A Physicist Finally Engages Argo: The notion of “time”
Many thanks to Wartburg Watch’s resident physicist, a commenter who goes by the moniker of “Old John J”. The thread in question concerned the ongoing debate between Old Earth and Young Earth proponents; clearly, Old John J, being a professional physicist, sides with mainstream science (as do I, in the strict terms of the debate). However, that is merely because Young Earth proponents want to concede the same scientific presumptions on what constitutes the agreed upon definitions. In other words, in both camps, a second is a second, a minute a minute, a year a year…and so on. For me, as one who denies the concept of time as nothing more than a product of a mind which can conceptualize his environment, I believe that the whole debate is moot from the start. The only relevant question in any school of that is what constitutes actual value; the source of truth…or, that which all ideas are in service to as the plumb line for their TRUTH. That is the place from which all ideas should proceed. Otherwise, it’s merely academics quibbling about relative terms which don’t actually mean anything.
Since time is not absolute, because both schools of thought, Old Earth and Young Earth (scientific and religious), concede that time was created, “in the beginning”, then time by definition did not have a time from which it started (a contradiction in terms anyway). And if time itself has no beginning time, it is impossible then to say that any time which we ascribe at all to any motion of any object regardless of the reference we use (a calender or clock or moon or sun) has any sort of actual, non-subjective, value. Thus, the debate actually boils down to a quibbling about definitions. What I am trying to say to Old John J in this dialog, and having little success it seems for whatever reason (I chalk it up to the stubbornness of physicists in general; they will concede an argument about as readily as a Calvinist will, so…you get the point), is that all Young Earth proponents need to do to reasonably reject Old Earth science is redefine time in such a way that it “proves” that the age of the earth is relatively young, as opposed to relatively old (and really, they don’t even need to go to that trouble…they just need to rightly point out that since science doesn’t have an absolute reference for time, then age is relative; they can just as rationally call the Earth young as they call it old; a billion years can become a thousand years and there is no absolute standard by which to refute their claim). Since time is indeed relative to whatever abstract reference we choose, “old” and “young” can mean whatever we want it to mean.
This of course is a notion that anyone who believes in a “force” which “determines/governs” the universe simply cannot suffer. Mystic, or scientist…they love excluding man from the equation. And that is the crux of my problem with science, and why I love going after the assumptions of Old Earthers (scientists/physicists). In the end, their “Standard Model” is as subjective as Calvin’s standard model of the Institutes of the Christian Religion. Both break down, collapsing under the weight of their own capricious definitions, as soon as we realize that the SELF (a physical body) is the source of itself, by itself, and that it simply cannot be any other way. Both physics standard models and religious models (and all models for that matter) inevitably arrive at the only place they can really go: utter contradiction of themselves and, if forced upon the masses anyway, the destruction of mankind in favor of their abstract absolute “truth” which “controls” absolutely.
People think I’m nuts…but I have seen the end of all “laws” (determining forces described in various schools of thought), and they end either in the affirmation of mankind’s singular and perfect value/truth, or mankind’s utter ruin in service to a “truth” which lay perpetually beyond him. And the belief that this truth “controls/determines” is simply more proof that man cannot really be valued in the equation, and thus, cannot be known to exist. There is no middle ground.
Incidentally, if you really want to get their—that is, the physicist’s—goat (they are fun to poke at), tell them that the universe is not, in fact, expanding. Watch the nerds fly into a rage. Tell them that since the “big bang” created space and time, thus making space and time and of course the universe itself as having an origin of NOWHERE and NO-WHEN, it is impossible to deduce that the universe is in fact expanding because by definition (their own!) there is no actual place the universe could be expanding from. Space began in NO space. And time began at NO time. And that being the case, there can be no location to the start of the “expansion”. Therefore, the universe is where it is now in the same place it was then…and where it is, is nothing more than itself.
Again, if the universe doesn’t have a starting point, then it cannot be going anywhere. For how can anything be going anywhere if it came from nowhere? It is an irrational notion. Movement, and thus expansion, by extension, is simply another way man qualifies the relative motions (which can be of a variety of sorts, not just “movement”, but “time” and “distance” and “direction” and “energy”, etc.) between two bodies. In reality, since there is no actual value to space or time, because in the physics model both were created, and thus are direct functions of NO space or time, there is no such thing as expansion. Expansion is relative between two bodies. The location of those bodies can thus only be themselves in literal fact.
To me, it seems that the logical fallacies of physics are the only things actually expanding.
