A Reason for God and Universe

11/27/2020

PREFACE:

Have you ever stopped to think about what is important to people? There is probably a good chance that people are preoccupied with their daily lives – family issues, work, money, things they either need or want to buy, etc. When we watch the news someone else is trying to decide for us what should be important in our lives. The news is no longer news either. Someone else is constantly commenting on events and they are trying to tell us what we should think about those events. The sad truth is that when we get inundated with information, we tend to tune it out and get numb to events. The more events are promoted the more we tune out.

Look at the problem like driving behind a truck on the highway. We can not see what is going on ahead of the truck. The faster we drive, the less time we have to react to potential accidents. Too often people try to get our attention to promote their agenda. They will repeat their dogma over and over again like a huge truck blocking our view of what is coming. We are subsequently deluded into believing that all is right with the world as long as we believe what we are told. The only way to avoid this situation is to recognize the problem and deliberately pull away from the (symbolic) truck so we have better visibility of our road ahead.

I am going to attempt to do something very difficult with this article – try to convince you that we need to think fundamentally different than we do today – look down the road, way past all the traffic, to where we are going and why we are going there. We all appreciate its difficult enough to drive in heavy traffic (like surviving in our daily lives). We have to pay attention to the immediate road ahead, similarly, we have to feed, house and care for our families. However, if there is an big accident waiting to happen, the sooner we respond to that danger, the better.

The accident that awaits us is a perfect storm of population growth, unstable nuclear weaponized regimes, devastation of the environment and growing terrorism. At a time where we need to work together as a species instead we choice to focus on short term petty issues. I see this situation through a different prism than most people. The human brain has the capacity to do so much more but at the same time we get overwhelmed with the issues that surround us. As a defense mechanism we either ignore the obvious or prioritize what is important to us as individuals. Regardless of our method, the end result we experience is a significant reduction of issues by which we spend our time thinking about and fewer yet acting upon. Given this reality we use a basic belief system to filter our interpretation of events and our response to these events.

The fact that we have not been able to better solve major issues suggests a very fundamental problem in us as a species. My prism of understanding sees this as a flaw in the basic belief system we use to filter and prioritize important issues. Our religious beliefs are a major part of that basic belief system, “core values” or our principles. These terms are used synonymously for this discussion. Science plays another major role. We place a degree of faith in science to explain the world around us. Then we either fill in the gaps with religion or believe science will eventually provide the answers we seek. The “degree of faith” is the relative amount we trust religion vs. science to provide answers about how the world works and how we should interact with it.

Maybe you do not see the “accident” as significantly as I do. However, maybe we can, at least, share an optimism that we have a huge unlocked potential as a species to accomplish much more than we have thus far and solve almost any problem that confronts us in the future. What is standing in our way? The real issue is that we are using a weak belief system that is a major obstacle to our progress and may even hasten our demise as a species. In order to make the case for a new belief system – some terms need to be redefined. This is where we start. I hope you will keep an open mind and see the connections between it all. Thank you for willingness to take this journey with me.

WHAT IS THE UNIVERSE?

Most people would describe the universe in terms of its observable physical properties. If we just consider what that really means, there are multiple aspects to our understanding of the physical universe. Matter in all its forms is one dimension. Within matter there are subsets of that are solids, liquids and gases. Within those are many pseudo forms – plasma, crystals, organic, inorganic, living, magnetic, conductive, etc. Another dimension is energy. Energy has various forms/aspects as well – light, electricity, magnetism, gravity, x-rays, colors, brain waves, chemical interactions, force, etc. These are the most common notions of the universe. We can deduce one thing from what we know so far – our understanding of the universe has grown over time and is likely to continue growing as long as we exist. Further we can also deduce that our understanding of how things work within the universe is always imperfect. However, we would like to believe our understanding is continually improving.

