Triumph: Easter Sunday 2024

Today I celebrate. As every year, the view from my window has changed radically from Ash Wednesday (typically overcast, sleet falling from leaden clouds, the vegetation dead) to Easter Sunday (typically warm, trees coming slowly into leaf). This year, the seasons have changed sooner than usual, despite an early Easter. Right now it's 26C outside, the windows and door are open (it's a mere 22C inside), green shoots, butterflies and bees have emerged to enjoy the sunlight.

Spring has triumphed over winter; a new phase begins. Birds are busy building nests; the garden is full of birdsong. Blossoms, leaves – then fruit, vegetables. Already, I have noticed the first shoots of sorrel emerging from the ground; within a week or so, there should be leaves for salads, stews and soups.

Lent is over; so meat is back on the diet, although I can't say I miss it that much (OK, for pure pleasure, a nice fillet steak takes a lot of beating, but for day-to-day menus there's no need). I broke with tradition by not having a midnight beer and whisky; those can wait until tomorrow. Girth round the middle is 94.2cm (down from 101.6cm in January 2014 when I began logging my exercise and alcohol intake)

And so, that was my 33rd Lent in my 66th year, and I find myself in good physical and mental health and spiritually uplifted, for which I offer up gratitude to the Cosmic Purpose. No room for complacency, for taking blessing for granted. A milestone in the eternal journey from Zero to One. Still much to grasp, to understand, to ponder.

It is time to celebrate a work in progress, for triumph will not come until the end of times.

Triumph of good over evil

– Of life over death

– Of emergence over entropy

– Of complexity over chaos

– Of health over illness

– Of wisdom over ignorance

– Of friendship over enmity

– Of peace over war

– Of fairness over injustice

– Of calm over anger

Best wishes to all my readers. A good time for Handel's Messiah, performed here by the John Alldis Choir with the London Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Karl Richter. Our family favourite version.

Some contrasting Easter Sundays from years gone by.

Easter Sunday 2019
In Ealing, enjoying 24C on 21 April

Easter Sunday 2013
(It used to snow on Easter Sunday – that year, it also fell on 31 March)

Easter Sunday 2008
(Snow on Easter Sunday – in England! On 23 March that year. Very early)

Why do we exist? Why does anything exist: Lent 2024, Day 46

As this year's Lent comes towards its end, time to wrap up. The biggest question/unquestion* of them all – why do we exist, and why indeed does anything exist rather than nothing at all?^?

Caught up in daily routine, there's little time to consider ontology – what is existence. Many would even argue that it's a waste of time to even consider such abstractions. Better get on with earning money, spending money and projecting one's ego to a higher rung of the status hierarchy.

Curiosity ought to get the better of us. It should make us stop and reflect. It should do, but doesn't necessarily do so. Getting off the treadmill, even temporarily, to step back, step beyond, to take the meta-view, is essential.

{{ I feel guided. }}

Why is there something rather than nothing? Physicalists, atheists, would merely posit randomness; the Universe just emerged the way it did, get over it and go shopping. We are nothing more than random collections of atoms moving through spacetime in a predetermined way.

But it doesn't feel that way to me. I strongly sense a purpose, a direction, an aim, a goal. I also sense the ant-like insignificance of my individual life, yet subjectively, it is my individual life, as is yours, as is everyone's, which sits at the centre of the Universe. Without you to observe the Universe, would it exist? Well, to you, no it wouldn't. But without any conscious observer, would it exist? Personally, I feel it wouldn't. Unlike Giulio Tononi or Donald Hoffman, I cannot express that thought as a mathematical formula, but I most certainly intuit it.

Big-C consciousness has created small-c consciousness, dispersed across the Cosmos, with a purpose; to observe wave-functions as they collapse in quantum mechanics. Treat that statement metaphorically: everything you observe is driven by purpose.

Catholic theology would have us believe that God created the heavens and earth so that all Creation could praise Him. [ "The world was made for the glory of God."] I feel that this is an attempt to anthropomorphise the mystery to a level that all believers could accept simply without having to question. 

Does God need glorification? Egos do, Consciousness doesn't. Quietly, consciousness experiences and observes; our brain cogitates over that which consciousness brings to us. And a Big-C consciousness does so to, looking down at the Cosmos as we peer up at the night sky.

Big-C consciousness needs small-c consciousnesses to observe it and make it thus.

Is God perfect? It is my intuition that the entire Cosmos is a work in progress, on an eternal journey from Zero to One, improving all the while. So currently, to us, no – God is not perfect, but was and will be. Where my thinking, however (thinking as distinct from intuition), is leading me, is to separate the notion of time as we see it, and time as it functions on the Cosmic scale. In a block universe, there is no past or future, just an eternal Now. This, of course, is not how we experience it. However, a photon, travelling at the speed of light, doesn't experience time at all. This suggests that the entire history of the Universe is happens simultaneously to photons. "And God said, Let there be light: and there was light." (Genesis, 1:3)

Left: The First Day of Creation, by Francisco de Holanda (1545), from De Aetatibus Mundi Imagines.

I am struck by the way the authors of Genesis and evangelist St John intuited the Big Bang, a something-out-of-nothing that has purpose and intent, a beginning and an end.

* An unquestion – ask it of the Zen master, and the Zen master will answer it with a swipe of the bamboo rod across your shoulders. Ideally, this is not a question that should be answered, nor should it even be asked; question and the answer are to be intuited. However, this is not an ideal world, nor have I reached any kind of mastery. And so, dear readers, here's the question and my putative answer to it.

Lent 2023, Day 46
The summary, finale

Lent 2022: Day 46
Easter Everywhere, but not Ukraine

Lent 2021: Day 46
The summing up

Lent 2020: Day 46
Nor followers, nor leaders; one's own way to God

Asceticism and happiness: Lent 2024, Day 45 – Good Friday

If you want to be happy, abandon your chase of material possessions. Find that sweet spot in life where you are comfortable, then stand still and reflect. 

Much of this is about dropping the ego, adopting a 'DILLIGAF' attitude regarding the hierarchy status and the ladder of authority.

Maintaining enough decorum not to repel society, fit in by all means, but don't engage in a race to show off.

Conspicuous consumption is bad for our planet's health. Mindless consumption is even worse – there's far more of it. Shopping malls are full of it. I feel no rush to spend money; the concept of retail therapy is as bogus as comfort eating.

No watch. No jewelry. No designer clothes. No fancy car (indeed, no car). Clothes – should be well made, natural materials, mendable, long-lasting. Home: warm, dry, comfortable, small. Photovoltaic electricity. Big garden, growing wild. Meadow flowers, bees and butterflies. No mown lawn.

No holidays; travel as part of work, days off work as necessary. I have no urge to see the world; there's much to bring joy on the doorstep, or a train-ride away.

The result of not frittering away money means no money worries; the rainy-day fund grows from month to month. Financial concerns bring on stress which is bad for long-term health.

Technology: proven, durable. Fast internet connection, lots of data storage. No skimping on good tech, but not as an early adopter, rather a fast follower of new tech as it becomes established. Tech and food are two things I don't skimp on.

Don't waste things. Don't waste food. The 'best-by' dates on food is a safety margin for retailers. 

Focus on your developing your curiosity. Ask 'why' and 'how' more often; with Wikipedia in our phones, there's no excuse for not finding out the answer to your question the moment you have it. (A sudden 'need-to-know' the difference between silver birches and aspens is delivered instantly. And so instantly, I have become more knowledgeable). 

Gratitude for natural joys. The sun lighting those aspens in the wood that faces my kitchen window; bird song, the first day of the year warm enough for a cooling breeze to feel pleasant. Good food, good conversation, good company. 

As Lent is coming to an end, I feel no great urge to get back to eating meat or drinking alcohol. Every year it becomes easier and easier.