Finally…before we get on to the dialog between myself and Old John J…
Why is this important? Why do I spend so much time going after these false notions of time and space as entities which, though they are direct functions of the utter contradictions of themselves (of no space and no time) even according to physics itself, are deemed as somehow non-relative and actually causal?
I do it to show the insidiousness of the philosophy of the Primacy of Consciousness. I do it to show just how quickly abstract truth can pass for CAUSAL truth. These “laws” are always thought to carry the epistemological and existential day. ALL notions of absolute truth outside of man–like the Jewish “law” as James Jordan argues it, like the Gnosticism of post-Augustinian Christianity, like the Standard Model of physics–must eventually push man into a place of utter irrelevance. If we do not concede that all truth is a direct function of the physical bodies which actually exist, observed by a man’s conscious mind, then man must become an affront and an enemy of truth. Once that happens, man must be destroyed. There is no living with an absolute truth that does not include YOU. There. Is. No. Living. Period. Either YOU are VALUE, or you are the enemy of value (and another word for “value” is “morality”).
If physics places truth outside of man, then physics becomes the destroyer of worlds like any old despotic religion does. Man dies in the service of truth. That is why this is important. And physics and math and science are the gold standard for impenetrable abstract “truth” in the world. To me, if I can declare and reveal the contradictory assumptions and the false logic of these schools of thought, then the rest of the despotic ideas which rule the world will be easy fodder. One can easily show how individual man is outside of the “collective”, and thus, the collective itself must be nothing more than an abstract concept meant to enslave individuals to a “truth” which MUST destroy them in service to itself. That isn’t too hard. But declaring that you or your mind are NOT a product of physical laws which determine or govern, which we can observe to be efficacious in many tangential-to-man’s-self ways, such as industry and technology…well, that is hard.
But we must ask ourselves: Does efficacy in these areas make the laws of physics “true”? What is “truth”… meaning, if truth is in service to areas outside of man’s self, then what does that make “truth”? Is a science-based technology used to kill men and women and children (Syria?) in mass quantities “true”? And if so, true according to what? Not to man, obviously…thus, the truth is revealed by what the science is used in service to, not In the science actually “working”, I submit. For if what “works” is what removes mankind from the face of the Earth, then “works” is actually NOT working at all. And so in this sense, the laws of physics are not any different than the laws of government, or art, or language, or economics. All of these schools of thought have their ways of organizing the world. Science is no different. In all cases, there are ideas—there are “laws”—and yet, the truth can only be measured one way: the affirmation of that which is the only thing which can be objectively known as TRUTH: human beings.
Here is the dialog between Old John J and myself. John J bailed I would say pretty early…but maybe you don’t think so. That’s fine. For me, well, like I said…a physicist is simply a priest of sorts. They are the ones divinely given grace to perceive the truth. When Old John J declares he has nothing more to add to the discussion, this is the same thing as a Calvinist saying “Well, I know it’s true; you don’t have to accept it”. In other words, agreement with them is the only way you can have truth. You have to agree before you understand. [sigh] Notice in the discussion with Old John J his presumption that the consistency of ideas is not relevant. That is, truth can be known in spite of its foundational assumptions being utterly mutually exclusive to reason. Notice how time does not need to have any actual absolute value in order to be completely able to consistently and accurately describe reality.
This is not a rational idea. The notion of a NON-absolute ruling absolutely is insanity. This is merely mysticism in a white lab coat instead of a miter.
Here is me and Old John J talking time. The couple of comments in brackets are mine, added during the writing of this post:
Argo said:
The answer is simple [to the question of “how old is the universe”] : there is no actual “age” of the earth or universe since time is, according to GR, relative. In both YE and scientific claims, time is “created”. This means that time itself begins, by definition, at “zero time”…or, better said, time is created at the location of NO time. This makes time itself a direct function of zero. Which means that the age of the universe and earth cannot really be known since the birthdate of anything which exists is 0/0/0.
Old John J said:
Argo, sorry I missed this yesterday.
I think there is considerable confusion here. Time is not an absolute measure. It is always the difference between two times taken with respect to the same reference: our calendars and clocks. Relativity as in General Relativity defines how perceived times are to be compared over large distances, large gravitational field differences, large speed differences. It’s computations are precise, not relative as in the colloquial sense of the word. Your age is not arbitrary: at the minimum I assume you know it’s date. Official accounting of time here on Earth is done by counting seconds. The second is defined in terms of a reproducible property of the Cesium atom. The inability to establish an absolute time does not in any way call into question time keeping.
