The mastery of life. Lesson 0

 Synopsis.

This section examines the nature of God, the universal life force, or whatever you choose to call it. It raises the questions how did everything begin.

Physicists, cosmologists and quantum mechanics scientists have answered, or attempted to answer, many of the big questions facing humanity. Who are we? Where did we come from? Where are we going? These are big questions that are currently being answered by great minds. But all the scientists, all of the cosmologists, and all of the quantum physicists can't answer one simple question.

How did it start?

There are those who assume that it is just a cycle that goes on forever. Matter expands, acceleration decreases to zero, everything smashes together again, all over the course of billions of years. It still does and explain how it first started.

There are those who believe that matter spontaneously generates itself. For example, Stephen Hawking, the renowned physicist, believes that matter is spontaneously generated at the edge of space around a black hole. Matter is always generated in pairs of two particles. One particle is drawn into the black hole, one particle is ejected into our universe. What's interesting about this concept is the spontaneous generation of matter. But, where did the black hole come from?

Wherever there are human beings, someone asks the question -- where did we come from? The answer from the physicists is usually, "I don't know." Where there is a knowledge vacuum, mankind has always filled that vacuum with an idea.

Religions

Before the more modern religious beliefs involved, there were a variety of religious systems. There was a belief that we were ruled by planets and stars. There were beliefs that omniscient beings, living in the heavens, controlled by destinies. The earth was flat. Earth was borne on the back of a giant. There were all sorts of manifestations of all sorts of gods. Men always searched for the answer to the question, where did we come from?

There is the biblical version. God always has existed, and always will exist, is all powerful (omnipotent), all knowing (omnicient), and everywhere at once (omnipresent) and created the universe we now live in, in six days. He rested on the seventh day, the Sabbath. Everything you see around you, according to this belief, was the work of one being, who completed it in a week, starting with nothing.

The Bible

There are also those who believe in the Bible's rendition of creation, but believe that the Bible speaks metaphorically, or there wasn't the language at the time the Bible verse was written to express the concept accurately. For example, would someone from ancient Egyptian civilization, in 1000 BC even have the words, the language, even analogies, to explain an automobile, trained, or what about a personal computer or radio or cellular telephone? Things we take for granted would be considered magical by those civilizations.

Similarly, the language of the Bible conveys messages with concepts that were known and understood by people that live 1000 to 2000 years ago. The methods of explanation were limited by human understanding of the time. Some of it is factual, some of it is allegorical (told with fables or stories). The language of the Bible, and the translations through several languages such as Aramaic, Hebrew, Greek and Latin, have made it ultimately more difficult to understand the real meaning behind what people wrote -- even if inspired by God.

Sufficiently advanced technology

Arthur C. Clarke, noted scientist and science-fiction writer, and inventor of the communications satellite, tells us that "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

Was the Bible full of magic, advanced technologies, parables, or something else? These are difficult, if not impossible, questions for modern-day man to answer. The real question is, does it matter? Can enough of the Bible and its messages be understood by modern man?

Which brings us to the second concept. Should we assume that the Bible represents all metaphysical knowledge? Can everything that needs to be said, and all lessons that need to be learned be expressed in a single book? Was that the creator's intentions? Was all new now let's suppose to stop being formed 1500 years ago?

Assuming, for a moment, that there was a creator, it is highly unlikely that communication of knowledge from the deity, were such a deity to exist, would have abruptly ended some 1000 to 1500 years ago. Perhaps, however, people stopped listening. Perhaps, people do not understand the implications of what they have learned. Perhaps, there are some people who still believe that the deity, God, has a message and a purpose for mankind, but the vast majority of mankind does not understand the message or understand the purpose.

We are told, by the monotheistic religions (modern day religions which believe in one God), that the Bible is indeed the word of God. However, they are curiously silent on whether God continues to speak to man, and whether that communication should be written down. Yet, on the other hand, we have the Saints who perform miracles in life, and in the afterlife. It is hard to reconcile the acts of the Saints with the writing of the Bible, or, the writings of the ancient prophets. How are they different?

The nature of a higher power

This we can say with some certainty.

• It is highly unlikely that the universe and all its matter and energy always existed.
• It is unlikely that intelligence, human intelligence, is a mistake of nature -- an accident.
• With the billions of galaxies in the heavens, and billions of stars in each galaxy, and planets circling some percentage of them, it is quite likely that some small percentage of those stars contain life. If the number is one in 1 billion, the number of planets containing life is still astronomical.

Probably, mathematically, we are not alone. Did God choose to send his only begotten son to a minor planet at the edge of the mediocre galaxy, alone? Were we part of a plan to visit all sentient (capable of thinking) life?

Exercises

1. Imagine the absolute nothingness. It's difficult to do. We move about in space, but there was. Time marches forward, yet there is no time. Nothingness, absolute nothingness, is the complete absence of time and dimension.

