Notes

[ Sunday 19 June 1983 - Saturday 25 June 1983 ]

[notebook: Creation - The Metaphysics of Peace = CMP I: DB20]

Sunday 19 June 1983

[page 9]

There was something beautiful in coming out of the barren sterile blinkers of Aristotelian logic and Roman Catholic dogma, a whole jungle of meaningless jargon constructed without the slightest reference to the real world. No matter that my emergence was five hundred years too late. At least I have emerged into the light of empirical knowledge, become a person living

[page 10]

consciously in the Universe rather than escaping from it into the politically constructed world of heaven and hell, Pope, bishops and priests exercising tyrannical power over all that I was and did and thought. I had at least come forth from the intellectual prisons of the 24 theses and Denzinger, the moral straitjackets of poverty, chastity and obedience. The night moves of my captivity still haunt me, as they must haunt the Japanese soldiers even now emerging from the jungles of the Pacific. See analysis of Aristotle, Popper, vol II. Denzinger

Consciousness exists in varying degrees in different people. It has only been evolving into the race for 3000 years or so [Jaynes [?]] If we are to act eugenically, it must be to favour the reproduction of consciousness over non-consciousness. This must be as much a matter of education as of breeding, As a Catholic I was in many senses, in a state of arrested consciousness. Jaynes

I have no misgivings about my own integrity. I went into the Catholic experience (insofar as it was my choice) motivated by a desire for truth, love, beauty, goodness, eternal life, all goals of that system, and I sought them with such strength as I had within that framework, as false as it has

[page 11]

consequently proven to be. There is no such thing as absolute falsehood. Like all hypotheses, the Catholic one contains elements of truth, points at which it agrees with reality as experienced. If it did not, it would not have been able to capture the attention of millions of intelligent people over thousands of years. The notion of a transcendent personal god, of an afterlife of punishment and reward, of a true god given faith and morality, all have a certain plausibility, especially among a species only a few thousand years removed from tribal magic. Using these plausible elements, plus total control of the intellectual environment, it seems easy enough to delude a grown person, let alone a four year old child. It is reliably reported that I had consigned my father to eternal damnation (because he was not a Catholic) by the age of three.

One can never escape the deep conditioning of early age. Though I might have rejected the Catholic answers, I am still left with the Catholic questions, and it is basically by controlling the choice of questions, rather than the answers that one can contract an intellectual space. The manifest and gross sterility of Aristoteleanism, which still dominates Catholic theology, was a result of the way it asked questions. The new science, by smashing a hole in the scholastic egg and looking out to the world beyond, found itself faced with new

[page 12]

questions and new methods of answering them. We do not speculate; we try to explain what we see, was their manifesto; and then go back with our explanation to look again, to see if it is right or can be improved.

I still ask relentlessly, what's going on?

The pathology of knowledge. Old hypotheses constrain us in our search for the future.

The advent of consciousness exposes for the first time our own mental processes to our own mental scrutiny. No longer is the study of mind theology, the study of the transcendental other, but metaphysics, a study of the broadest patterns of human knowing as a phenomenon in its own right, although not empirically available in the laboratory, like Skinner's rats and Pavlov's dogs. The observation of our

[page 13]

own minds is exhilarating, and we must hypothesise that they are very much part of the Universe, while being able to absorb the Universe and thus increase their own interest and structure. Metaphysics is an empirical science, like any other (Copleston) which starting from introspected phenomena uses a sort of cosmological principle to extend its field out into what is not its own mind in a movement eventually destined (perhaps) to fit the whole Universe in a unified view. Lonergan, Popper, Copleston

Structure, program, form, essence, morph, pattern, web, net all getting at the same thing. Mind is self-programming, either in truth (attempting to approximate what is) or art (search for what can be).

Mathematics as link between introspection and extrospection.

Philosophy, science, etc are all part of the effort to get ourselves out of the subjective world of tribalism into the wider Universe which contains all knowers and knowns, and must include the methodological principle that all individual points of view are equally valid, and communication is needed to get them into a commonly held body of knowledge.

[page 14]

Large quantities of philosophical bullshit have been devoted to preserving the unique position of the human knower. Rather analogous to the profusion of epicycles needed to maintain the earth's position at the centre of the Universe.