Lent 2023, Day 45
The Summary, Pt I

Lent 2022: Day 45
What is the point of it all?

Lent 2021: Day 45
Mindfulness vs Materialism

Lent 2020: Day 45
Unconsummated memories

Spirituality and the Dream World: Lent 2024, Day 44

We all dream as we sleep; not all of our dreams are memorable. Indeed even those we do remember, few make much sense, being full of cognitive disjunctions, nonsensical mixtures of place, time, action and people. Track back the content of most dreams and you'll find some small particle of undigested information that crossed your consciousness during the waking day. Unprocessed by your mind, like an irritating grain of sand inside an oyster, that particle of information causes a reaction in your dream world. 

Example: yesterday, I scrolled down past yet another video short on Facebook of a family of wild boars crossing a road in Warsaw. This morning I dreamt that a wild boar devoured my tuna baguette and then proceeded to uproot my rhubarb patch (which I don't even have in real life!). A typical dream, then, which I know won't presage a wild-boar attack upon my garden (although I have seen them in by neighbourhood, and I did have a deer wander into my garden a week ago). However, I saw a dead hare on my walk today, so that's something.

Falling asleep is like going to the cinema not knowing what film you'll see, or even if you'll get to see a film. It could be a comedy or a thriller, it could induce irritation or boredom. The film could be starring you, or you could merely be an observer in it. It's this awareness that makes falling asleep interesting.

What happens in dreams can indeed be interesting, but as well as the action, there's also the qualia of dreams, the atmosphere, the klimat, the feeling, the texture of being there. Unworldly landscapes, strange yet familiar, that leave a 'taste' in the mind that can be savoured mentally over breakfast. Some can be summoned years, even decades, later. These qualia can be conjured up in the same was as qualia memories from waking life, though they are much weaker. Dreams are unique; you'll have a dream just the once, so the dream landscape is not like a local street along which you walk repeatedly in daily life. 

The dream world that we enter nightly is unique to our own subjective experience of what it is for me to be me, for you to be you. Dreams speak of our anxieties, personality complexes and hopes, but every now and then, I believe, they shed light on past lives. These are rare. In my experience, they are notable for not consisting of disjunctive cognitions, but are consistent in time, place and action.

This month, I've had two dreams of my old boss from the 1980s (who's now 93), in both he was with his wife (who died in 2018). Do these dreams have meaning? Precognition? I don't know. I feel that there's something out there, but I don't know what it is, a weak force, but nevertheless not one that can be denied or debunked as coincidence.

Intuitions come to you whether you are dreaming, dreaming lucidly, or wide awake. They should act as a signal to draw from  the future – by act of will – an optimal outcome. These intuitions do not serve as direct prophecies; rather they functions warning signals to heed, meaning "watch out for something, and to will it to go the right way." Or at least not to go the wrong way.

Twice in recent weeks I fell asleep wishing myself an interesting dream that night, and both times this worked. If you petition the Cosmic Purpose (or whomever you petition with prayer) in the right way (sincere, not seeking sensation), I feel you can summon meaningful dreams for yourself.

Shakespeare's Hamlet made the analogy between sleep and death, with the possibility of experiencing dreams after bodily death being given by the protagonist as a reason why not to commit suicide – because just as in sleep we remain with our consciousness intact, we may not be able to shake off consciousness with death. This struck me as a teenager on reading Hamlet at school that Shakespeare's artistic intuition knew exactly what's going on at the metaphysical level.

"To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream — ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come,
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil,
Must give us pause."

The strange phenomenon of dreaming merits deeper investigation; I have habitualised writing down the more interesting ones, having my notebook open by my bed, with pen to hand. Typically, five or six a month are significant to merit jotting down, the occasional one ends up on this blog (see the label dreams and scroll down for more). 

Lent 2023, Day 44
The Purpose

Lent 2022: Day 44
Habit, discipline or obsession

Lent 2021: Day 44
Life after life after life after life

Lent 2020: Day 44
A myriad paths to God

More Questions than Answers (Pt IV): Lent 2024, Day 43

Yesterday, I mentioned the dividing line between physicalists – those believing that everything in the Universe is made up of matter – and idealists, who believe that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Universe. The former group deny the possibility of a divine presence and survival of consciousness after death, the latter group accept such possibilities.

Today, I'd like to ask – why is it that we fall into one category or the other? This follows on from the free-will question: have we any choice in whether we end up believing in what we believe?

Are, for example, extroverts more likely to be physicalists than introverts? To what extent does personality determine belief? Are you doomed to one belief system or another because of a genetic predisposition, or is belief shaped more by upbringing and environment? Or a mixture of both sets of factors?

And then there's the left-brain/right-brain divide; the lateralisation of brain function (or hemispheric dominance) – the tendency for some neural functions or cognitive processes to be specialised to one side of the brain or the other. Is this why I can't get my head around complex maths, preferring concepts to formulae? In other words, is a child born destined to be an artist or a scientist? Certainly felt that way to me at school.

And then there's the way we view authorities – do we accept them or question them? And does this determine whether idealists are religious believers or independent seekers?

And then there's the way we tend to shape our personal worldview: by induction (based on our intuition and our experiences and observations of the world from which we infer a belief system about reality)? Or by deduction (grounded on established knowledge of empirically determined principles, reasoning, logic and rational thought to draw conclusions about the world)? Or again, is it a mix of these two approaches?

While we meander through life, adapting our worldview to our circumstances, do we have a fundamental, underlying sense of whether or not there's a supernatural force at work, shaping the direction of the Cosmos, giving life purpose and meaning – or not?

As I think back upon my metaphysical journey, I can identify significant turning points, important junctions that guided my thinking in new directions. Insights that added clarity, intuitions that suddenly sparked new understanding. The metaphor of an upward spiral, coming back to a similar place but having a higher viewpoint, able to grasp more, is fitting. The view becomes more and more complex, more elements, sharper definition.

But is that journey predetermined? Am I learning that which I am meant to learn, at the time at which I am meant to learn it?

Synchronicity corner 

Today's version of There are More Questions than Answers comes from South Africa. Released in 1973, a year after the Johnny Nash original, it was recorded by an artist named Mally. I looked him up on Wikipedia. Nothing under that surname, other than Austrian metaphysical philosopher, Ernst Mally. The record label mentions a 'Malcolm Watson'. I looked him up, narrowing the search to South Africa. Now I get Johannesburg-born Malcolm Lyall-Watson, better known as Lyall Watson, author of the best-seller, Supernature: A Natural History of the Supernatural, a copy of which is still in our family home in London. Watson is credited with coining the 'hundredth monkey' effect in his 1979 book, Lifetide.

Anyway, here's Mally with There are More Questions than Answers. 

Lent 2023, Day 43

Wayside shrines

Lent 2022: Day 43

Spirit of Place and Metaphysics

Lent 2021: Day 43

Doubt and Curiosity

Lent 2020: Day 43

Quartodecimalism, or the fixing of the date of Easter

More Questions than Answers (Pt III): Lent 2024, Day 42

Can spirituality ever be compatible with science?

YouTube podcasts on both subjects have greatly expanded my understanding of both. I can dive into to any topic, listen to the greatest minds and learn. Just as with Wikipedia, and now GPT, the way that the tech revolution has granted the curious instant access to knowledge is life-changing. No more waiting a week for that documentary on TV, or your next visit to the public library.

Over the past few years, I have dived deep into philosophy of mind, cosmology and theoretical physics; I have learnt much about the great questions that science has yet to answer. These include the nature of consciousness (emergent property of evolution or the fundamental property of the Universe?); dark energy and dark matter (which theoretically make up 95% of the mass-energy content of the Universe, yet we can't physically detect either); the reconciliation of relativity with quantum mechanics (the physics that works at the sub-atomic scale doesn't work at the galactic scale and vice-versa); how life emerged from non-life; and how the Universe is fine-tuned for life to emerge (were the key physical constants just slightly different to how they are, we wouldn't exist).

