REALITY UNVEILED
Posted May 6, 2010
Last Updated May 8, 2010
The following is from my good buddy, artist/illustrator William Warren. Now, here's Bill—
Today (May 6) is the "International Day of Reason", a backlash against religious fundamentalism of any flavor. The following is my response, it may give you a few moments of entertainment.
William R Warren Jr Today, May 6, is the "International Day of Reason", and I am proud to be a participant. This means I believe in evolution and the physical and astronomically observable sciences and I do not contest them. This does NOT mean I don't believe there is a "God", and that we are not that "God"'s creations ... but not the way... you think. Please see my comments below. And please, follow my thinking for a moment.
ABSTRACT: I posit that there is incontrovertible evidence that there is NO CONFLICT except for semantics between the physical sciences and the creationist philosophies. Each claims to have the ultimate answer to the ultimate question, but only one has so far presented a preponderance of evidence.
Point the first: When pressed to the limits of observable science, even scientists will admit that they don't understand the ultimately large, nor the ultimately small, but curiosity drives them to seek them both.
Point the second: Creationists have largely apocryphal evidence — some of which I admit is compelling and enriching — but which addresses the phenomena that do exist beyond even our best scientific tools, at the infinitely large and infinitely small.
Point the third: I conjecture that BOTH are correct, and that the philosophies are only at loggerheads because we don't listen to each other. I further conjecture that one of the so-called "creationist" arguments is to be found in our creative community, the so-called "Crazy Fuckin' Artists", of which I am part and have met more than a few.
Conclusion: Ultimately, I (no other word for it) BELIEVE that human intelligence comes from somewhere OUTSIDE of our perception, and that at some point in our evolution we became "receptive" to this largely "imperceivable" intelligence, and became a part of what the "creationists" call "God."
Point the first: (and I can look up all of these references but hey, as one of my best friends is wont to point out, "Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't make it true..." — do your own research) (You didn't go to school to get stuffed with FACTS, which are always written by the victor in any conflict, you went to school to LEARN HOW TO THINK! SO THINK!!) Point 1: I think the Hubble Space Telescope and several of its successors have opened human eyes to how small we are in an indescribably huge universe. To believe we are the only life an omnipotent "God" would create in a universe this grand is either very egocentric (wasn't "ego" listed as a "sin"?) or is as short-sighted as we found the pre-Copernican and pre-Newtonian and pre-Einsteinian universes to be. (Sir Arthur C. Clarke, examining a mystery wrapped in an enigma — "How naive to imagine it ended there!")
Interestingly, it IS the human curiosity that funds projects like Hubble, and observe the POPULARITY of the Hubble telescope ... even a popularly-demanded repair mission on a vehicle that cost only 14 American lives ON MISSION (let us not forget our Cosmonaut comrades!), we LONG for the stars! If "Natural Selection" were our only guiding factor, we would admit this is dangerous and expensive and costs lives. And we'd quit doin' it and go back to stripping leaves off sticks and eating termites, plucking mites off each other and eating them and basically enjoying life without money and Ponzi schemes and watching in amazement as Mt. Everest fell from the skies. ("Oooh, look, Bonzo, FIREWORKS! PRETTY! Uhh —")
Which is pretty much where we squat now in our glorious mansions. If I were able to see, after a really large event, like Yellowstone or a Tunguska-ish event, I bet Paris Hilton's reaction to seeing something like "Tunguska" just before her hairdresser was done would be, "Oh well that's fucked up, I don't have my curlers out yet!"
The late Doug Adams, who has my perpetual admiration and would ABSOLUTELY be on the page for this day, said "The three stages of civilization are 'Survival', 'Inquiry', and 'Sophistication' — respectively, 'How can we eat?' — 'Why do we eat?' — and 'Where shall we have lunch?'". I propose yet a further stage — "Vapidity" — "My hair isn't finished: Why did it have to happen NOW??" (See "Herculaneum" and "Pompeii", e.g.) (Point: Evolution.)
Point the second: There is interesting proof that the "creationists" know something beyond what we can observe with science at the ultimate large end and small end of the observable universe. Some of this is not only "apocryphal" but many examples exist that are tough to explain away easily as "coincidence".
Apocryphally, there are "urban legends" of "miracles" like bringing people back from the dead (happens many times a year in drowning victims who fall through the ice in Minnesota) and in operating rooms across the world every day. There are stories of old grandmothers asking for the strength to lift a car off their crushed grandchildren and rescuing same child — few to none visual records.
