(DRAFT 7. Work-In-Progress)

What is the universe and where does it come from?

There are two major schools of thought on this question:

1. Science: One is modern-day science, which takes the position that universe is strictly a physical phenomenon and that everything about can be explained by repeatable physical measurements, testable scientific theories, and the rules of math and logic.
2. Religion:
   The other school of thought is religion, which in general, takes the position that the universe comes from something non-physical that is ultimately unexplainable and beyond the reach of science.

In this paper we will take an intellectual adventure into the far fringes of both science and religion, to explore the question of whether or science and religion might be unified. Such a unification is an intellectual “Holy Grail” that could truly change the world. But is it even possible? I think it is, and I’ll propose the core of such a unification here.

The Possibility of Convergence

While there are clearly differences between the approaches and beliefs of the sciences and religions of the world, there are also more similarities than many would like to admit. Beyond that however, at the very deepest levels, they lead to similar logical conclusions and in fact intersect on certain fundamental points, whether their proponents know it or not.

In particular, the question of the origin and nature of the universe is where I believe science and religion converge. Whether one holds the view of science, the view of religion, or both, it turns out that there is a logical necessity for reaching the same final conclusions about the ultimate nature of reality.

Whether one starts from a scientific viewpoint and applies only the methods of science and logic, or one starts from a religious perspective and applies only the methods of religion and logic, either way the conclusion is the same. As long as one regards logic as a valid method of inquiry, the final answer is the same.

The Core Argument

So what is the answer? In short, everything is “nonoriginated.” This has a very specific meaning: the universe (or anything else that we might posit to exist) cannot logically originate from nothingness, from itself, or from some other fundamental thing.

Here’s how this conclusion is reached in a nutshell (I will explain this argument in more depth later in this article, as well as its many implications):

To claim that something originates from nothing is a contradiction.

To claim that something originates from itself is a contradiction.

To claim that something originates from something else leads to an infinite regress unless you claim there is a fundamental first-thing — but claiming there is a fundamental first-thing leads to a contradiction, so it’s not an option. An infinite regress on the other hand, is not really an origin.

Therefore none of the three above ways of originating are logically tenable, yet there is no other possible fourth alternative.

This then leaves only two possible conclusions about the universe (and anything else that is posited to exist):

1. The first option is that the universe is not really happening at all, because there’s no logical way for it to have originated.  But this is immediately contradictory to our experience. It is refuted by obvious, undeniable evidence — right in front of us we can see that something is happening — who knows what it is, but it would be absurd to deny that there is some kind of phenomena taking place.
2. The second option is that the universe is happening, although there is no origin for it (i.e. it is “nonoriginated”). It is not necessary for there to be an ultimate and final origin — no first cause, prime mover, fundamental particle, or first moment of creation. The universe must therefore be infinite in time, space, and levels of scale.

Option (1) is easily refuted. We are left with option (2) – Nonorigination.

But it is a bit strange to imagine a universe that has no beginning, no origin. How can the universe exist if it is truly beginningless? Without a first-cause what could ever have gotten it started? Without a final fundamental particle, what could things actually be made of? In fact, it is precisely because the universe is nonoriginated that it CAN appear at all. This will be explained further in this article.

We can see how this logic applies to the origin of the universe. How about God? Well if God exists then the same logic would apply: God must also be nonoriginated. Anything that is posited to exist must be nonoriginated.

This point of nonorigination is where science and religion intersect. Nonorigination is the ultimate nature of reality. It is not merely a concept — it is the actual nature of all things, and it has many profound implications. It points to a level of reality that is beyond the limits of space and time — and in this respect it is proof of what might be called the Divine, yet it is also completely compatible with the physical world and its laws.

There are several other key dimensions of nonorigination as well. Awareness is one of them. Awareness is the unique capacity of sentient beings to make observations. It plays an important role in making the universe happen, and is actually unified with nonorigination. Where there is nonorigination there MUST be awareness and vice-versa.

