Peter’s Correspondence on the Actual Freedom List

with Correspondent No 38

14.2.2003

Hi,

Just thought I’d write to you about something I came across recently that I thought might be of interest to you. But before I start I would like to preface my remarks so that you might have an inkling as to why I found the particular piece of information so fascinating and also why it is relevant to the process of actualism.

When I first came across Richard, I very carefully listened to what he had to say about life, the universe and what it is to be a human being. While some of what he said made sense – much of it jarred with what I had been taught to be the truth. Given that I had been so gullible in my spiritual years – my faith was indeed blind, as is all faith, in that it managed to completely blind me to the glaring gulf between ‘the talk’ and ‘the walk’ of spiritual belief, both in myself and in the revered teachers and Masters – I was determined not to go down that road again, ever.

From my observations it would appear that the majority of people who have adopted Eastern religious beliefs tend to avoid the nuts and bolts of practical application, preferring instead to adopt them as a philosophy – morals, ethics, attitudes, values and psittacisms – and clasp them tightly to their bosom as a affectation – feeling superior and self-righteous. When the central principle of Eastern spirituality – dissociation à la ‘I am not the body’ and ‘the physical world is an illusion’ – is melded with dogma and emotion the result can be horrific. (See here)

Have you ever considered that maybe there was something essentially rotten in Bankei’s ‘real essence’?

In order to make clear the ‘stripped down elemental simplicity’ of Zen, I’ll post a précis of the essence of Bankei’s teaching –

‘What was it that made Bankei’s teaching of the Unborn so popular in his time? Above all, perhaps, was the fact that the basis of Bankei’s Zen were clear and relatively simple. You didn’t have to be learned, live in a monastery or even necessarily consider yourself a Buddhist to practice them effectively. Nor did you have to engage in long and arduous discipline. True, Bankei himself had undergone terrible hardships before he realized the Unborn; but only, as he constantly reminded his listeners, because he never met a teacher able to tell him what he had to know. In fact, one could readily attain the Unborn in the comfort of one’s own home. It wasn’t necessary, or even advisable, Bankei insisted, to follow his own example.

The term ‘Unborn’ itself is a common one in classical Buddhism, where it generally signifies that which is intrinsic, original, uncreated … the Unborn is not a state that has to be created, but is already there, perfect and complete, the mind just is as it is. There isn’t any special method for realizing the Unborn other than to be yourself, to be totally natural and spontaneous in everything you do.

The mind, as Bankei describes it, is a dynamic mechanism, reflecting, recording and recalling our impressions of the work, a kind of living mirror that is always in motion, never the same from one instant to the next. Within this mirror mind, thoughts and feelings come and go, appearing, vanishing and reappearing in response to circumstances, neither good nor bad in themselves. Unlike the man of the Unborn, however, the impulsive person suffers from attachment. He is never natural because he is a slave to his responses, which he fails to realize are only passing reflections. As a result, he is continually ‘hung up’, entangled in particular thoughts and sensations, obstructing the free flow of the mind. Everything will operate smoothly, Bankei insists, if we only step aside and let it do so.’ Bankei Zen Peter Haskel – Grove Weidenfeld Wheatland Corporation

A human being who imagines they are ‘the Unborn’ subsequently imagines that they can never die, which in turn means they waft around feeling themselves to be immortal. Such a person then teaches the wisdom of detachment to others – thereby locking yet another generation of seekers out from experiencing the peace on earth that already, always exists in the actual world.

If you have realized that the ‘stripped down elemental simplicity’ of ‘I am the Unborn’ can also be found in actualism, then you have either totally misinterpreted, or completely ignored, the words published on the AF website.

It is important to distinguish between scepticism and cynicism because it is impossible for someone who is cynical about, or detached from, life and the universe to crank up enough innate naiveté to be an actualist.

*

Although it took a while, I soon came to take Richard’s observation that the human condition is epitomized by malice and sorrow as a given – the global-wide evidence is overwhelming, whilst the evidence of the predominance of feelings of malice and sorrow on a personal level is somewhat disconcerting when initially acknowledged and unmistakeably observed in operation in oneself, and as one’s ‘self’. I also had a strong flash of realization when I first met Richard and he said ‘everybody’s got it 180 degrees wrong’ – the realization that everybody, including me, had been trolling through the garbage bin of history’s tried-and-failed philosophies, beliefs and theories, dusting them off for recycling, denying their shortcomings and ignoring their failure to elicit anything remotely resembling peace on earth between human beings. This brief flash of realization was sufficient to embolden me to consider abandoning my life as-it-was and embarking on a path that no one else had trod but Richard.

And I had to look no further than the war ‘I’ continuously conducted with all of my fellow human beings. Ending the habit of pointing the finger at others and acknowledging one’s own feelings of malice and sorrow is an essential starting point in the process of actualism.

