Creation

What next?

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The past may be seen to predict the future for all solid-state elements in a mechanistic universe. This excludes the sub-elements of the quantum universe and the supra-elements of the sentient universe.

However, what is known of the quantum universe, in the context of the everyday physical reality that is ‘more real’ to us, is that the peculiarities of the former support, but don’t resemble the nature of the latter, which can be seen to exist in addition, ‘on top’ – in a supra-reality that now includes the fact of the seeing.

Only it seems that we have yet to learn this lesson with respect to the sentient universe regarding itself, a lesson that can only begin by recognising it as a reality known to be peculiar to the nature of itself – a reality as real as the peculiar nature of solid rock, which we also know is really not solid in a different reality.

Perhaps the difference is due to the diverging nature of reality, whereby what is and what ‘is next’ simultaneously occupy different realities. And as we learn that there is more to existence than either quantum or Newtonian physics can explain, we know that we can know it because of our first-hand experience of a peculiar reality of a different order – of knowing, learning and explanation in a reality that simultaneously occupies the physical universe, yet is not peculiar to it.

Mike Laidler

Infinity in an atom

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No thing compares to nothingness without the creation of an infinity in comparison. So compared to nothingness, the existence of something is already infinitely greater than the ‘antithesis’ it is seen to replace, even when that infinity is condensed into the presence of a ‘single atom’ – displacing the infinity of ‘nothingness’ into a different universe.

And the reality that prevails over all seems to be an infinity of infinities, created in no small part by our attempts to see it as something finite.

Mike Laidler

Aeons of creation

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The singularly most significant singularity behind all singularities in aeons of universes to become, is the power of becoming, which we know of indirectly by its manifest non-random implications in this universe.

“Whatever the big bang was, it must have been a state of very very small entropy – a highly organised state.” – Sir Roger Penrose, Copernicus Centre Lecture 2010: ‘Aeons before the Big Bang’.

Mike Laidler

The appearance of evolution

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Evolution is meant to have its limits, it is not meant to be everything, and it is meant to be understood within those limits; otherwise it will set limits to our understanding, otherwise we will tend to see it as the it that is meant to make possibility possible.

We see nature revolving around evolution and its possibilities, instead of looking at evolution revolving around nature and its possibilities. We see things change and call it evolution, and then we say the evolution explains the change. Yet evolution is not everything. It does not determine the possibility of what can happen, though it certainly appears to – that is, if certainty can be attributed to appearances. But did Copernicus not teach us a lesson in that regard?

“It’s true to say that evolution is not an ascent. There is no march towards complexity in evolution.” Professor Brian Cox. (20.10.14). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29686627

Mike Laidler

Why existence?

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Why is there not nothing? This question remains as fundamental to modern science and philosophy as it did to the ancients. But it has been overlaid with so much detail that it appears to be outside the scope of common sense, to which it must return.

Yet the answer lies in the very sense by which we recognise there is a question to be asked – for we know there is not nothing and that ‘the something’ is capable of asking questions about the state of being in which it recognises itself. The problem comes in ‘being’ trying to look outside itself, as if the question about ‘why existence exists’ can be answered by something else – which precludes the questioner from ever knowing whether the answer is really the answer.

So to imagine a ‘something else’ leaves us to speculate forever about the ‘more of it’ in which the answer lies. And is it not sensible to assume that the ‘more’ extends beyond what is already – which takes us straight into the territory of a greater form of being – a power-to-be that we already know to be far greater than nothingness and all the forms of being we can imagine?

Mike Laidler

Aristotle or bust?

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Two astronauts visit a distant rock strewn planet and stumble upon a rock that is an exact three-dimensional effigy of the philosopher Aristotle. There is nothing else remotely like it and no evidence of prior habitation or visitation.

Is the astronaut who supposes it must have been created naturally, by chance, more realistic than the one who supposes the opposite? And if it could be created naturally, who would believe the mountaineer on earth, who happened to stumble across an equivalent example?

So how far does chance go towards the explanation of things natural, or vice versa? More particularly, how far does nature go in the explanation of things artificial, or vice versa?

Mike Laidler