The creation and use of technology convinces us that our understanding is accurate. We are able to use our understanding of materials and energy to create things that work. Is there any doubt that a cell phone works? When we think about all the things we had to learn to create a working cell phone it is truly mind boggling. From our experiences in creating marvelous new technologies we can be confident that we have a good understanding of some things. At times we are standing on the shoulders of people that gained an understanding of some fundamental relationships that allowed us to develop new inventions. We then combined technologies to create even more elaborate inventions, such as the smart cell phone. This illustrates an evolution in our understanding.

The physical universe is also defined by its relationships, Laws of Nature. One of the famous relationships was proposed by Einstein, where he postulated with his equation, e=mc², a relationship between energy and matter. Many times people can propose an idea but those ideas are mere theories until they are proven and the results can be reliably verified many times. There does not even have to be a full understanding of why things act the way they do, as long as the reactions are predictable and consistent. The Laws of Nature are fundamental principles that describe how things are expected to act. No matter where you are, these Laws should always act the same way, provided there are no other influences involved. Mathematics and formulas help us describe the relationships within the Laws of Nature.

Consciousness is another dimension to the universe. The questions surrounding consciousness are its properties. Is it collected, distributed, transferable; what is its scope, range and capacity; does it survive death? However, we can describe consciousness in terms of data, information, knowledge and even wisdom. But, we know that there is more to consciousness than even these terms. Computers duplicate and improve over time in how the most elemental pieces of data can be put together to derive higher forms of prediction. Once a computer is given the formulas and data they act consistently and repetitively to predict a result, an outcome. However, our consciousness perceives a desire to learn more; understand obscure relationships, determine additional formulas, the need for different kinds of data; a need to understand “self”, our environment and we have a drive to continue creating. Those desires do not currently exist in computers.

Animals and insects, other living things have some consciousness. We know they have a will to survive; they care for their young; they understand what it takes to perpetuate their species. We observe that animals even form bonds with other species. Oddly we form bonds with inanimate objects – jewelry, clothes, cars, guns and works of art. Consciousness can also be described by our emotions. Again, other animals exhibit emotions as well.

Consciousness questions – why, when, how, where we communicate. Our consciousness is defined in terms of our ability to communicate and process information. Consider our senses. These are receptors for gathering information about the outside world. Our brains subsequently process this information. Then the brain converts some of the information to transmit actions. The actions may mean muscle movements, talking and chemical reactions within the body. But remember other species have a different set of senses, process information differently than us and have other uniques ways of expressing responses. Birds can fly. Whales can communicate over hundreds of miles under water. Bats have radar which detects and transmits signals for judging location and distance. Their perception of the world may be vastly different than ours. However, none the less, all living things have a consciousness about the world around them and their place in it. We can argue about the degree of that consciousness. But this is not important to the discussion here.

Humans may have some unique properties to our consciousness. Our consciousness questions – the reason why we exist, where do we come from; what can we create; what are the limits of what we can learn? Why do we create things that go beyond tools and housing that are necessary for survival? The primary take away should be – consciousness is distributed amongst all living things. Our ability to expand and grow our consciousness is only limited by our ability to communicate, in the very broad sense, with all other forms of life, as well as our observations. Regardless of our advances as a species we seem to have a long ways to go in understanding consciousness.

The idea of a deity(s) may be another dimension to consciousness or a completely different dimension to the universe. It is hard to categorize a deity. What do we know? Whether we individually accept the idea of a greater deity or not, it is irrefutable that a significant portion of the world’s population believes there is deity. Since it is very difficult to assess the true nature of a deity, I will limit the discussion about our relationship to the deity as much as possible. Traditional religions go to great extremes dictating what we should believe and how to act, in the name of god. They postulate a very strong decisive relationship. All that needs to be said for our discussion here is that I believe our consciousness includes a belief in a greater deity. That would be the first Law of Faith. As I will describe in greater detail later, the Laws of Faith are necessary to bring Order from Chaos. There is consistency between what we observe and understanding about our nature and limits. I do not see consistency in the belief of an interventionist god. Each principle discussed are bricks in the foundation of our symbolic house. In the end it will be the consistency between the principles that will determine the strength of the foundation and ultimately the strength of entire house (survival of our species).