The next realization I spoke of requires an abandonment of real-world cynicism – and spiritual romanticism – for it requires an astounding naiveté to consider that ‘everybody’s got it 180 degrees wrong’ – that there might be a third alternative that can actually bring an end to human malice and sorrow, in this body, and every body.

*

The other thing I did in this initial period was to conduct my own investigation as to whether what Richard was saying about actualism being brand new in human history was a fact. I deliberately re-read many of the spiritual books I had in order to see if anywhere they were teaching the patently obvious path of doing all you can to become happy and harmless such that one can become free of the human condition of malice and sorrow. Needless to say, all I found were teachings aimed at ‘self’-aggrandizement – the exact opposite to ‘self’-immolation.

I didn’t see any great reluctance, particularly as the World Wide Web provides such a wonderful forum for the dissemination of Richard’s writings and an uncensored discussion of actualism in general. As such, his coming forth is done in anonymity from the comfort of his living room.

‘To be sure, nature distributes her gifts unevenly among her children. But there are plenty of the well-endowed, thank God, and I am firmly convinced that most of them live quiet, unobtrusive lives.’ – Albert Einstein

His firm conviction seems to have a familiar ring to it. Spiritualists are often convinced that there are Enlightened Beings who live quite unobtrusive lives, a conviction particularly held by those humble practitioners who fail to make it to the top of the spiritual heap.

As for Einstein, you may find this quote to be relevant to the subject at hand –

‘Although I am a typical loner in daily life, my consciousness of belonging to the invisible community of those who strive for truth, beauty and justice has preserved me from feeling isolated. The most beautiful and deepest feeling a man can have is the sense of the mysterious. It is the underlying principle of religion as well as all serious endeavour in art and science. He who never had this experience seems to me, if not dead, then at least blind.

To sense that behind anything that can be experienced there is something, a something that our mind cannot grasp and whose beauty and sublimity reaches us only indirectly and as a feeble reflection, this is religiousness. In this sense I am religious.’ From ‘My Credo’, a speech by Albert Einstein to the German League of Human Rights, Berlin, Autumn 1932.

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I then delved into reading up on philosophy, psychology, sociology and science in general in order to see what they were busy investigating and what solutions they were offering. I was astounded to discover that all of human knowledge and investigation is predicated upon, and therefore straightjacketed by, the conviction that it is impossible to change human nature. As I read on, the reason for this became more and more obvious – the core spiritual/religious belief that earthly life is essentially suffering so pervades all of human thinking that it is inconceivable that this ain’t necessarily so.

Yep. And yet, to date in actualism’s brief history, t’would appear that the major hurdle to changing human nature is the human propensity to desperately cling on to the teat of ancient beliefs.

*

As part of my investigation I also delved into theoretical physics and cosmology in order to ascertain whether any evidence had emerged that contradicted Richard’s experience that the physical universe is eternal and infinite. That it had no beginning, can only be actually experienced in this moment of time and has no end, that it has no centre, no ‘holes’ or edges to it other than imaginary ones – and therefore there is no ‘outside’ to it. Reading a few books and scouting around a bit was enough for me to ascertain that, while all sorts of fanciful theories and spurious evidence abounds in theoretical physics and speculative cosmology, no empirical evidence has been found to contradict what Richard says and what everyone has directly experienced in a PCE sometime in their life – that the universe is infinite and eternal and hence peerless both in its perfection and purity.

If you want to contemplate on life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, and your contemplations are based on the currently-fashionable pseudo-scientific theories of an expanding universe – replete with a Big Bang beginning, full of or even empty of, all sorts of unseen, unseeable and unmeasurable phenomena and which will suffer some Diabolical End – then you will remain in the grip of spiritual belief.

When I first began to dig into these scientific theories I was amazed how unscientific they were, and I say this as a layman with only a basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The reason I posted the links about an alternative explanation to the empirical observations of the universe was that the explanations make far more sense to me than those currently held to be the truth.

An obituary of Hannes Alfvén, the founder of plasma physics, reinforces my own layman understanding –

‘But Alfvén’s most significant contribution to science is his daring reformulation of cosmology, his critique of the Big Bang, and his posing of an alternative, the plasma universe-an evolving universe without beginning or end.

To Alfvén, the most critical difference between his approach and that of the Big Bang cosmologists was one of method. ‘When men think about the universe, there is always a conflict between the mythical and the empirical scientific approach,’ he explained. ‘In myth, one tries to deduce how the gods must have created the world, what perfect principle must have been used.’ This, he said, is the method of conventional cosmology today: to begin from a mathematical theory, to deduce from that theory how the universe must have begun, and to work forward from the beginning to the present-day cosmos.

The Big Bang fails scientifically because it seeks to derive the present, historically formed universe from a hypothetical perfection in the past. All the contradictions with observation stem from this fundamental flaw.