 This

2. Before you have the following terms:

A. Monotheistic

B. Omnipotent

C. Omniscient

D. Omnipresent

E. Allegorical

3. How old is the present Bible?

A. 6000 years
B. Over 2000 years
C. 1000 to 1500 years

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Basic Principles. 0001

1. Basic science tells us that matter can be converted to energy (relatively simple) and that energy can be converted to matter (far less simple), but neither matter nor energy can be created or destroyed. This is a very fundamental principle that almost anyone knows, if not understands. However, something lost on most people is that if A can be converted to B and B to A, then A and B are really the same thing! That thing usually has a name, call it D. For example, we can handle liquid water. At 32°F, liquid water turns to its solid form, ice, and had 212° F (at sea level) that same liquid water boils away into steam, a gas. We know that they look and feel different, but we know that they are really the same thing. What is hard for us to accept is that the electricity, radio waves, my big toe, the family dog, and my automobile are all, fundamentally, the same thing! Unfortunately, that fundamental thing has no name. There is no simple, English language label.
2. 10.0020 Absolute Nothingness And The Edge Of The Universe. What happens when we reached the edge of the universe? Does it just go on forever? How long is forever, and how big must something be to be infinitely wide or long or high? This is a question that even physicists argue about to this day. Do we live in the finite bounded universe? That is, a universe in which we can reach the edge. Do we live in a finite unbounded universe? As soon as we approach it and, does the universe stretched, like a balloon being filled with air? What’s on the other side of the edge of the universe? Is there another universe? Are there an infinite number of other universes? Was our universe created when the black hole of another universe reach some limit and exploded?
3. 10.0030 What Is Life? As far as we know, as far as we are taught, there are three forms of stuff in the world: animals, vegetables, and minerals. Using this broad categorization rocks and soil are certainly mineral. In the broader categorization as one of the three types of things, all of the elements on the periodic table, and all compounds made from them would be considered mineral. Thus, even the bodies of animals and vegetables are composed of is minerals, albeit with something extra. On a macro level, we think it is relatively easy to distinguish among them. However, when we look more closely, it becomes difficult. A sponge is an animal, so is coral. However, sponges, coral, and even sea anemonies sit in one place, a mobile, and catch and eat food that passes by. And what about the Venus fly trap? It has chlorophyll, it turns toward the sun, and it converts minerals it receives through its roots into energy for its growth. That’s all very plantlike. However, the Venus fly trap also catches and eats insects! The fine distinctions between plant and animal can be very deceptive. In fact, one could say that the distinction was purely artificial. As far as we know, everything is composed of some form of mineral, by the above definition.

4. 10.0040 The Hierarchy Of Life. Let’s think, for a moment, about life itself. We know that life as we know it is composed of cells. A cell has a cell membrane, fluid, a nucleus, and the areas and sundry other components that have been identified by scientists. The cell, as far as we know, is the smallest object that can be defined as being alive. Cells used to be classified as animal or vegetable. Then they were semi-living things such as viruses which consume and expend energy, but have no way intrinsically to create the energy. Then there are those kooky things called prions, that appear to be almost alive, but not quite. As far as we can tell, things that are alive, such as plants and animals, are made up of elements and combinations of elements which are not alive.

Question. What is it that animates life, or more specifically, your life? And, what is the boundary between living in nonliving? Can cells be said to be alive because they can acquire and metabolize food into energy? What about viruses? Are they alive, or almost alive? Viruses are incapable of acquiring or metabolizing anything. Viruses latch onto a cell, and draw their energy directly from the cells metabolism. They are unlike any other nonliving, elemental or chemical compound in that they consume energy and multiply. Most other nonliving things do not multiply, do not process. The same can be said for prions. Is there a stage between living in nonliving – call it quasi-living? Did quasi-living exist prior to living?

5. Does Size Matter? When we look at one celled plants or animals, they are very small, and not usually visible to the naked eye. However, we know they exist and can see them with a microscope. Evolution has created multi-cellular plants and animals. Take people for example. We are living beings composed of literally billions of cells. We have skin cells and bone cells, muscle and heart, lung and kidney cells. Barring an anomaly, these cells make up a unique person. Now what’s interesting, is that I can take a few of those cells – skin or liver or kidney – remove them from the body to which they are attached, put them in a petri dish with the proper nutrients, and they will continue to grow.



While science may not be advanced enough yet to be growing a new heart, it can certainly keep heart cells alive for a long time, outside the body. Here is another fact. Over time, virtually every cell in my body will be replaced. Older skin cells will die and slough off, only to be replaced by new living cells. With the possible exception of neurons, as nerve cells are called, our entire body is replaced many times, cell by cell, over the course of our lives.

I am physically not the same person as I was yesterday, last month, or last year. Aside from being me, the personality that we all know, I am a product of the food I eat, water I drink and air that I breathe. The person who went to bed last night is physically not the same person that woke up this morning! This raises a number of very interesting questions such as who or what am I… or anyone else for that matter. I am literally a colony of independent cellular level organisms that live together, have their own goals, and have the shared goal of staying alive. They start out like a new colony, grow and prosper as a mature city or country, and eventually, and inevitably, die like the ghost towns of the wild West, with only our skeletons surviving the ravages of time to prove that we once walked here on the earth. Understanding this points out an interesting conundrum. Who am I? Is that essence which is me – my personality, separate from that colony of living cells which represents my body? Or, is my essence, me, simply a product of this colony of cells living, growing and sharing themselves? It would certainly seem that the unique thing, that unique living organisms that I identify as myself, is separate from some biological processes that make up my body.

If I call the self aware entity a spirit or a soul, then it is certainly something different from the collection or colonies of differentiated cells that make up my body. In scientific terminology, something that we have to Discover is whether that thing we call the soul is an emergent property of the elements and compounds that manifest themselves as cells, or, whether it is something different entirely which a particular batch of cells provide access to these four dimensions! Is the body of machine, like an automobile or a telephone which transports matter or information that is used by some spirit – some type of organized energy? Or, is what we define as intelligence and the ability to communicate something that is inherent in the particular combination of elements and compounds can higher-level structures that make up a person?

6. Existing in Four Dimensions. We are told that we live in a four dimensional universe. Length, width, height the three dimensions that exist in space. That which exists in those three dimensions also passes through the dimension we call time. Time, the fourth dimension, by our perception, always marches forward. The arrow of time, as the physicists call it, always points to the future. However, as explained by noted physicist Stephen Hawking, there is nothing in physics which tells us that the arrow of time always points to the future. It may be our senses, our built-in, hardwired psyche which can only perceive the forward movement of time.