Belief in an interventionist god may be the single most dangerous notion that our species has had, leading us to over extrapolate the nature and meaning of god as a deity. I ask you to open your mind to the possibility that this one notion is an extremely dangerous and erroneous concept. It is so fundamental to our thinking, its like a cornerstone to the foundation of our conceptual house. Therefore, it is worthwhile to argue the point of intervention. A creator can “choose” to destroy something that they have created for whatever reason. Its a fair point. That in itself is intervention. We would have no way of knowing or observing when that decision was taken by a deity. Humans have certainly tried to support their arguments for their form of religion in this way. But this is a weak argument, a slippery slope, to say it is God’s Will to justify destruction. Believing in the sanctity of life is synonymous with believing in Order. Justifying destruction of life is promoting Chaos.

But stop! We routinely destroy things to make way for newer things. Old houses are cleared to make way for an apartment building. We destroy older phones to make way for more advanced phones. Even planetary formation occurs from the destruction of meteors and comets. Therefore we can understand the concept that destruction can bring forth new innovations. Something new is created from the destruction of something old. That is also evolution and Survival of the Fittest. 

This can happen in two ways: One way is a conscious plan where the destruction, rebuilding and goal is considered as part of the same plan. The other way is indiscriminate act of destruction with no plan, Chaos in its purest form. It would be fair to argue that the second way has no value. In the first way there is another proviso, the plan has to be a good plan with a admirable goal. An extreme example would be destroying all the bows and arrows to make room for guns and bullets, with a goal of creating more efficient killing weapons. Any goal that potentially threatened the survivability of our species or the destruction of the the environment, is necessarily a bad goal.

If we extrapolate from the idea that “a deity destroys as well as creates” implies that the deity is intervening then it pre-supposes we understand the goal of that deity. How arrogant! We should never justify our actions of destruction in the name of interventionist deity. Can you imagine an ant trying to understand our goals? The gap between us and such a deity would be even far greater than an ant to us. Therefore if I can not know the deity’s goals then we can not possibly know what the deity wants to create nor when the deity destroys. The only worthwhile question is what concepts will help us survive as a species and live up to our greatest potential.

Thus far certain necessary concepts have been redefined. Hopefully, you recognize that we are justifying the need for a new fundamental understanding of our relationship in the universe and that we are laying the ground work for developing a new foundation for thinking about how we act and our goals in life.

“Why Does the Universe Exist?”

– was the topic of Tim Holt in a TED Talks. He aptly framed the topic. This motivated me to share additional ideas with you. At the end of the day, this is much more than some esoteric question. It needs to be resolved for us as a species to have meaning. We fundamentally have a choice to mark our existence as a rich noble event or one that falls into the category of being as meaningful as a rock. If there is no meaning to our existence then there is no reason for us to continue our existence or for our existence at all.

The framing that Tim Holt presented was between “Nothing” and a rich meaningful set of Ordered Laws to define the Universe. I don’t want to paraphrase his discussion. Rather, I encourage you to watch it for yourself. For my purpose here, his framing was one dimension to the question about the universe. Think of it like building a house. His description is literally the frame of the house. However, the house needs a foundation, a roof, siding and furnishings to be complete. For argument sake, the discussion herein might best be thought of as the foundation of the house.

The point of this article is to offer a set of principles (a framework) by which all humans, individually and collectively, can improve their lives. These principles are connected to our understanding of the universe as other dimensions. Conversely, it appears that the principles commonly used today to frame our core beliefs might very well lead to our ultimate destruction. The Human species is on a course of destroying the very things that allow us to survive. If we destroy our environment then we destroy ourselves. Why would we act this way? This article illustrates how we act against our own self interest. I hope to refocus that activity towards a more positive rewarding direction.

I believe there is an alternate path, a new path by which we can live up to our true potential as a species. Hopefully, you will see the need for a new set of guiding principles, the potential for creating greater harmony between humans and between humans & the environment we depend on.