The other method is the one Alfvén himself employed. ‘I have always believed that astrophysics should be the extrapolation of laboratory physics, that we must begin from the present universe and work our way backward to progressively more remote and uncertain epochs.’ This method begins with observation – observation in the laboratory, from space probes, observation of the universe at large, and derives theories from that observation rather than beginning from theory and pure mathematics.

According to Alfvén, the evolution of the universe in the past must be explicable in terms of the processes occurring in the universe today; events occurring in the depths of space can be explained in terms of phenomena we study in the laboratory on earth.

Such an approach rules out such concepts as an origin of the universe out of nothingness, a beginning to time, or a Big Bang. Since nowhere do we see something emerge from nothing, we have no reason to think this occurred in the distant past. Instead, plasma cosmology assumes that, because we now see an evolving, changing universe, the universe has always existed and always evolved, and will exist and evolve for an infinite time to come.’ Copyright © 1991, 1995 Eric J. Lerner. http://www.marxist.com/science/inmemory.html

The other aspect I found of interest in my early explorations into mainstream cosmological theories of the 20^th century was that many of the proponents of the theories were heavily influenced by the Eastern religious beliefs and philosophies that were particularly fashionable in European intellectual circles at the time. What really set the alarm bells ringing – my scepticism if you like – was when I discovered that the man who formulated the Big Bang creation theory was Abbé Georges LeMaître, a central figure in the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma.

Whilst there is ample empirical evidence in the fossil record of this planet to support the theory that vegetate matter emerged from the mineral matter of this planet due to a unique combination of physical conditions – and that it then further evolved into animate matter, conscious animate matter and apperceptive animate matter over time – it is a leap of pure imagination to propose that the universe itself has evolved over time.

The physical universe is ever changing but it is not evolving, because implicit in the word evolution as it is commonly used is that the process of evolution has a beginning point. The universe, being eternal and infinite, had no beginning point, no creation event. Further, the physical universe is not evolving towards perfection – it is already perfect, as can clearly be experienced in a pure consciousness experience.

The universe, being eternal, can have no ending, no doomsday event. To propose that because flesh and blood human beings are mortal – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ – it therefore follows that the universe is mortal – ‘will eventually become dust’ – is an anthropocentric viewpoint. Thus far in human history, all of humanity’s wisdoms and truths have been founded upon an anthropocentric viewpoint, be it that of the spiritualists’ much-vaunted search for immortality for the human spirit – the ‘Unborn’ state – or the scientists’ futile search for metaphysical spirit-like creationist forces.

Anyone who holds to an anthropocentric view of the universe and holds on to spiritual and/or creationist theories about the nature of the universe will, by the very nature of these ‘self’-centred and ‘self’-perpetuating views and beliefs, remain locked out from the pure consciousness experience of the perfection and purity of the infinite and eternal universe.

It is as pertinent as that.

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In hindsight, these investigations I conducted not only confirmed the facticity of what Richard was saying but also confirmed the fallacy of my own beliefs and none more so than my understanding of the universe. Contemplating the physical nature of the universe – as distinct from investigating and contemplating the nature of ‘my’ psyche – can not only triggered memories of past PCEs, but this type of ‘me’-out-of-the-way contemplation when combined with a softly-focussed wonderment of the sensual nature of the universe provide a potentiality that can evoke the onset of a PCE.

One of the techniques you may have come across is the questioning of dearly held beliefs.

Everybody has some core beliefs that serve to prop up their identity and these will vary slightly according to gender, culture, age, vocational training, and so on. Anyone who becomes interested in being happy and harmless will, sooner or later, come smack up against one of these beliefs. Sooner or later one of these beliefs will appear, rather like a boulder, on the path to being happy and harmless. And from observation of others who have been interested in actualism, it is clear that unless this belief is abandoned, willingly and deliberately, then that person will remain essentially unchanged by the process of actualism.

Whilst I do acknowledge that abandoning one’s pet beliefs can be daunting – one’s very identity as a (… fill in the blank space) is at stake – the resulting palpable sense of freedom can oft evoke a pure consciousness experience of the perfection and purity of the infinite and eternal universe. This is what happened to me and I know this is what happened to Vineeto. And the curious thing is that during the process of actualism, I knew what I had to do next, I knew what belief stood in the way of my becoming more happy and more harmless – simply because the issue would not go away.

This is, after all, what this discussion is really about – the nuts and bolts of abandoning belief and superstition in favour of actuality and sensibility.

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Talking about contemplating the physical nature of the universe brings me to the point of my letter, which is to post a couple of links I thought you might be interested in. I don’t want to comment specifically on the subject matter of the links, as I would not want to pre-empt you from drawing your own conclusions as to whether the explanations offered make more sense than do the currently-fashionable theories and long-held beliefs about the physical nature of the universe – so I’ll leave it at that. http://www.holoscience.com/eu/eu.htm and http://www.electric-cosmos.org/

As I read it, it was scientists’ reliance on mathematics that lead to the abandonment of common sense in the first place.