Science today is far more aware of what it doesn't know compared to the situation a hundred years ago, when physicists believed they were just a few equations away from understanding everything. Science keeps coming up with more questions than answers.

Then there is the paranormal; an entire category of phenomena which are impossible to explain in scientific terms. Precognition, telepathy, psychokinesis or clairvoyance – these have been proven to exist to a remarkably high degree of probability, but science refuses to acknowledge the reality of psi - not because that these phenomena cannot be proved to exist (weakly, it must be said), but that no one has posited a scientifically acceptable model for how they function. [For the doubters, dip into this meta-analysis of research conducted into psi phenomena published in the journal of the American Psychological Association.]

God of the Gaps

If you can't explain it, it must be God. This is the old notion of God of the Gaps, used to fill in areas beyond our understanding with a supernatural explanation.

Philosophically, we can lump together two ways of thinking: physicalism (everything is made of matter; if we can't currently explain everything, one day we will, and that explanation will turn out to be a physicalist one) and idealism (a metaphysical perspective asserting that reality is equivalent to mind, spirit, or consciousness, and that there's a higher ideal form of reality).

I tend toward the latter worldview. Yet among the public intellectuals garnering the largest audiences on YouTube, the physicalists get the clicks. Sean Carroll, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, Daniel Dennett – they all flatly deny the existence of any deity, sticking doggedly to the material nature of everything, based on empirical evidence and the scientific method. The idealists, on the other hand, tend to be the long tail of YouTube viewer metrics; from flaky woo-woo peddled by New Age mystics all the way up to far more robust constructs of mainstream religious commentators, as well as scientists willing to go right up to the very edges of science.

The latter group would include Dean Radin and Rupert Sheldrake, who stick to the scientific method to deliver experimental proof of the reality of psi phenomena. The idealist group also includes those intellectuals on the cusp of theoretical physics and philosophy of mind, such as Bernard Carr or Bernardo Kastrup, who are openly open about seeing a role for a Cosmic Consciousness in our theory of everything.

Seated between them are scientists who sense that there is something metaphysical going on but whose standing in the academic community won't let them stray too far into woo-woo territory – here I'd place Sir Roger Penrose and Paul Davis. Scientific rigour and complex equations win out over pure intuition.

An intriguing point of view is espoused by Edwin C. May, the former head of the CIA's remote-viewing programme, Stargate Project. Psychic spies, what have you. I've watched several interviews and presentations featuring him, the best of which are on the excellent New Thinking Aloud channel on YouTube with Jeffrey Mishlove. What makes Dr May interesting is the fact that while he absolutely believes in the existence of psi phenomena, pointing to proven successes of Stargate Project in uncovering Soviet secrets, he holds that the explanation for these powers lies entirely in rational, though as yet undiscovered, material explanations. Dr May dismisses supernatural explanations, and claims to be a rational atheist with an interest in phenomena at the edges of scientific knowledge.

So. Another of my big Lenten questions is – how far can the physicalists' position be pushed before it becomes idealism? At what point does a spiritual explanation need to be invoked? And if we do accept a Big-C cosmic consciousness, a Universal mind, an eternal Purpose – can that be ultimately explained in physical terms, or must we forever be left with a cosmic mystery at the heart of existence?^? *

"There are more questions than answers,

Pictures in my mind that will not show,

And the more I find out,

The less I know."

Today's version comes from the Emotions on Stax Records, which delved into Reggae stylings more than any other US-based soul label. Big shout out to MJDJ and his unmissable soul/R&B show, Your Sinsouly, live on Friday nights on West Wilts Radio (7-9pm UK, 20:00-22:00 Continent).

* The question mark to the power of the question mark was invented by my brother late last night as a symbol for demanding both an answer and an unanswer of the question simultaneously. 

Lent 2023, Day 42
Where did religions come from?

Lent 2022: Day 42
A Future Like This

Lent 2021: Day 42
Actively seeking Understanding

Lent 2020: Day 42
From Zero to One

More Questions than Answers (Pt II): Lent 2024, Day 41

Here are some my uncertainties about the nature of survival of human consciousness after biological death:

• Studies of patients brought back from near-death suggest that near-death experiences are not universal. Only in 17% of cases studied were NDEs reported by patients. There appears to be no link between those reporting them. "NDEs have been reported by children, adults, scientists, physicians, priests, ministers, among the religious and atheists, and from countries throughout the world." So the first question is why only one in six, and what do these cases have in common?
  
  
• Do the remaining 83% of consciousnesses simply snuff out along with their bodies? Or does this statistic only relate to near-death experiences? 
  
  
• Assuming that there is survival of consciousness after death – does this take the form of the individual (small-c consciousness) carrying forward in time as an individual's continuity of experience – though stripped at biological death of the ego? 
  
  
• If individual consciousness does survive individually, does it pass into another biological entity, a new biological 'container', in what is commonly referred to as reincarnation, with the new incarnation being aware to some degree of details of a past life or lives?
  
  
• If reincarnation does indeed happen (and my own personal experience suggests that yes it does, but intimations of it are weak and require a sensitivity to the phenomenon), how soon after one body's death is a new body there to accept it?
  
  
• What physical vectors (in any!) may be involved? Quantum mechanics? Gut-biome? Neural oscillations resulting in electro-magnetic phenomena?
  
  
• An alternative scenario to physical reincarnation in a new biological container is that individual small-c consciousness merges with the collective, cosmic, Big-C consciousness. Does this happen immediately after biological death, or is there a waiting period (purgatory in Catholic theology)?
  
  
• On the merging of the small-c and Big-C consciousnesses – do we lose our individual identities to be subsumed in a Cosmic Whole (All in God, God in All)? If so, how does this differ from eternal oblivion, if what we experience is share by literally everything? Is individual identity not watered down to the point of non-existence?
  
  
• I have been generally postulating a Universe that unfolds along a fixed arrow of time, from the Big Bang to its eventual demise. As it does so, we, the conscious observers, grow in wisdom, love and understanding away from the bestial towards the angelic. But how about a block universe in which the present is all there is? One evolves spiritually by reincarnating into a better and better world, though one that's always located between the 20th and 21st centuries?
  
  

"There are more questions than answers,
Pictures in my mind that will not show,
And the more I find out,
The less I know."

The theme tune to this week's blog posts (featuring what was probably the only pedal-steel guitar on the island of Jamaica).

Lent 2023, Day 41
The End of Times

Lent 2022: Day 41
A Better Future

Lent 2021: Day 41
The Holiest of Holies

Lent 2020: Day 40
God and Nation don't go together

More Questions than Answers (Pt I): Lent 2024, Day 40

I will use the last week of Lent to ask the questions that I am still struggling to make sense of, where I haven't yet found an answer that satisfies my intuition. Let me start then with the question of what is evil and why does a good God permit evil.

Comparing evil to chaos, disorder, things running down – entropy – the second law of thermodynamics, I ask whether evil can be seen as a natural rather than a supernatural phenomenon. We can equate good with ethical behaviour, health, growth, development. Building not destroying. Polar opposites. We know what good looks like. We know what evil looks like too. But do we?

In anger, for example, a manifestation of evil? Did Jesus show a flash of anger as he drove the moneychangers out of the temple? How many of our own human failings can be reasonably described as evil, or attributed to metaphysical evil forces?

And then there's the problem of how to deal with evil. In the physical, material world, evil needs to be stopped, for our common good. The prisoner's dilemma empirically proves that. Giving way to evil only emboldens it. Psychopathic killers, who intend to turn human life into non-life to further their material goals, need to be terminated with extreme prejudice.

