JOURNAL content
11/10/16
My purpose is to enunciate a rational spirituality. By "rational" I mean consistent with Science but recognizing that "consistent with" does not mean "limited to". As an example of this consider the question of miracles.
Note: Science is based on observation of local reality using instruments operating within 3D+1 spacetime. As a physicist I find it irrational to think that the laws of physics, such as the laws of gravitation, could be overturned by non-physical (i.e., spiritual) forces. But ----
Q. Could there be scientifically consistent miracles?
A. Consider the hypothesis that local human consciousness has a link to a non-local Universal consciousness that exists outside of 3D+1 spacetime.
Through such a link the past, present and future are all coincident in the now of local consciousness. Such a linked consciousness could conceivably perceive another local consciousness as being in multiple places at once through the non-local fusion of past and future. Similarly, such a linked consciousness could become aware of its own past and future states. These are what many people have recognized as "miracles of synchronicity".
Note: This kind of synchronicity is in fact consistent with the phenomenon of quantum entanglement. Repeated experiments have verified the existence of local synchronicity of quantum states through the agency of non-local quantum entanglement (the "spooky action at a distance" in violation of the local causality demanded by Einstein's theory of Special Relativity.)
Experiments with the self-interference of quantum states (e.g., Young's double slit experiments) have established that quantum states can be in multiple (local) places at once. These experiments also show that the quantum superposition (in this case, indeterminacy of location) is destroyed by any attempt to measure the "real" position of the state.
The "delayed choice" variant of these experiments also establishes that the intervention of consciousness (choice) that results in the removal of the quantum indeterminism ("collapse of the wave function") is the same if the choice is made in the past or future of the interaction of the quantum state with the instruments.
These counter-intuitive results of quantum experiments can be explained by assuming that the states of quantum superposition and quantum entanglement (a special case of superposition) exist in a non-local reality and become manifested as local reality through interaction with the environment (the instrumentation of the chosen measurements.)
11/10/16 (continued)
So, the answer to the question is, yes. The spiritual (perceptual) miracles of multilocality and synchronicity are remarkably consistent with the observed behavior of quantum states.
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The day after the Election I thought I heard the Spirit saying:
America, you have offended me deeply. For your penance each of you must say the Prayer of St Francis at least once.
In case you've forgotten, the prayer asks :
Lord, make me an instrument of your Peace;
Where there is hatred, let me sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, grant that I may;
Not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned.
It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
11/11/16
Happy Birthday, Sweetheart!
You've been around me the longest of all my grandchildren. I got to be with you and love you from the day you were born - thirty seven years ago.
We've both changed a lot since those days. But we'll always have our beginnings in common and a shared love that will last forever.
That last part is because our souls will last forever. And we are each a part of each other's soul.
Our soul is the shared memories and the shared love that connects us and persists outside of time.
Note: November 11 is the birthday of my granddaughter, Jessica Helen Neptune-Cross, Ph.D.
(The time of her birth was also a time of new beginnings for me.)
In her book, Bodies and Souls, or Spirited Bodies the Neuroscientist and Theologian, Nancey Murphy, describes the human soul as emerging from our interactions (connections) with nature, each other and with the Spirit. This idea of the soul is behind the statement above about being a "part of each other's soul" and is an aspect of the rational spirituality I am writing about.
1/20/16
Nothing can travel faster than the speed of light within the universal electro-magnetic field. This is a field that permeates all of 3D+1 spacetime. The field is like a universal ocean. Waves in that ocean anywhere in spacetime produce photons - quanta of light traveling at a constant speed, c= 3x108Â m/sec.
In this field, matter and energy are indistinguishable (E = mc2) as disturbances that produce light.
There are other fields that permeate spacetime: such as the universal gravitational field that interacts with spacetime itself. Waves in that field produce gravitons - quanta of gravitation that also travel at the speed of light.
It is a hypothesis of rational spirituality that there exists also a field of universal consciousness. This field not only permeates spacetime, it encompasses spacetime. It exists beyond the bounds of spacetime because it encompasses the creation of spacetime.
By analogy with physics, waves in the field of universal consciousness (within the bounds of spacetime) produce us - individual conscious (self-aware) 3D+1 beings.
Note: The term "produce" in the above discussion deserves some amplification. When the question is asked "is light a wave or a particle (photon)?" quantum mechanics (as interpreted by Neils Bohr) answers that these are complimentary aspects of light. Which aspect is manifested depends on the conditions of the local environment that the light is interacting with: in an interferometer, the wave aspect is manifested; in the absorption or emission of light (radiation) by matter, the particle nature is manifested. In quantum theory these complimentary local aspects are united in a non-local reality called the "wave-function".