‘The Electric Universe introduces a far richer science that has no rigid disciplinary boundaries. Instead it encompasses all human experience, arts and endeavour.

Holistically, it embraces evidence from ancient civilisations as well as the latest space probes. The result is an astounding concordance between modern plasma physics and the ancient testimony of battling planets.’

Indeed there is a good deal in the links I provided that make no sense to me – the supposed evolution of the universe being one. But I do find the explanation of the nature of the universe to be far more scientifically plausible than the creationist theories of a Big Bang and a Wimpy End, not to mention the Other Invisible Universes fantasies. What this group of scientists is saying is that what has thus far been empirically observed in the universe can be attributed to the combination of physical matter and the physical energies and forces associated with that matter.

‘And if anyone believes that Newton’s laws guarantee a stable planetary system – think again! Any gravitational system with more than two orbiting bodies is unstable.’

As I have said I am a layman in these matters. Having said that, it seems to put me at an advantage because I am obliged to rely on common sense – something that is impossible for those who are driven by passion and blinkered by belief.

‘What we measure as the speed of light is then a delayed response of bulk electric charge to an oscillating near-instantaneous electrostatic force.’

I’ll pass on this one. The conundrums of theoretical physics do seem to bear a remarkable resemblance to Zen koans – Schroeder’s Cat comes to mind.

‘It has been well documented that modern institutions of science operate in such a way as to enforce conformity and prevent research and publication of revolutionary ideas. J. R. Saul argues that medieval scholasticism was re-established during the 20^th century. If so, the new ‘Enlightenment’ will have to come, as before, from outside academia.’

Or some aspects of scientific research have to once again break free from the shackles of religious dogma, spiritual belief and metaphysical mysticism and get more down-to-earth again.

‘Sansbury’s electrical model of matter leads to a simple explanation of gravity that allows space to be three-dimensional and Euclidean – which is the way we perceive it.’

In my experience I found it useful to make a distinction between the many disciplines of science.

The distinction I make is between what could be called the empirical sciences or applied sciences – engineering, mechanics, chemistry, geology, biology and so on – and the sciences that incorporate a good deal of theory or philosophical speculation – quantum physics, cosmology, climatology and so on. Simply by making this distinction it became clear that it is empirical science – the empirical understanding of physical matter and the physical forces and energies associated with physical matter – that has wrought the incredible progress in human safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. It also became clear that the sciences that are driven by theory and conjecture – speculating on the nature of matter and then devising scenarios, forces and energies to suit their theories – produce little that is of practical use to anyone.

Human beings have an obsession with ‘the notion of higher dimensions’ – the belief that the world is subject to the influence of good forces and evil forces is prevalent in every tribe and every culture on the planet. This belief is somewhat understandable considering that it emerged in the days when it was universally believed that the world was three layered – a flat earthy plane full of dangerous animals and dangerous humans, a mystifying heavenly realm above and a mysterious underworld below. Eventually it was empirically observed that the earth was not flat but was spherical and subsequent explorations over centuries proved that this was in fact so. Nowadays photos of earth taken from spacecrafts have subsequently convinced all but the wacky that the earth is not flat.

The next belief to be demolished by empirical observation was the notion that the earth was the centre of the solar system – an empirical observation only made possible by the invention of a mechanical enhancement of our ‘sensory apparatus’ – the telescope. As telescopes got bigger and better, the belief that our galaxy was all there was to the universe – a conviction held in Einstein’s time – was replaced by the discovery that there are in fact countless other galaxies in the universe. The subsequent invention of radio telescopes and the like has meant that we are now able to observe and measure spectrums of the electromagnetic energy of the universe that lay outside the range human eyes can detect.

And yet, despite this long history of scientific discoveries about the extraordinary magic that is the physical universe, the eons-old search for some sort of ‘higher dimension’ or metaphysical energy – the famed spirit-energy of mythology – still persists.

The same long trek from belief and superstition to actuality and wonder can be seen in the discoveries about the creation of animate life. The process of animal reproduction was unknown to early humans and all sorts of beliefs and superstitions flourished in ignorance. Now, thousands of years later, the science of observation and investigation – mightily boosted by the invention of the inverted telescope, the microscope – has revealed the facts to be far more wondrous than the puerile myths dependant upon the belief in supernatural spirit forces.

I could go on tripping through other fields of scientific discovery and endeavour, but you probably have got the gist of what I am saying – human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks.

Unless someone discovers some substantive empirical evidence to back up a theory, I am also sceptical of many of the suppositions that are presented along with the theory of a plasma universe or an electric universe. But I see these as add-ons to the central thrust of what is presented – an alternative evidence-based explanation for the thus-far empirically observed matter of the universe as opposed to the fashionable creationist explanations of Einsteinian Cosmology.

Well, that’s been good fun. Nice to chat about these matters.