That is the role of the state, to protect us from material manifestations of evil, internal and external threats. But in the metaphysical world? Can one pray for evil to stop? Or is our suffering necessary? The existence of evil as the price we pay for being alive and conscious? 

Or maybe evil will, slowly but surely, be squeezed out of the cosmos by spiritual evolution. We no longer torture people or animals to death as a spectator sport; ethically, humans are steadily becoming less barbaric. 

This is easier to understand if we reject the notion of God as being perfect with that of God as being a work in progress, unfolding along with the Cosmos. As I wrote in December, we can take the spiritual journey from Zero to One as encompassing everything in the Universe, including its Cosmic Purpose, including Big-C Consciousness, and accept a Divinity that's neither omniscient nor omnipotent nor omnipresent, but tending that way, with an Omega Point as the final destination; all in God, God in all.

But before we get there, is evil something we just have to put up with?

Or can you ward off evil (at least at the personal level) with the power of will? Not wishing evil upon yourself can keep it at bay?

Perhaps the individual can train their will to do that magic, to bring good fortune upon themselves – but can collectives, groups of people – nations even – bring down a metaphysical dome around themselves to ward off evil?

[An interesting notion regarding evolution is that our animal kingdom only evolved the way that it did was because we did so in parallel with viruses. What didn't kill us made us stronger. This theory suggests that life forms which don't coexist with viruses evolve far more slowly. Perhaps an answer to the Fermi Paradox is that complex life never got to evolve on planets where viruses didn't appear.]

Lent 2024, Day 40
How we lead our lives

Lent 2022: Day 40
Fasting and Temptation

Lent 2021: Day 40
Medicine, Mindfulness and Miracles

Lent 2020: Day 40
Coercion, Persuasion, Conversion and Faith

The Magic Power of Gratitude: Lent 2024, Day 39

A title like this sounds like a book on the rack of an airport bookstall. And a quick googling indeed shows there are several out there, formulaic recitations of predictable listicles. 'Gratitude' as a concept feels very New Age but has roots in eastern and western religious traditions.

It's easy enough to be grateful to your fellow human beings when they show you a specific act of kindness; the act has a subject (you) and an object (another person). All you need to worry about is the proportionality and sincerity of your display of gratitude.

But what of gratitude for good fortune? For things turning out right, things that could have gone very wrong? Things over which you have no control? Yet still you feel grateful – but to whom or what should you direct that gratitude?

The materialist/atheist would put good fortune down to random chance, an effect, an outcome, over which you lack causal input. And eschewing any notion of a God or a Cosmic Purpose or a Universal Force, or the Oneness, what have you, the materialist would have no one or nothing to whom to express gratitude, even though they might feel it deeply.

The degree of random chance involved in you actually being alive to consciously experience life is mind-blowing. First, we have the anthropic Universe, fine-tuned for matter to exist, and fine-tuned for life to emerge from non-life, and fine-tuned for that life to evolve from the simplest unicellular organisms to you. From our last universal common ancestor to your parents mating, your life is the result of an unbroken chain of reproduction going back over three and half billion years. Trillions of successful replications of genetic evolution, surviving at least eight mass-extinction events that killed 20% or more of all species. 

The chances of every one of your ancestors surviving predation, famine, drought, cataclysm, disease and early death over billions of years should be enough cause for giving thanks. But without that Divine Cause to whom should you be thankful to?

I intuit a positive feedback loop. Feel the gratitude for simple things; moments of joy, waking up without anything hurting you, the spring sun on your face as winter ends. You have your our own list of Reasons to be Cheerful; reflect back gratitude for the simple things for which you ask; health, contentment, freedom from pain, freedom from stress, good fortune. The more thankful you are, the greater, I feel, are you powers to ask for more of those simple things, and a happier life.

Of course, some cataclysm could be waiting just around the corner to come down and sweep me away. Our lives balance ever on the edge of chaos. Just being aware of that fact, and avoiding feelings of complacency while engaging in the act of gratitude, helps. {{ You cannot affect that which you do not consider. }} Complacency = not considering how things might be worse – and then, they become worse.

There's no question in my mind – tapping into gratitude really helps in life.

There are questions in my mind regarding my metaphysical worldview, and for these I reserve the last week of Lent (Days 40 to 45, with a summary of the this year's series of Lenten blog posts next Saturday).

Lent 2023, Day 39
Peace of Mind

Lent 2022: Day 39
Animal spirits, animal consciousness

Lent 2021: Day 39
Praise the Sun God

Lent 2020: Day 38
Don't let misfortune catch you unaware!

Neither a Follower nor a Leader be: Lent 2024, Day 38

"Don't follow leaders," sang Bob Dylan. Wise words. Don't lead followers either. People who push themselves to become leaders tend to have big egos, inflated sense of self-importance, a need for adulation and approval. This can have Freudian causes – compensating for an unhappy childhood – or genetic causes ("papa was too"). Putin, Trump and Johnson all spring to mind. 

Religious cults are typically led by the same sort of person, requiring faithful acolytes. Religions, political systems and corporations should screen for people with the 'dark triad' of personality traits (psychopathy, narcissism and Machiavellianism) to ensure that such people will never lead. However, this type is adept at masking the true nature of their character.

Followers, on the other hand, tend to look for simple answers to adopt, an ideology or religion that they can plug into and, having found it, many will remain with it, unquestioningly. In psychological terms, followers are on the lower rungs of the ladder of authority. The dynamics of this thirst to find a leader is beautifully portrayed in this scene from Monty Python's Life of Brian:

ARTHUR: Hail Messiah!

BRIAN: I'm not the Messiah!

ARTHUR: I say you are, Lord, and I should know. I've followed a few.

FOLLOWERS: Hail Messiah!

BRIAN: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand?! Honestly!

GIRL: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.

BRIAN: What?! Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!

FOLLOWERS: He is! He is the Messiah!

BRIAN: Now, fuck off!

[silence]

ARTHUR: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

So – neither wishing to be a leader, nor a follower, which path is the right one? 

Open, honest seeking. Seek, but at your own pace. The quest for truth should accelerate with age. Your twenties and thirties are not the time for your ego to retreat whilst engaging on such a quest for esoteric knowledge and supernatural phenomena; this is the time to put food on the table, earn money and get on with it. But once the children have left home and some degree of comfort has been achieved – seek.

"Embrace widely, hold lightly," to quote John Ramirez. Reject ideas you once held should they no longer hold true; continually fine-tune your metaphysical worldview, discuss it, modify it, parse it on the basis of intuition. Work on it; over the years it becomes more accurate, and more useful.

I am informed by intuition; much of what I have written in this Lenten series of posts is the result of inspiration; ideas entering my stream of consciousness, bidden, aligned, extraneous teaching.

Aiming ultimately for a better understanding of life, for greater contentment, for fulfilment of our human potential – these goals are best achieved individually rather than collectively under the watchful gaze of a self-appointed leader (or worse – one who claims to have been appointed by God). The metaphysical world has no need for leaders. Teachers, by all means, learn from them but accept them not as leaders.

Lent 2023, Day 38
Go with the flow, or swim against the tide

Lent 2022: Day 38
When I was a child, I understood as a child

Lent 2021: Day 38
Will we ever understand what's inside the atom?

Lent 2020: Day 38
Religion, Society and the Individual

Observer or participant? Lent 2024, Day 37

"In the great scheme of things, you are as insignificant as a grain of sand. And yet the Universe was made just for you." I have pondered upon this rabbinical statement for decades. Both parts of it are equally true; the first objectively true, the second subjectively true. 

Are you a humble observer of a vast unfolding Cosmos, of which our galaxy (consisting of around 200 billion stars and at least that number of planets) is but one of two trillion such galaxies, each one consisting of a similar order of magnitude of stars? 

Or is the Cosmos something that's happening to you? 