God and Consciousness

The path begins with a justification for our existence. As a first step, I postulate that the existence of extreme deity (God) has to be viewed as an ultimate consciousness. There does not have to be existence of matter, energy or anything else. Consciousness implies certain qualities – awareness of: self, purpose, abilities and relationships between things & events. Time and space are profound thoughts in themselves. We could not possibly invent these; however, we can presume that they were created; they exist as Laws of Physics. Even the most religious people cannot argue against the notion that time and space exist and we are merely labeling them as Laws.

Laws are the root of all religions. It is the set of Laws (of Faith) that religions use as their foundation to describe the nature of how people should act and believe. Similarly, scientists endeavor to develop and understand the Laws of Nature to describe how the physical universe works. You will see that the Laws of Faith are redefined here, in more generic fundamental terms.

Context is necessary at this point of the discussion. Life can be categorized into journeys and destinations. We can choice to go on a journey without any defined destination, but in the case of religion and science there is always a destination in mind. If you believe in a God then answer the simple question – What destination could an infinite God have for the existence of the Universe? Is there a destination or a purpose for the journey?

The primary point is that creation would have to be a journey for God. I would contend that religion is a journey for Humans to take to understand God. To presume that Humans can understand God is as presumptuous as believing that Humans can ever completely understand all the Laws of Nature/Physics. However, it’s an irresistible endeavor with other motives. Whether you are a devout religious person or a scientist, both are on a noble journey for truth and understanding. There is no conflict at this level. I applaud people pursing a life to understand either God or how the universe works. The destination for God would be inherently different than for humans. Please accept that notion on faith for now. The important distinction is between understanding the journey as opposed to understanding the destination. Further, understanding the journey alone is not enough.

My theory is: God’s destination is to understand one’s self and own consciousness. As an analogy, if you think of an artist – there is a constant drive to understanding the limits of their ability to create beauty in their art form. This can be in their eyes or in others’ eyes as well, if they so choice. Creation is the operative word. The act of constant creation is the journey to a destination of understanding of one’s self. Evolution is an act of continuous creation. To believe otherwise is to limit what God is capable of doing. The bible even describes a series of events in creation therefore we can extrapolate that evolution is a consistent notion between religion and science. Thinking of creation as a singular event is actually inconsistent with believing that God is infinite. Describing creation of the universe as a singular event may have been a convenient way of describing a concept. But it puts our understand of God in a box that is limiting. I believe that any deity that would have the power to create a universe would also continue creating.

We as humans strive for more than just an understanding of the Universe or its Laws. We strive to use that understanding to create “things” whether medical treatments, consumer goods, buildings, transportation, etc. The act of creating these things defines our capability. It expands the notion of our self consciousness, our ability. The difference between a destination for God and ourselves may be much smaller than we believe possible. However the journey we are on is vastly different. Again there is no inconsistency. The principle is that anything we create as humans would add to the capacity of a creator that created us. It does not matter whether we were created in an instant or through an evolutionary process.

Can something exist without consciousness of it? I would wholeheartedly say no. But it’s ridiculous question. Does a cell phone exist before it’s created for the first time? No. Do the laws pre-exist that allows the cell phone to work prior to the existence of a cell phone? Yes. Did those laws always exist? Maybe not! That question is more the domain of a God. We tend to think in such a limited way. Once we discover how something works we presume that it was always that way. Assuming there is a God then we have to assume that God it always capable of creating new things, even Laws of Nature. There is at least the possibility that new Laws could be created at any time provided they are consistent with the realities that currently exist in Nature. This notion is as plausible as the Laws of Nature pre-existing even though we are not conscious of it yet.

The Laws of Nature, energy, matter, time and space are all notions of a consciousness. Where did they come from? Maybe there are even more elemental principles that created them. But no matter how far back you go with the argument, even to the point of recognizing consciousness, these are not the result of Chaos. They are the result of an Order to things, a purpose. I can as easily ascribe that purpose to God as I can some other source. The notion of a God has always been used to explain the unexplainable. There is certainly plenty of evidence of creation. The part I find difficult to accept is the idea of an interventionist God, as described earlier.