Philosophers and logicians, in their interminable discussions, seem to overlook the flexibility, power and humour of the human intelligence. While they struggle desperately to define their terms accurately and reduce the whole discussion to something so well defined that it could be done by a computer, their field of activity has remained completely vague and filled with terminological argument. Science, on the other hand, the domain of practical men, cares not a whit about its terms, but relies on the intelligence of its activists to get the point and go to work. Thus it has achieved admirable precision and a marvelously efficient level of international communication. For it, words are merely a tool, and any symbol will do; not an end in themselves, whose nature and meaning is subject to ceaseless debate. The difference, of course, it that science is about demonstrable phenomena, as philosophy should be. (and f**k Fitzgerald). Let us then talk about things we can all experience. Lawrence Peter Fitzgerald OP

[page 15]

We progress by standing on the shoulders of others (and sometimes their faces and egos) so that we see further into the misty mountains of truth. Our greatest reward is not that we should see the truth, but that others should stand on our shoulders in turn, an indication that our work has been helpful.

Copleston, in his preface to Aquinas, develops the idea of scientific metaphysics.

Why write something like this is the first place? Well there's always the financial motive, although at this time I do not expect the payoff to be high. I might be motivated by a desire to set some people right, although I think I am convinced that this does not work. It is a rare leopard that changes its spots, although I am full of hope that the number of open-minded people on the planet is increasing. You will note here the assumption that open minded people will follow my ideas. I do not really expect this. As a lover of diversity I expect and hope for dissenters. Which brings me to what I hope is the real reason for all this work. It is above all, to become involved ion discussion with people of similar mental cast, whether in agreement or disagreement, or more probably some mixture of both.

Anyone undertaking to construct a philosophy has a delicate line to tread. In the course of history are to be found many other philosophers whose views may serve as landmarks or trig points in determining this line. Often I am in agreement with one or other idea from a philosopher, but do not wish to be identified with him. Such close encounters will be noted from time to time.

Consciousness arose in democratic Greece and in other parts of the world but it has, with its freedom, been on the run ever since. Even when democracy was rediscovered in France in 1789 it did not last, and still does not last.

We've got to avoid being tarred with the brush of Hegel or Bergson: Popper vol II chapter 12 note 25.

Formulating hypotheses is an interesting activity, rather like constructing crosswords, where one must not, by taking an easy course as one point, create thereby impossibilities later on. One must find a model which smoothly fits all the known fact and hopefully gives one a few ideas on where to look for new ideas. The theory presented here seems to me to fit in pretty well and give the lead to some new ideas. This does not make it

[page 17]

right but not wrong. If it does anything, it may help us to get a little closer to a theoretical underpinning that will make us surer of our vision of our place in the world and able more securely to act for the common good.

This synthesis of ideas includes a lot of baddies - Darwinian materialism, for instance, will be recognised, transformed, I hope. Here is have to put a short note about what I mean by being and what I will call transformation.

This book is addressed to all people. They separate us with their borders, their currency restrictions, their censorship, the inefficiency of mail and telegraphic systems, passports, visas, restrictive air fares, educational system which ignore languages, nationalistic fervour and every other means, but we are one people, one planet, and we must learn to communicate among ourselves. The technologies of communication are coming which will make control and censorship a thing of the past, if we will but use them. All of us must talk to one another, get to know and love and respect and educate one another. This is out hope for the planet.

[page 18]

The future is not rosy and there are enemies everywhere. Once having identified what I consider to be the central problems of the life of the Universe, we must derive from that some moral and political precepts, and these will be in inevitable conflict with those arising from other views of the planet. These must be dealt with in detail with care, to show exactly where the difference lies, and the changes that I feel are necessary to consolidate and expand the existence of peace on earth.

If I am silent, who will speak?

Monday 20 June 1983

Being, insofar as it is being, is determinate, certain. The cause or measure of certainty we call information. Information is carried by some sort of marker. Look at the recording angel. It is using golden ink on yellow vellum. The information I am passing to you is now being coded in these marks. There is no way the angel could record anything using no ink.

Now a Universe is made out of some sort of markers, perhaps we will call them particles, which function rather like letters in a scrabble game. A Universe maybe starts

[page 19]

with a fixed number of markers, not arranged in any particular sense. From a scrabble point of view, the score is very low, though the potential is there. The process of evolution is akin to developing games with higher and higher scores. The same markers are used to generate more complicated and interesting words. The same carbon in a ton of coal can be reorganised into some very beautiful and lascivious beings. The ultimate Universe, if there is one, is the highest scoring possible arrangement of the available markers.

