www.cetano.com

Bertrand Russell in his “Why I’m Not a Christian” essay, speeches and books states that the Christian Churches hinder rather than improve the social condition.

You can read his lecture delivered on March 6, 1927 to the National Secular Society, South London Branch, at Battersea Town Hall at http://users.drew.edu/~jlenz/whynot.html

Russell’s biography and a list of his writings can be read at http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1950/russell-bio.html

Bertrand Russell’s life was not always a happy journey.

He was born at Trelleck on 18th May, 1872. His parents were Viscount Amberley and Katherine, daughter of 2nd Baron Stanley of Alderley. At age three he was orphaned, got into trouble with the military during World War II because of his pacifism, was criticized for his views because he spent some time in the Soviet Union, was divorced more than once, and went from pillar to post lecturing in various universities.

His moral views were challenged by critics that resulted in legal action to stop him from lecturing at City College in New York.

Russell received prestigious rewards for his writings including being elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1908, and re-elected a fellow of Trinity College in 1944, the Sylvester medal of the Royal Society in 1934, the de Morgan medal of the London Mathematical Society in the same year, and the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1950.

The British philosopher, logician, and mathematician died 2 February 2, 1970.

Some Reasons Russell Was Not a Christian

1. He did not believe that the existence of God was provable by “Unaided Reason, First Cause, Natural Law, Design, Moral Arguments, or Remedy Injustice Arguments.”

2. He was doubtful that Christ ever existed, said some of Christ’s philosophy is not original, he was not the greatest and wisest of all men, and his best philosophy is not followed by Christians because it is too difficult to live.

3. Christ didn’t come when he said he would. Early Christians assumed that Christ would come very soon and lived accordingly from day to day. He never came.

4. Christ taught there was hell and judgment which is too negative for man’s proper development.

5. I quote the great writer: You find as you look around the world that every single bit of progress in humane feeling, every improvement in the criminal law, every step toward the diminution of war, every step toward better treatment of the colored races, or every mitigation of slavery, every moral progress that there has been in the world, has been consistently opposed by the organized churches of the world. I say quite deliberately that the Christian religion, as organized in its churches, has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world.

6. I quote again: Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing-fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand.

7. My last quote: A good world needs knowledge, kindliness, and courage; it does not need a regretful hankering after the past or a fettering of the free intelligence by the words uttered long ago by ignorant men. It needs a fearless outlook and a free intelligence. It needs hope for the future, not looking back all the time toward a past that is dead, which we trust will be far surpassed by the future that our intelligence can create.

My Amazingly Brilliant Responses to Russell’s Reasons for Not Being Christian

I chose a dead philosopher to argue with instead of a living philosopher. He can’t reply.

I’m an engineer, not a philosopher. I call myself the hack writer. No one will take me seriously here but I’m going to give you my two bits anyway.

The usual Christian response to a critic is to call him names and downgrade him by attacking his character. Let’s avoid that approach. I didn’t know the man but I’m sure that I would have no reason to dislike him. I think that his lecture in 1927 was not polished but he made his points. I’ll take them one by one:

1. No one can prove or disprove that God exists. Trying to prove that God exist by mental exercise is silly. God has to reveal himself. When he does, you must still decide if it was God or not.

2. It’s silly to say that Christ never lived. We generally accept historical records of stating the truth on such matters. There are plenty of accounts of Christ’s life by people who lived and traveled with him. Christ never said that all his thoughts were stated by him for the first time. Nobody else did either. Who was the wisest of all men is a value judgment. Russell never said who was the greatest or who even came close. He said that he had to go with Christ on some subjects. So, who was greater?

3. It’s true that the early Christians thought that Christ was coming very soon. This is very evident by Christ’s words and early Christian writings. But Christ said that only his Father knew when the second coming would occur. He said that not even the angels in heaven knew the answer to that question.

4. There are two sides to the argument that teachings about hell are detrimental to the advancement of mankind. Punishment and reward can change human behavior. If hell exists then it exists. I’ll take Christ’s word for it.

5. It’s true the church has fought science and social norms. That will not change. The church can be very intolerant. But the church has to progress in this areas as in all other areas. WE must not allow this to happen in our churches. I heard a Catholic priest in Japan say as he quoted from the New Testament that when we criticize other churches we stop “much good.” If you tell a Baptist that his church is wrong so he doesn’t go to church anymore, then the work he was doing in his church stops. I’ve visited different churches and I have heard Baptist blast the Catholics for playing bingo to raise money. I say that we should mind our own business.