Think of the pride we have in our children when they achieve something in their lives that at one level shows equal proficiency to ourselves. Then even the greater pride when the child exceeds anything we dreamed possible. Pride is an emotion. We tend to assign emotions to God, as we feel them. This may be true or not. Regardless, it is still terribly interesting that the sum of two things can result in more than the parts alone. That would seem to be motivation enough without making the motivation an emotional event.

The notion of pure genius where there is truly no precedent for a new discovery may be nothing more than an expansion of consciousness by either God or Humans. It may be a gift from God to Humans that enables new evolutionary creations. That is another process that appears to exist in the domain of God and may never be explained by evolution, causality or human capacity.

Why is this discussion important? We have a choice! At the most basic foundation level we either believe in “Laws and Order” or that our existence was created by Chaos. Laws and Order refers to much more than a set of legal definitions. It implies some set of guiding principles that provides the environment that we can create the most marvelous things that expands our own capacity and maybe provides God with more understanding of “Self”. I, for one, would like God to be proud of its creation or at least label it as Good. Chaos is the definition of nothing. There is no reason for the Universe or humans to exist if we believe that Chaos is the overriding principle of the Universe. The only viable alternative is to constantly improve the Moral Laws and our understanding of Natural Laws.

Human Aspirations

Neither religion nor science is currently providing a framework for humans to aspire to create Good things. Core principles should provide us with a road map for our journey. Think about a destination that leads to harmony and sustainability for our species. To believe that God exists and our purpose is to serve God or at minimum align with God’s purpose then we should be asking very different questions than we do. This section drills down on human nature and the obstacles that confront our pursuit to reach our true potential.

We have something called “Free Will”. This is a great gift that should not be taken for granted. We cannot create or aspire to create without Free Will. Without Free Will we can not claim anything as our own creation. But as much as Free Will is a blessing it is also a curse. It is sad that our capacity of “Free Will” has created as much Chaos, (“Evil”) as Good. Similarly, if we are to be accountable for our actions, we make a choice between Good and Evil. Creation, destruction and the ability to choice are all tied to Free Will. This is the heart of any argument about an interventionist Deity (God). An interventionist God is inconsistent with the idea of Free Will. Either you believe in one or the other. There appears to be much more evidence of our Free Will than an Interventionist God.

You do not have to be a religious person to believe in any of the concepts described above. The point is we still have to respect the fact that many people believe in God and have a frame of reference for their beliefs. This article is an attempt to bridge the beliefs of those people, the scientific community and all other groups. We need each other, therefore we need to find common ground for our beliefs systems, especially if we want to have the opportunity to reach our optimal potential.

 Terms like God, Good and Evil are used with some trepidation because in some ways it makes the concepts easier to understand but in other ways they have huge variations in how they are interpreted. It is a trade-off but hopefully worth the risk, with no intent to insult anyone’s beliefs. It is an attempt to bring the religious and scientific communities together so that discussions can be more productive. It is necessary to think of these terms in only the narrow range defined herein. In that light, truly Good people are those that work at having more inclusive constructive discussions. They believe in a optimistic Ordered future. The Evil people are those that promote separation, distinction, fear and Chaos.

I would call upon all people that consider themselves religious to start a dialogue – towards finding common ground within the framework of survivability of our species, protecting the environment and humans living up to their potential for creating Good things. Forget your difference for now. Scientists should start a dialogue between themselves to define and enforce a Moral Standard on what they create – to ensure that they create only Good things or limit the use for their inventions. It also follows the religious and scientists groups should find their common ground. Politicians and industrialists need to stop thinking in terms of their own self interests and start to work with the other groups to find how they can work towards common goals. Communication is the key.