Communication between states by exchange of particles - see Marx epigram, Popper vol II p 89. Popper

Tuesday 21 June 1983

I must, of course, be thankful to the state which supports me. [An] hypothesis, such as this, must appeal to facts if it is to be credible. If facts contradict the hypothesis, then it must be in some way false, and we must find a plausible way round the falsification. Hypotheses in science differ in a fundamental way from hypotheses in art. Science is the study of history, which has already happened. The work of the biologist is concerned with the last five or ten billion years of evolution. He may make predictions, not about what will come to be in the future, but about what

[page 20]

we will find in the future. The artist, contemplating his materials, on the other hand, contemplates what, through his agency, may come to be. By artists I mean all who make things, engineers, politicians, even writers. In fact we see that there can be no distinctions between artists and scientists, only between art and science, for it is part of the art of the scientist to take science further on its course, as it is part of the science of the artist to seek understanding of the world and express it in new ways. Creativity is at all times present.

Wednesday 22 June 1983

Winter solstice. The sun turns round, the days get longer. Having developed the basic theory of communication, we apply it at various grades of being bottom up.

Thursday 23 June 1983

As Einstein pointed out, true invariance exists only in relationships. Though neither A nor B has any absolute velocity, for instance, the relative velocity of A and B is a well defined quantity and therefore an absolute in the usual sense of the word. The same general principle holds throughout the system. . . . The velocity does not exist in A or B, but in the relationship between them. Lorentz covariance - Wikipedia

[page 21]

One chapter per concept:
1. Overview (history etc)
2. Relationship
3. Communication (Information)
4. Creativity (evolution, creativity vs stability)
5. Knowledge (Science, art . . . )
6. complexity (The ladder of . . . )
7. Consciousness, the machine that can build itself
8. Consecquences (Politics / Science)
9. Morality
10 Reaction

The search for knowledge is the search for invariance among complex phenomena. Such invariance reduces the information to be stored to understand the phenomena.

Social and political relativity - we must cut loose from God in active atheism.

Learning large quantities of data may be a preconscious trait of oral traditions. Writing may have a close connection with the development [of consciousness], either as a cause or an effect, or more properly as an integral part of the process.

. . . [mainly blank pages]

[page 39]

As time goes by and the database of achieved structure grows larger, the system may become more stable as the context/newness ratio changes.

[page 40]

Where does love come into this business; obviously an intense desire for communication a) reproductive b) social, intellectual etc == eros/agape.

We have lost our innocence. If there is to be heaven we must make it ourselves.

My principal debt is to B J Lonergan, whose amazing book Insight jerked me loose from my sterile scholastic moorings and gave me a direct and brilliant vision of the process of creation. The conclusions he draws I cannot hold, but this does not diminish my appreciation of his work one bit. In fact I think the key to human progress is an active and informed atheism. The theists have always been in the reactionary camp, seeking not just stability but a total reversion to the past. There is no longer an earthly use for them except as living history. This, like all other human pronouncements, in an hypothesis for testing. Nothing, not even what I say myself, is certain. Theists would argue otherwise, and thus, if my argument it correct, be almost tautologically wrong.

thought = action = creativity [equally being to the intellect]

Each generation of thinkers exalts our view of the Universe even further and pushes god even further into the background. This is consciousness.

[page 42]

The ultimate discovery. The loop on the needle. All generations look back to the metaphysicians.

As Lonergan pointed out, the seminal, basic, central act of creativity for ourselves as human beings is the human psychological function of insight. [seen from the celibate point of view that counts reproduction of the species as little] It is from the model of insight that we must radiate the understanding of creativity throughout the Universe. This is in essence what this book is about. A manifesto for the Universe. Down with god, let the people of the Universe free.

So much of the strife in the world is a direct result of what we call religion, and men of vision should come to see that god and the religion that it implies is decidedly not part of the well tuned cosmos, though they are an idea that has stuck around for a while. Nevertheless, it is a dinosaur, and marked for extinction, if the hypothesis I put forward here is correct. Let this be a prediction.

