There is a problem with solving the big meaning of existence with a physicist's attitude, I know: where is the passion? For while it is the calm rational head that keeps the body going, it is passion - art - that maintains the reason for keeping alive. The author who I have been discussing, Thomas Campbell, knows this but cannot help but be analytic. I would probably be too passionate. Such are our limitations.
However, he does make one think. From his perspective, all that makes up life is a subset of a larger reality (and so on) which we cannot understand from our limited reference state, but which does affect us. As proof that this greater reality exists, Campbell uses the unavoidable fact that the very laws of objective science were broken when our reality came into existence - nothing, from our standpoint, can come from nothing. And yet it did. Higher laws of physics, ones that seem magical or "mystical" to us, do exist and do function in this world, even if we cannot figure out why. Yet, according to Campbell, these higher laws have there own rational pattern - albeit, based on a rationality that we cannot comprehend. And it was on this that I began to wonder about the physics of morality.
Last week's Gospel was on Jesus's healing of the sight of a man born blind. It begins with his disciples asking him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?," reiterating the little known truth that many Jews of that era believed in reincarnation (how else could a man be born blind because of his sins?) Beyond that, Jesus answers, "Neither...it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him." Here is a law of cause and effect that comes from a higher power to directly affect this world, but there is much more. Towards the end, Jesus speaks to the cynical pharisees who question his miracle: " I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind." "Are we then blind?", mocked the Pharisees. Jesus replies, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains."
Frankly, the only part about the above that I understand rationally is the use of the blind man for a lesson, for that is well within the scope of the power of the god I envision. But what of the others? I can kind of understanding the references to sight and blindness by bending my mind around obscure symbolism - have faith and see, do not and [recognize] your blindness, but that does not fully cover it. No, those who are blind will see and those who see will become blind; further, those who see are in sin, and those who do not, have no sin. How to fully make sense of it?
I cannot - but what if Jesus were talking about a supernatural (that is, above our understood nature) law of physics? And that all in this nature reflected the laws of this greater physics? Perhaps those who are born blind reflect the state of their souls - made, in this sense, more perfect for being less influenced by this limited reality. A thin reed, perhaps, but I believe an idea of a greater physics is further substantiated by the former statement: that in future, those who cannot see might see and those who do might become blind.
What Jesus may be talking about is a reversal of the consciousness of reality - that is, that the sight of the seeing becomes understood for what it is - a form of blindness, in that the greater reality is not seen (or, in another phrase, the forest is missed for the trees.); and that those who are blind - that is, those who do not believe they know (vs, the the Pharisees who believed they did) what life is all about, might be given that greater vision, as it is not blocked by their insistence on the reality of the smaller vision (which they do not "see," or know.) Thus we have a physics of reversal, a law that operates on a different level but affects us all. And with that, we might understand all the statements of Jesus that seem to contradict reality; for instance , just like the blind, the meek are not blinded by this reality and are open to the greater "vision," or meta-reality about them. Jesus here would be speaking symbolically, but only barely; he would be indirectly, as best as he could do with people of this background, trying to teach people of this greater reality and how to get in touch with it. At the base, as always, would be humility, the quieting of the ego that allows the greater information to come through.
It would then be that morality, rather than a sociologically derived formula, is actually based (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the culture) on guiding us to the path that leads to the comprehension of the physics of reality that subsumes our own. Just a thought, but it might be noted that this greater reality, as always, might be obtained through the quiet voice. FK
However, he does make one think. From his perspective, all that makes up life is a subset of a larger reality (and so on) which we cannot understand from our limited reference state, but which does affect us. As proof that this greater reality exists, Campbell uses the unavoidable fact that the very laws of objective science were broken when our reality came into existence - nothing, from our standpoint, can come from nothing. And yet it did. Higher laws of physics, ones that seem magical or "mystical" to us, do exist and do function in this world, even if we cannot figure out why. Yet, according to Campbell, these higher laws have there own rational pattern - albeit, based on a rationality that we cannot comprehend. And it was on this that I began to wonder about the physics of morality.
Last week's Gospel was on Jesus's healing of the sight of a man born blind. It begins with his disciples asking him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?," reiterating the little known truth that many Jews of that era believed in reincarnation (how else could a man be born blind because of his sins?) Beyond that, Jesus answers, "Neither...it is so that the works of God might be made visible through him." Here is a law of cause and effect that comes from a higher power to directly affect this world, but there is much more. Towards the end, Jesus speaks to the cynical pharisees who question his miracle: " I came into this world for judgment, so that those who do not see might see, and those who do see might become blind." "Are we then blind?", mocked the Pharisees. Jesus replies, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you are saying, 'We see,' so your sin remains."
Frankly, the only part about the above that I understand rationally is the use of the blind man for a lesson, for that is well within the scope of the power of the god I envision. But what of the others? I can kind of understanding the references to sight and blindness by bending my mind around obscure symbolism - have faith and see, do not and [recognize] your blindness, but that does not fully cover it. No, those who are blind will see and those who see will become blind; further, those who see are in sin, and those who do not, have no sin. How to fully make sense of it?
I cannot - but what if Jesus were talking about a supernatural (that is, above our understood nature) law of physics? And that all in this nature reflected the laws of this greater physics? Perhaps those who are born blind reflect the state of their souls - made, in this sense, more perfect for being less influenced by this limited reality. A thin reed, perhaps, but I believe an idea of a greater physics is further substantiated by the former statement: that in future, those who cannot see might see and those who do might become blind.
What Jesus may be talking about is a reversal of the consciousness of reality - that is, that the sight of the seeing becomes understood for what it is - a form of blindness, in that the greater reality is not seen (or, in another phrase, the forest is missed for the trees.); and that those who are blind - that is, those who do not believe they know (vs, the the Pharisees who believed they did) what life is all about, might be given that greater vision, as it is not blocked by their insistence on the reality of the smaller vision (which they do not "see," or know.) Thus we have a physics of reversal, a law that operates on a different level but affects us all. And with that, we might understand all the statements of Jesus that seem to contradict reality; for instance , just like the blind, the meek are not blinded by this reality and are open to the greater "vision," or meta-reality about them. Jesus here would be speaking symbolically, but only barely; he would be indirectly, as best as he could do with people of this background, trying to teach people of this greater reality and how to get in touch with it. At the base, as always, would be humility, the quieting of the ego that allows the greater information to come through.
It would then be that morality, rather than a sociologically derived formula, is actually based (to a greater or lesser degree, depending on the culture) on guiding us to the path that leads to the comprehension of the physics of reality that subsumes our own. Just a thought, but it might be noted that this greater reality, as always, might be obtained through the quiet voice. FK
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