22.2.2003

Have you ever considered that maybe there was something essentially rotten in Bankei’s ‘real essence’?

The reason I posted the piece about Bankei’s teachings of ‘realizing the Unborn’ is that you said in the last post –

‘I have since realized that what I was attracted to in Zen – that stripped down elemental simplicity – I have found in these parts.’ No 38 to Peter, 9.2.2003

This is a present tense statement, implying that you still see a link between spiritualism and actualism – if not in subject matter, at least philosophically. Actualism is not a stripped down elemental philosophy, nor a non-spiritual form of Zen, nor a happy-go-lucky form of materialism.

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I didn’t see any great reluctance, particularly as the World Wide Web provides such a wonderful forum for the dissemination of Richard’s writings and an uncensored discussion of actualism in general. As such, his coming forth is done in anonymity from the comfort of his living room.

Why not? An eventual end to all the wars, all the torture, all the rapes, all the domestic violence, all the child abuse, all the corruption, all the suicides, all the despair and all the hypocrisy is surely reason enough for anyone sincerely interested in peace on earth to get off their bum and do their bit to facilitate it happening – fear of ‘self’-extinction or not. I say that because even a global incidence of virtually happy and harmless humans would be sufficient to foster in a global peace and harmony that would be truly beyond belief.

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If you want to contemplate on life, the universe and what it is to be a human being, ...

… and your contemplations are based on the currently-fashionable pseudo-scientific theories of an expanding universe – replete with a Big Bang beginning, full of or even empty of, all sorts of unseen, unseeable and unmeasurable phenomena and which will suffer some Diabolical End –

... then you will remain in the grip of spiritual belief.

Are you saying that reading Eastern spiritual texts, liking what you read and being attracted to the teachings is to be not on a spiritual path? ‘Path’ as in a motivational direction or line of enquiry or the pursuit of an interest or course of action. Perhaps because you took no action, i.e. didn’t get involved in the nuts and bolts of applying any spiritual teachings, you don’t see it as having been on a path but your point does seem somewhat moot to me.

I have always assumed that those who are at all interested in life, the universe and what it is to be a human being would have found the grim dog-eat-dog reality of materialism to be unsatisfactory and would have explored what was on offer in spiritual teachings and the spiritual world – i.e. to have checked out the spiritual path. At age 32 I found by experience that the grim reality of materialism sucked, by age 49 I found by experience that spiritualism’s Greater Reality is a wank – which is why I moved on to the nuts and bolts of actualism. It makes sense for anyone interested in life to explore what is on offer, to find out if it works and, if it doesn’t work, to move on.

Speaking personally, I found bits of my spiritual identity – be it a Christian moral, a Buddhist ethic, a New-Age psittacism, a Mother Earth belief or such – popping up in my baggage for several years after I abandoned the spiritual path. But then again that is hardly surprising for finding such baggage is the whole point of the process of actualism – to do all ‘I’ can to root out every thing that prevents me from being happy and harmless.

As you said ‘all religion and spirituality is rotten to the core’ – so any skerrick of religious/spiritual belief, no matter how seemingly innocuous or apparently well-intentioned, has to be scrupulously investigated, clearly seen for what it is, and deleted from one’s psyche – firstly as an effect, and then as a fact, i.e. it doesn’t resurface.

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When I first began to dig into these scientific theories I was amazed how unscientific they were, and I say this as a layman with only a basic knowledge of mechanics and engineering. The reason I posted the links about an alternative explanation to the empirical observations of the universe was that the explanations make far more sense to me than those currently held to be the truth.

You may have missed the fact from the last post that the man who formulated the Big Bang creation theory was Abbé Georges LeMaître, a central figure in the Vatican’s Pontificia Academia de Scienza di Roma. In other words, the very first step in the process of the formulation of the Big Bang theory, was LeMaître’s religious belief that God created the world out of nothing, that the universe had a beginning – a creation event. The ‘scientific method’ employed in this case was to take a transparently creationist religious belief, create mathematical formula to support the belief, assess any empirical observations solely in the light of the belief and, when holes appear in theory, persist by adding complications to the theory.

After nearly a century of theories built upon LeMaître’s initial theory, some scientists have even come out claiming that they see the Mind of God at work in the universe. The Vatican must be mightily pleased with the current score line in cosmology – Vatican 1/ Empirical science 0.

You might have noticed Richard’s recent post where he posted documentary evidence that the Tibetan Buddhist Dalai Lama is deliberately meddling in, and influencing, what could be termed the human behavioural sciences in precisely the same way that the Catholic Pope meddled in, and influenced, theoretical cosmology. It’s a good ploy on the part of the churches because the distinction between science and religion – between fact and fantasy – remains so blurred in most people’s minds that it is impossible for common sense to even begin to get a toehold, let alone a leg in.

