Thoughts on God

This is a record of a dream(?) which occurred on Saturday, December 03, 2005.

As the poem says, " This I beheld, or dreamed it in a dream,"...
A single charged particle, an electron I suppose, was moving from some point to another. During this move nothing happened to the particle, but somehow it changed direction of rotation.
Because of this, something else happened, and that caused another change, which, like a row of falling dominos, caused change after change until the entire coin in which this particle moved was shifted microscopically, leading to its falling with the face side up.
The gambler won again, and this was magic.
Unknown to the gambler, he had caused the change through force of will, affecting the tiny particle at just the right instant to create the desired result.
Also unknown to the gambler, this change continued to move through the space/time continuum, altering everything it touched, like ripples in a pond.
If the gambler continue to alter the results so that he wins consistantly, soon he will be accused of cheating and may experience an undesired result.
Force of will is then an actual force, causing change at the quantum level and altering probabilities wherever it be applied. Consider a tiny pebble which, when thrown off of a mountainside, loosens a larger pebble whose progress loosens a small rock which collides with a good-sized stone that bumps a small boulder which moves a large one. The large boulder crashes into a rock shelf, shattering it, and the resulting tons of dirt and rock careen down the mountainside until they crush a building and kill all of the occupants.
Carrying this analogy further, consider the salesman who makes a sale.
The buyer cannot afford the product, but buys it because the salesman has talent and persistance. Soon the buyer is broke and cannot pay his rent, so becomes homeless. Having lost his job, family and all his worldly posessions, the buyer becomes desperate for revenge and takes the only thing he has left, a gun, down to the point of sale and shoots the salesman, in what is described as an act of senseless violence.
In reality the acts are much wider, and usually travel at random, the person killed never even knew the salesman, the person who was the killer was not the buyer, but was brought to the act by the actions of the aforementioned buyer when money became tight.
Now consider the quantuum ramifications.
The man is desperate. He wants to end his poverty, give his wife and family a better life and finally put an end to constant worry about where the next dollar will come from. For years he concentrates on winning the lottery. getting those millions so that he won't have to worry anymore.
Big deal, you say, everybody does that. But this man does something special. He affects change in the probability matrix by sheer force of will. He wins the lottery.
What happens next.........
The probability matrix is quantum in nature. Everything changes everything. When a leaf falls it determines who will be president of which country and when. The death of a butterfly determines the outcome of a war. Who wins the lottery, and when, and why,,,,,, determines when the force eight earthquake will occur.
This poor man, just trying to escape the grinding poverty which is all he has ever known in his life, has killed thousands of people and caused billions of dollars in damage without even knowing it, just like magic.
Magic, now there is an ancient word for things not understood.
Perhaps the term was created to explain how things happened against the odds just because someone wanted them to happen that way. The harder you wanted something, the more likely it became. Maybe there were methods of concentration that helped. Maybe herbs, potions, or even symbols could be used to assist in the alteration of probabilities. Spells might have been nothing more that formulae which assisted one in creating the largest possible ripple in the pond. Magicians were either good or evil depending on how much responsibility they used in application of the principles. Ultimately all magic would have an evil component, unless the magician had a huge book of results and was guided by an omniscient power. Any magic, however benign in intent, would cause a ripple effect that may or may not lead to catastrophe. No magician could know the full effect of anything he did.
This leads us to religion, as surely as a moth comes to a flame.
Faith, the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen.......
Fits right in, doesn't it. Faith to move mountains, as in the example of the pebble....
But let us examine this apparent anomoly objectively, if that be possible.
In no religion is faith expressed as the sole property of God. Evil has always been the action of the faith of those who oppose God and are thus opposed to the good of mankind.
In the Biblical story of Adam and Eve, where they ate the forbidden fruit and 'in that day, thou shalt surely die.' We see that the knowlage of good and evil, in the hands of a creature such as man, will cause the death of the creature. This is not because that knowlage causes death, but because the use of that knowlage, in altering the probabilities of existance, will set in motion events that will lead to death. This process is unavoidable, because man is not omniscient. So long as we do not know what we do, we cannot do that which is contrary to the common good, inasmuch as the common good is unknown to us. The system is so arranged that, if we avoid changing what is designed to occur, everything will work out for the best. That is the fundamental premise of all religion, and the reason that man tends to believe in God.
Science teaches us that entropy is the natural process, with all systems tending to less complicity and eventual decay to a state of neutrality, or stasis, or even absolute zero, if you will. How then to explain the existance of life, a complex system of biochemical reactions which is self-perpetuating and tends to the ever more complex.
It is certain that life is not able to combat entropy, that law is proveble and immutable, but life will try. We are constantly trying to find energy sources that are more efficient and less dependant on nature. Eventually mankind will learn to convert matter into energy and entropy will become an exception where man lives.
Given this, it follows that something created life. Some first cause, some agency, (whether random or deliberate is a choice each must make for himself) caused something to Happen. Perhaps one should say Something Happened, since it was an event that altered the local universe for all of time and existance.
Assuming that we cannot know, with certainty, whether God exist or not and that we cannot say, for the same reason, whether life was created or just came to be by a series of events, we must look at the data we have.
Life is improbable, given entropy. Life exists, "cognito ergo sum", as Descartes said. Then we go back to the matrix of probable events, that list of things that could happen or might happen or might not happen.