But there is an interesting example I must bring up:
A fellow wrote a book about the sinking of an "unsinkable" ship launched in April in the early 20'th century that hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage. The similarities between "Titan" and "Titanic" are phenomenal.The ship was called the "Titan" and she was the largest ship afloat, ever.
She struck an iceberg and went down with tremendous loss of life on her maiden voyage — both ships were capable of 3,000 passengers and crew, yet carried only lifeboats for less than half — "Titanic" carried 20, the "Titan" carried 24 (but only because 4 boats were added for "cosmetic purposes") — "Titan" was 882 feet long, "Titanic" was only ("only") 800 feet. Both were four-funneled steamers, of which one was a complete dummy to look (again, cosmetically) more powerful than they were.
They both went down 400 miles from Newfoundland, on the Grand Banks, one (the "Titan") striking the iceberg at 25 knots, "Titanic" at 22.5 knots.
The similarities go on forever. e.g. In each case, the captain's name was Smith.
(And there are many dissimilarities, such as "Titan" was on her way back from New York to England when she struck a blow that the real counterpart would have survived — head-on.)
The major discrepancy for the "scientifically inclined, reasonable people" to consider is this: Morgan Robertson's novelette entitled "Futility" was published in 1898. The "Titanic" sank in 1912 — almost 15 years later.
Is this all merely "coincidence" or where did these uncanny similarities come from? Robertson claimed it came to him "in a dream" and it so disturbed him that he wrote the story within a few days. Was this prescience? If it's just coincidence, what are the scientific odds?
This is difficult to find contradictory evidence to that prophets exist — which pretty much cocks "accepted" science into the "maybe" hat.
Not proving something exists is different from proving it doesn't exist — as scientists or scientifically principaled people, you should recognize that interpreting data to match preconceived expectations isn't science, it's dogma.
Point the third: Where does creativity come from? I have to try to answer that one ubiquitous question at any place I have an opportunity to answer questions, "Where do you get your ideas?", and as an artist I have to admit, "I do not know." Sometimes they come to me in dreams, sometimes they are a flash of "satori", there's not an English equivalent — insight? fever dreams? being there and feeling the terror of cold water lapping about your ankles as the ship sinks underneath you? Sometimes it's the glimpse of a familiar eye ("love at first sight?"), an eye that I've never seen in my life. (Or "this life?")
Scientifically reasonable minds, I beg your indulgence here for a moment. If we live in a quantum foam of infinite universes, and each of them is infinite, is it not possible that I have glimpsed a peek into a parallel universe where this has actually happened?
Realistically speaking, is there really NOT a universe "where — Captain — James — T Kirk — really does — 'nt talk like this?" You have to admit it's true — in an infinite foam of coexisting universes, SOMEWHERE it HAS to happen!
I've taken, accidentally, to answering people when they ask, "Where did you come up with THAT??" with, "I paints what I sees." It gets a laugh, but distracts them from the finer point: I can't answer their questions, honestly, because I don't know.
Harlan Ellison laughs it off as "I've got this idea service in Schenectady that I send a Finn ($5 for you latter-day toughs) a week to and they send me a fresh six-pack of ideas ..." but later cops to the fact that he has no idea where ideas come from, they are INSPIRED by events around him but the creative process is essentially an insane act indefinable by the world he lives in, they come from 'somewhere else' — and sorry if I misquote you, bud, or take you out of context, I don't want to belittle your amazing, dangerous visions. (pun intended, ya jerk! I owe you dinner sometime!)
SO: here is where I bring it home:
CONCLUSION: There is NO, I "REPEAT", absolutely NO conflict between "EVOLUTIONISTS" and "CREATIONISTS" except for the dogma.
I believe in what the Creationists will call "GOD" as long as they will accept that the Homo Sapiens (and probably the Cetacean Sapiens) developed, through evolution, the ability to become one with "God" — it is our evolution that allows us to commune with the "hive mind", it is that which makes us aware of ecological damage we inflict, of injustices we inflict, of the pain we inflict upon ourselves and our planet.
There are so-called "people" out there who can't hear what artists, philosophers, visionaries, whatever you want to call them, think. (And I'm not saying I'm completely on the page yet, but I can understand the thoughts from some of my most important teachers.) The monkeys might speak the language, but they don't have the spirit to attune to the "God" they abuse as a reason to kill someone who is keeping from making them rich.
God doesn't want them to be rich, God wants YOU to take care of your fellows, be they human or kitty or tree or Mother Earth. (Yes, sometimes we EAT them, though I've never eaten cat or tarantula, but I've eaten tree occasionally and I'm far from a glutton.) (You're telling me you never put cinnamon in your latte?) (LIAR!)