Of course, the answer is "both, at the same time". You are both object and subject. 

The Cosmos is happening to you and to every single conscious entity right across the Universe. Or put it another way; we are all being happened to by the Cosmos.

But are we just passive observers, random lumps of living, brain-managed meat, or do we influence the way Cosmos unfolds? I am minded of chaos theory and the butterfly effect, a metaphor for the principle of chaos, which describes how one tiny change in the state of a system can result in large differences in a later state – a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas can cause a tornado in China, for instance. 

Our daily activities can be likened to the flapping of that butterfly's wings. Whether pre-determined by our genes and our upbringing, or brought about by our own free will, our actions have consequences, some of which may bring about an unintended domino effect cascading through the world.

The ethical question therefore arises – do you wish the effect of those actions to be beneficial or harmful? One way or another, we are more than passive observers or subjects, we are participants, our presence is not accidental but bears a purpose. It is our duty to seek out that purpose and to fulfil our potential. And here I'll get metaphysical; that purpose is to evolve spiritually,

"So many strange things happen to me all day long" – James Brown asks the existential question, "Why Does Everything Happen To Me?" As I sit here at my kitchen table writing, I observe a deer wandering through the wood at the edge of my garden.  Never seen that in six years here. A sign!

Finally, an insight that I intuited yesterday, a statement that came to me independent of my cogitational process – hence the curly brackets: 

{{ You cannot affect that, which you do not consider }}.  

Practical magic. Example: Have I considered the prospect that the train will be late? No? Then it will be late. Have I considered that the train will be late? Yes? Then it will arrive on time.

Lent 2023, Day 37
The Inner Hug: Contact with the Eternal

Lent 2022: Day 37
Take it easy - or get rigorous?

Lent 2021: Day 37
Dream insights into past lives

Lent 2020: Day 37
Further thoughts on Reincarnation

After death: what's next? (Pt III) Lent 2024, Day 36

The Ego – that sense of one's self-importance in society – is needed to mediate between you and society, but like a rocket booster, once you have reached the right altitude, you need to drop it.

Introversion increases with age, as you feel you no longer need a large cast of supporting actors for the play that is your life. The audience dwindles, too.

Or maybe that's just me?

Solitude makes ego redundant. I can go days without direct social contact. Walking around my neighbourhood, there will be days when I actively try to avoid other people, to avoid having to put on the merry mask of being social, donning a cheery smile and ready to engage in small talk. Other times, however, I'll happily stop for a chat with neighbours. 

My brother asked in a comment to yesterday's post, "So how does your ego describe your subjective 'I'?" An excellent question. Is my ego promoting my subjective 'I'? In effect using it for self-promotion? Or something metaphysically deeper?

Well, why do I write? Ego legacy? Perhaps. It is indeed gratifying to the see number of page views on my blog climbing over Lent (in past years it would halve from around 20,000 per month to 10,000 or less); my ego is gratified to see it's up to over 36,000 now. But essentially I write for myself, so that I can review my writings in future to see how my thinking has evolved. It's all about nuance, detail, stripping away false premises and wishful thinking, and cutting short meanderings down blind alleys. 

Once again, I remembered today my father's words towards the end of his life; "Why was I so lucky?" and my conviction that he knew the answer.

There's also the 'notes to a future me' aspect of this blog; the notion of somehow coming across the blog in a future incarnation. But is this at all possible, or just that wishful thinking I want to avoid?

Losing your identity at death, merging the small-c consciousness with the Big-C consciousness of the Cosmos, might be equated theologically with returning to God, to achieving mystical unity with All. 

Does transcendence of the self mean ultimate loss of self? Is this what we principally worry about when contemplating death? Whether it means the atheist's oblivion or a metaphysical merging into Oneness?

Are we destined to merge into the Cosmic Unity at our bodily deaths, or only at the end of all time?  

Based on my lifetime of anomalous qualia experiences – anomalous memory flashbacks to feelings experienced in a time before my current biological life – I would posit that whilst body and ego die, not all of one's of small-c consciousness merges into Big-C consciousness. At least traces of it continue to exist, to be experienced elsewhere in spacetime. By a different biological entity.

But I hold that spiritual evolution is true; merely merging into the Unity, the Love, the Wisdom of God after one dies is too quick a solution for my intuition. An eternity of heavenly bliss after one life well lived? 

I would rather that over a succession of incarnations, our consciousness develops, it learns, it observes, it finds answers, it grows in wisdom – it earns a place within the Unity of God, but this must take many lives.

Lent 2023, Day 36
Money and metaphysics

Lent 2022: Day 36
Losing sight of God

Lent 2021: Day 36
One life is not enough

Lent 2020: Day 36
Accounting for talent

After death - what's next? (Pt II) Lent 2024, Day 35

OK, so having split the question of "can consciousness survive biological death", and having answered (at least to my own satisfaction) with a "yes", I now return to the question of the Individual and the Collective.

The ego does not survive death; it dies with the body. The ego is the objective 'me', it's the human being that you can see. The ego is how we project ourselves out into society. Ask ten people to describe me and you'll get ten broadly similar descriptions. But the ego is not consciousness. Consciousness is the subjective 'I'. No one can with any accuracy describe my subjective conscious experience, what it's like to be me. Any attempt would be little more than a guess. And similarly, dear reader, I cannot describe your subjective conscious experience. 

Subjective conscious experience is at the very core of who we really are as individuals. And as I mentioned in earlier posts about the nature of time, the present slips into the past with terrifying speed. All we really have to back up that sense of who we are is our memory; memory of events and memory of experience – the two being quite different. 

I may no longer be able to recall what I had for breakfast last Tuesday week and what I did afterwards (an event), but I can easily summon up a memory of my conscious experience of eating breakfast before school as a teenager in our house in West Ealing. The sound of the breadknife cutting through a wheatgerm loaf, the taste and consistency of Alpen with Sainsbury's strawberry yogurt, the warmth of a mug of milky tea in my hands, the smell of bacon frying, the appearance of our kitchen as it looked back then. 

Right now, I have just emerged from having had an intense qualia memory experience, or induced flashback, from the mid-1970s. Fifty years ago, and yet there it is, captured vividly. I have experienced it again, an experience congruent with the original feeling of actually being there. [There's only one human being alive out of the eight billion on our planet who can also conjure that specific conscious experience, and that's my brother.]

So memory of experience is central to one's identity. Lose your memory, you lose your identity. 

When you die, does all your memory dissipate? If you are a materialist and assume that consciousness is local, located exclusively within your brain, then that's it. All gone at the moment of death, for ever.

Qualia experiences can be summoned (like the one described above). They can be triggered by sensory input (the smell of bacon frying, for example). Or they can come to you spontaneously, neither summoned nor triggered. You're doing something, focused on it, an suddenly a qualia memory pops into to your stream of consciousness. (Stream of consciousness as distinct from train of thought.) PAFF! There it is. With practice, you can learn to pin down exactly when and where you had that spontaneous, congruent subjective conscious experience, matching precisely what you felt back then. This sensation can be called déjà vu. I have been logging some of the ones I most frequently experience under the blog post headings Qualia memory compilations (here's a sample).

And now here's the most intriguing thing. All of my life, since early childhood, I have been getting such qualia memory flashbacks to experiences, feelings, from a time before my current biological life. They are less frequent fainter, nevertheless they feel just as real and meaningful as those from my childhood or adolescence. They feel similar, and inform me of a past America, from the 1930s to the 1950s. 

What do these anomalous qualia experiences feel like? Qualitatively, they feel exactly like memories of qualia experienced in my childhood, except they can't be traced back to my childhood; they are clearly extraneous to one's current-life experiences. Many I remember having had in childhood; they keep returning. These exomnesia events happen to me a few times a week; they are consistent, familiar and pleasant.