We think our intelligence is a big deal, but it is what is necessary to understand the Universe. What is is what is intelligible, but the actualising of the intelligibility, ie understanding what it is to be understood, is a big job. Don't put the rock down. It equals your mind.

[page 42]

What is there has been put there by a process of intelligence, a much slower intelligence [than ours] but no less valid for all that. The intelligent process manifested in the evolution by natural selections of all the realities, including ourselves, which surround. Our conscious culture is even now undergoing that very same process as ideologies clash, learn, destroy, grow, interact around the world.

Friday 24 June 1983

Marxists seemed to look forward to the state withering away. Perhaps this is only possible when people are sufficiently differentiated to make exploitation impossible.

Institutions too differentiate by being superhuman and provide the stability within which human individuals may exercise their creativity.

There is no reality of God. Active atheism merely combats the reactionary effects of the idea of God.Creation is the basic law of motion in the Universe. It is a process of continuous creation, not of matter, markers or energy, but of intelligible structure or information.

[page 43]

There is virtually nothing new in what I have to say. What is of interest, I think, is the juxtaposition of a number ideas which may not have been juxtaposed before.

There exists a creative elite whose work is in general beneficial for the world, although subject to distortion if the verification process becomes distorted by propaganda or other breakdowns in communication. This elite is growing, and must continue to grow until it embraces all people. It must be remembered that all human activities contain elements of creativity, and all people are capable of it.

The intention of this book it to make a sortie over what to me is unexplored ground. It is quite probable that I will find something interesting. I think I have. It is quite possible also that I will meet some resistance, which must be met with evidence and detailed argument. It is not my intention to perform this task in this book. Better top deal with it later as it arises on an ad hoc basis.

Where does power fit in? Violence.

What I have to say here purports to be a testable hypothesis. It may therefore be argued for or against the evidence and used to find new evidence ("prediction") or be falsified by contradictory evidence.

. . .

[page 46]

One of the deepest empirical roots of this hypothesis must be the observation of children at play. How a disparate group of children, in an alien environment, gradually build up a complex and coherent fantasy game, assigning real or imaginary roles to the various people and things, real and imaginary, involved in the game. This structure remains dynamically stable, the children both playing the game and modifying it (In Hofstadter's terms, making short excursions into a meta game) as they go. the game is not, as in the usual poverty stricken theory of games, to win, but simply to experience the pleasurable activity of creative play. In time of course hunger, tiredness, the intervention of adults, the arrival of bedtime, the destructive incursion of other children or just plain internal instability of one form or another will bring the game to an end. A similar structure, enjoyed by adults, such as a party, dance, productive conference, etc etc, will be remembered as a 'good time'. These temporary integrations of a group of people, which are often remembered as good times, are microcosms of what I am talking about. Often we adults consciously use drugs, music, sexuality to achieve the necessary levels of communication to bring about a good time. Hofstadter

I might suggest that a scientific study of good times may be more productive of understanding of the Universe than the study of bad times, although we have an overwhelming social duty to

[page 47]

eliminate the latter whenever possible, and thus to understand them. Our best understanding of any pathological situation must be based on a thorough understanding of the corresponding state of health.

Morphogenetic field.

For people, the ability to creatively interact with one another is very much more important that proficiency with clay or paint or wood or steel, the usual interpetation of the creative arts.

I have chosen the word "creative" for my title. Obviously I am placing the common meaning of the word under a certain amount of stress. I believe, with Lewis Carrol's Alice, that I am entitle to do this if I make myself clear. My fear is that some of the traditional connotations of creation, creativity, create etc will distort my message, and so I must have a few prophylactic words to say in this direction.

In the long run, creativity cannot be suppressed. It is the basic urge. It demands freedom, and will resort to violence if its freedom is too strongly suppressed. People must be able to change their situation and outlook, ie be creative, without violence. This is the basic prerequisite for peace. Constraints are biological and social, from below and from above.

[page 48]

Marx's economic analysis has opened a distinction between capitalist and communist which has overshadowed and confused the distinction between democracy and tyranny.

D T
C CD CT
S SD ST

Although economics and government are closely interlinked there is obviously more to government than economics and it is the means of government which must take precedence. We must have democracy, meaning a system geared to non-violent change. Whether it be capitalist or socialist is a further question.