The list may be completely random, or at least may have been, before life came along. Living things alter the list to favor the results they want, or think they want. This meddling in probability causes disaster, doom, disease, death and lots of other interesting things. It also means that life begets life, that which is alive creates that which lives.
If the probability matrix is not random, if it is guided, altered and shaped by a higher power, then that power is, by definition, God.
This is where it gets confusing........
If God exist, does he care about us? He must, he controls probability to keep us alive and well.
What is God? Someone who knows every single possible outcome of every act that was performed, could have been performed or could be performed by every person who exists, will exist , could exist or could have existed and has a plan that takes all of that into consideration and produces the outcome he desires at any given point.
A scientist sets up an experiement with rigid controls so that he can measure the outcome. A control group is studied so that the difference can be noted. Usually the Scientist has expectations, from theories previously advanced, of the outcome which will be produced by his experiment.
God already knows everything. He has no theories, only facts. The outcome of any experiment is a foregone conclusion since he already knows how everything will occur, given the parameters. The depth of this knowlage is beyond my comprehension, but would seem to indicate that God can accurately predict the choice which will be made by any of us in any circumstance.
Religion would then be the system God seeks to establish which makes it possible to control the outcome so that the subjects(us) will suffer less and achieve the desired results more quickly.
Which religion is the correct religion? Obviously the one that is in contact with God and acts to preserve life and make living more pleasant. I myself haven't found that one yet, but I'm sure it exists, because it is self-evident.
Given infinity, there must be God, because in an infinite system all things will occur and God is one of those things.
Given God, there must be religion, because it is in the interest of God to assist in the outcome of creation.
If I knew what God had planned, or could understand even a small part of what he/she is doing, I might be able to forment a thesis concerning religion, and what it is. I am only a man, unfortunately, and not a very wise or knowlageble one at that. I don't understand quantum entanglement, sub-molecular electronics, why a neutrino tunnels and certainly not God.
All I know is that I clearly saw, for a moment, that what we want may not be good for us and that what we cause to happen may have unexpected and even undesireble results. For example, the best way to save the whales may be to discover a method of controlled fusion, or perhaps a way to feed everyone without farming or hunting. Saving trees may require that we find a way to colonize space, or live inside mountains, or maybe grow houses by genetic engineering.
We cannot know anything. We cannot see the future, refuse to acknowlage the present and quickly forget the past. Our only hope lies in the probablity that there is a God and that he cares about us enough to keep us.
So long as there is even one person in the family of man who claims that God wants him to kill another person, for any reason, we are in danger of extinction. Only when we can realize that God made all of us, as we are, believing what we believe, without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, economic status or sexual preference, can we hope to understand what God had in mind originally and begin to perhaps, work toward that goal.
Personally, I'm going to win the lottery, even though I cannot understand what I'm doing nor what shall result . I can only hope that the result will not negate the reason for winning.
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Discussion II (2) Two.
Let us suppose that The Creator, mentioned in discussion one, set everything up with a desired outcome in mind. Think of two large curves, like hyperbolic sides of some multidimensional ellipse that is open at the top and bottom.
Within this framework is a space that is subjectively infinite. That is, those inside the space can see no boundaries since it is open ended. The fact that each end is connected by boundaries is not perceptible to the inhabitants.
Within the enclosure there appear to be an infinite number of possibilities. This is true since an infinite number of lines of probability can exist within a finite space. ( A line has no width, therefore an infinite number of lines require no space) This means that no matter what we do, the end result will be the same, since the begining and the end are pre-determined. It is only the actions within the space that are, in a sense, random.
What we do is thus determined by free will, and each person makes his/her own destiny, but the outcome of any set of actions will be such that no future can be which is not part of the eventual conclusion, a conclusion that was determined prior to the original creation and is immutable. It must be beyond our comprehension, any other supposition would invalidate the original premise,by forseeing the purpose of the Creator. We cannot understand why we exist, because we cannot understand existance itself. I am reminded of this quotation, from a famous Physicist, " The universe is not only queerer than we imagine, it is queerer than we CAN imagine".
An illustration of this is the fact that space/time is a single thing. There is no space without field and no field without space. Time is a physical dimension just like length, width and depth. The fact that we are unable to percieve the dimension of time directly does not invalidate this fact, it proves the premise. we cannot 'see' air, but we can note its absence. We cannot taste or smell gravity, but anyone who has fallen knows that gravity is all too real. Time is ephemeral and intangible. We cannot experience it in the same way as any other sensation, but if it were to stop, creation would stop with it. We have only faith to tell us that time moves smoothly, since we move with it and could not percieve any stops, starts, jumps or lateral oscillation. For all we know, time is like friction, it appears smooth, but is in reality a series of stops and starts, with much change and collision as a part of the natural process.
If we cannot even understand time, a part of our daily existance, how can we expect to understand the framework within which time exists? How can we hope to know why we are if we know neither where nor what we may be?
Ultimately some future philosopher or scientist may come to a conclusion which explains some, or all, of existance. I seriously doubt it, for that person would be scarcely human, able to understand things that I can't even imagine. Personally I'm just content to survive another day without slipping into the absolute elsewhere and going the way of Schroedinger's cat.