6. Russell says that fear is the parent of cruelty. I don’t think that is always true. It’s one of those generalities that have little meaning. Greed and hate and envy are more aptly the parents of cruelty. If a crook mugs you on the street, he wants your money. If he rapes you, he envies your body. If he beats you to death with a club, he hates the sight of you. It’s true that a man might fight back because of fear or he might kill a rattlesnake because of fear, but he is more apt to run for his life.

7. I have no argument here. Russell prefers science to religion, or a fact-based philosophy. Today’s science will not be the science of the future. Scientific “truths” wither under new investigation. It is the nature of the beast. But science changes for the better, always pursuing the truth. It should be the same for religion. Past religious persecution needs to be analyzed and not repeated. The obviously false must not be retained because of tradition or the writings of the ancients. I like the Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. If we all obeyed that rule we would not have to worry about the future.

Do your children know the Golden Rule?

copyright

Share This

What is the point of racism? … What’s underneath it all?”

Well those questions, as some of you are aware, have complex answers! Like an Octopus with a thousand tentacles! But lets attempt to answer them anyway!

Why are they’re racist attitudes in the first place? Or to put it another way, what drove white European Christians to view themselves as superior to non-whites and to go around the world conquering or enslaving them for benefit and profit?

I don’t know why they did that! But I’m damned good at speculating!

When the Romans first invaded Northern Europe circa 500 AD, they encountered Germanic tribes wearing animal skins and living in thatched huts! The Romans wore fine clothes lived in elaborate stone building, lived by written laws and legal codes and had a high degree of civilization (aqueducts, indoor baths, etc) They looked on the animal skin wearing, thatched hut living Germanic tribes, as savages! Sound familiar! That’s the how the Europeans who first invaded, I mean “discovered” America viewed the Indians when they first encountered them! But in this instance you have whites looking down on other whites as inferior! The Germanic tribes populated England and most of Northern Europe!

To make a long story short! Roman civilization was the dominant culture and power in that region and the world for about a thousand years! But as time went on the ruling class became indulgent, corrupt and lazy until the wild war waging “savage”, Germanic tribes became powerful enough to over throw what was left of the “Glory” of Rome!”

Now here’s where my speculations get psychologically interesting (at least to me!)

As a result of being treated as inferior by the Romans for hundreds of years, when these “savages” finally did over throw Rome, they over compensated for the inferiority complex they had developed by putting in its place a superiority complex that masked their feelings of cultural inferiority! It’s like someone having murderous envy toward another they secretly admire finally getting the chance to knock them off and take their place!

These “savage” tribes started feeling really good about themselves! Like they were the Big Dogs! And they were the Big Dogs! Hadn’t they just knocked off the superior culture of the once mighty Roman Empire!

They started seeing themselves as superior and but still had the need to keep that inferiority complex covered up! So it was easy for them to act-out their distain without guilt, on those ethnic groups they viewed as savage or inferior, because they saw the savagery and inferiority as coming from those groups, not from themselves!

The Whites in the U.S. inherited this cultural legacy of White Supremacy from the descendants of those “savage” tribes who immigrated to North America before the founding of the Nation! Northern European history and culture was so affected by Roman culture that, around the 11th century AD, the pope of that period and Charlemagne create a Second “Roman Empire”, The Holy Roman Empire! Now ruled by the once envious “savage” tribes! Today England has a parliament and the United States a Congress because they are both patterned after the Roman judicial system created by the cultural descendants of these “savage” tribes!

Further Speculation On Why There Are Racist Attitudes

Some whites grow up in racist home and social environments! Some have been “brainwashed” with racist propaganda throughout their whole early Social development as kids! I’ve seen documentaries on the Klan, Neo-Nazis and other racist groups that show parents with their 3,4, or 5 year olds at these rallies dressed in Klan robes, Neo-Nazi uniforms or other racist attire, chanting racist slogans and beaming with pride and enthusiastic approval of their children for doing so! So these are some of the way racist attitudes are passed on from generation to generation and “why they’re there in the first place” for these kids!

What’s the point of racism? What’s underneath it?