But even more astonishingly, he tells us that the laws of physics, as we understand them, tell us that there must be more than four dimensions! Hawking states that for the equations of physics to work, there must be at least seven dimensions. These new dimensions (or at least new to us mere mortals) are not perceptible with sight, sound, taste, touch or smell – the classical human senses. These extra dimensions would require a sixth sense to perceive. This brings up an interesting point. If the dimensions themselves cannot be perceived, perhaps the mechanism for perceiving them cannot easily be perceived either. However, it does not preclude the possibility that we do have a sense, and in existence, and those other three or more dimensions. If the dimensions exist, perhaps there is a portion of ourselves that also exists in some or all of those dimensions. And, perhaps there is some sort of interface between our mind, brain and the extra dimensional existence.

7. Atomic Stuff. I will digress for a moment to talk about atoms which make up elements which make up all other matter – living and not living. Let’s use lead as an example. We see a block of lead. It is grayish in color. It’s heavy. Lead is just about the heaviest nonradioactive element. If one were to taste it (not advisable, since it is toxic to life) it would even taste slightly sweet. Lead as an element is composed of only one type of atom – the lead atom, whose symbol is PB (for its Latin name, plumbum). We think of lead as a metal, albeit a relatively soft one. We can and make it led into a bar, and bend it with our bare hands. We can hit someone over the head with a lead pipe and knock them out as they used to do in the old-time movies. We think of it as rigid.

There are two things that give lead these physical properties. One thing is the number of protons in the nucleus of the lead atom. It is In the case of lead, there are 82 protons, and correspondingly, 82 electrons. It is this nucleus which gives it its weight, color, hardness and flavor. The other thing is the number of electrons which float around the atoms nucleus. In order for an element to be stable, it should have as many electrons as it has protons.

Now here’s what’s interesting. The proton is like a ball of marbles. Each smashed up next to the other. Each ball or bundle has a certain weight which makes it what it is, for example lead. Now stripped of its electrons, the little balls of lead just bounce around. They would never come together to form a solid block without electrons. It is when two or more atoms sharing electron that the nuclei become stuck together! We see a lead pipe because the electrons in the lead have caused it to stick together! Now if we were to be able to photograph that leadpipe down to the microscopic level we would find something wondrous, and perhaps, to some, a little disturbing!

Each atom from the central nucleus to the outermost electron is mostly empty space. If we were to blow up and atom to the size of a basketball, the nucleus which contains the protons and neutrons (which we did not discuss here) would be perhaps the size of a marble. Then there is empty space. In relationship to the size of the entire atom, there is in fact quite a bit of nothingness between the nucleus and the first ringe of electrons. Then we take about an inch of space from the outer cover in, and put approximately 8 electrons in an orbit and we make several shells or orbits. This means that an added, that fundamental element of everything solid liquid or gas, is mostly empty space!

What makes the atoms stick together are the electrons! Without explaining in detail suffice it to say that the universe wants the outer shell of most atoms to have a specific number of electrons. What makes something solid is when two of these atoms come next to each other and share one or more electrons! We perceive the lead as solid but really it is 90% nothingness filled with atomic nuclei held together only by the electrons in their orbits. This is true for the most vaporous gas to diamond hard solids! An atom of carbon in a person is the same as in atom of carbon in your charcoal grill or in the wood you burned in your fireplace!

We are made up mostly of empty space punctuated by protons glud together by orbiting electrons with mostly empty space in between!

continued on r-4



The Classification Of Things

Animal
Vegetable
One cells – nucleus
One cells – no nucleus
Virus
Prion

Non-metabolic (mineral)
element

Project Outline

1. Matter and energy
2. Absolute nothingness in the edge of the universe
3. What is life?
4. The hierarchy of life
5. Does size matter?
6. Existing in four dimensions
7. Atomic Stuff
8. How big is life?
9. Immortality
10. Beyond life as we know it

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Introduction to Theta. Lesson 1A

You are about to embark on a fascinating journey of body, mind and spirit. You are about to experience the personal magic, personal enrichment and empowerment of Theta.

What Is Theta?

Theta is a latent or hidden ability within each and every one of us to influence, alter or even occasionally to control the world in which we live. Everyone is born with Theta. However, in most people that personal ability or power lies unused, dormant. We have to consciously, if you will, intentionally, reactivate this power which we all possess

Instinctive Skills.

We are conceived in an aquatic world in our mother's womb, suspended in water re-amniotic fluid. Every child is born with the ability to swim. However, at birth we are thrust from this sheltered, liquid world into the airy world we see around us.

At conception, infants are natural swimmers. At birth, we rapidly lose that skill. However, within the first few days of birth, a baby, who cannot yet even roll over or hold of her head, will swim, naturally, in a tub of warm water, if given the opportunity. If exposed to submersion shortly after birth, the child will instinctively hold his breath, roll on his back, and float -- a skill that will remain for a lifetime. However, wait a few weeks to expose the child and that instinctive skill is gone and the child must be taught from scratch to swim. Or even worse, the child may learn to become afraid of the water, of fear that is learned, and not natural.

How many God-given, natural skills and abilities, like the natural instinct to swim, are we born with, but lose overtime due to disuse? Surprisingly, as you will learn, the list is rather long. We, from a very early age, are actually trained to ignore our natural skills and abilities, skills and abilities that would be of great benefit to us as adults.

Why Did We Lose these Instinctive Skills?

There are two reasons that a skill can atrophy or become dormant:

1. The skill is no longer required for survival, and becomes inactive over generations through disuse.
2. Older skills may be replaced by newer, learn the skills.