Addenduem:
We do not directly percieve anything.
1. Sight is based on reflected light. We see the reflection, not the object.

2. Touch is based on the analysis of the contact between our skin and an object. Think of the blind men and the elephant.

3. We hear only the motion of air, caused by an event which we may or may not observe. Sound is just wind, and can be created electronically.

4. We can only taste salt, sugar, sour, and bitter. Everything is a combination of these things.

5. Smell is the closest we come, with our noses interpreting the molecular contact of tiny airborne particles which came from something that we may, or may not recognize. Smell is the strongest sense tied to memory, perhaps because it is the most accurate.

Given this set of observations, we are alone and ignorant. We connect at a distance and what we think of as 'reality' may just be our perception of something that is actually entirely different. Anything we don't understand tends to be labeled either 'beyond our comprehension' or Myth. We used to believe that the sum of all matter and energy in the universe is constant, and called it the law of conservation of matter and energy. Then we learned that E=MC2 and began saying that the Sum of all Energy is constant. Well, don't try to sell that theory to a quantum singularity, it is taking in Matter, converting it to Energy, and sending it right out of the system, to somewhere, or nowhere, as the case may be.
If there are 'Black Holes' there may also be 'White Holes'. If there is Dark Matter, there may also be ' Light Matter '. What we know about the universe is increasing at an incredible rate, but what we don't know still far outweighs the little we have discovered.
I personally fear that we could observe events which have occurred if we but knew how to accomplish the feat. Time is measurable, thus it must have existance in the same way as length, width and depth. (see above) If it have properties in common with these other types of measurment, then we should be able to see the past, present and possibly the most probable future.(see above)
Knowing which past, present and future were the ones in which we have or had, existance would be the problem, but by assembly of facts and the comparison of recorded observation we should be able to delineate the time line which contains the observer.
I hope we never achieve this ability, as it would mean the end of privacy and personal space. After all, 3 seconds ago is the same as now, but the person or place observed would have no knowlage of the observer. Anyone could watch anyone else without the subject being aware he was watched. Nothing would be private and modesty would be pointless.
Crime would cease, since we could just look and see who actually did the deed.
No one could lie, cheat, or sneak around, since everyone could be watched, in a way that George Orwell never envisioned. The power which one would wield if he could observe the past would be greater than any that man has known before. Consider insider trading, gambling, espionage, or any private act that might spell profit if it be discovered. It would be like living with a video camera following you every minute of the day and night, that anyone could turn on and watch.
Are you worried yet? If not then consider that God is defined by every religion as an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent entity. He has this kind of observational power, coupled with the ability to effect change in the probability matrix in such a way that his plan become the most likely in all circumstances. He can not only observe time, he can alter it, just as we can distort the physical dimentions of an object. He is in contact with the universe at all points, and can cause change anywhere and at any time. Even when we believe that something is past, and a part of history, to Him it is simply, 'over there', instead of 'right here'. Whether past, present or future, God can alter reality as he chooses, without regard to what we consider the Laws, or rules, of existance.
By explanation I will provide an analogy. A priceless Vase falls to the floor, shatters, and is swept away by a flood of water before your eyes. You can do nothing to prevent it at the time, and you cannot even recover the pieces afterward. The Vase is gone, correct? Not so to God, who can simply go backward along the time stream and catch the Vase, replacing it on its stand and creating an alternate line of probability in which the Vase was never broken. Then, if he so choose, he can end the line of probability in which the Vase was broken, together with all of the branches therefrom, thus the Vase was not broken in any probability and is intact in all time lines.
We then say, " I could have sworn that vase got broken last year,,,,, guess I was mistaken".
How do we know that history is accurate? Because the records were created by those who preceeded us in our personal timeline, and thus, though we awake in a new world every day, we can rest assured that everything is as we remember it, so long as our memory is of the timeline in which we dwell.
Even our memory would change, if the probability through which we had traveled was altered at a later date, since we would then 'remember' the changed data instead of what originally happened. If we had a time machine we could alter history, each line becoming memory as it was changed. Time wars could occur as different factions sought to create their own preferred stream of events. Loops would occur and things would change so rapidly that no one would have a 'reliable memory' because yesterday everything was different than today, or even before lunch...
I think I'll quit now, this line of thought leads to a very precipitous fall into insanity if pursued to its logical conclusion.