Likewise the process of cause-and-effect turns out to be a natural corollary to the nonorigination of the universe, and it’s powered by awareness, the act of making observations. If there were no such process, the universe could not work as it does; it would effectively be random.

I will explore these topics in a lot more detail below.

The unification of science and religion is not philosophy, it is logic. But how we interpret it, and what we do with it is a matter of personal preference and personal philosophy. This paper will not attempt to draw conclusions about what scientific or religious belief is best. That is up to you. Use the logical evidence however you see fit.

What Does the Universe Come From?

If one even merely posits the existence of the universe or even just the presence of a fundamental particle — then that immediately leads to further questions such as: Then where does that come from, what is it all really made of, and how could it all be taking place, what is space-time made of or located in, who or what designed this or how did it all happen so perfectly when it is statistically almost impossible?

Some people just can’t imagine that anything as vast as God could be possible, so they simply decide (without any real evidence) that God is impossible. Or they think that there could not be anything greater than or beyond the scope of the physical universe because they feel that the only things that can exist are physical things. To them, there is nothing but the physical, it is all a big machine, this is all there is — and for that reason they can’t believe in some kind of greater being or ultimate reality beyond space and time or the physical laws. But the grounds on which they claim God is not possible can also be used to claim the universe itself is not possible. If they believe in the possibility of the physical universe they also must accept the possibility of God by the same logic.

Here’s why: If the argument against the possibility of God is that it just isn’t possible for there to be something infinite, then that means either space and time are finite or they can’t exist either — the universe would not be possible because space and time are presently thought to be infinite.

Similarly, if the argument against the possibility of God is that there just couldn’t be anything beyond the physical universe, then even the physical universe could not exist — for if there were no possibility of anything greater than or beyond the universe then where is the physical universe taking place? What does it come from? What is it “in?” If it ever ends, what remains? This second argument is a bit of a difficult point so it bears further explanation.

Whenever you posit something, it logically has to either come from nothing, or from itself, or from something else. And at the time it exists it either has to depend on nothing, depend on itself, or depend on something else.

Stating that the universe comes from nothing or depends on nothing is problematic — it is in fact equivalent to saying that the universe comes from or depends on something beyond the universe: some primordial “nothingness.”

Stating that the universe comes from or depends on itself is circular and also a contradiction of sorts — in order for the universe to create itself or depend on itself it must already exist, and so this is impossible and not an option.

Yet stating that the universe comes from something else or depends on something else admits that there must be something beyond it to come from or depend on.

In other words, no matter what position one takes on the universe, it leaves open the possibility – indeed even the logical requirement – that there must be something before it, greater than it, deeper than it, beyond it, after it, etc.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Nothingness

There are however some people who are not convinced by the above arguments. They hold tenaciously to the belief that the universe comes from some kind of primordial “nothingness” which they conceptualize as existing somehow on its own, either before or during the existence of the universe.

This belief in some kind of concrete “nothingness” has many problems. First of all to posit “nothingness” is to treat it as some kind of thing in fact — so it is self-contradictory from the start. Secondly, it is impossible to even imagine actual “nothingness” so labeling it, speaking of it, or positing that it exists is simply deluded. To posit it is not actually to posit it. To imagine it is not actually to imagine it. And in fact there is no way to even conceive of nothingness actually existing, for if it were to exist it would not be nothing. Finally, even if we ignore all these logical problems and still cling to the concept of nothingness, how could anything come from nothing? Let’s examine further.

If nothing really is “nothing” it could not contain anything that could serve as a cause or origin for anything else, let alone an entire universe. So it could not give rise to anything. In fact it would be a contradiction to assert the co-existence of nothing and something as well — so even if nothingness could somehow give rise to the universe it would have to be destroyed or eliminated at the moment the universe came into existence — but if that were the case how could it give rise to the universe — it could never overlap with the universe at all so how could it even be said to give rise to it?