12/16/16
Struck again with pain and paralysis. Some toughs days are here. I hope it's right that "what doesn't kill you strengthens you."
It's curious that my vision is crippled at the same time that I can barely stand to watch the news of the world.>
I have, to protect my sanity, try to turn away from Trump and the horrors of civil war in Arabia. I have to turn my light toward the future of humanity and this beautiful planet.
It's Christmas - a time to pay attention to love. There is no hope for the future of humanity without love. That is what I know by the light of love shining into the darkness of the future.
I will never forget the pain of looking into the eyes of the children of Syria. Looking into my future, I know the images of those children will be with me at every moment.
This is my sanity.
Insanity is the darkness of hatred, the destruction of beauty, the suppression of knowledge and life.
In my sanity, I look at the news and weep.
Note: The rest of my journal for 2016 is devoted to the development of a Christmas/Solstice poem I called In the Now of Love.
It was published as a Waypoint that can be found here.
1/7/17
Happy New Year!
Ek Ong Kar Sat Nam!
I think I should publish my journal entries starting with 11/10/16.
Note:
Until 1/13/17 there are notes relating to the development of these web pages.
A rational spirituality inspires actions that promote peace and freedom. These are the conditions that advance the evolution of awareness.
A rational spirituality inspires actions that promote education and access to knowledge. This encourages the healthy (rational) human appetite for truth/beauty.
A rational spirituality inspires actions promoting love.
Note: Throughout my journals are references to the nature of the Spirit as a singular dynamic process: the co-inherence of Awareness, Truth/Beauty and Love in a Spirit I call "The One".
This is completely consistent with the Christian teaching of perichoresis whereby the Father, Son and Holy Spirit not only share the same essence but indwell in each other as the one God.
It is also directly mirrors the Vedic concept found in the ancient Upanishads whereby "Sat Chit Ananada" ("existence consciousness bliss") are united in the ultimate and singular reality of Brahman.
The juxtaposition of Truth/Beauty reflects my acceptance and debt to John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn).
I owe to the English Author and Theologian, Charles Williams (1886-1945), the use of the phrase "co-inherence" to describe how the many can be one.
4/14/17
South Fork, CO
Birthdays, Deathdays.
This week Brother John and Aunt Connie have breathed their last. At almost the same time that Teresa had a birthday marking the day she took her first breath 59 years ago.
Happy Birthday, dearest daughter. Watching you live and exploring the limits of your life brings me great joy.
The Deathdays are not happy days: I am sad to lose the hope of being in the physical presence of those who are gone and know that we can never again embrace. But I have an unshakeable feeling that they are conscious of me when I think of them and so death has lost some of its finality for me.
This feeling is not rooted in some kind of possibly delusional wishful thinking. It stems from the realization as a physicist and as a spiritual person that there are realities that exist outside of time.
Physics experiments in quantum entanglement repeated over the last 50 years or so have demonstrated without a doubt the existence of what we physicists call "non-local" reality. This reality, existing outside of local time, cannot be directly observed, it cannot be used to violate the laws of special relativity that govern our local reality, but if it didn't exist quantum entanglement wouldn't exist either and quantum computing would be an impossible dream.
I equate awareness with life and vice-a-versa. When I die my cells and my senses, orchestrated by my brain, will cease to be aware of my environment. But consciousness may be an entirely different matter. I equate consciousness with self-awareness, free will and the ability to choose. (Quantum mechanics has a lot to say about the role of uncertainty in the evolution of the Cosmos and provides, as I believe and hope to show elsewhere, rational support for the existence of free will.)
On the basis of my experience as a spiritual person I consider it rational to believe that consciousness and the thought it produces exist in another timeless non-local reality. Furthermore I assert that from the connections we form with other conscious beings emerges what we call the soul. (This understanding of the soul as relational and emerging from the connection of consciousnesses is derived from the writings of Nancey Murphy, a neuroscientist and Christian theologian.) It follows that if the individual consciousnesses are outside of time so must the soul be outside of time and existing in the same non-local reality as thought.
So when I send my loving thoughts to John and Connie I have confidence that their souls are conscious of my love and that in as much as I am able to be conscious of that spiritual non-local reality, I am able to be conscious of the love they are sending me.
I think this is very consistent with this week's celebration of the Feast of the Resurrection where Christians are rejoicing in their conviction that there is no finality to death.
Happy Easter!!