What’s “underneath” white racism in this country is (to reiterate) the ideology of White Supremacy! Certain white European philosophers perpetuated the theory (as a result of Darwin’s theory of evolution, for some of the reasons I gave above and for others to complex to go into in this article) that white people (especially white men because they dominated white society) were the pinnacle of the evolution of the human species and therefore racially superior and more privileged than all other races!

That philosophy was behind the exploitation of Africans for free slave labor and the economic gain of white businessmen during the era of the slave trade! Africans were seen as subhuman in the evolutionary scale and therefore they weren’t really enslaving or exploiting humans but something more like cattle or other beasts of burden!

When the United States Constitution was created the enslaved Africans were (for political reasons) only referred to indirectly as only 3/5th of a person! Most of the so-called “founding fathers” if not all of them, including Jefferson and Washington were rich slaveholders! The Constitution was obviously created to protect economic rights of the “founding fathers” not African Americans, American Indians, white women or any other non-white group for that matter!

As a matter of fact, in the early days of the United States before White Supremacy became the dominant ideology of the country, the only people classified as white were, white Anglo-Saxon protestants, who were English or descended from the English! Italians and others weren’t looked upon as white until well after the slave trade was in full bloom!

The white supremacist philosophy and economic gain was behind the civil war! The southern states, who imported most of the slave labor, whole economy was based on the slave trade and lots of people were getting rich or doing very well as a result of it! So they weren’t too happy when certain conscientious whites (like Lincoln), who may have thought whites were racially superior to Blacks, but didn’t believe it was right to enslaved their fellow man, wanted to end the profitable importation of slave labor! So rather then have that occur, the political leaders of the slave states decided that they would no longer be part of the United States! Lincoln and other leaders said, “You can’t break up the Union of the United States!” The slave states leaders said “Oh yes we can!” And that’s how in a simplified way the Civil War got started!

Hitler was a white supremacist! He called the superior whites, Aryans. He learned a lot of his ideas about racial superiority from the racist science and philosophy of the slave trade and Jim Crow practices of the United States!

Another less familiar source of racism is the Old Testament idea of the “Chosen People of God” who are more special to God than all other people! And of course through much intellectual rationalizing by racist Judeo-Christian intellectual God’s “Chosen People” were deem to be white! They convinced themselves and others that it was Ok to deprive Africans of their rights because they enjoyed a special privilege from God, a “manifest destiny”, to dominate Africans and other non-white groups because they were “God Chosen” people!

But the underlying core of racism is that White Supremacists don’t want Blacks or other groups they view as inferior, contaminating their “superior” gene pool with their “tainted” blood! And white racist men jealously defending their sexual dominance over white women! These two issues have sparked the most vehement white violence and hatred toward Black men! It made supremacist men feel sexually inadequate and inferior and an affront to their sexual dominance and pride if “their” white women preferred, what they saw as subhuman, genetically inferior men to themselves! They become enraged with hate filled, envy and jealousy toward Black men! Thus the formation of ‘the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan” as “Chivalric” order to protect the virtue of “the flower of the white race” (white women) from all those degenerate Black men whose only desire was to deflower them (Rape them)! Thus the thousands of lynchings of Black men during the late 18 and early 1900s in the United States (mainly in the southern states)!

You can see how over time this hate-filled jealousy would continue to reinforce its self and how it would be attractive to other white men, who wanted to see themselves as this “chivalrous order of knights” valiantly protecting ” the flower of the white race” from the threat of deflowerment by “the black beasts” and the even greater threat of the “tainting” of their family’s gene pool with the blood of these genetically inferior “beasts of burden or predators”!

These feelings, supported by white supremacist Christian doctrines, sent them on a religious crusade carrying out racist violence with religious zeal against black men and any white women who dared to have sex or become romantically involved with them! (But it was ok if white men had sex with Black women!) The flaming cross of the Klan is a “Christian” cross! They see themselves as Christians and Jesus as their Aryan brother!

Now I went through all of that to give you some idea of the underlying concepts and ideology behind the point of racism and what’s underneath it from a psycho-social-historical point of view!

