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APPENDIX Z4:
Where is Option B?
Summa proposes a unified metaphysics....
call it Option A
But, where is the competing Option B?
Obviously, we have questions with regards Option A.
But, with Option A, we do seem to have an elegant, overarching, seemingly seamless, powerful, crisp metaphysics which seems to elegantly finesse an almost endless series of issues – cosmology, cosmogony, theodicy, theology, evolutionary biology, teleology – and on and on....
Option A happens to nicely dovetail as well with components of the Torah and with key components of Lurianic Kabbalah – aside from being universalistic and humanistic and empowering – to all.
So, therefore the next obvious step might be to stack our Option A against Option B.
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But, what is Option B? And, where is Option B?
Which is the salient – contender, challenger, old champion?
You might say that there are 100+ contenders?
And that they are too numerous to count?
OK, but which is the salient contender?
No salient contender?
That is the point.
While Summa makes numerous assertions, they all dovetail nicely into the Potential framework – its unifying ‘spinal column’ – and the overall construct is philosophically elegant.
It is not clear which other metaphysics challenges it.
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APPENDIX Z5:
Cosmic Nesting (Iterativeness)
Q4P∞
– is hypothesized in Summa Metaphysica to exist and to nest:
Q4P ( Q4P ( Q4P
(In formal mathematical terms:
infinite self-similar progression-regression
is suggested)
Mandelbrot Fractiles nest:
The geometry of [Mandelbrot set] fractiles
[developed by Polish/French/American Jewish émigré mathematician Benoit Bernard Mandelbrot heavily c. 1970-1982 during his thirty-five year (1958-1993) tenure at IBM]
deals with the creation of ever-repeating,
“self-similar patterns” nested within each other.
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Nature nests:
the pattern on twigs on a branch resembles
the pattern of limbs branching off the trunk
the pattern of a major river looks like the pattern of its smaller tributaries
the fractile pattern of the bronchus of the human lung, keeps repeating in the smaller and smaller bronchioles
Natural water frost crystal growth shows fractile branching
Generations nest:
Son of the son of the son of the son, etc....
Consciousness, Anger, Love and Sexual Arousal
(among other dynamics)
all possibly have nesting dimensions
meaning, layer upon nuanced-layer ratchets-up the particular dynamic.
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APPENDIX Z6:
Modern Evolutionary Synthesis*a
The modern evolutionary synthesis is a union of ideas from several biological specialties which provides a widely accepted account of evolution. It is also referred to as the new synthesis, the modern synthesis, the evolutionary synthesis, millennium synthesis and the neo-darwinian synthesis.
Some key points are –
• Evolution is gradual: small genetic changes regulated
by natural selection accumulate over long periods.
• Natural selection*b is by far the main mechanism of
change; even slight advantages are important when
continued.
*a Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_evolutionary_synthesis
(accessed February 6, 2012)
*b No scientific community consensus as of May 2012 as regards the precise modality
of selection
from the author -
What is the actual modality of Natural Selection?
Is it perhaps Quest for Potential∞ continuously super-selecting from a plethora of mutations served-up by nature ongoing over the millennia?
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APPENDIX Z7:
Anima mundi*
The world soul (Greek: ψυχή κόσμου, Latin: Anima mundi) has been a component of several systems of thought. Its proponents claim that it permeates the cosmos and animates all matter, just as the soul animates the human body. The idea originated with Plato and was an important component of most Neoplatonic systems:
Therefore, we may consequently state that: this world is indeed a living being endowed with a soul and intelligence... a single visible living entity containing all other living entities, which by their nature are all related.[1]
The Stoics believed it to be the only vital force in the universe. It also features in systems of eastern philosophy in the Brahman-Atman of Hinduism, and in the School of Yin-Yang, Taoism, and Neo-Confucianism as qi.
1 Plato, Timaeus, 29/30; 4th century BCE
*Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anima_mundi (accessed February 1, 2011)
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APPENDIX Z8:
The Soul of the Universe
One can hypothesize that –
the soul of a child has a 1:1 correspondence
with the soul of the universe
As a child’s spirit bursts with love and potential and hope,
so does the spirit of the universe.