And as well as anomalous qualia memories (exomnesia or xenomnesia), there are also dreams, far less frequent. These I call the canonical past-life dreams. Unlike normal dreams, which are always an illogical, inconsistent, mish-mash of places, people and worries, these past-life are consistent in time and place and action, and strongly memorable. (Here a list of them.) They always refer to events rather than just being re-experienced subjective experiences, as the flashbacks are.

These phenomena, deeply personal, speak to me of a continuity of existence, though the mystery remains; metaphysically, are we all individuals, or are we all One? 

More (questions than answers) tomorrow.

Good luck has occurred.

{{ I woke up yesterday morning around 6am, with one word in my brain, rattling around like a loose nut in the boot of a car. 'Mozzle'. In my drowsy state, I attempted to not to lose this word by remembering it as a mix of the words 'muzzle' and 'nozzle' – successfully, as it turned out. As soon as I was up, I checked it on Google. "Mozzle (noun) (Australian English, informal) luck; fortune, word origin late 19th century: from Hebrew mazzāl ‘star or luck’." I did not know that. I did, however, know the Hebrew 'mazel tov', which translates as 'good luck' – a description, not a wish – an acknowledgement that good luck has occurred. Which I believe should be linked to gratitude. }}

Lent 2023: Day 35
Into the Afterlife (Pt III)

Lent 2022: Day 35
Altered states - caffeine and alcohol

Lent 2021: Day 35
The science of coincidence

Lent 2020: Day 35
Soul and Body

After death – what's next? (Pt I) Lent 2024, Day 34

Is there life after death? The term is tautological. Biological life ends with death – so that's the end of biological life. The right term for what we're searching for is survival of consciousness after death.

And here already we have the big split. Materialists believe that consciousness is merely a byproduct of biological evolution; an epiphenomenon of emergent complexity. Consciousness, they hold, resides only within the skulls of higher-order animals, upon this planet, the only one we currently know to host intelligent life. Panpsychists, however, believe that consciousness is the fundamental property of the Cosmos; without Big-C consciousness, there would be no universe for us to observe, no space, no time, no matter. The 'vacuum of space' is actually filled with consciousness.

If you are a materialist, for you nothing exists but matter, so I'd suggest there's little point in you reading further. For you, biological death equates with the snuffing out of conscious experience forever. An eternity of oblivion awaits. End of, get over it. YOLO.

If, however, you hold that consciousness is indeed fundamental, read on; there are several key questions worth pondering over as to the survival of your consciousness after biological death. 

The topic of near-death experience (NDE) and research into this phenomenon is fascinating and controversial. Reported experiences all share similar features – a life review, moving through a tunnel towards light, being met by loved ones who've already died, and a changed attitude to life and death following the experience. There is a growing body of scientific literature* into the phenomenon which suggests it cannot be ignored out of hand. 

Yet it's by no means universal; not everyone who's brought back from clinical death claims to have had an NDE. Various studies point to between 10% and 50% of resuscitated patients reporting one. And there's no clear evidence of a sheep-and-goat effect (NDEs are reported by materialists/atheists as well as religious believers). 

Debunkers have come up with numerous rational explanations for NDEs, but still the phenomenon remains. More and more quantitative research data from successive studies is building up. This is not just wishful thinking; advances in medical science means people can be resuscitated from ever-longer periods of heart or brain inactivity. And as more and more people are brought back from the brink, more reports of what some of them at least have experienced are being collected.

As with psi phenomena, the problem that science has is to do with the fact that NDEs just don't fit the established scientific model, and so a priori, they need to be dismissed or ignored. Science looks for mechanisms, vectors, forces; physical causes that lead to physical effects. Here, we have none of which science is currently aware of. We can but postulate – quantum effects in the brain? Yet these are said to be tens of trillion trillion times weaker than necessary to have any noticeable effect on cellular structures. 

But a panpsychist approach, accepting the existence of non-local consciousness, makes some sense here. NDEs can be seen as small-c consciousness merging into Big-C consciousness. Whilst this makes sense, it raises the question I posed earlier on in this year's Lenten series of blog posts, namely – does the individual identity fade away into the collective consciousness of the Cosmos? And if so – does this equate with oblivion – at least, oblivion of the Self?

More tomorrow. More questions than answers!

* Leading researchers in this field that are worth looking for on YouTube are Sam Parnia, Pim van Lommel and Bruce Greyson.

Lent 2023: Day 34
Into the Afterlife (Pt II)

Lent 2022: Day 34
A search for purpose

Lent 2021: Day 34
The Ecstasy of Wilko Johnson

Lent 2020; Day 34
What goes round, comes around

Time and Spirituality Pt III: Lent 2024, Day 33

In his book Real Magic, Dean Radin talks about the three forms of magic; clairvoyance (perceiving through space and time); force of will (impressing your will onto the world) and theurgy (communicating with spirits). In each form, one's consciousness has to reach out across time to make its mark.

My take: clairvoyance – be it remote viewing (across space) or precognition (across time) – is a real phenomenon. I'm prepared to accept its existence, though I believe that it occurs naturally in only the tiniest number of gifted people, and to a limited extent, though it's a talent that can be developed by exercise. Force of will – prayer, if you like – can work though only if it aligns with an overall Cosmic Purpose rather than with one's ego. Theurgy – I'm not sure on this one; my experience suggests that departed loved ones do visit you in dreams, which may hold significance if you listen.

I see, however, another form of magic (magic being physical effects without physical cause). This is one that's important in my daily life – the forestalling or preclusion of mishaps by being consciously aware of their possibility. (See this post for more details.) This is willing yourself good fortune, or willing yourself the avoidance of misfortune. 

Again, this means delving into the future, affecting future outcomes. Not wanting to fall ill, not wanting an accident, not wanting to lose your wallet, keys or phone, not becoming a victim of crime, not having something break down (means of transportation, for example); these are goals that can be achieved by conscious thought, reinforced by projection of your consciousness into the future. I do this by offering a silent prayer as I leave the house. And importantly, this is backed up by a prayer of gratitude for stuff not going wrong as I return home.

Even if all that such habits do is reinforce your careful and diligent behaviour, then they work. But I would posit that they work above and beyond the physical cause-and-physical effect level (I return home safe and sound, nothing's gone awry, nothing missing or broken, because I have taken conscious care to ensure that happens). They work because I have willed away misfortune.

The opposite is complacency; the notion that because it all worked out well yesterday and today, it will all work out well tomorrow. Complacency breeds unexpected mishaps – your consciousness was not scanning the horizon. Consciousness needs to be alert.

There are things people badly want in life; health, a decent job, a partner, children; subconscious desires which align with the unfolding universe. A bigger, newer, car doesn't. And when you want something badly enough, that want or need moves from the subconscious to the conscious. Would it spoil some vast, eternal plan if it were to come true? No? Does it align with the Cosmos? Yes? Then pluck it from the future, and it shall be.

Tomorrow: a short series of blog posts about life after death.

Lent 2023, Day 33
Into the Afterlife (Pt I) 

Lent 2022: Day 33
The Search for Understanding

Lent 2021: Day 33
Connecting with the Metaphysical

Lent 2020: Day 33
"On my planet there is no disease"

Time and Spirituality (Pt II): Lent 2024, Day 32

Yesterday I considered the notion of time flattened out across past and future, with the present being a passing illusion. With the notion of the block universe, a hypothesis that Einstein espoused, all is happening at once; spacetime being truly four-dimensional rather than three-dimensions in time. The block universe theory suggests all of spacetime exists as a single, unchanging block. Past, present, and future are all equally real, just with different perspectives depending on the observer. Einstein's theory of general relativity is compatible with the block universe, he came to acknowledge it as a likely consequence of his theories.