From a psychological view, the point of racism is to make those groups who hold this view feel they are superior, better and more privileged than all other ethnic groups! It’s kind of like one little kid saying to another that my dad is better than your dad! Sometime those who latch on to racist ideas have unfulfilled needs for self-esteem, self-worth or some other lack that they’re unconsciously attempting to fill or over compensate for but may not see in themselves or want to see in themselves! For others, it’s just brainwashing, plain and simple! Or a combination brainwashing and other factors! There are usually complex factors involved in the genesis of any problem rather than just one! Especially a problem like this one!

That, in a very simplified way, are some of my thoughts “why there are racist attitudes in the first place” but definitely by no means all of my thoughts on the subject! Or all of my knowledge on the subject! I’ve studied, pondered and researched this topic for about 20-30 years because, I was puzzled by all this racial hatred and why it keeps raring its ugly head and wanted to find out what it was is about! Why it’s so resilient!

That’s my thoughts!

What are your thoughts on my thoughts and speculations?

Copyright 2006 El-Veasey Publishing Inc

El Veasey has PhDs in Social-Politics, Psycho-Social Relationships, History of the Human mind and Religious Politics, from the University of Hard-Knocks, Ghetto Town, USA

Email: elveasey at yahoo.com

Blog1 http://el-veasey.blogspot.com
Blog2 http://lveasey.blogspot.com

Share This

What is the loop of Creation? How is there something from nothing?

In spite of the fact that it is impossible to prove that anything exists beyond one’s perception since any such proof would involve one’s perception (I observed it, I heard it, I thought about it, I calculated it, and etc.), science deals with a so-called objective reality “out there,” beyond one’s perception professing to describe Nature objectively (as if there was a Nature or reality external to one’s perception). The shocking impact of Matrix was precisely the valid possibility that what we believed to be reality was but our perception; however, this was presented through showing a real reality wherein the perceived reality was a computer simulation.

Many who toy with the idea that perhaps, indeed, we are computer simulations, deviate towards questions, such as, who could create such software and what kind of hardware would be needed for such a feat. Although such questions assume that reality is our perception, they also axiomatically presuppose the existence of an objective deterministic world “out there” that nevertheless must be responsible for how we perceive our reality. This is a major mistake emphasizing technology and algorithms instead of trying to discover the nature of reality and the structure of creation. As will be shown in the following, the required paradigm shift from “perception is our reality fixed within an objective world,” to “perception is reality without the need of an objective world ‘out there,’” is provided by a dynamic logical structure. The Holophanic loop logic is responsible for a consistent and complete worldview that not only describes, but also creates whatever can be perceived or experienced.

Stating that it is impossible to prove the existence of anything beyond one’s perception is not saying there is nothing beyond perception, only that if there is anything, then whatever that is, is indefinite. It could be argued that the existence of physical laws, the universal perception that the apple falls to the ground is proof of an objective reality. However, this universal agreement is also our perception. It could be argued that if we cannot decide what to perceive, and everybody perceives the same physical reality, then there must be some lawfulness that dictates how we perceive and therefore, this lawfulness could be external to our perception. However, this lawfulness, as we shall see later on, is the precise lawfulness that creates perception, the process of definition, which is not external to perception (this process creates the perceived and the perceiver, which then gives meaning to this process - a loop - but about that, later). It could be argued, that hitting our knee on the table - whether we believe in the table or not - will hurt. The table is external to our body, but not to our perception. What then is perception? It is relating, a process of definition, defining and thereby rendering meaningful what has been perceived.

What then is this process of definition? It is creating borders within which one’s perception gains meaning. The word “definition” comes from the Latin de finire, meaning, making finite or limited. In Hebrew, definition is HAGDARA (הגדרה), meaning, to border. Any definition necessarily implies what the definition is not, or stated differently, to have meaning, whatever is defined explicitly includes the meaning by implicitly excluding everything else. Consequently, to define means to place the defined object within borders that by default create something beyond the borders of the definition. What is this something beyond the defined? The implicitly excluded everything else, or in other words, the indefinite. The paramount importance of incorporating the indefinite within a consistent logical structure cannot be overemphasized. The indefinite itself is a paradox, and incorporating it within the Holophanic logical structure engenders the loop of Creation where the dynamic structure of paradoxes is both the creative force of existence, and also the proof of the necessity of existence.