As a child embodies all of our cumulative aspirations and hopes, so does the universe encompass all of our aspirations and hopes.
And as a child is but one (nested) link in the ever-morphing and advancing interlinked chain of Quest for Potential, so does a snapshot of the universe at any moment in time, represent but one (nested) link....
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APPENDIX Z9:
Potential/Possibility
Perhaps, our particular universe came into being because it was the most extraordinary potential POSSIBLE universe – and the cosmos optimizes.
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APPENDIX Z10:
“The Free Lunch?”
The estimable physicist/cosmologist Stephen Hawking posits*a that “there is no God.” His (alleged) truism is that “there is, indeed, a free lunch.” What Hawking means and articulates is that the entire universe more-or-less spontaneously popped out of nothingness.
Hawking’s reasoning, as he explicitly articulates it, is that –
(A) since when one factors-in newly-hypothesized dark energy*b (c.1998), positive and negative energy mathematically balances-out the universe, then
(B) one can (allegedly) consequently conclude that there is no God (necessary for Creation).
However, the Hawking logic is fatally flawed, as is more or less obvious.
For (A) can be true, without (B) being true.
Meaning, (B) does not necessarily flow from (A).
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Summa Metaphysica (first volume 1988) along with many predecessor metaphysics formulations, some pre-dating it by thousands of years, hypothesizes*c a net-zero-balanced universe.d Some, if not the overwhelming majority, of these “net-zero” metaphysics, along with Summa Metaphysica, embrace a transcendent force and/or a Divine in the creation equation. Even if we are cumulatively hypothesized as being integral to the Divine, as per Summa.
With due respect to Hawking, not even a rock, let alone a universe, spontaneously pops-out of nothingness.
Respectfully, giggling five years old girls frolicking at the seashore on a balmy June day, tip-toeing through the foamy surf where ocean wavelets lap onto the beach, did not simply pop out of nothingness.
Respectfully.
***
*a Summer 2011, see Hawking interview/feature on Wormhole Series on the Science Channel. See his inter-related book The Grand Design by Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinow, Bantam Books, a division of Random House, NY 2010
*b a hypothesis which started emerging in the contemporary scientific community in the past 40 years, but mainly started gaining traction since ~1998, when scientist Michael Turner (University of Chicago) coined the term.
*c see Summa Metaphysica: Volume I: God & Evil 1988: Unified Formulation
*d i.e. positive and negative energy balance-out the universe
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APPENDIX Z11:
Birnbaumian Panentheism
Quest for Potential∞ is at the core of the Infinite Divine.
The Infinite Divine is synonymous with the unfolding cosmic order.
Panentheism in Judaism*
“While mainstream Rabbinic Judaism is classically monotheistic and follows in the footsteps of the Aristotelian theologian Maimonides, the panentheistic conception of God can be found in certain Jewish mystical currents. A leading scholar of the Kabbalah, Moshe Idel (“Hasidism: Between Ecstacy and Magic,” SUNY, 1995, pp. 17–18), ascribes this doctrine to the kabbalistic system of Rabbi Moses Cordovero (1522–1570) and in the eighteenth century, Rabbi Israel ben Eliezer, the Baal Shem Tov, founder of the Hasidic movement, as well as his contemporary, Rabbi Menahem Mendel, the Maggid of Bar. There is some debate as to whether Lurianic Kabbalah, with its doctrine of tzimtzum, can be regarded as panentheistic. According to Hasidism, the Infinite Ein
Sof is incorporeal (has no body) and is both transcendent and immanent….”
*Wikipedia online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism#Panentheism_in_Judaism (accessed September 20, 2011)
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APPENDIX Z12:
Cosmic Level: Individual Level
Current scientific guestimates
figure 100 billion+
galaxies in the observable universe
and
then, the same number, a 100 billion
stars in the Milky Way Galaxy
and then, a third layer –
the same 100 billion
( 1011 )
neurons in the human brain
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Now,
the 100 billion neurons in the brain
in turn yield 100 trillion ( 1014 ) synapses
which generate thought, creativity, emotion etc.
