The Structure of Reality

A friend asked me, "Do you wonder why we are here?"

 

I experience a sensation of awareness of structure in the universe. Part of the structure appears to be sentience at deeper levels of reality than the every day. The experience includes a sense that physical reality is part of a plan which we both helped design and which preordains our actions and experiences. The experience informs my sense that reality is a manifestion of a protrusion of energy from deeper levels of reality. It may be correct to call this energy light, or love. My sense is that when we have moments of awareness of these matters, we experience beauty. The experience includes a sense of absolute truth; it seems to explain everything and not subject to argument. I believe that similar experiences informed the foundations of most of the world's major religions and much of modern physics.

 

However, this experience, when it feels most profound, also includes a sensation that the plan and deeper levels of reality are so far removed from normal reality as to be almost irrelevant. There is no way you, I, or anyone else, can make use of knowledge of the experience in normal physical reality. Great prophets, like Jesus, may have been able to use the knowledge directly.

 

When I try to engage my rational faculties to try to determine whether this experience actually corresponds to reality, I am struck by a several thoughts:

 

The experience's sense of complete explanation tells me that our brains have evolved to be able to detect beauty and the structure of reality of which it is an echo.

 

The sense of the numinous is merely an effect of brain chemistry and is a construct of our minds, like green, or hot, or emotions. It does not necessarily correspond to any feature of physical reality.

 

The vast scale and age of the universe, from the Planck length, the smallest meaningful distance, to the tendrils we see in the arrangement of superclusters of galaxies, the behavior of which is described so accurately by the standard model of physics that it seems completely absurd to posit any divine being that cares about a species of primates that has existed for less than a tiny faction of the age of the planet, much less the universe.

 

So, to answer your question, I do happen to believe there is a plan behind reality. But, I refuse to use my belief as a basis as any argument about how we should organize our society and interact with each other.

 

I do believe in Love. And Beauty. And Truth. And Good.

Climate change organizations

https://citizensclimatelobby.org/

 https://www.environmentalvoter.org/ 

Intolerance - posted on Facebook on Sunday August 9, 2020

Some of you may have noticed recent comments on some of my posts from Tod Eberle. Rather than reply to each of his comments, I'm going to post a general reply to his comments here.

Tod, you wrote, “And, I guess that you are appalled by me. However, I am not appalled by you, but rather by the level of intolerance.”

You are correct. I am appalled by you and I have become extremely intolerant of people who continue to support the Republican Party. You perhaps don't realize that I have developed these attitudes after decades of being what I consider to be extraordinarily tolerant and patient.

I was tolerant when Reagan campaigned with the phrase trickle-down economics and claimed it meant tax cuts would lead to greater investment in the people. I was tolerant until I realized I had been naïve and it had been a lie. The tax cuts were simply a gift to the wealthy.

I was tolerant when rather than working on governing the country as they were elected to do, the Republicans focused all their energy on impeaching Clinton because he had extramarital affairs and lied about them. Their hypocrisy becomes clear when you realize that 10-20% of people have affairs.

I was tolerant when the Republican Party gamed the system to steal the election from Al Gore and elect G. W. Bush, a barely competent failed baseball team owner.

I was tolerant when G.W. Bush ignored intelligence community briefings and arguably let 9/11 happen.

I was tolerant when G.W. Bush and his administration lied to the international community and started the war in Iraq.

I was tolerant when G.W. Bush squandered the greatest international support we’d seen in my life time.

I was tolerant when G.W. Bush passed the Patriot Act, created the Department of Homeland Security, and ushered in the surveillance state.

I was tolerant when G.W. Bush used torture in direct violation of international law and then imposed indeterminate length imprisonment without trial.

I was tolerant when rather than governing as he was elected to do the leader of the GOP vowed he would make Obama a one term President and did his best to stop him from passing any legislation.

I was tolerant when the GOP’s Supreme Court justices passed Citizens United so wealthy individuals could use money from their corporations to buy elections.

I was tolerant when the GOP would not hold hearings for the elected President’s Supreme Court nomination.

I was tolerant when the GOP again gamed the system and gerrymandered districts so they could win enough Electoral College votes to legally elect a man President even though he did not win the most citizens’ votes.