In addition to these skills which atrophy, there are a myriad of skills which we possess, but of which we are unaware. These skills may come apparent during times of great stress, during times of calm meditation, or occasionally, for no apparent reason. Sometimes these skills are so bizarre or unusual that we dismiss them as coincidence or a fluke of nature, and dust, never develop the hidden or latent skill.

How Do We Reactivate Dormant Skills?

First, we must be aware that we possess a skill to begin with! Second, we must be alert to signs of new skills. We must not be too quick to dismiss certain events as accidental or coincidental. To do this, we can be told or shown, but rarely does being told or shown, alone, result in being able to apply the skill.

We can be aware. We can search for skills, search for abilities, and cultivate those that we find. These skills are in some ways like our muscles. They require exercise, repetition, attention to develop to their full potential.

Collectively, we call this set of little-known, and generally misunderstood or ignored skills and abilities the power of Theta, a God-given power that lies within each of us -- but is dormant in most. Most new students, or neophytes, are amazed at just what we are capable of doing.

Subjects We Will Cover.

In our journey, our quest four knowledge and personal development, we must understand at least small pieces of many disciplines. To understand how our body works we must understand a little biology. To understand some basic concepts and ideas we must study a little philosophy. To understand why the world we live in behaves and reacts as it does we must understand a little physics. What is important is to understand not only that an event happens, but why and how. We must become critics and skeptics. We must become students of life. And, we must know and understand the hidden and the unusual when it occurs so as not to dismiss it as either coincidence or childish thoughts.

The power of Theta Lesson 1

.
Introduction.

Theta is a power that lies within each of us. We use the power of Theta, also known as the power of Intention daily, without even understanding it, or its ramifications. Theta is perhaps the most powerful tool that a human being has. Yet, to most of us, it lies dormant, or leads to unintended consequences which we do not understand and rarely observe or study. in most cases, conflicting intentions cancel each other out.

What is Theta?

Theta is the power within all of us to mold reality to our wishes. Theta is the conscious effort to change the sea of reality in which we are all immersed. Theta could be viewed as a wish, a dream, a want, or perhaps a need.

The problem is, most individuals do not understand the law of Theta. They do not understand how to direct Theta, or what universal forces affect Theta.

Theta is the ability to want something to happen, and through sheer force of will, make it happen. Generally speaking, in broad terms, every thinking human possesses this power. Some understand it and employee it better than others, and have done so for centuries, perhaps millennia. Many people have internalized the power of Theta. These people understand how to use Theta, even if they do not understand the mechanism by which it works.

Theta may seem like many to be magic. However, we must remember what Arthur C. Clarke once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Theta is the science, or the magic, of redirecting the energies of the universe to accomplish that which we want.

Note, that Theta has limitations. No one professes to know all the laws of the universe. But one thing we do know is that Theta will not violate a universal law. Theta is capable of doing anything that can be done within the scope of the universal laws, although it may occasionally look like magic. If we define magic as cause-and-effect relationships outside our frame of reference, but within the frame of possibility, then it exists. If we take the definition of magic as performing the impossible, then there is no such thing. That is only illusion. Pulling rabbits from hats is illusion while two people creating a third persons is magic.

Theta has a cost.

Theta is not free. Like all expenditure or manipulation of matter and energy, the use of Theta effectively requires the banking, or storage, of energy, and the release of that energy at a particular time and place. The reason that we rarely see Theta used powerfully and noticeably is because most Thetas are very weak.

Picture Theta as a battery in a car. A strong battery has a lot of pent-up electricity, also known as potential energy, that it releases at the turn of the key. It turns the starter of the engines rapidly and efficiently, and starts the car engine in less than 2 seconds, usually. With the engine off, a battery with lots of potential energy makes the cars light shine brightly, and the radio play loudly. However, get into a car with a weak battery and the car lights are dim, the radio volume is very low, and the car crank several times before starting -- if these things work at all.

We all have a Theta battery. Most go through life with a weak or dead battery! Like the car battery, the Theta battery must be recharged after use. Most of us know neither how to use it, nor how to recharge it.

A car battery is capable of starting a car for four or five times before it becomes completely discharged. We avoid a dead battery by building an alternator into the car. The car's engine is so powerful that driving the alternator to charge the battery and the car's electrical system takes no noticeable power away from the wheels. But a miniscule drain is still there.

Theta behaves like the electricity in a battery. There is potential Theta -- that is, personal energy that has been stored up to be expended on Theta, and kinetic Theta -- Theta that is being used, that is powering some event. For Theta to be useful, we must bank, or store potential Theta energy, and once bank, we must then unleash that potential Theta as kinetic Theta. We use the pent up Theta energy to achieve a week desire. Theta has a cost. The cost is what we as people must do to create that store, that bank of potential intent, the intent battery.

Storing potential Theta.

As we said, most people go through life without understanding the concept of Theta. They blithlley travel through life with a dead, or nearly dead, Theta battery. Their Thetas get lost in the sea of all other Thetas. When one of their Thetas makes it to the surface, some call it a miracle, some call it coincidence.

Continued...

The power of THETA Continued Lesson 2

Multiplying Theta through numbers.

If enough people intend for exactly the same thing, possibly in the same language, with exactly the same ideas, and at the same time, purposely pooling their energy, even people with weak Theta batteries, when massed together, may still achieve a result.

Prayer is one such example. One person's prayer may or may not be answered because of the power of Theta within that one person. A congregation of 500 praying for the same thing is at least 500 times more powerful than one person. The power of all churchgoers worldwide praying at the same time is enormous.

Note: In the example above, it is assumed that all churchgoers have the same level of power in their Theta battery. This is not necessarily true, and can skew our results. However, the concept is clear.