Thus,
the cosmos ( Q4P∞ ) presumably calculates that
100 billion (or thereabouts)
is the efficient
CRITICAL MASS number
to seek/pursue/extend/force-multiply
Q4P∞/EXTRAORDINARIATION !
on multiple levels
cosmic > individual
as it thunders-on towards Infinitude....
and Extraordinariaton.
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APPENDIX Z13:
Major Problems in Science
[Selected Quotes from
ON BEING*a
by Dr. Peter Atkins*b]
“The first great question of being is one that has probably entertained us all at one time or another: where did it, the universe, all come from? How did it begin?...” (p. 1)
“There are, in fact, three related profound questions to address in the context of creation. One is the mechanism of the coming into being of the universe: what actually happened at the beginning? Another is whether there is any meaning to the question of what preceded the universe and had, in some sense, the potential to become a universe. Here we are confronted by the linguistically and conceptually engaging question of whether absolutely nothing can have potency to become something. The third is whether an agent was needed to trigger the process of cosmogenesis, the process of turning that nothing into what is to all appearances something, or can nothing turn itself into something on its own? All three questions sound as though they might fall within the
range of science to answer. A fourth question, why there is a universe, is rather different, but still apparently very interesting….” (p. 2)
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“As a result of their intrinsic caution, almost every scientist is wisely unwilling to express a view about the events accompanying the inception of the universe. Quite honestly, they haven’t a clue….” (p. 5)
“The task before science in this connection will be to show how something can come from nothing without intervention. No one has the slightest idea whether that can happen and, if so, how it can come about….” (p. 11)
“The unfolding of absolutely nothing—what out of reverence for the absence of anything, including empty space, we are calling Nothing—into something is a problem of the profoundest difficulty and currently far beyond the reach of science. It is, however, a target at which science must aim even though to some, even to scientists of a pessimistic or perhaps just realistic bent, it would seem to be for ever out of science’s reach….” (p. 12)
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“Presumably before the creation, when there was Nothing, there was no charge; so the coming into being of the universe was accompanied by the separation of ‘no charge’ into opposites. Charge was not created at the creation: electrical Nothing separated into equal and opposite charges….” (pp. 13-14)
“I promised to return to the question of why there is a universe. What is its purpose? Something so big, complex, and all embracing some hold, must be there for a reason….” (p. 18)
“…science is a ceaseless probing with a view to overturning authority….science, though delighted by the glorious complexity of the world, seeks the simplicity that lies beneath it….science is extraordinarily difficult, as it seeks covert mechanism….science is ever thrusting forward, wriggling into new modes of understanding,…science gives an opportunity for humanity to achieve the aspirations it already has and opens its eyes to new ones….” (pp. 26-27)
“A scientist, the arch-descendent of Occam, looks first for the simplest explanation, then builds elaborations only if the explanation’s barren, rocky simplicity proves inadequate….” (p. 33)
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“One problem with evolution is how it began. Competition between primitive organisms is all very well, the triumph of one message over another, but how did matter step across the national bridge from the inorganic to the organic in the first place? ...It would be much more satisfying—satisfying of curiosity, intellectually satisfying, and possibly spiritually satisfying—if we could find a physical process by which that gap was bridged, presumably without the apparent intervention of an agent….” (pp. 38-39)
“…Scientists are still puzzled about how this complexity [of life] emerged under the impact, presumably, of natural selection, and it remains a problem of evolution. That is not to say that there are not many ideas about how it came about. Just as for the origin of life itself, which is still a real puzzle, evolutionary biologists are not without ideas, but have not yet identified which, if any, is valid….” (pp. 60-61)
*a Peter Atkins, On Being (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2011), pp.1, 2, 5, 11, 12, 13, 14, 18, 26, 27, 33, 38, 39, 60, 61,
*b Scientist Peter Atkins is the author of almost 70 books, including Galileo’s Finger: The Ten Great Ideas of Science, Four Laws That Drive the Universe, and the world-renowned textbook Physical Chemistry. A Fellow of Lincoln College, University of Oxford, he has been a visiting professor in France, Israel, New Zealand, and China, and continues to lecture widely throughout the world.
