UNITY AND UNITARIANISM

Tell him I think this (in [our] Father's house are many mansions -- John 14:2):

SUBSTANCE IS NOT INDEPENDENTLY EXISTENT OR IN A STATE OF SUPERIOR SEPARATENESS:

What each of us observes are appearances, interpreted through an algorithmically-based avatar. We don't really observe external things. There are no external thing-particles-in-themselves. There are only interpreted sensations of traces of fractals of patterns of spins, reiterating in nothing more "external" than math itself, being interpretatively renormalized to a godhead that feeds to trinitarian based, inter-empathetic, fluxing perspectives of Substance Information-Consciousness.

Measurable space-time-matter-energy (Substance) are all inter-derivative of a dance with histories of perception (Information) among perspectives of an ever-unfolding present (Consciousness).

Reality is the offering that appears in respect of the Godhead that dances in no-thing more than its web of math. God is as real as the very math He employs to define His relationship with each and every perspective. Heaven consists with the astonishing potentiality of that dance. Worlds beyond ours await each perspective, but how we are to be received in them is affected by each history we experience in precedence to them.

Imagine what sort of world you want next. If you want a world of inter-empathetic kindness, follow Christianity. If you want to punish antagonists and be punished by antagonists, follow Mohammadism. If you want more of the same, follow Hinduism-Buddhism. If you want YOLO, follow atheism, but be prepared to be amazed.
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Thanks for the reference to Charles Hartshorne. I'm reviewing the Wikipedia entry about him. My impression is he had much to do with the Unitarian movement, which is different from the Unity movement. I have been attending Unity services. So far, they seem to entail a lot of independent thinking. Much to think about!

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WEEPING: I confess I have some difficulty with an idea that God knows in advance all that we will do, yet finds it necessary to His inscrutable purposes to put us to the experience, so we can be judged based on how we perform what He already knows He has decreed we shall perform. The only way I can pretend to make sense of such an idea is to conceptualize a trinity, whereby at least some aspect of the Godhead does not know the alpha and the omega in every detail.

MIRACLES: I took Malatrope's position as intimating that the Deity is remote and not prone to further involvement with miracles at all. That IT has left us to the building, by our mortal selves. That the array of scenes has been set, and we have only to process through and make our connections via conscious choices from one scene to the next. But I may be mistaken regarding his intention in that regard. Often, closer analysis reveals differences were not as real as first supposed.


However, you may be miscontruing my meaning. I think God does intervene. Perhaps constantly, every time there is feedback that needs contemporaneous reconciliation.

MATH: It's not that I think God is constrained to preset math formulas for dictating every event with pre-determined exactitude. It's that I think the godhead does constantly reconcile, but does so in the language of math. Because God communicates in the language and vehicle of math, nothing that is thus communicated would be inconsistent with math. Reconciliations are chosen, but they are consistent with math. So we don't prove miracles. We just experience and appreciate them.

PRESETS, RANDOM EVENTS, AND CONTEMPORANEOUS INVOLVEMENT: All events confrom to math parameters, but some parameters are experienced locally as being tighter than others. Values for speed of light, acceleration due to gravity, and a number of others are set to some precision (although they may be experienced as changing, as our experience of our universe expands). But other values are not necessarily predictable in particular instances, even though they follow patterns that can be relied on or rationalized in statistical terms.

MODELING VS. RATIONALIZING INTERPRETATIONS OF OBSERVATIONS: So God intervenes to facilitate and reconcile particular choices or directions, but such interventions won't violate what can be rationalized in statistical analysis. A good example is the unlikelihood of the mechanism of any living cell arising by pure chance. (Which I don't believe it would or did. ) Yet, rationalizing enough parallel worlds, one can rationalize a math to allow such. One can rationalize other aspects of the unfoldment in terms of evolution out of complex systems. Yet, that does not disprove that God functions by directing what evolves out of the chaos of possibilities.

So I tend not to feel a need for a multiverse concept, though I do not pretend to be able to disprove it.

As to miracles, I think God intervenes with miracles at every reconciling juncture. If there was a creation (as opposed to an always beingness), that would be one juncture. Regardless, every manifestation that is chosen to unfold out of the contemporaneous range of possibilities would be another. So I think my concept is suffused with miracles, as opposed to being devoid of miracles.