Einstein understood this. Oppenheimer understood this. A legendary story like the voyages of the starship Independence (which it WAS, BTW) or Daniel in the lions' den -- the only way these make sense, given the amazing size of the physical universe (and expanding every second!) is not only that it COULD happen, somewhere it HAS to happen!
SCIENTIFIC TYPES! YOU have been arguing that this stuff HAS to happen, Kaluza-Klein (or whatever has replaced the latest version.) So disprove the Creationists who lately claim Humans and Dinos lived together and T. Rex was aboard Noah's Ark! (yeah, yeah, I know — you can't prove what you can't find because the negative proof isn't there.)
Creationists, bring down a piece of the Ark and show there's ancient DNA from animal dung not indigenous to the mountaintops of Turkey. Show me a T. Rex with a doggy collar and a saddle. Or a wristwatch on one of those big manly-man arms of his.
This is the "International Day of Reason". So show me your reasoning and tell me, REASONABLY, why my interpretation is wrong. Some of us got smart enough to understand God, God said you have dominion now that you understand you could fuck things up so don't fuck things up, a bunch of monkeys thought they could bend the words of the ones who "got it" and get rich, and so fucked things up and nailed the real "prophets" to trees and shit like that, and we've been killing each other ever since.
This will be a long-time battle. Not everyone will stop shouting and hurting long enough to contemplate "God" — and it's not this big crowned Terry Gilliam paper cut-out stand-up comic in the clouds, God is real.
Shut up and look at the world around you for a while and listen to God. We still have time to realize we are not our own enemies or food. Critters that eat their young — especially for ephemeral rewards like oil, but even cannibalism — don't deserve to live.
We are ONE SKIN, we should be of one welcoming mind. Not under some dictator, but UNITED! I'm afraid it will take a Tunguska-like event for that to happen, which saddens me deeply. But whether I live to see it or not, IT WILL HAPPEN, and we all know it, and we're too busy quibbling about anthills to see the value of the world around us.
And give thanks you have the intelligence to do so. THEN DO SOMETHING THE FUCK ABOUT IT NOW, while we STILL HAVE TIME!
AD ASTRA! TO THE STARS!!!!!
I end my initial presentation for the International Day of Reason, 2010. I bet I get a shitload of spam so don't expect me to answer you, but I shall try to read all responses.
Today (May 6) is the "International Day of Reason", a backlash against religious fundamentalism of any flavor. The following is my response, it may give you a few moments of entertainment.
William R Warren Jr Today, May 6, is the "International Day of Reason", and I am proud to be a participant. This means I believe in evolution and the physical and astronomically observable sciences and I do not contest them. This does NOT mean I don't believe there is a "God", and that we are not that "God"'s creations ... but not the way... you think. Please see my comments below. And please, follow my thinking for a moment.
ABSTRACT: I posit that there is incontrovertible evidence that there is NO CONFLICT except for semantics between the physical sciences and the creationist philosophies. Each claims to have the ultimate answer to the ultimate question, but only one has so far presented a preponderance of evidence.
Point the first: When pressed to the limits of observable science, even scientists will admit that they don't understand the ultimately large, nor the ultimately small, but curiosity drives them to seek them both.
Point the second: Creationists have largely apocryphal evidence — some of which I admit is compelling and enriching — but which addresses the phenomena that do exist beyond even our best scientific tools, at the infinitely large and infinitely small.
Point the third: I conjecture that BOTH are correct, and that the philosophies are only at loggerheads because we don't listen to each other. I further conjecture that one of the so-called "creationist" arguments is to be found in our creative community, the so-called "Crazy Fuckin' Artists", of which I am part and have met more than a few.
Conclusion: Ultimately, I (no other word for it) BELIEVE that human intelligence comes from somewhere OUTSIDE of our perception, and that at some point in our evolution we became "receptive" to this largely "imperceivable" intelligence, and became a part of what the "creationists" call "God."
Point the first: (and I can look up all of these references but hey, as one of my best friends is wont to point out, "Just because you read it on the Internet doesn't make it true..." — do your own research) (You didn't go to school to get stuffed with FACTS, which are always written by the victor in any conflict, you went to school to LEARN HOW TO THINK! SO THINK!!) Point 1: I think the Hubble Space Telescope and several of its successors have opened human eyes to how small we are in an indescribably huge universe. To believe we are the only life an omnipotent "God" would create in a universe this grand is either very egocentric (wasn't "ego" listed as a "sin"?) or is as short-sighted as we found the pre-Copernican and pre-Newtonian and pre-Einsteinian universes to be. (Sir Arthur C. Clarke, examining a mystery wrapped in an enigma — "How naive to imagine it ended there!")