But we can posit something different. We can think about time as not being a straight arrow running along a single dimension from past into future, but maybe that arrow can be bent to run forward, but with an up/down vector, and with a left/right vector too. So three-dimensional time, though still in accord with the second law of thermodynamics, cannot run backwards. Entropy-driven, it can to run only from future to past. But if you bend that arrow far enough, and can be made to return to where it came from. The tighter you bend the arrow, the more recently in the past it can end up.

How many arrows of time are there? One, for literally everything, the entire Cosmos, every visible galaxy out there? Or one arrow of time for every particle in the entire Cosmos? And whether one timeline for the whole Cosmos or one timeline for every single particle, are those timelines bendable?

In A Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking identified three main arrows of time: thermodynamic: (related to increasing entropy/disorder), psychological – our own perception of time flowing forward (we remember the past but can't directly experience the future) and cosmological: time progresses as the universe gets bigger. 

Or is the hypothesis of time's arrow (bendable or not) unnecessary in a block universe in which past present and future are all flattened out, joined together eternally in a singularity of time?

The theological implications of a block universe would point to an omniscient Divinity, an alpha and an omega, existing at the beginning and end of time at the same time (and at all points in between). This would stand in opposition to an unfolding universe, patiently progressing from Zero to One, a universe of emergence and complexity co-existing with entropy and disorder, in which the Divinity would be a guiding purpose, a work in progress, not perfect, but steadily tending towards ultimate unity and understanding. 

A block universe would have implications for reincarnation too – living all lives simultaneously across all time at one go, so flashbacks or dreams would be openings-up to events being experienced in real time elsewhere in the continuum, rather than having any quality of having happened in the past.

How do precognition and retrocausality – if they indeed do empirically exist – operate? By bending the arrow of time this way or that, or back upon itself – or by becoming as one with the block universe and simply reaching out across time in the same way I reach across my desk for my mug?

Both are fascinating ideas. We have no more than a intimation that precognition and retrocausality are real phenomena. Even if proven across thousands of experiments that a tiny, though statistically significant, effect exists, scientists have no idea how these phenomena could possibly work, and so dismiss them as pseudoscience.

Seeking a theoretical framework, I would join those panpsychists who posit the work of consciousness – both the Big-C Consciousness, the prime-mover, the reason, the purpose, the direction of the Cosmos, but also small-c consciousness of individual biological entities, willing an outcome which aligns with the Big-C purpose.

Lent 2023, Day 32
The Practice of Gratitude

Lent 2022: Day 32
The Search for Perfection

Lent 2021: Day 32
Meditation

Lent 2020: Day 32
Divine Intervention

Time and Spirituality (Pt I): Lent 2024, Day 31

My thinking on the subject of time has progressed significantly since last Lent. I have grappled with the concept of the block universe, the notion that the past, present and future are occurring simultaneously. The corollary to this is that time is an illusion (and, to quote Douglas Adams, lunchtime doubly so). Physicist and philosopher Bernard Carr talks about the specious present – a present that's never really there, happening at Planck-time, so what we really have is the past and future separated by the shortest-possible sliver of 'nowness' that we're capable of experiencing.

That shortest sliver of can be described in terms of physics as the shortest possible unit of time, the Planck time (5.4 x 10^-44 seconds, the time it takes a photon to cover one Planck length, which is 1.6 x 10^-35 metres), or in biological terms, around a twentieth of a second (think of individual frames of a film perceived by our brains as moving pictures). So 'now' has come and gone; 'nows' continue to pass from future into past. There is, practically, no 'now'.

I wrote earlier this Lent about how the direction of time's arrow is said to be determined by entropy (leave an ice cube on a table at room temperature and it will melt; even if you freeze the room, you will never reconstitute the form of that ice cube). But at the same time that entropy is busy creating chaos, the Universe is creating complexity. The Universe could have been a uniform soup of evenly distributed hydrogen atoms – but isn't. Instead, it is galaxies, star systems, planets – and life. And before time – before the Universe was born – there was Consciousness (Big-C Consciousness, as opposed to the small-c consciousness that we individually experience). To Big-C Consciousness, time is irrelevant and meaningless. 

There can be no time without memory. 

And there can be no memory without small-c consciousness. 

And so, without consciousness, without a conscious observer to notice its passage, we cannot have time – we can only have a block universe, where all time is equally real, past, present and future, simultaneously. Spacetime without small-c consciousness shrinks from three dimensions modulated by the passage of time to four static dimensions.

The need for an observer to consciously experience the passage of time is like the conundrum about a tree falling in a forest with no one there to hear it – does it make a sound? The answer is, of course, no – because the experience of sound requires an ear to collect the vibrations of air, a brain to process the signals sent to it, and consciousness to be aware of this sound.

And so without conscious observers around to subjectively experience time, everything is happening simultaneously, from Big Bang to the heat death of the Universe and all points in between. This is how Big-C Consciousness, which I would take as the Divine, perceives the Cosmic Entirety.

Consider this – it takes eight minutes for a photon to travel from the Sun to you. And yet, from the perspective of the photon, travelling at the speed of light as it does, that journey is instantaneous. As is a journey of billions of light years from the most distant star we can observe. From the photon's point of view, there is no travel time; it is instantaneous. Neutrinos also travel at or about the speed of light; I have postulated that cosmic neutrino background (CNB, the universe's background particle radiation composed of relic neutrinos, may somehow act as a timeless carrier of Big-C consciousness. The CNB is a relic of the Big Bang; relic neutrinos separated from matter when the universe was around one second old. 

Here's how Big-C Consciousness, then, can perceive past, present and future, as one. Permeating through the Cosmos at light speed. (Tap in to Big-C Consciousness, and you too, feel the past and the future?)

And I have come to question the notion of an eternal afterlife lived in the blissful perfection of having achieved a teleological end-point. Instead of 'life everlasting', I have posited that at the precise moment of the final culmination of the journey from Zero to One – the Cosmos returns to its Zero state at Big Bang. And the cycle begins all over again.

But in a time-flat block universe, eternity is an instant, and that instant could last an eternity.

More tomorrow.

Lent 2023, Day 31
Science vs. the Paranormal

Lent 2022: Day 31
Consciousness - fundamental and universal?

Lent 2021: Day 31
I'm better than you - no really, I am!

Lent 2020: Day 31
Divine Inspiration

The Divine in your life: Lent 2024, Day 30

Prompted by a comment from AdtheLad, today I shall examine the Catholic concept of Grace from a metaphysical standpoint. Let's start by asking – what is grace?

The Catechism of the Catholic Church defines graces as "the free and undeserved help that God gives us to respond to his call to become children of God, adoptive sons, partakers of the divine nature and eternal life. Grace is a participation in the life of God."

If one accepts (whatever one calls God), a Divine presence or purpose or reason in the Cosmos, and accepts the Church definition metaphorically (without attributing possession of XY chromosomes to the Divinity), the notion of Grace takes on a great metaphysical significance.

Yes – a helpful God, helpful to those who are responsive (that is, those who do see themselves as spiritual beings), helpful to those embarked on the eternal journey of spiritual growth, seeking the Divine. 

I see being in a state of Grace as being plugged into the process of the unfolding of the Universe, ethically aligned with the eternal journey from Zero to One – the path that leads to ultimate fulfilment.

Catholic theology distinguishes two forms of Grace: sanctifying and actual. Sanctifying Grace is defined as the permanent gift which elevates the soul to a supernatural state, enabling it to participate in the life of God. Actual Grace is temporary and specific. An inspiration or a strengthening touch from God that empowers us to make good choices in particular moments. 

Again, I can buy into these two distinct forms of Grace; Sanctifying Grace serving as the catalyst that initially binds an individual consciousness into a unity with God as the Divine Purpose and prompts the search, the process of spiritual growth. And the Actual Grace, present in day-to-day life, that one can draw on. 'Quantum luck', if you may.