DEGREES OF FREEDOM: IAE, a miracle is something that mere science cannot prove, predict, control, or replicate. What can be scientifically replicated tends to be in respect of math based presets. That is not inconsistent with the idea that what unfolds is a consequence of math parameters that the godhead imposes with various degrees of freedom versus exactitude. Some parameters are presets, some are reliably random, and some are contemporaneously reconciled. But all are communicated consistent with a logos of math. So I think God speaks in math based logos of the unfolding cosmos.

OCKHAM: When I call a conception an unnecessary existentiality, I tend to mean it entails a non-parsimonious assumption in a way that seems not needed to communicate an explanatory model. Recognizing, of course, that ultimates in moral philosophy tend to explain very little that is subject to empirical confirmation, as opposed to moral inspiration. Recognizing also that sometimes more than one model is helpful, even when they seem beyond unification. The goal is to try to model in a way that is as complete, coherent, and consistent as possible, while reducing terminology concerning what is metaphysical as much as possible.

ALL IS THE GODHEAD PLUS MATH: To me, it is not necessary to imagine that measurable Substance (like an array of preset and immutable scenes) has reality that is superior to or independent of the godhead. Rather, I think it may suffice for all purposes to conceptualize that no measurable thing abides in itself. Rather, every measurable thing's experienceable existentiality is an upshot that emerges out of a relationship that entails the godhead interfunctioning with no-thing that is more than math. ("All is math.") And out of that interfunctioning of the godhead with no-thing but math emerges what we experience as a trinity of local Consciousness, relationally measurable Substance, and accumulative Information (what Malatrope calls a history of perception).


IMPORT: To sustain itself, a culture needs ways to inspire assimilation of moral values, as well as ways to question all fascists -- whether they suppose themselves to be servants of Science or of Allah.

KINKS: This is a hobby. I don't claim to have all the kinks worked out. :)


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David Deutsch put out an interesting take, in his The Beginning of Infinity. If he had been in Animal House, it could have been three times as long as twice as interesting. Plus he could have been king of the nerds.

To be consciously aware is to monitor aspects of one's path, AS IF the changes one undertook thereon constituted one's choices. To find a scientific determinant for one's chjoices, one may try looking at measurable externals. But each apprehension of a measurable external would change one's history of perceptions, which would change the choices one was trying with science to explain and predict, regressively.

I think the complete sum of determinants for one's choice in each case can be found neither in measurable externals nor in purely conscious will. Yet, choices are made, and they are reconciled (or at least rationalized) within a mathematically conservational system. Apart from pure math, what is IT that is doing the reconciling? One may posit the reconciler is the entire and infinite field of possibilities -- whatever the source of that may be.

Which brings us back to homeschoolmomof11: Are we choosing among the range of possible scenes, or are the range of possible scenes being selected for being run before us? Are we running the projector, or is the projector being run for us? Or are our brains and senses mediums for participatory reconciliation among possible perspectives? If our conscious participation were without feedback effect, then on what purpose or cause would our perspectives have been created or evolved? As soon as one says, "No purpose at all apart from happenstance," one transitions to his next purpose. And so it goes.


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As to a division in the infinite manifold between the infinite manifest and the infinite potential, perhaps even God's hair hurts. A weird thing about models seems to be this: some inventer comes along and finds a practical application that seems almost to change reality and open new worlds, if not new universes.

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Problem: To program or record a "history of perceptions" or information seems to require a tangible system or defining field. Without means to store or program such a history, what could give it direction? It seems that choice-in-itself cannot, for limited and mortal perspectives, without some means for receiving and reconciling feedback, be a pure guide. By definition, choice seems to be confined to available parameters. So it is afffected by what inspires us, from that which is presented to us. To that extent, choice seems to be a product that is caused by pre-histories (accumulations of information) becoming aware of newly presenting externalities. If choice is actually caused, then we would not be free to select a path. Rather, the path that would be selected by any "history of perceptions" would come predetermined and pre-programmed.

Alternatively, if each "choice" is not completely pre-determined and "caused" by tangibly stored histories and newly presented externalities, then what within a mere spirit, phantasm, or "will" could tip or choose its preferences? If an individual will could have no substance to house, define, or confine it, then what, apart from an implication of a Reconciler (or a "history of perceptions" that regresses to a Reconciler) could assign it to adopt any particular perspective, avatar, body, brain, or path? If preceding "histories of perceptions" could establish the range of available scenes for us to choose among for our experiences, then why should we presume we also cannot add to such array of available scenes?


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Calvinists or those who believe the godhead is without power to change its mind or to guide us in changing ours. It grants us participatory will to make our choices, but excludes any moral Reconciler from the unfolding process. If so, it seems to withdraw a common attractant for the purpose of bringing people together to seek faith-based moral cooperation and inspiration.