For example the universe could not gradually emerge from nothingness since nothingness would be completely eliminated at the very first instant of the process of emergence, and then the process would be over since there would be no more nothingness left for the rest of it to emerge from.

Similarly the universe could not emerge all-at-once from nothingness either, because for that to happen there would at least have to be a moment in which nothing and the universe co-existed — the moment in which the universe emerged.

If we don’t allow for at least that one moment of co-existence before the universe replaces nothingness, then causality is not possible to establish: there would be no way to connect the emergence of the universe as coming out of or from a pure state of nothingness that existed before it — and so there would be no point in making this claim at all.

To say that one thing comes from another thing means we have to be able to show how they are connected, and for that to be possible they have to both exist at the same time, or there has to at least be some chain of events we can point to that connects them. But if nothing and something are truly mutually exclusive then that is simply not possible to establish.

All this effort is simply to show finally and totally that nothingness is a flawed concept, and to claim that something can come from nothingness is even more flawed.

Furthermore belief in the concept of nothingness actually refutes belief in the power of science. To believe in nothingness is mutually exclusive with a belief in the principles of science, for nothingness is not measurable, not verifiable in any way, and is therefore impenetrable to science. Therefore any scientist who claims that nothingness exists or that the universe came from nothingness is a hypocrite. Anyone who cites “nothingness” as the origin of the universe is not in fact being scientific, they are abandoning science. To claim that all space and time — and all science — springs from nothingness is akin to claiming that the physical world (and therefore the domain of science) depends upon something beyond the physical world and beyond domain of science, in other words on a domain that is traditionally the focus of religion.

If we say the universe sprang forth from nothingness that is like saying that science depends on something beyond the realm of science at the fundamental level, and if we say the opposite — that the universe has always existed or there is an infinite series of universes — that is also akin to saying that science depends on something beyond what science can ever explain — for infinity, while not a contradiction at least, is equally impenetrable to science.

Therefore there really is no possible origin of the universe that does not lead to a contradiction. But let’s explore all the alternatives to really make this clear.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Itself

We have already seen that it is a mistake to claim that the universe came from nothingness, but if the universe didn’t spring forth magically from nothingness, then perhaps it came from itself? What would this mean? It would mean that the universe already existed before the universe existed and then somehow generated itself, from itself. That is circular reasoning, and it’s also a logical contradiction because if the universe already existed then it would be meaningless to speak of it “generating” itself – it already would have existed in the first place. There’s not much more that needs to be said about this. But I’ll say it anyway, just to make it perfectly clear that this is not an option.

Perhaps we might interpret the act of self-generation 0r “coming from itself” in a slightly modified manner. For example, the universe today comes from the early universe, and they are quite different. So saying the universe of today comes from the universe of the past is not saying that the universe today comes from itself, literally; rather it is saying it comes from something else: the early universe. That is certainly one way to wiggle out of the fallacy of something coming from itself, but it just leads to an infinite regress: the fallacy of something originating from something else. The next section explores why this is a fallacy.

Refuting Ideas that the Universe Comes from Something Else

If the universe doesn’t come from nothingness, or from itself, then what does it come from? If it comes from something else, then what does that thing come from? At some point there has to be a beginning to the process. But if there is a beginning then what is before it? Whatever was before it would have to be beyond the universe and would therefore be beyond the realm of science.

To state that the universe comes from something else is to say that something else (whatever it is) is the more fundamental level or prior state of the universe. In other words to state that the universe comes from something else is really saying the universe comes from the universe, at a deeper level or an earlier time, or a different place, or in a different state or form, or all of the above.

But all such statements are either claims that the universe, taken as a whole (all states of the universe over all time and space) comes from itself, or at worst it is a circular argument that simply pushes the problem down a level: what does that other more fundamental “something” that the universe depends on come from? Again we end up in an infinite regress or a contradiction.

On the other hand, if we claim that the universe is beginningless and nonoriginated — then what is the eternity in which this “beginninglessness” is taking place? What created this eternity?