Many physical properties have been shown to take place extremely regularly. Radioactive decay is one of them. OE proponents count on the long term reproducibility of many different radioactive decay sequences, measured quantities that are falsifiable by direct observations to make their age estimates. All measurements are subject to certain amounts of uncertainty. Statistics was invented to deal with such measurement problems. No statistical uncertainties in the current OE age of Earth estimates are large enough to encompass the YE preferred age.
Argo said:
Old John J,
I am fully aware of how the YE crowd attempts to “prove” its “science” by appealing to the usual scientific assumptions regarding what constitutes a “day”, or an “hour”, or the “math” or whatever. I am being a little facetious when I suggest that YE crowd simply needs to redefine a “second” according to their own consensus. Since time, as you admit, is not absolute, really, it boils down to what we label (how we choose to quantify) the relative movement (relative to us) of whatever object we are tracking as the reference.
You rightly point out the use of atomic clocks for time keeping. Sure…it’s a great system, as long as we all agree that a motion from A to B (or whatever interaction we choose to measure) constitutes a second (strange…no one asked me). Since time is not absolute, then what if we make the same motion from A to B two hours? Do that enough, get the math to work out, and you have “proven” YE. My point is that time is merely a measurement of what physical objects do…it is not a “law” that governs the motion of those objects. Time is a term. Human beings give it meaning. As with everything then, truth is a function of man, not a function of abstract measurements.
I understand it may seem like semantics. However, I submit that truth gets clouded when we lose sight of ideas like relative time (not absolute). We begin to subjugate man to “forms” which are beyond him. This can only lead to man’s destruction. In addition, I submit that science would be more evolved if it dropped its Platonist facade. Ideas like “numbers don’t lie” must hinder any scientific endeavor, I assume. One has to ask, if we began with the proper assumption, that the SELF is what actually exists and acts (and even more so, that truth is ultimately derived from the conscious observer), might we have advanced our understanding?
Old John J said:
Time is a well defined concept. There is no absolute time but since all given times are actually the difference between two measurements the lack of an absolute reference is immaterial. Time differences can probably be measured more accurately than any other physical quantity. There is sufficient accuracy to see even the minuscule variations due to General Relativity effects on our planet. There is nothing in the physics of time that can bridge the gap between OE and YE age estimates for the Earth.
Argo said:
“Time is a well defined concept.”
Defined by who? Time does not define itself. Man defines time. So if I don’t accept your concept, you have no way to prove me wrong. Time has no reference. Itself has no value.
“There is no absolute time but since all given times are actually the difference between two measurements the lack of an absolute reference is immaterial.”
On the contrary. Since there is no actual reference for time (an absolute reference) then time cannot be defined absolutely. All values of time then are both relative and a matter of consensus. You cannot PROVE an age based on a reference which you admit does not exist.
“Time differences can probably be measured more accurately than any other physical quantity.”
Differences based on a reference number that is merely theoretical. Change the number, change the measurement.
“There is sufficient accuracy to see even the minuscule variations due to General Relativity effects on our planet.”
Variations in what? Time is a concept. Variations in time are variations only insofar as the abstract reference is agreed upon. The only ultimately non- subjective measurement of time is OBJECT (self). Every object is where and when it is. Any other description is theoretical only. A theoretical measurement between the relative movement between two or more objects. Remove objects, remove time.
“There is nothing in the physics of time that can bridge the gap between OE and YE age estimates for the Earth.”
Time does not have physics because it is a product of cognition. It, itself, is an absolute idea (infinite ). It can have no measurements apart from objects; thus, it has no physics. Physics itself is theoretical only. If you change the definitions, you change the age of the earth. You claim the earth is old. I might claim it is young. Outside accepted definitions, neither argument is right. Because there is no reference for time ITSELF.
Old John J said:
Time is fundamental to all of physics [oh…I know, heh, heh]. It is in no way undefined or arbitrary. Time is measured by reproducible periodic astronomic or atomic phenomena. An agreed on reference time and date and choice of measurement units is all that is needed to compare the times of different events. The small gravitational and velocity effects that occur in measuring time are well understood as shown by the functioning of the Global Positioning System.
There is nothing that allows for the YE 6000 year estimate of the age of the Earth to be taken seriously compared to the accepted OE estimate of 4.5 billion years (4,500,000,000). This the only absolute in dealing with time that I accept.
Educationally, I am an old experimental physicist. Theologically only Genesis 1:1 appears to be a useful science reference point. The remainder of the first 11 Genesis chapters speak to the relationship God expects from his chosen people: no idols, polytheism and an expected moral righteousness. Genesis should not be interpreted in the light of contemporary science.
Beyond this I don’t believe I have anything that I contribute to a deeper discussion of time.