Interestingly, it IS the human curiosity that funds projects like Hubble, and observe the POPULARITY of the Hubble telescope ... even a popularly-demanded repair mission on a vehicle that cost only 14 American lives ON MISSION (let us not forget our Cosmonaut comrades!), we LONG for the stars! If "Natural Selection" were our only guiding factor, we would admit this is dangerous and expensive and costs lives. And we'd quit doin' it and go back to stripping leaves off sticks and eating termites, plucking mites off each other and eating them and basically enjoying life without money and Ponzi schemes and watching in amazement as Mt. Everest fell from the skies. ("Oooh, look, Bonzo, FIREWORKS! PRETTY! Uhh —")
Which is pretty much where we squat now in our glorious mansions. If I were able to see, after a really large event, like Yellowstone or a Tunguska-ish event, I bet Paris Hilton's reaction to seeing something like "Tunguska" just before her hairdresser was done would be, "Oh well that's fucked up, I don't have my curlers out yet!"
The late Doug Adams, who has my perpetual admiration and would ABSOLUTELY be on the page for this day, said "The three stages of civilization are 'Survival', 'Inquiry', and 'Sophistication' — respectively, 'How can we eat?' — 'Why do we eat?' — and 'Where shall we have lunch?'". I propose yet a further stage — "Vapidity" — "My hair isn't finished: Why did it have to happen NOW??" (See "Herculaneum" and "Pompeii", e.g.) (Point: Evolution.)
Point the second: There is interesting proof that the "creationists" know something beyond what we can observe with science at the ultimate large end and small end of the observable universe. Some of this is not only "apocryphal" but many examples exist that are tough to explain away easily as "coincidence".
Apocryphally, there are "urban legends" of "miracles" like bringing people back from the dead (happens many times a year in drowning victims who fall through the ice in Minnesota) and in operating rooms across the world every day. There are stories of old grandmothers asking for the strength to lift a car off their crushed grandchildren and rescuing same child — few to none visual records.
But there is an interesting example I must bring up:
A fellow wrote a book about the sinking of an "unsinkable" ship launched in April in the early 20'th century that hit an iceberg on her maiden voyage. The similarities between "Titan" and "Titanic" are phenomenal.The ship was called the "Titan" and she was the largest ship afloat, ever.
She struck an iceberg and went down with tremendous loss of life on her maiden voyage — both ships were capable of 3,000 passengers and crew, yet carried only lifeboats for less than half — "Titanic" carried 20, the "Titan" carried 24 (but only because 4 boats were added for "cosmetic purposes") — "Titan" was 882 feet long, "Titanic" was only ("only") 800 feet. Both were four-funneled steamers, of which one was a complete dummy to look (again, cosmetically) more powerful than they were.
They both went down 400 miles from Newfoundland, on the Grand Banks, one (the "Titan") striking the iceberg at 25 knots, "Titanic" at 22.5 knots.
The similarities go on forever. e.g. In each case, the captain's name was Smith.
(And there are many dissimilarities, such as "Titan" was on her way back from New York to England when she struck a blow that the real counterpart would have survived — head-on.)
The major discrepancy for the "scientifically inclined, reasonable people" to consider is this: Morgan Robertson's novelette entitled "Futility" was published in 1898. The "Titanic" sank in 1912 — almost 15 years later.
Is this all merely "coincidence" or where did these uncanny similarities come from? Robertson claimed it came to him "in a dream" and it so disturbed him that he wrote the story within a few days. Was this prescience? If it's just coincidence, what are the scientific odds?
This is difficult to find contradictory evidence to that prophets exist — which pretty much cocks "accepted" science into the "maybe" hat.
Not proving something exists is different from proving it doesn't exist — as scientists or scientifically principaled people, you should recognize that interpreting data to match preconceived expectations isn't science, it's dogma.
Point the third: Where does creativity come from? I have to try to answer that one ubiquitous question at any place I have an opportunity to answer questions, "Where do you get your ideas?", and as an artist I have to admit, "I do not know." Sometimes they come to me in dreams, sometimes they are a flash of "satori", there's not an English equivalent — insight? fever dreams? being there and feeling the terror of cold water lapping about your ankles as the ship sinks underneath you? Sometimes it's the glimpse of a familiar eye ("love at first sight?"), an eye that I've never seen in my life. (Or "this life?")
Scientifically reasonable minds, I beg your indulgence here for a moment. If we live in a quantum foam of infinite universes, and each of them is infinite, is it not possible that I have glimpsed a peek into a parallel universe where this has actually happened?