Financially, at least until this book is published, I am a pensioner, a single parent existing on $100 per week. Such persons are members of the new poor, but in some circles at least, people such as this do not complain. While many seek an ever greater and greater monetary income, perhaps to compensate in some way for the poverty of their human existence, perhaps deriving from Marx the mistaken belief that economics is everything, others realise that a good life can be had for very little money. I make no apology for my status. The work I do is every way as good as many a professor or public servant earning five or ten times as much, it too coming from

[page 49]

the public purse. Marx was right when he saw he drive for change coming from the poor, those who have nothing to loose by change. Not necessarily poor economically, but the poor in spirit, those prepared to chuck their investments for a good idea. This, it seems to be, is Jesus' idea of poverty. It is equivalent to the mobility of a nomad. Let the institutions of government look after the wealth. We ourselves will be free in the knowledge that there is sustenance everywhere. The poverty of religious orders is at least originally akin to this, although it tends to become the poverty of the servants of a money making corporation.

The crude measure of intelligence (as determined, for instance, by intelligence tests) is the number of insights achieved in a given time. We might thus arrive at a measure called mean time to insight and hypothesise that its distribution is exponential in a way familiar to those who deal with quantum mechanical process of "decay". In other words, all other things being equal, we can characterise a system by a half-time need to achieve an insight of a certain complexity. Might illustrate this general noting with cryptic crosswords, etc. The point is not the measurement of intelligence, though, but the way in which communication can decrease mean time to insight . . ..

[page 50]

It is perhaps noticeable that Marxism has failed to gain any hold in the non-catholic democratic countries (Popper II, 154-5).

The antithesis of the Marxist class society is of course the organic, integrated, differentiated society in which everyone has a valuable and meaningful contribution to make to the overall welfare of him or herself and fellow citizens.

Lenin says democracy is only one of the stages in historical development. What we argue here is that democracy, as a form of political organisation, is the final stage, [maximum entropy, self rule] and is closely linked with the attainment of consciousness by human beings.

The adoption of an atheist position might seem to many to be a very dangerous move. It might be argued that peace and love on earth, such as they exist, are the exclusive result of the civilising influence of those organised religions that draw their inspiration and authority from God. We can distinguish two possible cases in this discussion. The first hypothesis advocated here is that god does not exist and has never existed. In that case all the theistic religions, their theologies and moralities are human products, put together on the hypothesis that there is a god. If this is

[page 51]

the case, then it should be possible to tease out the progressive elements of these belief systems and reject their reactionary elements, including the hypothesis of an authoritarian all powerful god, and be left with a perfectly good and viable system or morality whose sanction is its inherent power to promote peace and good government on earth. In other words, we have to develop a science of human values and morality based on what exists in the Universe, without having recourse to [fictitious] outside influences.

The alternative hypothesis is that god does exist, and there is some real ground for the belief by many that he communicates to the human population, via various modes of revelation, via prophets, the evolution of the Universe, the spokespeaople of organised religion and so on. Many have tried to formulate the god hypothesis in testable form. If god exists, just as if a quark or electron exists, we should be able to find some observable consequences. Some investigators feel that they have found such consequences. The lines of evidence seem to fall into two major classes, which we might call introspective evidence and extraspective evidence.

[page 52]

Let's get to the bottom of the Universe. Once there was nothing, and now there is us. We are conscious. There are animals that are not conscious. So there must have been a transition. Similarly there was a transition from non-being to being via creation. Using insight as a model, we can understand something about the creative process of evolution, so lets go back to the first step. History is the only constraint. A brand new Universe has no constraints, and no structure, so it needs no markers. Each structure is its own marker. The first structure, as we know it, is gravitation, In the beginning, with the density of the Universe, gravity was by far the most dominant interaction. Probably its structure is described by general relativity. Consider a particle 10^-20 mm in diameter, weighing 10⁵⁰ grams. What is going on inside? Obviously quite closed. Why does it expand? Lets keep to our theory. The only constraints on it are the constraints of pure communication between undifferentiated terms. A consideration of this fact should give us the structure of a pure gravitational Universe ad explain the formation of spacetime., the structure of gravitational tensors, the big bang and subsequent expansion.

So I must go into Misner, Thorne and Wheeler and Khinchin as see what artificial boundary conditions are necessary to get the Universe we have. We are not looking for space or time, [page 53]