Scientists, being human beings, can do nothing in an a-personal manner, but if the process they follow produces verifiable down-to-earth results with leads to things that work, or criteria that can be applied to produce results that work in similar situations, it can reliably be said that the theory then becomes fact.

As for curiosity, if it isn’t a down-to-earth curiosity, then curiosity very quickly turns into a flight of fantasy – naught but impassioned imagination. A bit from my journal is relevant –

‘We know that death is an inevitable fact. This is the fact of the situation, but we have avoided this fact largely by making ‘Why are we here?’ and ‘What happens after death?’ into great religious, philosophical and scientific questions. Indeed, for many humans the pursuit of the answer to these meaningless questions is deemed to be the very meaning of life. The search for what happens after life becomes the point of life and the Search is endless. One is forever on the Path. One never arrives. That always seemed some sort of perversity to me. All that the religious and spiritual meanings of life have offered us is that they point to life after death – that’s where it is really at! ‘When you die, then you can really live!’ Peter’s Journal Death

Contrary to spiritual belief, t’is not the obstinacy of the ego that is the bane of humanity, t’is the tenacity of the soul. You may have observed that many scientists are very wary of treading on the toes of spiritualists lest they be seen as ‘soul’-less.

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Whilst there is ample empirical evidence in the fossil record of this planet to support the theory that vegetate matter emerged from the mineral matter of this planet due to a unique combination of physical conditions – and that it then further evolved into animate matter, conscious animate matter and apperceptive animate matter over time – it is a leap of pure imagination to propose that the universe itself has evolved over time.

The physical universe is ever changing but it is not evolving, because implicit in the word evolution as it is commonly used is that the process of evolution has a beginning point. The universe, being eternal and infinite, had no beginning point, no creation event.

Further, the physical universe is not evolving towards perfection – it is already perfect, as can clearly be experienced in a pure consciousness experience.

If I read you right, you seem to be willing to acknowledge that the universe may not have had a beginning, i.e. was not created by someone or something out of nothing, but you are hedging your bets by saying it does not necessarily follow that the universe won’t have an end – an extinction caused by someone or something whereby the universe wimps or bangs into nothing.

I am left wondering why you would abandon half of a belief and yet hold on to the other half?

Perhaps, in the interest of getting to the root of this issue, you would like to post the scientific facts that provide evidence that the universe is not ‘infinite in both time and space’. Then we can put them on the table and see if they make sense or not.

Just as a point of interest, you will have noticed I am not alone in questioning the common popular theories in cosmology. You will have noticed that I have previously posted some comments made by Hannes Alfvén, astrophysicist and joint winner of the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1970 in which he questioned not only the methodology but the substance of the scientific rationale for a finite created universe with a beginning and end.

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The universe, being eternal, can have no ending, no doomsday event.

I don’t have a scientific argument to offer because it is impossible to refute the arguments of those who believe in a creationist beginning event or a doomsday ending event to the universe. This is akin to believers asking for scientific proof that God doesn’t exist or proof that there isn’t life after death. It is beholden upon those who believe to provide empirical scientific evidence to back up their theories and beliefs – after all, it’s their belief, their conviction, their fantasy.

To be stuck between a hypothesis and a belief is a hard place as I remember it, but out of this confusion came the understanding that certainty lies in the observable facts of down-to-earth matters. Or to put it another way, once I realized that actualism had nothing to do with any spiritual belief whatsoever, it gradually dawned on me that actualism is completely and utterly down-to-earth.

Having said that I don’t have a scientific argument to make, I will offer the scientific explanation as to why –

‘Creation ex nihilo is forbidden in physics because it requires a miracle. Everything that exists comes from something that existed before, that has grown, or fragmented, or changed form. Growth requires accretion, nourishment, or energy input. Fragmentation ranges from chipping to evaporation to explosion into bits so tiny that we can no longer see or detect them. Changing form includes changes of state, such as solids, liquids, gases, or plasmas.’  <Snip>

‘The counterpart of not allowing the creation of something from nothing is ‘No Demise as nihil’; i.e., something cannot become nothing. However finely a thing may dissolve, however undetectable the bits of ‘energy’ into which a thing may explode, if all the individual bits were brought together again with the same ordering, the original thing would be recovered. In other words, nothing has ceased to exist; it has merely changed its appearance or form.’ Tom Van Flandern, ‘Physics Has Its Principles’

To propose that because flesh and blood human beings are mortal – ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ – it therefore follows that the universe is mortal – ‘will eventually become dust’ – is an anthropocentric viewpoint. Thus far in human history, all of humanity’s wisdoms and truths have been founded upon an anthropocentric viewpoint, be it that of the spiritualists’ much-vaunted search for immortality for the human spirit – the ‘Unborn’ state – or the scientists’ futile search for metaphysical spirit-like creationist forces.

Flawed or not, you still seem to be arguing for the belief in creationist cosmology, albeit as half a belief. On one side you offer ‘granted that the present Big Bang theory has many holes’ and yet on the other you ask ‘can you offer a scientific argument as to why the universe should have no end?’