Otoh, your concept may bring some people together in mutual respect of one another's innate godliness. It seems to focus attention away from the Character of a Reconciler to the Nature of a Principle of reconciliation. Assuming a community "gets its minds right," I am not sure it would make that much difference in human relationships.

For every advantage, there may be a disadvantage. It would diminish the interpretive authority of priests, which may sometimes be a good thing. But it would also diminish the power of inspiration. I doubt believers in sole godliness would be easily inspired to kill for their religion, but they would also not be inspired to defend it against jihadis who are otherwise inspired. Darwinism may disapprove. IAE, I find this interesting and need to brew on it.


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There are kinks that remain unsettled to my mind, but the trinity concept is the best I have so far been able to rationalize. It may help conceptualize how the godhead functions to be relevant both beyond time and within our own time. In its implications, such a trinitarian concept may not be that far from Malatrope's (dualistic?) notion of Consciousness choosing paths to experience among already existent scenes.

I am not completely sure there is a distinction that necessarily makes a difference. The trinitarian concept rationalizes participatory will within a system that is entirely signified in math and science, yet not entirely predetermined. The dualistic scene-changing concept rationalizes participatory choices along paths through a set array of immutable scenes. And it puts the godhead in control of the alpha and the omega. (Does it also give credence or spin to Nietzche's idea of eternal return?)

So the scene-choosing (dualistic?) notion seems useful for some purposes. However, I tend to shy from it. It seems to grant co-equal, separate, and unnecessary (non-parsimonious?) existentiality to an unchanging array of scenes. I prefer to conceptualize a trinitarian godhead whose totality is unchanging, but whose interrelationships flux in how they present to mortal perspectives.

What we all must try to rationalize (consciously or subconsciously) is a Changeless-Changer. A fluxing essence. What we conceptualize and believe affects what we become. Malatrope would make the scenes unchanging, but make the paths chosen for their experience changing. I would make the availability to Consciousness of a web of math unchanging. But I would rationalize unfolding mortal experiences of such web, in the guises of Substance and Information, to be changing.

Even so, the apprehensions, recordations, memories, and learnings of the godhead would perhaps be changing. Can God in any aspect of the Trinity step into our time and lives to be surprised or to learn? If not, of what use to our perspectives would be any notion of God? (Jesus wept.)

If we inculcate belief in a source of moral connectedness, then we rationalize a basis for empathetic appreciation, and thus a basis for the Great Commandment and the Golden Rule.

I prefer to believe that the wife I have remains in essence one and the same avatar-personage, at least during our lives together, and that (the avatars for) she and I are not mere fleeting scenes from an array of phantasms. But I am not entirely confident that is fair to Malatrope's conceptualization, nor consistent with my own. Kinks remain to be worked out, to pursue a best conceptual system that is most complete, consistent, and coherent. Meantime, we have the examples of saints to guide us (excluding the horror of the Mohammadans).

IAE, for the purpose of moral philosophy, I don't see that either concept (trinitarian or dualistic) need be inconsistent with science, nor even testable to science. Rather, I think the only reasonable test for such moral philosophy may consist in something like this:

Not being falsified.
Not being hindering of science.
Not being needlessly derogatory.
Being as complete, coherent, and consistent as reasonably possible.
While helping to soothe or advance decent civilization and human meaningfulness.
Being felt consistent with self evidence, intuition, and innate empathy.


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Insofar as moral philosophy is applied among perspectives that share it with consistency, it would seem to be an offshoot of the godhead. Insofar as our participation feeds back to affect the godhead, "we" (whatever we are) play a role in determining not just moral philosophy, but every thing that is expressed in respect of the local field that we play in. Eventually, "we" may define holographic worlds to inhabit.

So our participation is factored to define the very reality -- moral and scientific -- that we inhabit. But that participatory effect is mortal and very small in respect of the field of influence that is conserved and expressed through the reconciling godhead. Our participatory wills ("prayers") are factored, but not completely determinative. It seems we participate as conduits for feedback to the Reconciler. Our wills are participatory, not freely or completely determinative.


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If even space-time is a mere derivative of a math field with which consciousness interfunctions, then "movement," in that respect, as well perhaps as the very limits of space, time, eternity, and infinity, would be mere derivatives. "Illusions" born of the imagination of the godhead expressing itself in nothing more than maths regressing like patterns of fractals.