To posit that there is an eternity “beyond” the universe, or that “contains” the universe (including space and time) is already to state that there is something beyond the realm of science, something outside the universe. But if we then claim that this “eternity” is some kind of more fundamental thing, we just end up in the same infinite regress as before — it is just a subtle concept of the universe coming from something else.

Another possibility might be to claim that eternity and the universe are the same thing. This is to say that the universe is infinite in scope — space and time are boundless and contain all there is. This is logically either equivalent to the claim that the universe comes from nothing, or from itself. Neither of those options is tenable as we have already seen.

If we posit that eternity comes from nothing that is a contradiction. If it is self-originated, that is circular and also a contradiction. If we say it comes from something else, then what does that other thing come from? We end up in an infinite series of greater eternities, each containing all the lesser ones, like a Russian doll — this is an infinite regress which fails to solve the problem. Or is there a highest level of eternity and if so, what prevents there from being greater levels of eternity beyond even that — what causes the boundary between one level of eternity and another to exist and if there is a boundary, what is on the other side of it? This leads to either a contradiction or an infinite regress once again. This line of reasoning also fails to answer the question.

If one claims that the universe contains all space and time, then are the container and what is contained finite or infinite in scope? If it is finite there must be some kind of edge, if it is infinite it implies something so inconceivably vast it is frankly mystical in scope and is logically equivalent to saying the universe comes from itself.

In short, if we claim the universe comes from something else that leads to circular arguments and contradictions, or an infinite regress. If we’re willing to accept circular arguments and logical contradictions or infinite regresses as satisfactory answers then that is not very different than accepting any other self-justified claims taken on faith, such as those made by religions or even those made in fairy-tales. In fact, any such claim is really a form of religious belief disguised as science. If we are willing to think this way — and ironically it turns out that most scientists are willing to think this way — then why not also believe in God or other religious ideas as well? It would be hypocritical not to.

Refuting Conceptions of an Originated God

It’s important to note that the same logic that refutes notions that the universe comes from nothing, itself, or something else, can also be applied to any claims that there is a God. If there is a God, then like the universe, it also cannot originate from nothing, itself, or something else without leading to logical fallacies. To claim that God came from nothingness is again the something-from-nothing argument that we know does not make sense under logical scrutiny.

To claim that God comes from God is circular reasoning and contradictory. To claim that God comes from something greater than God contradicts the very notion of God and/or leads to an infinite regress which just pushes the problem down to deeper levels — where does that infinite regress of ever greater Gods come from then?

Both the universe and the concept of God have the same existential status in fact. Neither one of them has an origin that we can actually find or name without ending up in a logical mess of contradictions and infinite regressions. In this respect they are quite similar.

The conclusion is that, like the universe, God or whatever we think of as God, must also be nonoriginated. There is no other logically tenable option.

Exploring Nonorigination

If neither any possible universe nor any possible God can be said to come from nothing, itself, or something else, then that leaves only two logical conclusions:

1. The first option is that these things are not possible and not happening at all since they can’t have originated — however that option is refuted by the fact that at least in the example of the universe, something is obviously and undeniably happening right now. The presence of the universe refutes the notion that it is impossible for something to exist that does not originate from nothing, itself or something else.
2. The second option is that such things could be possible, but in a “nonoriginated” manner. But what does this mean? In short, for something to be “nonoriginated” does not mean it is non-existent, it just means that it is not dependent on some initial set of causes and conditions. One way for something to exist in an nonoriginated manner is for it to be eternal, or at least beginningless.

Option (1) is refuted by the basic fact that we do observe something happening right now. Option (2) is the only remaining option, and is not refuted in any obvious manner.

But option (2) is mind-bending. How can something beginningless exist? How could it ever have come about if there were never any initial causes or conditions to start it? It’s the primordial chicken-and-the-egg problem.