Argo said:
Old John J,
I am not trying to be argumentative. But seems to me that physicists have as hard a time letting go of their assumptions about reality as anyone else. They think that because they have models which do a good job of organizing the environment, that they get to claim somehow that these models are causal. (Maybe not you…but the idea that physical laws “govern” I have heard all my life; it is a lie…because that which is purely theoretical cannot govern, because it cannot exist.) So, the real question is WHY do we decide that the way physics models and uses the concept of time is “better” than one who would choose to disregard those models, such as a YEC proponent?
What is the thing which the models are in service to? If you say “truth”, fine…but what is truth in service to? True in what way? All truth must boil down to the affirmation of what EXITS, which is not physics itself, but the relative relationship between the objects physics describes. Objects are the cause of themselves…the physics is simply a paradigm we use to organize what we observe. And what exists as a function of the VALUE that physics is in service to is MAN. Anytime the model becomes causal (time becomes “objective”), then truth is outside of humanity. And this is the Platonism in science. This will eventually lead to abuse. Physics, like any other idea, must serve the affirmation of MAN, or it cannot be proven as true. We can argue against YEC…but if we argue it by making physics the new primary consciousness, instead of the “biblical inerrancy” like the Young Earthers declare, then we are hypocrites.
And I am right. Age is relative. By definition. If time is a function of “no time”, then any value of time is NOT actual. Your appeal to physical phenomenon as the source of time is concession of this argument. I am forty years old. Relative to the age of the earth. Relative to the age of the universe. Relative to the big bang (or creation) which occurred at NO time. All age stems then from a reference which is zero. Age is relative. The only actual age is ME. I am when I am. You are when you are. Age is merely a brand of relatively quantifying our difference with respect to an agreed upon theoretical reference.
I asked: At what time did time begin? There is no answer to this question that doesn’t ultimately prove that time does not exist. It has no absolute reference itself, so any value of time is going to relative to whatever objects we are observing. If we put all objects into a physics model, then time certainly can seem “non-arbitrary”. But the fact is as one time, some PERSON had to decide how to define a day. An hour. A minute. The definition itself doesn’t really matter…consensus matters. Why does consensus matter between human beings…what is the value they are trying to perpetuate? Existence of MAN.
The only truth then is LIFE. Human life. Life(man’s SELF) then is the objective source of truth from which all ideas (even physics) stems. Physics is not causal. It is descriptive. It is man’s attempt to organize his universe in a way that affirms himself.
Post Script:
Here is a perfect example of the favoritism and hypocrisy which exists at Wartburg Watch. This is precisely why I reject all of the arguments Dee has made for placing me in permanent moderation on her blog. In this way, she plays the part of a hypocrite perfectly. This is a good example of the kind of reasoning she used to moderate me into oblivion there in the first place:
Bennett Willis said:
Argo,
The uncertainty in time is such that even over 4.5 billion years it does not amount to your age. Please select something that matters to discuss.
Argo said:
Huh?
Something that matters? The insinuation of an abstract, theoretical construct as the source (cause) of truth doesn’t matter? In the context of a blog meant to deal with abuse, I would say you need to rethink what matters.
You and I have different notions of what constitutes relevance. I do not agree that you are the arbiter of what is truly relevant.
Dee said:
Argo
Could you take it down a notch? Thanks.
So…yes, I am accused of discussing something wholly irrelevant, while none of my claims are refuted, and when I respond to the accusation, I’m the one who has to tone it down.
The Marxism of the mind. The Haves are to be sacrificed to the Have Nots.
The tyranny which so easily seduces is seen in so many little fits and starts. It is big in some places, and small in others. But it is there, always and inexorably. People think that can never fall prey to the devil’s schemes. That’s because we don’t fall…we waltz right in.
unreformingtheology 
This is a topic that is not new to my brain, but it isn’t that old, either. I suppose you could say that for…hmmm, maybe just the past several months I have been wrestling with the idea of existence, and just how we should define it. I have concluded that existence is more than simply what IS; for I submit that you cannot have an IS without that IS being qualified as actually existing. And so again, the question is: what is existence. How is it qualified or quantified…by what standard?
Now, what IS, in the traditional metaphysical explanation (if I have correctly understood it) is concluded by comparing the thing that IS to what IS NOT. However, by definition what is not is, well…nothing at all. Meaning that the line between self and “nothing” is the definition of existence. For example, you are here, and before you were born, you were not here…so your being here is a direct function of nothing. But this is impossible because nothing cannot actually have a presence. So then it is quite impossible to compare what IS to what IS NOT, because you cannot make any comparison at all, by definition, if you are comparing one thing to NO thing (or nothing).