So what is the ultimate building block for particles, if not math spin values for spins upon spins upon spins (wheels upon wheels upon wheels)? What is IT that is doing all this spinning? And why does each spin seem to be mathematically "aware" (empathetic?) of its interfunctionings with others? What, ultimately, is spinning, apart from an immeasurable godhead that expresses itself with nothing more than a web of math?


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Efforts have been made to rationalize the trinitarian godhead as if consciousness were the superior, of which the other two components are derivatives. But I don't see any way to test or falsify that. (One can always posit new worlds and hidden factors.)

Moreover, I don't think moral philosophy needs to depend on it. I think it may be sufficient both for moral and scientific philosophy simply to posit that the godhead of reality consists of the three components, which may be of equal dignity, and of which the component of consciousness carries aspects that defy complete measure, but not empathetic appreciation.


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I don't think the ultimate components of Reality are testable. I think the best we can do, at least from a perspective of moral philosophy, is to try to arrange a conceptualization of such components in a way that helps us pursue our need for meaningfulness without hindering our science. A way that helps us communicate about the things that are important to us that is as complete, coherent and consistent as we can make it, without expecting to be able to prove such ultimates as control our methods of proof.For myself, I think trying to derive moral "ought" solely from scientifically or mathematically measurable "is" leads too easily to madness and anti-human scientific elitism. Still, Sam Harris and many others would seem to be sympathetic to that pursuit. I think we have two arms-- a moral arm and a scientific arm. Specialization often leads to overdevelopment in one and atrophy of the other. Still, it takes all kinds to make a world.


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It seems to me that Reality presents via a trinity of interrelational aspects: Consciousness (immeasurable), Substance (relationally measurable), and Information (past accumulation of measurables, as interpreted from various perspectives of consciousness).

I suspect the trinity fluxes and phases in ways that can be interpreted, but that are beyond measure. However, the interpretations from mortal perspective can never in any present time be simultaneously complete, coherent, and consistent.

I don't see a worthwhile way to rationalize that any member of the trinity is superior to consciousness. Rather, it seems to me that consciousness must either be of equal contemporaneous dignity, or perhaps the superior of the other two fundamental aspects.

Because consciousness at the meta level that I am conceptualizing is immeasurable, I posit that must be because it functions and signifies consistent with math -- whether that math be based in arithmetic, geometry, statistics, calculus, or some algorithm for artificial intelligence. Because consciousness expresses itself in nothing that can be measured outside of math, math cannot be used to prove or disprove its role. Rather, the role of consciousness, to mortal perspective, is self evident.

A concept of participatory will may help it appear to be less imperative to try to resolve a conundrum of free will. Conscious will does not have freedom to function without respect to Substance and Information. But it does expericence being participatory without necessarily being always preset by Substance and Information. Still, regardless of what any perspective of consciousness may do or experience, that experience will be rationalizeable consistent with math. Even if we have to posit an infinity of parallel worlds and universes to make the math work.

The way I see it, an emergence of A.I. will pose no conceptual threat to such a rationalization of the trinity. I posit that A is A, consciousness is consciousness, and our temporal and mortal experiences of consciousness are just incomplete and connected perspectives of IT. I posit a connecting essence of our Identity may never cease to exist. I don't believe in Yolo. I don't believe suicide offers an easy way out. I don't think God is some eternal monster who is fixated on pleasuring himself by roasting infidels. But karma -- there may be something to that.

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Under the intention of our Constitution, a religion should be understood as pertaining to ways for promoting empathetic appreciation for the Cosmic Reconciler and among mankind. It does not pertain to ways for dhimming or farming people as cattle. That would be a gang. Gangster initiations are not religious rites. If I call a skunk a cat, that does not make it a cat. If I call a gang a religion, that does not make it a religion. If I am made or trained to bow to Hitler, that does not make him a God. The future must not belong to those who want to call a skunk a cat.

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There is the "third possibility" that an aspect of the Trinity mediates with mankind to facilitate the harmony of our moral interests. In that respect, our pursuits of our moral interests unfold in a feedback relationship with the Reconciler, who at a higher level feels our joys and sorrows. Our pursuits, and the blackness or whiteness of them, may not be pre-determined, even though the Reconciler has the last word. The Trinitarian godhead may be about more than either-or. It may be about appreciation of the flux of unfolding beauties and possibilities. To appreciate that, what is called for is receptivity to innate empathetic feedback. That is, clearing the channel to the still, quiet voice -- without the noise of intermeddlers.