To better grasp the impetus of Creation, let’s look at the indefinite and paradoxes. What does “indefinite” mean? Anything as long as it is not specified (not defined); anything that appears both within and beyond the borders of the definition and thereby rendering the border superfluous, which means, no border, no definition. If nevertheless we would attempt to define the notion “indefinite,” then that’s a paradox because if we succeed, then it is defined, which contradicts its meaning - its indefiniteness - and the word “indefinite” means that it cannot be defined. This is an example of a paradox, that in essence means, if it is what it is, then it is not what it is, yet if it is not what it is, then it is what it is. A paradox is a creature that consists of a structure (how it is defined, the dynamic process on its way to stabilization) that contradicts its significance (what it is, the stabilized entity). What characterizes a paradox is the motion between its structure and significance, where the structure implies that its significance contradicts its structure, and vice versa.

Another example of a paradox would be “wholeness.” Wholeness (totality, infinite, boundless) can only be wholeness if we can find a way to define it so that it includes everything and there is nothing beyond it. However, if we define wholeness, then to have meaning, it must be bordered within the walls of the definition, which implies that there is something beyond this border, in which case it is not wholeness. Or in more formal language, wholeness is only wholeness if it is not wholeness, which is an inconsistency. If we are satisfied with that, then we have completed the definition of wholeness. However, if we try to include the beyond created by our earlier definition within the borders of our next attempt at defining wholeness, then we gain a new definition of wholeness, which by the sheer structure of the process of defining creates a new beyond. In this case, the process of defining wholeness will be consistent but incomplete, and wholeness will remain indefinite.

Contemplating the paradox of Creation, the ancient Egyptian myth of Creation springs to mind, the myth of the self-creating god, Amun (or Amon). Amun masturbated and swallowed his semen, after which he spit it out in the form of a ball, thereby impregnating his mother, the sky. And only then, was he born. Thus Amun was his own father. Those pious who discovered the illustrated version of this myth in Karnak covered up the erect phallus of Amun, and with it, this story of Creation was laid into obscurity. The Holophanic model of Creation could regard this Egyptian myth as Amun retromorphously creating himself. I have coined the word retromorphous to mean, defining in retrospect, turning non-being into the potential of whatever the observation is made from, or in other words, creating the past from the present, creating the source from its outcome, which is the basis of complexity in the context of the loop logic. That is, only after Amun was born can he give meaning to his mother, the potential from which he emanated and to the process that created him (as represented by masturbation and incest) whereby he was born. Of course, neither the sky nor the masturbating Amun have meaning until Creation takes place de facto and Amun emerges. I find this an enticing illustration of the basic paradox of existence.

So how can there be something from nothing? What is “nothing?” Nothing is what didn’t turn into the potential of something. If there was something from nothing, then that nothing would have turned into the potential of something, because when we ask, how is there something from nothing, we ask this question from something, when something already exists. If we take a deeper look at “nothing,” we’ll discover that “nothing” is a paradox. Any definition is something, so if we defined “nothing”, then it would become something, which contradicts its essence of being “nothing.” Another way of looking at “nothing” would be by means of it being something that is meaningless. That is, “nothing” could be something that does not relate and that no thing or no one relates to. That is, if there was something totally alone in the universe, then that would be nothing, but it would be meaningless. If such existed, its existence would be external to our perception, and as such, this “nothing” would be indefinite.

We said that the indefinite could be anything, as long as it is not specified (not defined). However, if we nevertheless tried to define “nothing” (the indefinite), what would we get then? Since “nothing” is non-definable, it is transparent as the object of our inquiry. So when we attempt to define it, all we have is what we put into it, which is the process of definition. “Nothing” stayed nothing, we didn’t define it, only made the process of definition explicit. “Nothing” gains meaning when we fail to define it; but having tried, we are left with a bonus, a something, which is our process of defining “nothing”. Creation of something from nothing is not a function of defining something, but a function of attempting to define “nothing.” And then, if that process of definition - which already is an existence - looks back at its origins, if this process of defining investigates into its own genesis, then what does it see? It sees itself. It sees the process of definition - self-reference.

If there is nothing external to perception, then this process of definition is the overall wholeness, the creator of meaning when it can relate to itself. However, to have meaning, the process of definition has to be defined; this definition would be a self-referential quasi-infinite and continuous process of establishing borders that create the indefinite beyond that establishes borders creating the indefinite beyond that establishes borders which means, wholeness would continuously and forever fail to define itself while succeeding to define something - anything but itself.