And this is where things get interesting. Various scientific theories claim the universe either has an origin or is effectively nonoriginated. Likewise religions either claim the universe and/or God has an origin or is nonoriginated.

In the first case, the claim of an origin (such as theories in which the universe started from some physical event before which there was literally nothing, or in which there was nothing and then a Deity appeared and created the universe), we can prove logically that this leads to fallacies (because the origin cannot come from nothing, itself, or something else), so this view is simply wrong, or provisional at best; it’s not a final explanation.

In the second case, the claim of nonorgination, in which the universe is held to be beginningless and possibly endless (for example a never-ending sequence of Big-Bangs and Big-Crunches, or a timelessly existing realm), this begs the question of where did this never-ending sequence come from? How could it have ever started? What is it, what is eternity and what created eternity?

In either case however, whether we use science or religion to approach the problem of the origin of the universe, we end up at the same place in the end.

The path we may travel to get there is different, and certainly the language with which we express the conclusions is quite different, but the final result is the same. Logically speaking, the universe and God must both be either nonoriginated or created by something nonoriginated. It is the only logically tenable conclusion.

In other words whether universe is thought of as purely physical, or originating from God, the only logically tenable conclusion is that it is nonoriginated. And the same goes for God. We may believe that God is greater than the universe, in other words prior to it, and in this case God and the universe are not equivalent, however, upon final analysis, even in this configuration, the only logically tenable conclusion is nonorigination.

For example, if the universe is a physical thing that was created by God, yet God is nonoriginated, then by inference the universe is also ultimately nonoriginated (via God’s nonorigination). Although provisionally we can state that the universe originates from God, since God is in this case nonoriginated, the universe is ultimately nonoriginated, for no final origin can be found or logically established.

In summary, nonorigination is the single fundamental truth of both science and religion. It is the ultimate destination of all lines of reasoning. It is where they all converge.

Unification

And now, based on the above lines of reasoning, the final capstone on the argument.

If we posit that only the physical universe exists, then we have no other choice but to say the universe itself must be nonoriginated, in other words, it must be uncaused and unconditioned — neither coming from nothing or from something else.

There is no escape from this logical conclusion.

Nonorigination is always found to be the ultimate nature of whatever is posited to exist. It doesn’t matter how many levels of reality you think there are, as soon as you posit even one, it’s “turtles all the way down,” to quote the famous expression.

In other words, if you posit the universe resting on the back of something (for example, a giant turtle) then that something must in turn rest on the back of something else (another giant turtle, for example), and so on, endlessly. The only way to not have an endless pile of turtles resting on still deeper turtles is to posit a final fundamental turtle, but that makes no sense — for that turtle would be in free-fall, meaning the entire stack of turtles would have no foundation and would topple over.

What nonorigination really means however is that the stack of turtles can be infinite or finite – it really doesn’t matter and is equivalent — either way the entire stack itself, whether just 1 turtle our countless turtles, is nonoriginated. This is not to say that the stack depends on something else (some special subtle thing we call nonorigination), it is to say that the stack itself IS nonorigination. Nonorigination is NOT something separate from that which appears to exist.

This is very hard to accept conceptually, but it is a logical conclusion. The only way to deal with it intellectually, once you derive it and are convinced there is no way around it, is to simply accept it. The universe really is beyond conception — it really cannot ever be conceived. It’s infinite and its nature is inconceivable. This is not a mystical belief, it is in a fact a very refined logical view – a logical conclusion. It is the conclusion that there is no logical conclusion that accurately and validly describes the nature of the universe. In other words, it is the logical conclusion that the actual nature of the universe is beyond the limits of logic.

Now what’s interesting, and unifying, about this conclusion is that nonorigination is a logical and scientific kind of conclusion, and yet there is something about it that is inconceivable and wondrous about it. In fact nonorigination is curiously similar to what we think of when we speak of something “Divine.” It has many similar qualities to those we usually ascribe to divinity. For example, nonorigination is uncaused, unfindable, unexplainable, inconceivable, beyond to all space and time, beyond the limits of the mind, yet it is the nature of all things,  all things could be said to come from it, or have it’s nature – it is not separate from anything, yet no thing fully encompasses it.