It is amazing that I even have to say this. Regardless, it is in our self interests to work together like a team. The problem seems to be trusting that others care about us as individuals. The more people entrench out of fear, the less likely we will work together. We see religious people, industrialists and politicians using fear more and more as a way to promote their ideology. Fear leads only to Chaos. Rational thought evaporates. Goals are forgotten. Worse yet hope and despair set in. Individuals have to recognize when leaders use fear tactics and reject them and their leadership, especially if their technique to convince you is through these tactics. Good will only survive when fear is rejected and common good is embraced. We can not believe that better team spirit makes a better sports team and at the same time reject the notion that a better team spirit is necessary for our survival and greater performance as a species.

Hypocrisy also has to be rejected. This is a clear indicator of someone acting in their own self interest. This may be too much to ask of people, but we all need to listen to what leaders say and recognize whether they are consistent to principles they espouse to represent. An example would be politicians arguing against big government and lower deficits, then at the same time, promote industry subsidies and giving tax breaks to wealthier people. We have to know who we can trust. The sad reality is that more people than not – lie, misrepresent and use hypocrisy to promote their self interests. We truly need selfless people as our leaders.

Competition is better for greater performance. Regardless of the political system or between them, we should not loose sight of the existential goals we have as a species. There is a time to compete and a time to work together. These do not have to be conflicting principles. For many years the argument has raged on that government is too inefficient to trust with healthcare, the post office, maybe even the military, etc. Why not apply the same standards to moral codes, the need to have prescription drugs, infrastructure projects, disaster relief and so on. The bottom-line is once a government decides to take on a task that could otherwise be done by the private sector – they need to be transparent, accountable, efficient and willing to be compared to alternate ways of delivering the same service. Conversely, if the private sector wants to compete against the government they need to apply the same standards to what they provide as services. Any time either entity starts to hide their activities, costs or effectiveness then the public has a right and responsibility to demand redress.

The truth is the marketplace is much more inventive and competitive when it is truly open and free. We have seen enormous progress in the Internet in a relatively short time due to the openness and competitiveness that was created an an open model. This is on stark contrast to when AT&T virtually had a monopoly on the telephone business. Further, much of the innovation that occurred on the Internet was due to open source code and the willingness of people to freely contribute to something that they saw as a huge value to the common good. The largest Internet companies today would not have existed without the work of these open source people. People will act unselfishly if they see that the common good will be served and their work is not usurped by a for-profit company.

The point is that competition is not the only motivating force for people to strive for creating great things. Competition may be more the result of having limited resources and an excuse for exploiting others that have those resources. If war is the result of two countries competing for oil or any other resource then this is not a healthy competition. Therefore competition is not always good. If two companies develop a solution for a disease that leads to a better treatment and or lower cost to the consumer then it is fair to say that the competition was good.

Hopefully this section illustrates that we can not simply accept some dogma about a concept without challenging its practical application. Further we need a set of principles that everyone can accept and stand the test of time. The Laws of Faith and the Laws of Nature should complement each other. Religious people should view the Laws of Nature as a creation of the same God they worship. Further, the Universe is constantly evolving and that has to be part of the Devine plan too. Scientists can obviously see that some of their inventions create more Chaos than Good. Having Laws of Faith have their place in a knowledge based world as much as a religion based world. Is it acceptable to have crazy people start a nuclear war that wipes our all life on earth?

Earlier we connected the concepts of destruction to creating something even better. The linkage was in planning. We may destroy an area of swamp land to make way for a development to house people. Some may consider that a Good plan. Others see the destruction of the swamp as Bad, because there may be species that live in the swamp that we may depend on for our survival in the future. There is nothing wrong in considering all sides and making a value judgement as to the best course of action. If one side or the other just starts uttering platitudes to shut down the debate then they are limiting our own potential for the future. Short term rewards must always be considered against long term consequences. This has got to be a primary mechanism in all planning.

My greatest hope is that we can find a better way to discuss and plan for our future. We have the capacity and destiny to create marvelous things provided we don’t kill ourselves in the process. Maybe if we keep our eye on what we could be as a species, we might find that we could enjoy life more, be optimistic about that future for our children sake and feel a connection to the Consciousness of God. Would that be so bad?