In Catholic theology, the Holy Spirit plays a crucial role in dispensing Grace. By cooperating with the prompts of the Holy Spirit through prayer as dialogue (with intuitions as the return channel), individuals can become more receptive to God's guiding hand. I'm in agreement with this too. Those moments of intuition, inspiration, and indeed guidance, are all extremely helpful in navigating the journey.

I feel that I am in receipt of the grace of God, and for that I am deeply grateful for it! I feel that I can tap into it at will, and that it can indeed affect physical, as well as metaphysical outcomes. Grace is the mechanism through which prayer works; however, petitioning the Lord with prayer must first align with Divine Purpose.

This has been a useful exercise in seeking commonality between how I see metaphysical phenomena and Catholic theology; Grace as a highest common factor, is a worthy bridge. Seeking such bridges across all faiths in an ecumenical reach-out is sorely needed by mankind.

My father asked rhetorically, several times, shortly before he died at the age of 96: "Why was I so lucky?" I think he knew the answer: God's Grace.

[Pop the word 'grace' into Google Translate, and it'll give the Polish as 'łaska'; but pop in 'łaska', and Google will give the English as 'mercy'. But then divine mercy it renders as miłosierdzie boże.]

Lent 2023, Day 30
God/No God

Lent 2022: Day 30
Let the Spirit guide you!

Lent 2021: Day 30
On being perceptive

Lent 2020: Day 30
Time - religion and metaphysics

Altruism and consciousness: Lent 2024, Day 29

Many years ago at a teenage disco at our local Polish centre, I was chatting up an attractive girl after dancing with her. I asked her what she considered to be the one most important quality she looked for in a boy. I was expecting something like 'determination', 'courage', 'intelligence', or 'energy'. Her reply surprised me. She said: "kindness".

As a teenage male, I was genuinely struck by that unexpected answer, and I have pondered upon it from time to time. There we were, innocently engaged in the ritual of finding a partner, and I receive what was in effect an answer of biological significance; here is a potential mother potentially looking for a mate who's able to empathise and behave altruistically.

Richard Dawkins is famous principally for two books; The Selfish Gene and The God Delusion. Central to the thinking of the British evolutionary biologist and notable atheist is the role of the gene in evolution. The idea he propounds is that replicating one's genes into the future is what matters most in the cold calculus of evolution. If there is altruism in the strict Dawkinsian sense, it is limited to helping carriers of your gene propagate it further. So being a caring, mentoring grandparent, then, or even or an uncle or aunt, fits the model. There are even studies that show that strangers with the same surname are extended more help than a randomly named person would get. 

A panpsychist approach, however, to altruism extends beyond the family, indeed – beyond the human species even. Consideration is shown to the ecosystem as a whole on the basis that it is conscious, we are part of the whole, that the ecosystem is essential to the survival of humanity and everything else on the planet. Including our genes!

Long-term thinking, whether selfish or altruistic, requires an ecosystem within which consciousness can continue to flourish hundreds, thousands, of generations into the future, evolving spiritually. Genes and biology and ego are linked. Consciousness stands above that, on the meta-level, as it were.

Altruism includes, but is not limited to, acts of charity or selfless help to our fellow (non-related) human beings. I see altruism in a broader sense as co-existence in harmony with animals, plants and insects. Removing a spider or two from my shower cubicle before I turn on the hot water. Warding off ants from my doorstep with used coffee grounds rather than ant-killer. (Ticks and gnats/mosquitos –Culex pipiens – are dealt with mercilessly, however.)

On the basis that we are all one or something, I feel an intense, personal responsibility for our environment, stewardship of the land.

Is altruism somehow linked to karma? Here I am stuck, calling for an intuition to steer me towards an answer. If we are to believe the concept that bad deeds bring on bad karma, does altruistic behaviour attract karmic reward? Here I am stepping into purest metaphysical space; for if there is no physical effect without a physical cause, as physicalist reductionists would say, the attribution of random happenings, misfortune or good fortune to one's behaviour is pure magical thinking.  

However, the well-disposed consciousness, benignly wandering through life without any sense of entitlement, receiving with simplicity everything that happens to it, wishing no harm to those of good will, does ultimately bring reward – hope, and meaning. 

Lent 2023, Day 29
Artificial Intelligence creates a religion

Lent 2022: Day 29
Meditations on travel

Lent 2021: Day 29
The ups and downs of life

Lent 2020: Day 29
Prophetic

Spirituality, the Ego and the Environment: Lent 2024, Day 28

Looking back over this blog, the topic of human spirituality is becoming ever-more important to me. This is my 33rd Lent, in the meaning of a conscious effort to change my habits over a continuous 46-day period. My first Lents, back in the early 1990s, were little more than exercises in abstinence – giving up alcohol, meat, confectionary, salt snacks and fast food for the duration. Indeed, it was only in 2011 that I started labelling blog posts about Lent with the tag 'human spirituality'! 

Age, acquired knowledge, wisdom and an increased sense of physical mortality prompts an ever-deeper philosophical investigation.

Several threads come together to inform my spirituality and philosophy, including psychology, cosmology, physics and metaphysics, all of which I've touched on. The environment is another thread that I want to discuss today. 

I am concerned by climate change and that concern has led to significant changes in my lifestyle, behaviour and outlook. 

I have come to see materialism (both in the sense of physicalism = belief that there's no more to reality than physical matter, and in the sense of materialism = a way of life focused on consumption) as the path to perdition. For the individual consciousness, for humanity and for our planet. Materialism rids us of hope and replaces it with a vacuous contest to see who can acquire more toys before they die.

Talking to friends and colleagues, I appreciate that most people do understand that the climate is changing, that human activity is foremost in driving that change – and yet they are not showing any willingness to adapt their behaviour accordingly, to help to mitigate the effects. Holiday plans still mean jetting off to exotic destinations! A new car is a must! There's a million and one household gadgets we absolutely need! The acquisition of more and more things, leading to stuffocation. A materialist treadmill from which there is no escape, driven by the ego's desire to be admired. To be socially respected, to be appreciated as top dog in the status hierarchy.

The ego is needed up to a point; it drives you along, but only up to that point when you realise you have achieved material comfort and no longer need to chase the next dollar, thousand or million. But so few people can do that.

Surrounded by the człowiek, który się nie zastanawia, the person that contemplates not, I worry about our fate as a species. 

Surging on in life without pausing to check the map. Where are you going to? What's your aim?  What's your purpose? How does the way you live your life affect other humans, and the animals and plants with which you share your environment? What do you want to achieve and what mark do you ultimately wish to leave on the Earth?

Out unthinking consumption creates a powerful demand, a vacuum that extracts raw materials from the earth, and burns fossil fuels to power their processing into the goods that we crave to own. This has been going on for two and half centuries, and over the past half century the greenhouse gas emissions that our consumption creates has escaped our control.

How much of what we buy – including food – do we waste? How much of the money that we earn by working so hard do we spend on what we waste? A life in which we consume less and waste less creates a profoundly virtuous circle; less money worries, less need to work so hard/so long, more time to realise one's potential – and that's what really counts in life.

If we, the two billion people of the rich world, dialled back our consumption, we could quickly reduce the greenhouse-gas emissions that are threatening the stability of the ecosystem on which we depend. In the meanwhile, I'm watching the world around me consume its way to climate catastrophe.

We all really need to re-think our lives and consider the future. I really like Canadian artist Sarah Lazarovic's Buyerarchy of Needs. Scale down, good people, now. For your descendants' sakes. 

Lent 2023, Day 28

Can the future affect our past?

Lent 2022: Day 28
Understanding the Infinite and the Eternal

Lent 2021: Day 28
Higher life forms, imagined

Lent 2020: Day 28
The Secret and the Hidden