We purposely use prayer is an example. Most people who pray, pray to God, Allah, or a saint. It is true, God, Allah, the Saints, the universal life force, the mind, what ever you want to call it, does answer prayers! The tradition of praying is as old as sentient (thinking) humanity itself. It is no coincidence, no accident of humanity, that prayer has been with us for thousands of years, perhaps as long as man has been intelligent.

Resolution of Theta conflict.

If I consciously intend for a bright sunny day so that my family and I can go to the beach, and my next-door neighbor consciously intends for rain so his plans will be watered, assuming we both had the same charge in our Theta batteries, those two prayers will cancel each other out. That does not mean nothing will happen! That means human influence will not play a part in what happens next. Nature will decide in the absence of channeled Theta.

Intentioned example: war and peace.

We all claim to intend for peace, a cessation of worldwide hostilities, a common brotherhood of humanity. In reality, we most often intend for victory. We want peace, but we want it on our terms. Intending peace and intending victory are not the same thing. It is interesting in human history to watch the unfolding of events and intentions.

Northern Ireland was, for nearly a century, a Place of strife, conflict, and war. Each side wanted victory. Children were brought up on conflict and his hostility. It was the only way of life some of them knew. Generations have been brought up fighting each other. There were three camps -- the militant Protestants, the militant Catholics, and Protestants and Catholics who just wished that the hostilities would end.

The hostilities in Northern Ireland ended rather abruptly. There was conflict one-day, and peace happened the next. You can make claims that other countries intervened, the people got tired of war, that somehow, families which each other for generations suddenly quit fighting. Is that what happened? Or, did those praying for victory start praying for peace? Did the third camp, the Irish Protestants and Catholics who only cared for peace, grow in numbers sufficient that they are Theta for peace was prevalent? Even a small nucleus of people can prolong any event, such as the conflict in Northern Ireland. It takes a concerted effort of will, an outpouring of fervor, to have the mainstream over power militant extremists, even when they are the minority. We have seen that time and time again worldwide. North America, Europe, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, all have been subject to the hostile and combative minority that wished control.

The message from history is clear. Intend peace , not victory. You may be quite happy with the peaceful resolution. Often, peace breaks out in unintended fashions. And Theta for peace, as we have seen, is not necessarily an intention for victory. What makes us happy, satisfied, and fulfilled may be other than what we expect!

Basic Principles. Lesson 2

Continue...


8. How Big Is Life? We have already established that there was life existing at the level of a single cell, and the possibility of life, or quasi – life below the cellular level. We have established that dogs, cats, people, trees and rose bushes are all alive, and all composed of groups of cells that work together in concert to produce a living thing. We have also established that those living things are composed of differentiated cells, which when combined in a particular format, give us that life. It is interesting that the hundreds of different cell types -- bone, muscle, brain, heart -- all differentiate themselves from two simple original cells, the sperm and the egg. Two cells combine into one, only to later differentiate into thousands! Life it self, at the cellular level, in some respects is similar to the atom! All atoms are composed of protons and electrons. It is only the number of protons that distinguishes hydrogen gas from liquid mercury to solid aluminum!

What is it that causes something to be a live? What separates the healthy baby from the cluster of tissue which represents an early miscarriage? The baby is alive. It reacts to its environment, one learns and grows. It is a wondrous thing. However, occasionally something goes wrong in the division of the cells. What we are left with is tissue that has not formed into a human. It may have no brain. It has no thought. It may have none of the systems that we normally associate with a living being. It certainly is not human, by our definition. However, it's cellular structure may resemble any of several types of human tissue. Certainly, the individual cells may be alive at the time of birth! They have no way to sustain life after birth, so in that sense they are something like a virus. However, put into the right culture, many of these cells can multiply.

So what is it that separates living from nonliving? Sentient from non-sentient? A very interesting question.

There are two things that we should observe about living things.

First, they all come from a source. They are, if you will, born. They may be borne by cell division, they may be borne by budding, they may be borne by sexual reproduction, but a new living thing comes into being from the existence of one or more prior living things.

Second, living things metabolize. They produce energy, usually from some sort of matter. People eat food and drink water and produce energy to work and play. Withholds the food and water and the cells of the human eventually die. This is true of virtually every living thing. Now viruses and prions have no way to produce this fuel on their own. That is, perhaps, what separates them from truly living things. However, they absorb the energy of living things capable of producing it, and metabolize that energy that they receive from others.

9. Immortality. Think about it. Certain living things seem to be immortal. It also seems as though the simple learn the life for, the longer it can live. Think about the amoeba or the euglena (another one celled creature). They multiply through cell division -- mitosis. A cell reaches a certain point in size or age, and then splits into two cells. Those two cells reach a certain point in age or time, and split into two more cells each. This process continues indefinitely. When you see an amoeba under a microscope in a drop of pond water, that amoeba is the product of countless cell divisions over the course of millennia. When you see a sponge on the seafloor, it is the product of budding, a sexual reproduction. It is an extension of some animal which has lived for centuries, even millennia. It is as though the human could cut off an arm and growing a new person from that arm, while at the same time we growing the arm on the original person! Is the second person who grew from a cut off arm a new to person, or an extension of the same person?

As we said before, if

10. 21st Century scientific mysteries. In this sense, a mystery is any result which our current level of knowledge cannot explain -- the cause of the result is unknown, but performing certain actions can scientifically determine that certain proscribed result will occur.

Thus far we have established that there are atoms made up of subatomic particles, elements which consist of a single type of atoms, and compounds (molecules) such as water that exist because we "glued together" certain types of atoms by sharing their electrons. These molecules combine in certain ways to form, simply described, animals, vegetables and minerals as well as things that are perhaps less than alive such as viruses and prions. This leaves several unanswered questions.

