another program (Liquib)! After this orgy of writing I am now engaged
in I hope to get back into some art work again and will explore further the
video capabilities you have built into those programs.
Jeff: Thanks for your kind
comments! Though honestly there wasn't much 'intellectual' power involved
with developing my stuff. Oh, I'm not being falsely modest -- I do
believe I'm a very capable programmer with decent skills in analysis and basic
math, plus some imagination and a desire to create visual stimulation.
But truly the real power is in the technology that's available to us
programmers these days. I am continually amazed at what computers make
possible with graphics manipulations, things that weren't practical not many
years ago.
Vince: Yes, so am I - a long way from the UDEC
I at
Jeff: However, I've also come to realize that my programs are
ephemeral creations -- hardly more permanent than sand paintings by Tibetan
monks or Navajo medicine men. I've developed many complicated systems in
my career, each of which I was immensely proud of at the time. Nearly all
of those are totally obsolete by now. The same will be true of my current
beloved programs after I eventually quit working on them. About 10 years
later they will be irrelevant relics, no more useful or interesting to people
than the old Pong video game. Oh well, it's the ongoing process that I
enjoy.
Vince: So true. And I am afraid the same
possibly holds for my art and even my writings. I have several software
and multi-media creations in my back attic that I was once proud of but require
long-gone hardware to run them.
Vince: By
the way, I'm having fun with that new version of Liquib. Hope to get that
released in the next week or so.
Jeff: But that is perhaps similar to the process of
Individuation, and expressing from all viewpoints of the duality, as you say
it, to live life to its fullest.
Vince: Right. I have dabbled in acting, music, video and art as you
know and lead a life which forces constant interpersonal encounters. And
I believe these all have contributed to me. My weakest point is in being
comfortable functioning in and helping maintain highly-structured
organizational situations - like corporate or government or university
bureaucracies. My training for this was running a university graduate
school and ten years as a vice president in the Times Mirror Corporation.
But I never stopped hating the petty details of the administrative tasks I had
to confront.
Jeff: So I guess that
relates to the Territorial area. I never enjoyed that sort of work
either. In the programming world, especially with large companies, software
development is often performed within a rigid 'systems design
methodology'. That typically involves a highly structured set of
procedures with tasks split among analysts, systems designers, programmers,
etc., all overseen by managers at various levels. All those people are
generating stacks of documents and spending huge amounts of time in meetings --
extremely inefficient, with communications bottlenecks that stifle
innovation. In my career, I always tried to avoid such situations, preferring
to work very informally -- just tell me what you want and I'll get it
done. Now, working on my own, I have total freedom.
Jeff: It is often difficult for me to understand other
people, why they think and talk and act as they do. Maybe it will help me
to consider which octants they are operating from.
Vince: I would love it if
the theory could help. It certainly works for me.
Vince: That's one my basic tenants, probably true for anybody but
their world-creation may be largely unconscious . The key question I am
interested in raising is how deliberate can we in creating our own worlds?.
I am suggesting that the answer may be lots!
Jeff: Exactly. This is where you go much farther
than I could imagine. I'm still digesting all that you have written about
Source and creation. How as conscious beings, we are minute components of
Source, able within limitations to participate in the creation of
reality. Maybe some day I'll build up the courage to attempt an Unbounded
Declaration. Truthfully, I'm kind of worried that I might not find the
faith to pull that off successfully -- and that would be my own failure, rather
than any disproof of your assertions.
Vince: I get your reservation. Actually, I think there is no
penalty for failure in this realm except lack of success. And often
failure can be a great teacher. On many occasions I have made what I
thought were Unbound Declarations but they produced few or no results.
Invariably there was an element of doubt or reservation in the declaration
making it unauthentic. For certain of these, once I found the doubt or
reservation and could make the declaration authentically, the reality started
to mature. Believe me, I am still an amateur at all this and don't really
know how far I can go or how often I should take this basic approach to getting
what I want. But I know now it is something I want to go further with.
Jeff: I appreciate the encouragement on this. I'll give
it a try. I'll start with something fairly simple, something that is
reasonably plausible and that I can buy into. If I don't get results at
first, then I'll look for possible reasons and try to refine my declaration.
Vince: We tend to have a too narrow view of what
"intelligence" and "intentionality" mean when it comes to
design and creation of reality. An example: in hundreds of universities, pharma company and biotech company labs, perhaps 20,000
scientists worldwide are working on the development and design of new
antibiotics. Many have Ph.Ds representing a
formidable array of human intelligence. They are backed by the cumulative
base of knowledge of medicine, physiology, biology and chemistry. They
intend to defeat certain disease microbes. On the other side are the
disease microbes who intend to survive. They are happily redesigning
themselves and evolving in incredibly sophisticated ways to defeat the
antibiotics. The diseases are winning. They don't think and write
papers like we do but they get the design and implementation job done.
Who is smarter then?