As I’ve said before, this is not an argument as to who is right or wrong, nor is it really even about the scientific explanations about the nature of the universe – this is a discussion between two fellow human beings, two actualists, about the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs. If you want an example of scientific method in action this is it – examining the origin, nature and tenacity of human beliefs, in this case using creationist cosmology as an example. We could conduct exactly the same scientific method examination of any other beliefs – the pantheistic beliefs that underpins much of environmental science is another example that comes to mind.

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One of the techniques you may have come across is the questioning of dearly held beliefs. <snip> This is, after all, what this discussion is really about – the nuts and bolts of abandoning belief and superstition in favour of actuality and sensibility.

To choose to not believe that the universe is finite or infinite is but to remain an agnostic – a person who is uncertain and non-committal about a particular issue. An agnostic is not someone who is free of belief; an agnostic is someone who remains open to belief, who keeps his or her options open, who has a bet each way.

On the other hand, an actualist is someone who recognizes the necessity of becoming free from being a believer in the much-vaunted wisdom of humanity if one is to become free of the human condition and the way to become free from beliefs is to replace one’s beliefs with obvious and irrefutable facts thereby depriving ‘the believer’ from sustenance.

I do realize that ‘not-knowing’ is highly valued in the spiritual world, but an actualist is vitally interested in life, the universe and what it is to be a human being and as such makes exploring, investigating and ‘finding-out’ his or her prime mission in life.

Yes. Self-judgement, self-condemnation, self-deprivation, self-flagellation and the like are the consequences of the moral teachings arising from religious/spiritual programming that is inflicted upon every child from every culture. Through no fault of our own we are taught to believe that self-imposed moral judgements are essential to keep the lid on our instinctual passions. The belief in morals is essential to cling to within the human condition but an actualist needs to set his or her sights higher – the very process of eliminating of malice and sorrow makes the self-righteous morals and unliveable ethics of the real-world obsolete and redundant.

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As I read it, it was scientists’ reliance on mathematics that lead to the abandonment of common sense in the first place.

Again a distinction needs to be made between applied mathematics and pure or abstract mathematics. Applied mathematics is an essential tool utilized by many practical scientists and professions including those of engineering and architecture. When mathematics is divested of down-to-earth applications all sorts of fantasies can result, including the search for mathematical ‘Elegance’ and ‘Truth’.

I would refer you to the following link, which makes this point far more concisely than I am capable of doing –

http://www.metaresearch.org/cosmology/PhysicsHasItsPrinciples.asp

You might also find further reading on this site useful in your research as it essential that you make your own sense of such matters and not just believe what I, or others, are saying.

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As I have said I am a layman in these matters. Having said that, it seems to put me at an advantage because I am obliged to rely on common sense – something that is impossible for those who are driven by passion and blinkered by belief.

There is no power per se to be had in having a common sense approach to thinking about any issue. But if you can manage to put your beliefs aside sufficiently to allow common sense to operate then the resulting clarity can lead to realizations which, if acted upon, will lead to you becoming more happy and more harmless.

After all, actualism is not about becoming cleverer or more dispassionate – the actualism process is solely aimed at becoming happy and harmless.

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In my experience I found it useful to make a distinction between the many disciplines of science. The distinction I make is between what could be called the empirical sciences or applied sciences – engineering, mechanics, chemistry, geology, biology and so on – and the sciences that incorporate a good deal of theory or philosophical speculation – quantum physics, cosmology, climatology and so on. Simply by making this distinction it became clear that it is empirical science – the empirical understanding of physical matter and the physical forces and energies associated with physical matter – that has wrought the incredible progress in human safety, comfort, leisure and pleasure. It also became clear that the sciences that are driven by theory and conjecture – speculating on the nature of matter and then devising scenarios, forces and energies to suit their theories – produce little that is of practical use to anyone.

I take it from your conditional agreement that you are somewhat sceptical or agnostic about the incredible progress in human safety, comfort leisure and pleasure that has been produced by the practical application of the scientific method of enquiry. I only say this because human beings do give themselves a very hard time, so much so that they denigrate the amazing technological advances that human intelligence and ingenuity has produced.

As I said above, self-judgement, self-denigration, self-condemnation, self-deprivation and self-flagellation are but hangovers of spiritual belief.

Oops. T’was a bit sloppy of me.

The obvious point of departure where the theoretical scientists abandon the rigours of scientific method is when their speculations on the nature of matter and their devised scenarios, forces and energies are promulgated as being truths or fact.

Whereas the first step in the Big Bang theory was not scientific at all, it was based on spiritual/religious belief.

Au contraire. We have heard of little else but Einsteinian-based cosmology for over 60 years now and this version of creationist belief is but the latest manifestation of a persistent and pernicious mystical tradition in science that goes back through alchemy, astrology, shamanism and the like to the dim dark past when the wise man or wise woman of the tribe was both witch doctor and God man or witch and God woman.