First, what is life? Is it an emergent property of a certain combination of elements or matter? Or, is life something separate from matter which can manifest itself in our four dimensional space by using matter, which is inherently inert? In other words, is my personality, my thought process, my mind, separate and distinct from my body? Is my body merely a biological mechanism that my mind is capable of inhabiting?

Second, we know that there is something which we have classified as quasi-life, incapable of supporting itself without another living being his presence. We know there was life which exists, consumes matter and energy and produces matter and energy. What we don't know is whether there is a form of life beyond what we have described, of which the highest form we can envision, is human life.

Let us conduct some thought experiments, as Albert Einstein called them. Let us expand our thought process to consider some older alternatives.

Thought experiment number 1. Body and mind unified. In this first experiment, we envision a living entity, let's say a person. That person is a living organism. It has a brain. All thought, all emotions, all feeling, occurs within the brain through its neural connections. Unless a thought is written on paper, told to another person, recorded on video, or saved for posterity by some other extra biological means, the thought exists only in the brain. An unrecorded thoughts ceases to exist when the engine, the person, ceases to be alive. The notion of passing knowledge from one person to another, across time and space, where the timeframe is longer than a human life span, is implausible. For example, if someone in ancient Egypt had a thought, it would be impossible, unless that thought were recorded somewhere, to transmit the install to another, modern day person, or to handle that modern day person perceive that thought that was in the mind of the ancient Egyptian. When the Egyptian dies, his thoughts, his knowledge, dies with him. In this model, unless an idea is transmitted to another person through the senses of sight, sound, taste, touch or smell, either directly (from person to person) or indirectly (a diary, let's say) the knowledge is lost.

Some things in this model of existence are clearly impossible. For example, speaking in tongues by a person never exposed to the language/tongue is clearly impossible. To sit in New York, and, in the mind, perceive a scene or action in, let's say for argument's sake, London, is clearly impossible. Those who think they experience such things are either delusional or misguided.

Thought experiment number 2. Body and mind separate. This situation presents us with some interesting opportunities and explanations of things which may have, and I stress the word may because we are unable to test them at this time, occur in the real world.

Test case A. There is anecdotal evidence that people have been known to speak in foreign languages to which, according to anyone's knowledge or recollection, they have never been exposed. The speaker, in such situations, may or may not understand the message. This is most typically associated with a religious experience, where it is called speaking in tongues. However, in rare circumstances, this phenomenon has been observed in secular settings. In many cases, this has been attributed to a reincarnations experience. The scientific explanation is still a mystery.

Test case B. A person, sitting in a laboratory in Houston, accurately describes a number of cards dealt by an astronaut in space, whizzing around the globe. The number of correct "guesses" by the person locked up in Houston far exceeds the number of correct guesses that would be due to statistical probability. Other people are asked at the same time, to randomly select the same number of cards in the same period of time and end up with a far lower number of correct answers, well within the range of statistical probability.

These two anecdotes are merely a couple of stories culled from countless stories of events that cannot, by today's technological standards, be explained. However, as scientist and science-fiction writer, Arthur C. Clark once wrote, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Are these stories examples of sufficiently advanced technology or sufficiently advanced biological and physical processes which we cannot currently explain, such that they appear to be magical? We, as a Western society, are highly reluctant to accept things that defy logical and rational explanation, within our defined boundaries of logical and rational.

Test case C. Many insurance companies, which operate within stringent mathematical, actuarial data, now routinely pay for hypnosis and acupuncture to solve a variety of behavioral problems, most notably, smoking cessation, for which it has been observed to be quite successful. There is more scientific study of the processes related to hypnosis than the processes related to acupuncture. But there is no doubt that when Anton Mesmer first began hypnotizing people, and the biological and neurological processes were not at all understood, hypnosis, as recently as the early to mid 20th century, appeared to be magical. Today, more of the processes of hypnosis are better, if not completely, understood. It is an accepted scientific fact in the medical, and other scientific communities, that hypnosis for smoking cessation and a variety of other mental and physical conditions is an accepted therapy.

Acupuncture is today, where hypnosis was in the prior century. Acupuncturists believe that the insertion of needles at certain points on the human body, with or without electrical stimulation, redirects the body's internal energy fields, resulting in a change in mental and/or physical processes. Current allopathic (M.D.) and osteopathic (D. O.) Medicine currently have no explanation whatsoever for why acupuncture works. There are no observable biological processes that emits energies that can be routinely measured in any meaningful way. What makes acupuncture work? Are there energies and processes which we as humans have not learned to observe? Is it really our own belief in the process that causes us to heal or influence ourselves?



11. The difference between science, theology and philosophy. We digress, momentarily, from our inquiries to recognize some definitional differences.

In science, one formulate a hypothesis and then evaluates the data to refine, modify or disapprove that hypothesis based on observable mathematical or scientific data. Science seeks to document provable facts.

Theology is the study of one or more organized religions. A theology represents the belief systems of one religion. One of the basic tenants of most, if not all theologies is that at some point, humanity reaches a point where we must believe on faith. We must believe because God, or the gods, command us to believe without understanding. Theology/religion is often at odds with scientific inquiry and loath to modify its belief system based on science.

There is a difference between pure theology and religion. Theology is a study of the nature of God, and usually his (or, if multiple, there) interaction with humanity. Religion is a temporal/man made construct. A religion as a person or Council at its head followed by serious casts of preachers/teachers. A religion is evidenced by an organization of people who believed in a theology. Theology can be thought of as one fairly narrow branch of philosophy.