Jeff: I guess you are really saying that there is
ultimately a sort of 'intelligence' and 'intentionality' driving the process of
evolution that makes it possible for the microbes to adapt and survive.
Of course that's a bit controversial -- close to 'intelligent design'.
Vince: True, sort of my own
version of Intelligent Design without trying to tie it to Jehovah, the great
father-God of Western Religion. Could this intelligence simply by nature
be built into everything that exists? No need to pray to it. Just
be it.
Jeff: That is very close
to my own beliefs. Whatever entity or force conceived this improbable,
incredible universe in which we evolved, isn't waiting to listen to our prayers
and doesn't demand our worship. We are each responsible for using our intelligence
and talents toward making our world pleasant. In terms of my simplistic
principles: rather than praying, I should always be doing my best --
rather than worshiping, I should always love and enjoy my existence.
Jeff: But I have to agree that there must be some
'will' towards generating the complexity of life out of chaos. The
mechanisms might be at the level of how the basic forces and elementary
particles interact -- how those govern the chemical bonds and reactions of
elements that made it possible (inevitable?) for a complex molecule like DNA to
form. From there, maybe evolution could proceed without further
intervention from a God to create the awesome proliferation and diversity of
life we see. Such a 'design' would be no less miraculous than any
religious creation story.
Vince: It indeed would be and probably is. Science is about revealing the mechanisms of that design. What I am struck with is the multiple-levels of "design." Quantum chromodynamics tells us about elementary particles but does not tell us how to derive the laws of chemistry. The laws of chemistry do not tell us how to derive the laws of biology. The laws of biology do not tell us which species will evolve, when, how or under what circumstances. The laws of biology do not tell us the laws of anthropology, sociology or economics; these laws do not predict our politics or the state of our planet, etc. So, it seems that things are set up to create laws and order at just about every level of what-is.
Jeff: But do you really
think the design itself is at multiple levels? Or is it a limitation of
our human minds that forces us to specialize and focus on partial aspects of an
overall complete design.
Vince: I think it is both of these, that there
could be no possible way to predict genetics from a complete knowledge of
quantum physics because what evolved entailed many turns of events determined
probabilistically.
Jeff: I've always felt
that physics was the ultimate science -- that the other sciences were just
extensions and refinements built upon the underlying laws of physics.
Vince: So have I.
Jeff: That seems true at
least for chemistry -- the bonding of elements to form molecules is governed by
the principles of quantum mechanics.
Vince: True, understanding electron shells,
resonant bonds and such matters have clarified a lot of what goes on in chemistry.
However I think there is an incredible amount of practical chemistry that is
impossible or at least very difficult to derive from quantum mechanics.
Jeff: Biology and genetics
these days are largely specialized extensions of chemistry.
Vince: I don't quite see it that way. They
must be compatible with chemistry but are not derivable from it.
Jeff: Though I guess
sociology and economics are rather far removed from physics. Or, maybe
the ultimate science is really mathematics.
Vince: True in one sense in that there is in
mathematics incredible facility and freedom to build models of what is.
But false in that mathematics is part of language and is not itself a science
. I can't be proven via the "scientific method" involving
hypothesis formulation and testing via observation.
Jeff: Yes, I admit it
wasn't right for me to call mathematics a science, but surely it's more than
just a form of language. True that the symbols of math are a precise,
concise language for expressing logical relations and operations. But
math itself is the study of those logical relations and operations, and
supposedly that logic derives fairly directly from physical reality (at least
that's what Bertrand Russell laboriously attempted to establish). That's
why mathematics and physics are so intimately intertwined.
Vince: I agree that mathematical conceptual
frameworks have allowed the expansion of science by leading to the postulation
of entities and relationships that were only later validated through
experiment. Many of the most powerful frameworks were formulated in a
mixture of natural and mathematical language - like quantum and relativity
theories and the famous 'gedanken" experiments relating to understanding
quantum mechanics.
Jeff: I guess math essentially defines
the boundaries for potential reality -- it's not that every mathematical
expression describes something real, but if an expression is not mathematically
proper then it can't describe reality. At least that's what we as
rational beings have come to believe.
Vince: I kind of disagree when it comes to
describing ordinary macro-scale reality. If I say "I saw three deer
from my back deck today, three does and what appears to be a young buck, and
they where nibbling on one of my rhododendron bushes." that describes
reality and is not a proper mathematical expression. Similarly Richard
Feynman's quantum chromodynamics
diagrams are basically simple graphical tools for understanding
possible particle interactions. To some level the diagrams can be
understood without reference to the underlying mathematics. -
Jeff: There seems to be a
fundamental linkage between mathematics and reality. Advancements in
mathematics sometimes allow or even prompt discoveries in physics.