Perhaps most of all, I’ve been tolerant as the GOP impedes any progress on addressing climate change and at the same time say they want small government but spend 18% of our federal revenue on the defense department whose primary mission is to support the fossil fuel industry.

I was tolerant and patient through all that. I didn’t like it, but I did not say that the Republican Party was illegitimate or that people who supported it were traitorous. I think I might have been justified in saying that, but I was patient and tolerant.

But then, you’ve spent the last three and half years supporting an imbecile and idiot who has destroyed our international relations, rather than working to avert climate change catastrophe has actually dismantled environment protections, made racist and misogynistic attacks on the population, attacked the Constitution and the Press, fostered distrust of the government and science, and fucked up the nation’s response to the coronavirus so badly that we’ve already had over 150,000 deaths and will be lucky if we don’t have several hundred thousand more.

You’re damn right I’m intolerant. I think you and anyone who does not abhor and disavow any connection with the Republican Party is a traitor to the United States and humanity. I am unwilling to remain silent and tolerate any more.

And Tod, you said in a private message, “I only wish to share the concept that reasonable people can disagree in good faith, and that news broadcasters, in the quest for ratings, will recklessly gin up emotional rage. Please consider me an alternative, but not antagonistic, viewpoint.”

I have three responses:

1) I agree that reasonable people can disagree in good faith. However, as should now be clear, I do not think any reasonable person can accept or support Trump and the current Republican Party.

2) Some news broadcasters do in fact foment rage in pursuit of ratings. However, I believe this fact is irrelevant to the topic under discussion. The actions of the Republican Party throughout the last 40 years are fact. No news organization fomented my rage; the Republican Party did it all by themselves.

3) I do consider your viewpoint as antagonistic. As I said, I consider the Republican Party and its supporters as traitors. I do not believe you and they simply have an “alternate viewpoint”.

Places to donate to help Democrats

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee

Biden For President

 

Vermont Democratic Party 

 

Amy McGrath for US Senator from Kentucky 

Fairness, private schools, and the COVID 19 pendemic

This post was prompted by an article published in the New York Times on July 16, 2020:

In the Same Towns, Private Schools Are Reopening While Public Schools Are Not

Evolution leads species to evolve traits that enhance their ability to survive and pass on their genes. We are accustomed to this idea when it comes to physical traits. Fish develop fins so they can swim; birds develop wings and feathers so they can fly; snakes lose their legs so they can slither. (That last one may not be exactly accurate, but you get the idea.)

Evolution also has lead some species to develop traits that are mental rather than physical. For example, primates’ sense of fairness is an evolved trait. Both monkey and human children, at very young ages, exhibit the sense of fairness. They object when others receive more than their fair share.

These conclusions are well accepted in the scientific community. My additional sense is that the sense of fairness trait exists on a spectrum. Some people have a highly developed sense of fairness; others have little or no sense of fairness. We can easily identify people at the extreme ends of this spectrum. Mother Teresa has a developed sense of fairness; Trump has little or none.

Although I understand parents’ desire to give their children the best care and education, it seems clear that this article raises serious issues of fairness. Is it fair that the good fortune that wealthy parents have enjoyed leads to their kids having profoundly better educations than everyone else? It’s one thing, in normal times, for children from wealthy families to get a somewhat better education. It’s another thing during a pandemic, when most people have to delay a year or two of schooling likely causing developmental impairments and even risk exposure to infections that can cause permanent damage or death, for children of wealthy families to be able to forge ahead untouched by the catastrophe unfolding around them.

Things to do to fight racism

75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice

How To Adopt a Battleground State in 2020

Rutland area NAACP Action Items

The 1619 Project

Read Equal Justice Initiative reports

Lynching in America report

 https://culturesofresistance.org/

God and Prayer - First draft posted on Facebook on October 9, 2017

There is no evidence for god; none of the known physical laws are inexact enough to support effects of "divine influence"; the universe is so enormously large and complicated that it is absurd to think that a supreme being organized it all for the benefit of a primate species that has only existed for a tiny fraction of the age of the universe.

So, prayers are really only hopes. Think about that. When something bad happens, politicians basically say, we hope it won't happen again. That is absurd. We need to do more than just hope. We need to take action.

On the Covid-19 pandemic
On climate change.
On gun control.
On inequality.
On relief for Puerto Rico.
On fixing the redistricting process.