Realistically speaking, is there really NOT a universe "where — Captain — James — T Kirk — really does — 'nt talk like this?" You have to admit it's true — in an infinite foam of coexisting universes, SOMEWHERE it HAS to happen!
I've taken, accidentally, to answering people when they ask, "Where did you come up with THAT??" with, "I paints what I sees." It gets a laugh, but distracts them from the finer point: I can't answer their questions, honestly, because I don't know.
Harlan Ellison laughs it off as "I've got this idea service in Schenectady that I send a Finn ($5 for you latter-day toughs) a week to and they send me a fresh six-pack of ideas ..." but later cops to the fact that he has no idea where ideas come from, they are INSPIRED by events around him but the creative process is essentially an insane act indefinable by the world he lives in, they come from 'somewhere else' — and sorry if I misquote you, bud, or take you out of context, I don't want to belittle your amazing, dangerous visions. (pun intended, ya jerk! I owe you dinner sometime!)
SO: here is where I bring it home:
CONCLUSION: There is NO, I "REPEAT", absolutely NO conflict between "EVOLUTIONISTS" and "CREATIONISTS" except for the dogma.
I believe in what the Creationists will call "GOD" as long as they will accept that the Homo Sapiens (and probably the Cetacean Sapiens) developed, through evolution, the ability to become one with "God" — it is our evolution that allows us to commune with the "hive mind", it is that which makes us aware of ecological damage we inflict, of injustices we inflict, of the pain we inflict upon ourselves and our planet.
There are so-called "people" out there who can't hear what artists, philosophers, visionaries, whatever you want to call them, think. (And I'm not saying I'm completely on the page yet, but I can understand the thoughts from some of my most important teachers.) The monkeys might speak the language, but they don't have the spirit to attune to the "God" they abuse as a reason to kill someone who is keeping from making them rich.
God doesn't want them to be rich, God wants YOU to take care of your fellows, be they human or kitty or tree or Mother Earth. (Yes, sometimes we EAT them, though I've never eaten cat or tarantula, but I've eaten tree occasionally and I'm far from a glutton.) (You're telling me you never put cinnamon in your latte?) (LIAR!)
Einstein understood this. Oppenheimer understood this. A legendary story like the voyages of the starship Independence (which it WAS, BTW) or Daniel in the lions' den -- the only way these make sense, given the amazing size of the physical universe (and expanding every second!) is not only that it COULD happen, somewhere it HAS to happen!
SCIENTIFIC TYPES! YOU have been arguing that this stuff HAS to happen, Kaluza-Klein (or whatever has replaced the latest version.) So disprove the Creationists who lately claim Humans and Dinos lived together and T. Rex was aboard Noah's Ark! (yeah, yeah, I know — you can't prove what you can't find because the negative proof isn't there.)
Creationists, bring down a piece of the Ark and show there's ancient DNA from animal dung not indigenous to the mountaintops of Turkey. Show me a T. Rex with a doggy collar and a saddle. Or a wristwatch on one of those big manly-man arms of his.
This is the "International Day of Reason". So show me your reasoning and tell me, REASONABLY, why my interpretation is wrong. Some of us got smart enough to understand God, God said you have dominion now that you understand you could fuck things up so don't fuck things up, a bunch of monkeys thought they could bend the words of the ones who "got it" and get rich, and so fucked things up and nailed the real "prophets" to trees and shit like that, and we've been killing each other ever since.
This will be a long-time battle. Not everyone will stop shouting and hurting long enough to contemplate "God" — and it's not this big crowned Terry Gilliam paper cut-out stand-up comic in the clouds, God is real.
Shut up and look at the world around you for a while and listen to God. We still have time to realize we are not our own enemies or food. Critters that eat their young — especially for ephemeral rewards like oil, but even cannibalism — don't deserve to live.
We are ONE SKIN, we should be of one welcoming mind. Not under some dictator, but UNITED! I'm afraid it will take a Tunguska-like event for that to happen, which saddens me deeply. But whether I live to see it or not, IT WILL HAPPEN, and we all know it, and we're too busy quibbling about anthills to see the value of the world around us.
And give thanks you have the intelligence to do so. THEN DO SOMETHING THE FUCK ABOUT IT NOW, while we STILL HAVE TIME!
AD ASTRA! TO THE STARS!!!!!
I end my initial presentation for the International Day of Reason, 2010. I bet I get a shitload of spam so don't expect me to answer you, but I shall try to read all responses.
- Related Topics
Frank Baron
Feb 13, 2011
Reply