Philosophy is the inquiry into the thought processes and ideas. One can think of it as the search for truth on many levels. Philosophy is the study of that which occurs largely in ideas and processes of the human mind.

Our objective is to delve into science and philosophy, and maybe theology, but to avoid purely religious systems because they rely upon accepting something on faith.

12. An interesting philosophy. Most of us have some understanding of one or more organized belief systems. Often, we referred to these belief systems as religions. There are the large organized religions of the Protestant faiths, Roman and Orthodox Catholicism, Judaism, Islam, etc. They all have in common a belief in a single deity or creator. They also have in common the belief that we as mere mortals cannot possibly comprehend the motivations of the divinity.

I digress however, into this religious discussion, because of the belief system of one, uniquely American religion -- the Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints also know to its members as the LDS church and to the rest of us as the Mormons. I do not espouse any particular religious belief, for a lot of reasons. And, I am certainly not a Mormon. They do however have one believe that is particularly interesting.

The Mormons are best known for their missionary pursuits, young men and women in white shirts and dark pants and knocking on doors. They are also known for their belief that Jesus Christ visited the New World after visiting the Middle East. Those beliefs, however, are not nearly the most academically interesting portion of their belief system.

They believe in one God that we must worship and pray to, as do most of today's monotheistic religions. They believe in the Christian Trinity -- God the father, God the son, and God the Holy Spirit. However, they also have the belief that God, our God, the God worshiped by earthly humans, may be but one of many number of gods! God, by their definition, is at the top of the human pyramid! If there is life on a planet circling the sun Alpha Centauri, and that planet is populated by living beings, the Mormons could absolutely believe that those beings have their own God who created and nurtured them! They believe that every population of living, intelligent beings has its own Creator/God! This is definitely not classical Eastern or Western belief.

Historically, we categorize religions as monotheistic -- believing in one God, polytheistic -- believing in many gods, or adiestic -- believing in some force, or some transcendence of death, which may not necessarily have the name of God. I think the Mormons represent a new category which we shall call multi-theistic which means that any given population worships or believes in one God, but does not discount the possibility that other beings and other gods may exist. The Mormon belief system holds that God is inherently good.

I raised the point because it is a consideration not often evaluated in the study of either Eastern or Western philosophy. As we shall see, this one particular belief may influence our philosophical inquiry just as much as the classical Eastern and Western belief systems.

13. Growth and entropy. There seem to be to force his work in the universe. The first force is entropy. As far as we know, or can observe, everything in the universe eventually succumbs to entropy. Without some intervention, everything will become cold, lifeless, dark and still. However, living things seem to disobey the law of entropy. If we look at the evolution from one celled being to human, there certainly appears to be a force that is counter to entropy. Sure, individuals seem to die away, but a species seems to grow and multiply as long as there are resources for it to do so. Also as we have seen, living things eat. Plants need sunlight and nutrients from the soil. Or before his eat plants. Carnivores eat other animals. Omnivores eat other plants and animals. Life seems to be counter entropic.

We have already established, for example, that the large dinosaurs were far from the largest living things. We have also established that the giant redwood trees of California are far from the oldest living things. What we have discovered is that there are fungi in at least three places on the West Coast of the United States that are massive. These fungi cover literally hundreds or thousands of square miles! They are not only the largest living things, but also perhaps, the oldest. While pieces, or areas of the fungi may die off, the organism itself remains connected and continues to grow. They are truly amazing things.

14. Beyond Life as We Know It. Thus far, we have examined non-living, semi-living and living things from subatomic particles through elements and their compounds, to prions and viruses, to very complex living organisms. We have essentially established a hierarchy of complexity and organization, of which living things appeared to be of the highest order. The question is, however, is there a state of living things greater than that which we identify today is the individual?

One thing that we must clarify, since the issue has been raised, is, what is living? A simplistic way to look at it would be to say that living things grow. However, crystals grow too. Stalagtites and stalagmites also grow. So growth alone cannot be the sole definition that separates living from nonliving. Radioactive elements decay into stable elements. They give off energy, but eventually stop. Iron rusts, in the presence of oxygen, converting iron to ferrous oxide, and giving off heat. So what exactly separates living, semi-living, and nonliving?

First, living things consume matter and/or energy and transform that matter and/or energy through some process, into energy which sustains life and replicates itself.

Second, as far as we know, all living things have a cellular structure. They use their metabolic processes to create progeny. Semi-living things use the metabolic processes of living things to manufacture more semi-living things. So clearly, we production is part of a living thing. Iron can beget rust, however, iron cannot beget more iron nor can rust beget more iron. Iron, rust, and crystal growth are terminal processes.

Third, complex living things, above the level of the cell, seem to have their cellular structures constructed in such a fashion that they naturally are in close proximity to another piece of the living entity. For example, in humans everything is in close proximity, at some point, to the flow of blood. When living things multiply, the new entity physically separates itself from the parent. However, the new entity has all the equipment necessary for its two we produce. A begets B begts C. Generally, eventually A dies and B and C continue to have progeny which survive until they die. This, as we have seen, is not true of purely chemical processes, such as rusting.

Now, we are poised to ask ourselves a question. If a living thing represents the highest known order of the complexity of things, and, living things are defined by a cellular structure, is there some order of entity, living entity, which exists beyond the level of single living creature? Is there some order of meta-life that exists? We know that humans form families, individuals and families form communities, communities form cities and states which form nations. We know that the ecology of living things plays an immense role in the formation, sustenance, and even death of human communities.