Of course, both the totally defined and the totally indefinite are idealized notions that would be inconsistent with the Holophanic loop logic, nor can they be found in nature. The totally indefinite would be the total meaningless nothing, the kind of non-being that cannot be fathomed because if we would think about it, it would already be something. On the other hand, there can be no total definition either. I have used the term uncertainty of sameness to describe the logical impossibility of total definition. A defined entity can be said to have reached sameness it is the same as itself which means that it is, it exists as something definite, no matter which parameters defined it. However, no sooner does our object achieve sameness than the uncertainty of sameness raises its ugly head. Could it have been defined differently? Yes, of course. Could it have additional parameters? Yes, of course. Could it have been defined more precisely? Yes, of course. This uncertainty of sameness is the indefinite included in the definition, which is the result of including the tools of definition in the definition. Since ‘a’ can only be defined as ‘a’ with meaning if it implies ‘not-a’ (the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition), and since ‘a’ can only have meaning as ‘a’ because it is different from everything else (the everything else is the indefinite beyond the borders, which actually gives meaning to ‘a’), the meaning of ‘a’ depends on ‘not-a.’

When the meaning of something depends on the indefinite, on what our defined object is not, then this indefinite is necessarily included in the process of definition. This logical implication that perception of meaning is only possible if and only if the indefinite is included within the perception is the reason why the 19th century dream of a consistent and complete axiomatic system with only well defined (explicit) empty signs had to fail (see more about that in my article, The Loop Logic). In spite of the fact that logic is the fundament of algorithms and computer science, it had neither the aspiration nor the ability to be connected to the real world precisely because its propositions were so anemic regarding meaning. In the effort to exclude any hint of the indefinite, logical inference was confined to a binary type of world of true and false and lacking any correlation with life and experiencing.

However, including the indefinite in the process of definition not only makes the loop logic the fundament of existence, but determines the necessity of existence. With the birth of Holophany, Heidegger’s question, “Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?” becomes irrelevant. When existence is relations, and relating is the act of perceiving, and perceiving is the process of definition, then existence is the overall lawfulness, the isomorphous lawfulness of the process of definition - the loop of Creation. What is being perceived, what is being stabilized, which significance is brought to the foreground from the amorphous background of the indefinite, depends on the non-linear rules of complex interactions. Thus the loop logic emphasizes the creation of essents rather than their interactions.

Is there a lawfulness responsible for any and every existence? An electron and a dog are very different creatures; so what invisible lawfulness is responsible for the existence of both? What kind of lawfulness would fulfill such demands? The answer is, isomorphism the same logical inner structure in entirely different representations. Whether an electron, a dog or the weather, each could be a different realization of the same inner logical structure. Creation of anything is the creation of meaning, which is an act of definition. The act of definition attempting to define itself is consciousness. So consciousness, or the soul if you wish, is not some invisible copy of our body carrying our identity, but the lawfulness of Creation expressed as our individual qualitative essence. Of course, it has been endlessly stated that we are God, that we are parts of God, and similar phrases. This is true, but true in the sense that God is the lawfulness that unfolds Creation, and this lawfulness is inherent in all creation including the creatures therein. It could be argued, that a soul, a person is more than mere definitions and intellect. If this logic is the logic of anything and everything, then it should be able to delineate the logical structure of experience as well. Indeed.

Anything that has meaning has to be defined, which places it somewhere on the scale between the continuous and the discrete, between the indefinite and the definite. The indefinite, continuous, infinite tends in the direction of the meaningless, whereas the meaningful is at best imprecise. Experience is the process of attempting to define the indefinite. When we try to capture an experience in a description, we are actually defining our attempt at defining the indefinite. The experience is continuous whereas its description, the definition is discrete. Just as we can never define wholeness, we can never define experience.

Any description, any definition, is by nature discrete, whereas the net experience is continuous. So when we have an experience or perception and we become aware of having that experience, then we give it meaning by defining what it is. By doing this we create a discrete replica of the experience, yet the experience remains continuous and non-definable, non-discretizable. Experience is connected to learning. The person encounters something new. How do we know that something is new? Because it is inconsistent with our system. So when we interact with it, we have to integrate it, to assimilate it into our system. If we met something that was not new to the system, then our system would recognize it as part of itself. When that recognition does not occur, the system is interacting with something new. That is the impact. The system adjusts to include the new - that is the change. One’s selfhood is the path of changes following one’s experiences.