As you yourself said, ‘all religion and spirituality is rotten to the core’ so it stands to reason that when religion and spirituality infect science then that science can hardly smell of roses. As a rough rule of thumb, any scientific theory that includes doomsday scenarios tends to tweak my BS detector.

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Human beings have an obsession with ‘the notion of higher dimensions’ – the belief that the world is subject to the influence of good forces and evil forces is prevalent in every tribe and every culture on the planet.

Your use of the words ‘higher dimension’ led me to make my comment – i.e. I was taking your words at face value. If I take out the word ‘higher’, as in lofty or elevated or principle, and take out the word ‘dimension’, as in attribute or aspect, I am left presuming you meant that the human sensory apparatus is limited in that it cannot detect the full range of all of the physical matter, nor the full range of all of the physical energies in the universe.

Scientific progress has gone hand-in-hand with the invention of tools and apparatus that have allowed humans to extend the range and effectiveness of their sensory apparatus. The human invention of language, then written language, then mass printed words on paper, then the digitalizing of words and the subsequent invention of a world wide web of home computers is what allows us to have this conversation across the globe – an astounding extension of the ‘limitations’ of the human language and auditory capacity.

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This belief is somewhat understandable considering that it emerged in the days when it was universally believed that the world was three layered – a flat earthy plane full of dangerous animals and dangerous humans, a mystifying heavenly realm above and a mysterious underworld below. Eventually it was empirically observed that the earth was not flat but was spherical and subsequent explorations over centuries proved that this was in fact so. Nowadays photos of earth taken from spacecrafts have subsequently convinced all but the wacky that the earth is not flat.

By the same logic, an agnostic would say it is best to keep one’s options open because ‘higher dimensions’ or evidence of creation or other worlds or black holes or singularities or meta-physical forces, or whatever else one chooses to believe in, might well be found to be true after all. This line of reasoning is often used as a last resort by those who can find no evidence to substantiate their belief and fall back on claiming the evidence does exist but it ‘hasn’t been discovered yet’.

I used to think that a lot of beliefs I held didn’t matter or weren’t relevant to actualism, but eventually I discovered the act of holding onto any beliefs only served to keep ‘me’ in existence and therefore kept me hobbled to the human condition of malice and sorrow. In short, if I couldn’t drop a belief I always knew it was something ‘I’ identified with – i.e. that it was part and parcel of ‘me’ as a social or instinctual identity.

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I could go on tripping through other fields of scientific discovery and endeavour, but you probably have got the gist of what I am saying – human beings will never be free from the fear and hope inherent in superstition if they insist on believing in higher dimensions, supernatural forces, metaphysical realms, divine beings, good and evil spirits and so on – or persist in hoping that one day science will provide the empirical evidence that spiritual belief so tellingly lacks.

Maybe you would like to refect on what characteristics of the universe have changed since the beginning of human awareness of the universe? Such reflection might lead you to the conclusion that the characteristics of the universe exist independently of human sensory perception, and are unaffected in any way by human sensory perception.

Anthropocentricity runs deep within the human psyche, manifested in each and every human being as ‘self’-centredness. Contrary to popular belief, the universe was not ‘created’ especially for human beings – the human species is manifestly a species of animate life that has evolved from the matter of the universe. So predominant is anthropocentric belief that early humans, out of ignorance, believed the earth to be the centre of our solar system – a geocentric belief – but it has been discovered over time that the earth is but one of a number of planets that orbit the sun, which is but one sun in a galaxy full of suns, which is but one galaxy in an endless cosmos of countless galaxies.

And yet these physical characteristics of the universe have always been so despite the early beliefs and superstitions that the earth was the centre of the world and that this world must have been created by a Someone or Something.

I don’t know wether you came across the modern ‘Fingers of God’ tabulation – if this didn’t send the alarm bells ringing amongst creationist cosmology as to how geocentric, hence anthropocentric, their observations are then nothing will. http://www.electric-cosmos.org/arp.htm

And yet, despite your disclaimer, you have said previously in this post –

‘The Big Bang theorem is still a theorem as it has not yet passed the test of the scientific method.’

The Big Bang theory is a creationist theory. The Big Bang theory is metaphysical in that it presumes there was a force or energy existing prior to the existence of physical matter and that this non-material force or energy then created the physical matter of the universe. The Big Bang theory is spiritual at root in that ancient spiritual belief was the prior source of all metaphysical science.

And just a note to finish with –

Personally I didn’t try to understand the science of all this too much. Simply contemplating on what would have existed before the universe was supposedly created, what would exist after in supposedly ended and what I would see if I got to the supposed edge of the universe was enough to convince me that the creationist cosmologists were off with the fairies.

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

Peter’s Text © The Actual Freedom Trust