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APPENDIX Z14:
“Nothing”
It would be incorrect, of course, to imply or infer that Summa maintains that NOTHING preceded all. That position, respectfully, would, by definition, be a metaphysical ‘dead end.’
The ‘starting point’ of the cosmos is not NOTHING.
Rather, Summa proposes that ‘Possibility’ was/is eternal. And ‘Possibility’ is clearly a far more complex and a far richer concept than ‘Nothing.’
While, one can posit that by definition ‘Possibility’ is eternal, one can also posit that by definition ‘Nothing’ is just that – nothing. And no entity or agent or force can turn nothing into something. By definition.
Now, ‘Possibility’ may, indeed have dimensions/facets of which we are either unaware, or cannot fully grasp.
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‘Possibility/Potential’ in turn, may have had the ability to
traverse – or impel the traversing – from the metaphysical to reality as we know it.
‘Possibility/Potential’ may have had the power, ultimately, to divide ‘0’* ( hypothesized core “zero-point/integer” )
into positives and negatives, as discussed in the text. And, herein, in my estimation, is most probably the crux of the genesis of our little universe.
“Cosmologists sometimes claim that the universe can arise ‘from nothing.’ But this is loose language. Even if shrunk to a point or a quantum state, our universe is latent with particles and forces: it has far more content and structure than what a philosopher calls ‘nothing.’” (Martin Rees, Our Cosmic Habitat, p. 142)
*technical note:
maybe we should treat the Hebrew word ayin as “0”
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APPENDIX Z15:
Gnosticism
(selected WIKI excerpts)*
“Gnosticism (from gnostikos, “learned”, from Greek: γνῶσις gnōsis, knowledge) is a modern scholarly term for a set of religious beliefs and spiritual practices found among some of the early Christian sects called “gnostic” (“learned”) by Irenaeus and other early Christian heresiologists. The term also has reference to parallels and possible pre-Christian influences of the Christian gnostics.
Gnosticism was primarily defined in Christian context, or as ‘the acute Hellenization of Christianity’ per Adolf von Harnack (1885), until Moritz Friedländer (1898) advocated Hellenistic Jewish origins, and Wilhelm Bousset (1907) advocated Persian origins….”
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Common characteristics
“….The Christian sects first called “gnostic” a branch of Christianity, however Joseph Jacobs and Ludwig Blau (Jewish Encyclopedia, 1911) note that much of the terminology employed is Jewish and note that this “proves at least that the principal elements of gnosticism were derived from Jewish speculation,….”
Monad (apophatic theology)
“In many Gnostic systems (and heresiologies), God is known as the Monad, the One, The Absolute, Aion teleos (The Perfect Æon), Bythos (Depth or Profundity, Βυθος), Proarkhe (Before the Beginning, προαρχη), and E Arkhe (The Beginning, η αρχη). God is the high source of the pleroma, the region of light. The various emanations of God are called æons.
Within certain variations of Gnosticism, especially those inspired by Monoimus, the Monad was the highest God which created lesser gods, or elements (similar to æons).
According to Hippolytus, this view was inspired by the Pythagoreans, who called the first thing that came into existence the Monad, which begat the dyad, which begat the numbers, which begat the point, begetting lines, etc….”
*Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnosticism (accessesd February 26, 2012)
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APPENDIX Z16:
Atheist v. Potentialist
Atkins* v. Birnbaum
consonant with Summa:
“simplicity”
“...The only clue we have at the outset is that the final answer will almost certainly be one of extreme simplicity, for only the perfectly simple can come into existence....what we perceive of as complexity may be the outcome of chains of simplicity.” (p. 7)*a
“...Somehow matter must have been created out of something resembling nothing....” (p. 11)*a
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Intersecting with Summa:
“Mega-organism”
“…our own nominally civilized, cultivated, intelligent, and reflective level of life emerged when organisms stumbled on a way of passing on intricate, unpredictable information to others around them and following them. It did so by inventing language and effectively binding together all human organisms, past, present, and future into a single mega-organism of potentially boundlesss achievement.” (p.33)*b
polar opposite to Summa:
“collapse into chaos”
“Aspirations... feed on (purposeless) decay”
“....All change, I shall argue, arises from an underlying collapse into chaos. We shall see that what may appear to us to be motive and purpose, is in fact ultimately motiveless, purposeless decay. Aspirations and their achievement, feed on [purposeless] decay.” (p. 21)*a
*a Peter Atkins, Creation Revisited, The Origin of Space, Time and the Universe
(London, England: Penguin Books, 1992)
*b Peter Atkins, Galileo’s Finger, The Ten Great Ideas of Sciences, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 2003)
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APPENDIX Z17:
Particle Physics and Q4P
∞
Interacting with a layer of Q4P∞?