Much as a skin cell on our big toe is not conscious of the humans cellular community of which is a part, much as the community of cells which form the human heart are not cognizant of the human, is it possible that we humans are part of a meta-life or higher order being that we do not (notice that I did not say cannot) perceive? Is is it possible that we humans are we early meta- cellular constructions in what passes for the massive body of a gigantic being? Is it possible that stars and galaxies, enormous to us, are not even visible to this meta- being?

This raises another interesting question. If the mind is separate from brains, does the mind survive? Is memory stored in the fifth or sixth or seventh or Nth dimension of our existing reality? We can really make two assumptions here.

Assumption number one. What we term the soul is an energy and possibly mass that peeks into our four dimensional space but lives largely in N dimensional space. It may survive the death and decay of the body. And, it may be that the process of producing a body means that the body cannot know, understand or even begin to process the fact that the energy or life force which animates the body is potentially immortal, peeking into our four dimensional world occasionally. In this assumption, the soul is a unique living entity.

Assumption number two. We are recording engines which, for some undefined purpose, to us, collectively collect and store data in N dimensional space, a byproduct of which, for example, could be EEGs which can be measured. In this scenario, reliving past lives, speaking in tongues, and similar experiences means that our brain is, at that point in time, to get to the frequency of those stored memories. It may be quite possible, in this scenario, four to living people to experience the same past memory. Although, to our knowledge, this has never occurred, but cannot be ruled out. We do know however, that two people apparently can share knowledge of a contemporary event. One person sees the events live, and another person, separated by vast distances, can experience the same visual and auditory experience. We term this clairvoyance.

Added:

15. Discuss the effects of various things we put into our body such as water, food, drink, drugs, alcohol. Discuss how these various substances affect the mind's ability to communicate with the body. There are three candidates substances: affect the body away, affect the mind away, affect the body and the mind.



16. Discuss the process of aging. Birth, growth, stasis, regression, death. Why do they happen? What can we do?



17. The power of ritual and talismans. Use the Catholic Mass example. Rituals and talismans evoke a response.

Thought Experiment: The Christian Trinity. Lesson 10T

One concept which has persisted for more than 2000 years is that the deity, God if you will, is one person with three manifestations: God the father, God the son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit. The Christian religions tell us that the Trinity is a mystery that cannot be explained in human terms.

We agree that human language and human ideas were limited enough 2000 years ago or more, such that there were not human words to describe how something could be a Trinity as described. However, let us revisit some of our earlier examples and see if it is indeed possible to explain this phenomenon, if it is true, in terms of 21st century ideas and knowledge. Perhaps, for those who believe, it no longer has to be a matter of faith rather than logic.

First, we make the assumption that space has N dimensions where N is more than the traditional four, height, width, length, and time. Let us say, in fact, that there are at least seven, and possibly many more, as we are told by Stephen Hawking, physicist.

Second, let us for a moment hypothesize that spirit, mind (as opposed to brain), or soul exist independently from the body, but manifest themselves through the physical body. Let us say that the sole is the seat of self. At the time of death, the physical body no longer is inhabited or animated by the sole. However, the soul, as defined, may survive the body, and indeed, may be nearly immortal.

Third, let us say that the soul communicates with its physical manifestation, the body, through some energetic means. The side effect of these means of communication may in fact be the EEGs we witnessed during a medical examination, or the auras some people can see, and which can be photographed using a tool called Kirilan photography, which can photographed the auras of living things.

Fourth, let us assume for a moment, that some people, whether they could explain it or not, were cognizant of this dual nature of the human. Some people may, in fact, be able to exercise some form of control over the energetic part of there being -- that which we previously called the soul. There have, perhaps, been people who have had some sort of control over their energetic being all throughout history.

Fifth, for the sake of argument, and for this thought experiment to be successful, let us assume that there are not many souls, but rather one mega-souls, one super being if you will, and adverse can only inject a small portion of itself, a spark of life simply large enough to animate a being capable of learning, and, passing that knowledge on to the mega-souls.

Sixth, this implies that there is a hierarchy of life had which we are not at the top, but in the middle! Just as our big toe cell is unaware of the toe, or even the body to which it is attached, may be mere humans are like the big toe cell!

Now let us go back to Jesus Christ. He was clearly a man. In our model of reality above, he clearly had a dual existence of body and soul. Through means not yet familiar to us, perhaps he understood that the mega-soul, that being which provides the spark of life to other beings, was in fact determined by Him, God the father. If Jesus knew that he contain a spark of God the father, He then would have clearly realized that He was God the son. That leaves us with God the Holy Spirit. Envisioned as tongues of fire by the Christians. Perhaps rather than fire, this was a large spark! Maybe it was a particularly bright aura around the head. In any event, it would have been a manifestation of the mega-souls (God the father) who exists in N dimensional space, and projected, or perhaps still projects occasionally, into four dimensional space time.

It is interesting to note that in the Bible to Jesus Christ never claims that he is God! He claims his father is God the father. He performs feats, that at that day and time were considered to be miracles. He even praised. In fact, he even tells Pontius Pilate, "It is you, not I, who claim that I am God." or words to that effect, after dozens of translations and hundreds of tellings.

Now we have explained this mystery in terms of the simplest explanation, which is a single mega-souls. This mega-soul is at least a component of that which we call God. The above explanations is simple, and has a certain logical symmetry, which is appealing. However, to appease those who don't think that we as beings can be energized by a single thing which we call a mega-soul, lettuce and assume that the being we call God does have a non-corporeal, energetic soul. It is quite possible that that life force inhabited a person, Jesus Christ. Just as it is possible that such a soul could have animated bodies before and after.

The second explanations lacks a certain symmetry that we see in the first explanation. It is much easier to believe that there is a universal energy, a universal life force, then maybe one force, or one soul, which projects itself into living beings and grows therein. As knowledge grows, the being who wrote!

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