Vince: I very much agree. As to the
sciences themselves, as I see it they exist in a hierarchy. Sitting at
the top of the pyramid as king and queen for the last century have been quantum
theory and relativity theory - absolutely everything had to conform to
them. Next down were general physics and then chemistry, the
archdukes. They had their own laws but they had to confirm to the laws of
the king and queen. Then came biology which had its own laws but had to
confirm to the laws of the king, queen and archdukes, etc. The point is that
while biology had to conform, it had its own laws not easily derivable from the
higher laws, and the same seems to be true of every level Astronomy and
cosmology were also sciences that had to conform - but then big problems showed
up. Astronomical observations have started to show up that are
inconsistent with the laws of the king and queen, making their rule
uneasy. The inconsistency was established by mathematical models.
Now brane and string theories are pretenders to the throne - looking to be
theories of everything.
Jeff: Instead of your
monarchy, what if the laws of science are determined by democratic
principles? Something like that has been proposed -- that our perception
of 'reality' is just a sort of consensus of our aggregate minds. That
reality itself (not just our understanding of it) continually evolves and is
refined as our culture and knowledge advance. That physicists actually
create reality when they use mathematics to predict previously unknown
phenomena.
Vince: I will buy that. absolutely I
like it a lot more than the rational model of understanding an underlying
systematic objective reality. And it is consistent with the MRC model.
Jeff: We have developed a
sort of faith that sustains a common world which mostly conforms to
logic. The holographic model might be interpreted to support this
perspective -- our consciousness builds the 'real' world from a much vaster
potential. Paranormal events that seem to defy our normal reality are the
result of altered states of consciousness inducing non-ordinary realities.
Vince: That is one way of looking at it.
Perhaps a very good one. There are other consistent perspectives.
The theory of evolution would suggest that our sensory and thinking and
behavioral mechanisms would emphasize bringing system and organization to the
matters most required for survival. So we have developed tools of
language and logic that works on the day-to-day scale but that flunk horribly
at the quantum level. And they have also not worked very well at the
societal level, something we humans have had to deal with only very
recently. Both the theory of evolution and anthropology would say,
further, that if we are given advanced reasoning and language power, we would
soon realize that there are many important matters beyond our capacity for
understanding - matters that are not systematic or logical. So cultures
invented religions and superstitions to provide explanations where logic could
not suffice. As science and knowledge advanced and got rational
explanations for more and more things, they had to fight to overturn the old
religious explanations for things, and that process is ongoing today. So
to the extent that my MRC theory or the holographic mind theory can be found
consistent with or even grounded in science we might come to grasp with the
paranormal.
Jeff: As you implied,
physics now seems to be in a state of flux, where the currently accepted
theories are not able to account for observed phenomena. And I would
include among those paranormal occurrences, which I think we can both agree do
sometimes happen. If string/brane theory or some other advanced theory
isn't ultimately capable of explaining these things, then what happens?
Vince: I wish I could say. If history is
indicative, we will have more and more sophisticated theories that are really
graspable by only a small number of people but nonetheless become commonly
accepted because they work for us. A tiny percentage of the world's
population have directly perceived microbes or genes - and both of
these met resistance from established prejudices. In the case of
genetics, we are still experiencing some. When if ever will mainline
science expand enough to embrace synchronicity of events, non-locality in
human perceptions and a framework like my MRC? I don't know.
Jeff: Maybe the barbarians
are at the gates, and our faith in logic and science will be ravaged. An
anarchy of disorder and illogic will overwhelm the laws of physics. Then
wizards and sorcerers, shamans and mystics will become the masters of reality.
Vince: Society was there once. If the
social order disintegrated by failure to take responsibility for what is going
on, as it seems to be going, we would be back there again. Human
society is entering a century of multiple crises - overpopulation and hunger,
continuing wars, social inequality and disequilibrium, declining natural
resources, pollution and multi-faceted other environmental
degradations. Worse, our social organization, religious and political
philosophies and mainline ways of thinking don't provide any clear way for
mankind to take responsibility for a sustainable world in which humans can
continue to live decently. That's how it seems to be. Acknowledging all
of this I intend the creation of a world that is sustainable for humans for
tens on millennia to come, a world in balance with the natural order, in which
wisdom and compassion are the prevailing ethics, and in which the pursuit and
use of knowledge continues to expand. In other words, my intention is to
create a world that works for everybody with a continuing upwards historical trajectory.
This
transformation of the physical and social order cannot come about easily. According to the Heisenberg complementarity principle discussed in my essay:
·
Because the massive re-arrangements
in mass and energy required, it could take a long time to happen.
·
Given the specification
of what is intended to happen, I cannot be too fussy about how it will happen.
I
invite everyone who reads this dialog to join in that intention and creation.
Jeff: I warned you at the beginning that I was running low on
sensible remarks, and now you can see that I've totally abandoned rationality!
Vince:
Perhaps rationality is the booby prize in this game of life. It has been a great dialog. And I invite
readers to contribute to this ongoing discussion. My e-mail is vegiuliano@comcast.net.
Discussion copyright 2008 by
Vincent E. Giuliano and Jeff Holcomb.
Quotations with attribution are allowed.
Return to Vince Giuliano’s writing web
page.