So, again, how do you know what IS? You cannot see where it is and where it is not, because where it is not doesn’t EXIST, by definition…because NOwhere is the same thing as NOthing. In other words, existence cannot logically be defined by NEGATIVE existence. Existence, like so many things we assume are NOT, is in fact its own abstraction; and here is Argo’s Universal Truth Number Ten (I think…I’ve lost count; but I don’t believe in numbers anyway, 😉 LOL): Any abstraction is infinite.
So existence, being an infinite concept, cannot then be defined by a limitation. Another way of saying this is that existence cannot be a function of NO existence. It is the same argument against the notion of a non-abstract/non-theoretical actuality of space and time. Space cannot be a function of NO space, by definition; and time cannot be a function of NO time, by definition.
Existence, like space, actually, is merely the “place” where an object “is”. But the PLACE where the object is “not” is not NON existence, it is merely NOT the object. Same with space. Space is merely the “place” where an object is not observed. Space is a metaphysical placeholder, like zero is a mathematical one…and this is a truth in spite of all the crying and whining about how metaphysics has no place in physics). But that doesn’t make space a thing, it is merely the observation of NOT the object.
The object is either observed, or it is NOT. But NOT observing an object does not then create an object that you can call the “object of NOT the object”, thus turning nothing (the “place” where the object is not) into something. Any given object is in the location of ITSELF. If we observe a place where it is NOT, our observation of a LACK of the object, does not create an actuality of “space”. That is, observing where an object is NOT, does not make space, which is nothing by definition, into something.
The same is said of existence. Simply observing where an object is not, doesn’t create NON-existence, because non-existence is simply like the abstraction of “space”…it is nothing, by definition. Observing nothing does not make nothing, something.
And incidentally, this is a huge logical fallacy in the science of theoretical physics (and why I have a huge distrust of science and math, and consider them forms of “useful” Platonism; I’m not sure which is worse, the hypocrisy or the logical contradictions), and why they will never, ever discover the “answer to everything” using the special, general, and quantum theories they currently employ (why have we heard so little about the “God particle” that was recently discovered? It is because, I submit, that they don’t have the first clue as to what the fuck they are really dealing with). ALL of these theories are rooted in the very Platonist assumption that nothing can be something. Which is of course complete nonsense. Still, Nobel prize winning scientists concede it as axiomatic. These are the best and brightest at the moment, so…upon the rabbit trail of intellectual recalcitrance we continue for the time being.
And so the point is simply this: that the IS, if it cannot be confirmed as being as opposed to something ELSE that is also being–the operative word being BEING –then there is no way to recognize the thing that IS is actually an IS at all. For an IS can only be known according to what it is as opposed to what something else IS, and not the idea that IS is defined by the “space” around it…where it is NOT, because non-existence is not a place; is not real any more than nothing (space) is not real. The point I am trying to arrive at is this: that if there is only one “thing” (like God, for instance) which IS (the accepted Christian presumption being, I think–at least according to most ALL orthodox ideologies), then by what tool of logic or reason can you declare that God exists? If God is all there is before Creation–a singularity; a “vacuum of self”, then there is no real way to define Him as God. He is what He is.
Existence is a relative term which MUST assume a location of two or more actual selves, so that what one IS can clearly be observed via what (not where) one is NOT. If there is no other object occupying a place (of SELF), juxtaposed to God, then how is God able to define Himself as God, exactly? What can He see to know that He is God? There is, by definition, NOTHING for Him to observe. As such, He cannot possibly abstract–be aware of–even His own existence. For He, I submit, can no more know He exists as God than a human being without a single solitary sense can know that he/she exists. Put simply: existence without a “sense” (observation) of an OTHER, is impossible.
What I am trying to say is that existence, as an abstraction and as a logical concept, cannot function in a vacuum…and that is precisely what sole, lone SELF, is. A singular self is not existence, a self in a vacuum is not a self…a singular self is the very definition of the abstraction of NON existence. A singular self cannot possibly BE, because a singular self can exist NO where, and NO when, and have NO parts, and thus cannot be said to be all powerful, because how in the hell do you define what “all powerful” even means? All powerful to do what? There is nothing to do if YOU is all that IS. All powerful to create? Create what? There is nothing to create because YOU is the only thing that is. Create out of what? Yourself. Then you can only get yourself. And you can’t even BE if you is all there is, because YOU cannot be defined at all.