Higgs mechanism*
“In particle physics, the Higgs mechanism is the process that gives mass to elementary particles. The particles gain mass by interacting with the Higgs field that permeates all space….”
*Wikipedia Online, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Higgs_mechanism (accessed March 5, 2012)
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APPENDIX Z18:
A Fix-It “Conceptual Plug”?
The Summa series started out with God and Evil (1988). In that work it was demonstrated how Q4P∞ potentially might not just solve the classic philosophical-religious conundrum of Theodicy, but would seem to simultaneously solve as well several other key philosophical issues in metaphysics.
As pointed-out in this volume, God and Good, many/most/all major fields – not just Metaphysics – would seem to have gaping holes in them. The appendix relating to noted scientist Atkins, for instance, highlights via excerpts from his works – gaping holes in the physical sciences.
This ‘gaping-hole’ issue ranges through Astrophysics, Biology, Anthropology, Philosophy, Theology, Cosmology, Life Sciences and on-and-on.
The key fields – and probably all related fields – have major gaps.
Now, adroitly plugging Q4P∞/Extraordinariation into the respective gaps, seems to potentially close-the-gaps.
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(Is that the world’s most grandiose assertion or what?)
Thus, we have an intriguing potential
simultaneous solution on a very grand scale.
Are we catching your attention yet?
Several examples:
Evolutionary Biology: What drives Evolution?
Physiology: What drives Consciousness?
Astrophysics: What ignited/drove the Big Bang,
in particular?
Cosmology: What ignited creation and maintains the Cosmos more generally?
Metaphysics: What is the purpose of Man, the cosmos?
Astronomy: Why is the cosmic order so wondrous?
Life Sciences: What drives Life? What is Life?
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What makes Life so tenacious?
Anthropology: what drives the ‘Ascent of Man’?
Love Science: What drives Love?
and, of course, our initial inquiry into the Theodicy question-
Religious Philosophy: Theodicy question - If there is a God who is all-powerful and merciful, why is there gross evil?
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APPENDIX Z19:
The Data
Comporting to the data v. Data proving the hypothesis
Metaphysicians doing metaphysics seek an all-embracing hypothesis, at-a-minimum comporting to the data. Metaphysicians seek ‘aesthetic elegance.’
Physicists doing physics want testability. They want data proving the hypothesis. To them, a successful experiment is by definition elegant. To them, Grand Theory metaphysics is not Center Stage – as by definition it cannot be proven.
Now, Summa poses an intriguing issue for physics.
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Because, on the one hand, (infinite) Summa cannot necessarily be proven in the classic sense, which physics would prefer. Eve though it is always hard to prove the infinite and/or timeless.
But, on the other hand,
(a) Summa fills-in crucial and key gaps in physics
and
(b) No data or knowledge accumulated in the past 5,000+ years at all contradicts Summa.
No other metaphysics can make these claims.
Thus, the fully synchronous data underpins Summa, while Summa underpins physics and astrophysics et al.
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APPENDIX Z20:
Take #2: Where Is The Competing Metaphysics?
*
The Bard Symposium ‘take’
The three basic groups of academics represented at the April 2012 international academic conference at Bard College (NY) on Summa Metaphysica were:
A) Religious philosophers
B) Secular Philosophers/Metaphysicians
C) Scientists
Conference co-Chair Gary Hagberg** posed the (above-noted) question, (see title above) to the assemblage of academics:
answers
(A)
Group A academics leaned-towards the proposition that each of their respective religions could potentially embrace Summa as an elegant dovetailing add-on to their respective belief systems.