Our knowledge of the experience - whatever it might be that we experience - makes it exist for us. We could say, one only experiences when one is aware of experiencing. How do we know that we are aware of experiencing something? By experiencing it, we experience the awareness of experiencing. In this sense, experience and awareness of the experience, experiencing the awareness of the experience, being aware of experiencing the awareness of the experience, etc. is an infinitely continuous chain, which is what defines what experience is (not the interpretation of a specific experience, but experience in its general sense). And that’s the definition of experience: an infinite loop of the process of becoming aware.

When “nothing” is the limit of both the totally indefinite and the totally defined, then that’s like a circle of going from something to nothing to something to nothing, etc. The ‘going’ here means perception. “Nothing” is only a notion that has meaning if it has been perceived, in fact, a paradox. If it really is “nothing,” then it cannot be defined, and hence, it has no meaning. Yet if I relate to it, then it is something. So whenever I relate to “nothing,” whenever I say, Creation of something from nothing, that “nothing” has meaning for me, and hence, it is significance it is something just like any other something. That is, the structure of “nothing” is the same structure as that of something. Essentially, something from nothing is formation, not Creation, since nothing is also something. Then what is Creation? Creation is rather the creation of nothing from something, because Creation is the process of definition, and when we define, we create the indefinite beyond the definition, which at its limit is nothing, and only then can we have something from nothing Oh yes, the loop. A true loop is only such if it contains its own source. If nothing can be proven to exist external to perception, then logic must be a loop, and existence is a logical necessity inferred by the loop.

Including the indefinite in the process of definition has far reaching consequences. It means that the tools of the definition are necessarily included in the definition. It means that meaning can only occur when there is both definition and also experience. It means that consciousness (whether it succeeds to define or not) must be part of science or any so-called objective endeavor. It means that any and all perception includes experience. The interaction with the indefinite, the experience, is what gives meaning to the defined. Perception, meaningful definition, can only occur in a highly flexible complex system that can learn and change. That’s the difference between us and an electron, which only has fixed relations, and consequently, limited interactions. An electron always succeeds in defining, or it would be more correct to say, it can only interact with what it succeeds in defining. If it encounters the indefinite, it assumes a state of superposition.

Where is God in the loop of Creation? If we wanted to define God, the totality, we could not define God, because by the act of definition we would create the beyond, what is beyond God, which contradicts God’s totality. Therefore, no definition of God would do justice to God, and every such definition would truncate God’s wholeness. If God is indefinable, then God is indefinite. If God is indefinite, then I create God by the implication of the act of definition - any definition, because every definition creates the beyond, the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition. In that sense, this is consistent with the statement that I create God by my perception (definition). This does not say that I perceive God, but that my perception implies the existence of the indefinite (God). This means that if I perceive a dog, this perception implies the existence of God.

If I perceive that I perceive, then that implies the existence of God. If I perceive dust, a table, an idea, whatever, then that implies the existence of God. If I experience, then that implies the existence of God. That’s because any existence implies the existence of God. And that’s because any existence is such if it relates or is related to, if it has meaning, if even partially it has been defined, which means, its mere definition implies the indefinite beyond the borders of the definition, it implies God, the indefinable. So one cannot directly perceive God (perhaps that is why it was stated in the Bible that no one could see God’s face and live = exist - “no man shall see me and live” - Exodus 33: 20), but only know about God by implication, which means, the implication of the indefinite - God - is what attributes meaning to any existence.

However, “God” does not equal “indefinite”, but the process that implies the existence of the indefinite is what could be said to be God, since that’s the process of Creation. This is the process of Creation that both creates something, existence, and also nothing, the indefinite. This is why this logic is a loop.
© Clara Szalai

Clara Szalai is a philosopher, author, speaker and consultant. Ms. Szalai provides creative solutions in various fields using the tools of Holophany. Holophany is Clara Szalai’s revolutionary philosophy, a consistent and complete worldview that is awakening growing interest among scientists and laymen. Clara Szalai is also the author of the book, “Holophany, the Loop of Creation.” Complete information on Ms. Szalai’s work is available from her web site, http://www.holophany.com

Share This