A singular self becomes a circular concept of redundancy and irrelevancy. God, as a singular self, existing alone, is redundant, and irrelevant, and there is no way to qualify or quantify His existence, period. How can God say He exists, and is all powerful, if there is literally nothing but him. Beyond Him, the utter void of dark nothingness, which isn’t even real. And besides, when we declare that beyond the infinite self is nothing, well…how can an infinite SELF be a function of NOT self? It is again, impossible. How can a singular, infinite, solitary self exist in “nothing”? How can it exist in a vacuum? Impossible.
And here we get down to the final abstraction: self. And this is the axiom of all axioms. Self does not exist if self is all there is. Sounds like a contradiction, but no. Ladies and gents, welcome to the true paradox of the universe. Because “self” cannot be a function of NOT self, it can only be a function of ANOTHER self. Self, then, is an abstraction which can never actually be realized because the existence of such a thing, a lone, singular “self”, is impossible to observe, even by that very SELF. Self is infinite, all alone…and as such, it is VALUELESS. Meaning, it can have NO attribute whatsoever by which it can be known or observed…not even by itself.
And so I tell you again, God is NOT God without Creation. Which means that God has NEVER existed alone. In order for God to truly be God, there must be a perpetual material which has existed for eternity, juxtaposed to God, so that He may be known as God, via the direct observation of what is NOT God, which again, cannot be empty space…because empty space does not exist.
And this may indeed sounds like apostasy…but I assure you it is not. You must understand that this is precisely what we must accept if we believe that God is actually God. It is the ONLY way to declare that God is actually the Creator and Sustainer of our existence…because to create and sustain, He needs to have someTHING by which to act UPON in order that He is truly creating and truly sustaining, something, as opposed to nothing. For this is the only rational metaphysic…that God creates and sustains out of something; and this something then must be existentially infinite, but relatively finite. Meaning, that it must co-exist with another SELF (the other self, being God and other selves as well). God, by bringing together this infinite material in a mutual but relative and relatively finite relationship, can be said then to TRULY create. Can be said to truly sustain. For there is no creation of anything out of nothing, but since creation and existence logically MUST be predicated on the perpetual and eternal and infinite relative relationship between two or more observable selves, we declare that God is the essence by which SELVES (objects) which are singularly infinite and dimensionless can interact so that they are relatively–to one another–finite (via movement). From this we shall have TRUE creation and TRUE existence. We have the axiom that existence MUST involve the relationship between observable selves.
So, self, as a singularity is infinite–and this is true–however, because it observes and thus relates to OTHERS, it CAN exist because it can be relatively finite. It can be a knowable, observable SELF…it can exist, because it can clearly be discerned from itself not by “space” or “non-existence”, but by another SELF.
And this is, incidentally, precisely why I believe that the God particle (the particle which gives mass) is truly the GOD particle. This particle fits all the criteria for the actuality of REAL God. It is infinite. It is dimensionless. It can only (like all infinite particles) be defined as ITSELF, and it is said to give “mass”, which is nothing more than the observable relative relationship between two infinite objects. And frankly, God MUST show up somewhere in the quantum paradigm, because it is full of infinite particles which have no “sides”, no “parts”, and if this is true, then relationship between such particles is quite impossible aside from some other thing which allows the breach of existential infinity and give it a value. An infinite particle, which is only itself, cannot possibly co-exist without someTHING, some other self, making it possible for this massless, dimensionless, infinite particle (called “bosons”, I think) to observe another infinite particle and thus become an observable SELF, juxtaposed to another SELF, and then interact with this other infinite particle…which has now, thanks to God (I submit) become relatively finite. Relationship is predicated upon the idea of FINITE existence, which can only be relative, and must somehow be provided.
Enter the particle of…well, “observation”. Enter the God particle. Enter God.
I suppose it would be beneficial for me to define just exactly what I mean by “observation”, for I do not mean observation, as in sight, as in “seeing”. That would obviously be much too narrow a definition for the kinds of particle phenomenon I am talking about.
No, what I mean by “observation”, is the ability of a given object to be in some manner effected (effected upon) by another object without the violation of the existential integrity of the object itself. Put simply, observation is interaction of some kind while retaining the whole of the SELF. For this is really all “sense” is…the affecting of a self by an other. This can more broadly be defined as any interaction which results in a change in the self which directly stems from the equal existence of an other. This change can be physical, as in a physical interaction (an exchange of the abstraction of “energy”, for example), or it can be metaphysical…the mere change in the status of a self from infinite, to relatively finite, due merely to the presence (again assume existential equality) of an other.
And this is where I propose the God “particle” enters the metaphysical picture. The God particle is He which gives a VALUE to SELF, by allowing an infinite self to interact relatively finitely with respect to another self. God takes the functional value of “infinite” (or “no definable value”), which the self amounts to in its singular state, and changes that value to ONE, by allowing the observation (as defined above) of other, thus creating the existential equality necessary in order for “mass” (in the physical sense”) to accumulate (electromagnetic relationship), and “self” (in the metaphysical sense) to become actual.
So, in this sense, God is in fact He which “creates”…meaning, He is what allows for the actual existence of self; an existence which can be qualified because SELF can now be defined because OTHER can be observed. Existence, then does not occur without God, even though the material of Creation, the infinite particles which are merely infinite, and thus valueless entities preceding the application of the God particle, are infinite, and thus have always BEEN. In a sense, they are uncreated at their root, they are merely IS. God takes a valueless IS and makes it a SELF, with a value of ONE. This has the immense benefit of maintaining a stark and and frank metaphysical and existential line between God and Creation, which must exist for God to not contradict Himself, and allows for the necessity then of utter free volition of all that is NOT God, with all actions being totally rooted in the object which acts at the very core; and yet still pronounces God the right and and appropriate Creator, without conceding that He is an absolute which cannot then, by definition, create anything but Himself (Argo’s Universal Rule Number Seven: Anything proceeding directly from an absolute IS the absolute).
Thus, it is God’s existence, equally with other infinite IS’s, which “creates”. And this is not God “allowing” creation to occur…for if it is said to be an allowing, then God ultimately is culpable for ALL actions of Creation, which leads us straight back to the contradictions of reformed theology. It is God’s root infinite Self…His existence, for lack of a better word, which enables Creation to engage itself, of its OWN ability. This is not allowing, because God cannot “allow” or “not allow” his own existence, which is the catalyst for the integration of the infinite particles of creation into measurable selves. A singular self, like God, cannot be held culpable for its own being as a CAUSE which makes everything a direct function of it. God cannot help but to exist as GOD any more than YOU can help to exist as YOU. Because the only alternative to God is to replace Him with “nothing”, which is impossible. God cannot replace Himself with nothing because He is infinite and nothing is not actually real. “Nothing” is a metaphysical place holder; like zero is a mathematical placeholder.
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Now, this entire post may look like a digression from the philosophical pilgrimage to destroy neo-reformed/Calvinist blunt-force dogma, but I submit it is extremely relevant. All the articles I write whereupon I get, like, zero comments and the stats drop to something approximating negative integers, are perhaps the most important ones to understanding the logical TRUTH behind all metaphysics, and really do provide the object-based (and thus REASON-based…and thus provable) rebuttal to Calvinist fatalistic determinism, which is fundamentally irrational at its root, and thus cannot compete with an argument which finds itself rooted in the axiom of actual, physical, human-being contextual existence. And so these long and confusing and tedious posts on reconciling the science of physics with NON-contradictory philosophical notions rooted in logic are the key, I propose, to developing a sound and reason-based metaphysical construct, which no longer relies on the idea that existence is somehow a function of some Platonic “form”; some external “law” of nature, or some other force beyond the scope of man’s cognitive and sensory apprehension. Indeed, my metaphysic is a complete 180 turn of phase from this Greek farce. My idea is rooted in the utterly logical and rational notion that existence itself is dependent on actual existential (and thus objective MORAL value) equality between everything that can be said to exist, including God. Meaning that man and God are of the exact same moral value…life is equal to life.
And this, you MUST understand is huge, because it is exactly what every Calvinist–indeed, every protestant, I submit–concedes as utterly beyond the scope of Christianity; is a flat out, rank heresy. To declare man as of equal worth as God is to, as Wade Burleson puts it, “elevate man to the level of God”.
And…well, yes, in some sense it truly does. It elevates the worth of man’s life and man’s SELF to that of his Creator, and indeed declares that at the root of man is in the singularity of infinite particle material which was NOT created by God, but has, instead, at its root, an UNCREATED self of its very own, and as such, cannot be declared of inferior material, because it is material that, like God, cannot be destroyed. This does not elevate it to the nature of God’s Self…meaning, it does not claim that it has the same “power” to act as God does, for indeed, God’s power is wholly different and a function of His unique SELF, just like Creation’s power is a function of its unique self.
But understand that this is the only logical explanation, if nothing else because someone HAS to at some point attempt to reconcile God as Creator with the fact that, a.) you cannot create something out of nothing; so in order for God to create, there must have been something there to create from; and b.) if God truly is the direct Creator of all that is; then man and the universe must have come from the “material” of Himself, and thus BE God, then, in accordance with my universal truth: anything which proceeds directly from an absolute IS the absolute. Which makes all of Creation, God. Which…is quite silly a notion, for this, again, makes God merely a cycle of irrelevancy. Not to mention it utterly destroys any concept whatsoever, not to mention morality itself.
By my perspective rips the assumptions from the tyrannical grip of the cold, dead-eyed, spiritualists and mystics who propagate this moral relativism by denying their authority structures in favor of knowable, provable, rational, observable, and physical TRUTH. It destroys their despotic leadership model of AUTHORITY = GOOD = TRUTH by relegating the notion of “authority” back to the ethereal fish bowl of abstractions where it belongs. Authority is no longer someTHING–like the “church” or the “pastor” or even “God”–or some other physical “entity” (and all of these, including God, are really abstractions if looked at literally…but that is fine; abstractions are not BAD…they are only bad when they replace the value of the individual SELF), but authority is rooted in that which can be said to have objective moral value. That is, the individual SELF. The SELF is the primary authority, and the only objective outworking of the abstraction. Which means it is the only legitimate outworking of “authority”, which means it is the only truly knowable/observable outworking of “authority”, which means it is the only morally GOOD outworking of the notion of “authority”. This means that SELF (not only YOURself, but other SELVES) are the root of objective moral good. Therefore, ANY one or anything which sets itself up against the individual SELF is a false authority; a liar, and a tyrant. There can be no real or valid authority claimed in service to anything other than the affirmation of the individual self to (and here it is) to OWN itself. The SELF, belongs first and foremost to ITSELF, and not to another. Any OTHER which claims ownership of the individual self sets itself up against the only thing which can be said to be objectively morally GOOD. And as such, this “authority” should be rejected.
And without their authority, the Calvinists are nothing more than troublemakers; outcast adolescents crying and throwing a tantrum because they can no longer compel people into the fires of their false gods. Without authority, they have nothing except their obvious lies, their unavoidable false doctrine, and their inexorable metaphysical madness.
IF life is truly GOOD, in other words, the Calvinists slip away into the quicksand of their “mystery”. This is why every doctrine…and I mean every doctrine of every neo-reformed/Calvinist manifesto is utterly designed to remove humanity from ITSELF. To declare humanity depraved and lost and wicked beyond recognition…beyond salvation, so that the ONLY salvation for the barbarian masses is the divinely called AUTHORITY of ecclesiastical hypertrophy mandated to headlock and burn and prod and cajole and bewitch all the laity into proper thought and behavior. This is why in the eyes of Calvinists, the only good human being is a dead human being. Preferably one who is only psychologically/spiritually dead, in order that he or she may be consistently fleeced in service to the body of Christ “collective”; but physically dead? If necessary. Death is the consciousness prime which rules the day, and any form of this divine Force will work for them if it means keeping the extremely lucrative “authority” business booming.
If God is existentially “better” than man, then the caste system rules the day. Pastoral authority is nothing more than a declaration that THEY are of greater value than you; they have a greater inherent right to EXIST than you do. You exist in service to THEM, because SOVEREIGNTY = ELECTION = CALLING = AUTHORITY (force) = GOOD = TRUTH. If they rule, then YOU die first when the dystopian society of their own making inevitably begins to crumble.
So, to be frankly base about it: spiritual “authority” is tied to being BETTER than you. Authority is nothing more than a claim to a greater right to EXIST, than you; of a greater and categorically higher moral WORTH than laity. God loves them more than he loves you because there is MORE of THEM to love…they have a greater cosmic/spiritual “footprint” than the laity. Since God by definition regards them more, then it is only logical to assume that there is more of them to regard. God “sees” them more than He sees you.
The right of authority is the right of OWNERSHIP rooted in the idea of caste; that Pastors are of a greater moral worth than laity. As such, they get to claim divine authority–which is absolute authority–over you.
My philosophy of the equality of existence rooted in the concept of the observation of OTHER in order that SELF can exist–and this axiom extended likewise to God Himself–denies any access to such tyrannical and evil doctrine. But…I cannot prove my philosophy rationally without engaging in the tedious work of dissecting the theories and assumptions of subatomic particle physics. Any truly moral philosophy which destroys the mystic caste systems of false and idolatrous religions must take into account the nature and movement of matter, of substance, of object physical existence. It is unavoidable. Any good and true metaphysic must start with an understanding of the nature of the physical…what is the root of what IS, and only from there can existence of anything, including and especially God and our relationship to Him, be properly understood.