Surely anything that has these qualities is not merely a “thing” — there is something amazingly beyond our common idea of a thing to it. Nonorigination could be said to be at once scientific and Divine — it is something infinitely beyond all conceptual limits — it is the point where everything converges.

Nonorigination says nothing about the day-to-day “relative level of the world” and how it functions — it is a statement about the ultimate nature of everything: the originlessness and fundamental essencelessness of whatever appears. Thus when speaking of nonorigination, we can make a conceptual distinction between the relative and ultimate levels of truth. They are both true, one does not contradict the other. The ordinary appearances that we label as “things” definitely appear and function as they normally do – nothing changes – yet we know that their ultimate nature is indescribably beyond what we ordinarily assume it to be. They are nonoriginated – totally ephemeral – like dreams.

Relative truth is a level of truth within limits — specifically it is a statement that holds true locally but not globally. Ultimate truth on the other had applies globally. In this case, within the reference frame of the universe alone, we can say that any effect we observe is originated from various causes and conditions, yet within the larger (global) frame of the origin of the entire universe, it is nonoriginated – it has no first cause. In any case, whether one chooses to accept this modal logic or not is a matter of personal preference.

Nonorigination is a very subtle truth because it neither asserts or refutes the universe and/or the Divine. In fact, what appears is free to appear and function — yet if we analyze it we find it is nonoriginated. That doesn’t mean there are no causes and effects in operation, it doesn’t mean the universe is random — in fact quite the contrary will be shown later in this article.

Beyond Four Logical Extremes

In Buddhism the ultimate nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned primordial nature of reality is said to be “unborn.” Since it has no cause it is never actually created or “born” as some thing, yet since it is also not literal nothingness, it is not entirely non-existent, for if it were nothingness it could not be something that we could even apply the labels of nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned to.

That which is nonoriginated is entirely free of all four possible logical possibilities:

1. Existence
2. Non-existence
3. Both existence and non-existence
4. Neither existence nor non-existence

It doesn’t exist because it is not originated. It doesn’t not-exist because it isn’t literally nothingness. It doesn’t both exist and not-exist because that is a logical contradiction and because we already refuted the extremes of existing and not-existing individually, therefore combining them doesn’t suddenly undo that refutation (for example, if you take two non-true statements and combine them you don’t get a true statement).

The fourth logical extreme is the hardest to overcome and there are a few different arguments to conquer it. First of all the assertion of something neither existing nor not-existing is also a contradiction, via double negatives: if it doesn’t exist then this is equivalent to not-existing, and if it doesn’t not-exist then this is equivalent to existing.

Another way to refute this extreme is by the fact that there is no other alternative to existing or not-existing: to exist is to be something, whereas to not-exist is to not be something. How could there be “something” which is neither something or not-something. If it is “something” that contradicts the prong of claim that it is neither “something” or not-something. Yet if it is “not something” then that contradicts the prong of the claim that it is neither something or “not-something.” In other words, to claim that something is neither something or not-something is contradictory from the very start.

The Nonorigination of Nonorigination

Once one is familiar with the concept of nonorigination it begins to feel familiar and in that lies a subtle trap: It is extremely important not to get stuck accidentally conceiving of nonorigination as a special kind of subtle thing. In fact, nonorigination, like everything else that we might posit to exist, is nonoriginated too. So it can’t be something. It also can’t be nothing. It’s actually free of of four logical extremes of being something or nothing. It’s not any of these four logical possibilities:

• Something
• Nothing
• Something and nothing
• Neither something nor nothing

There are no other logical possibilities than these four. Nonorigination cannot be said to be or not to be.

In fact, if we look for nonorigination we don’t find it on its own. For example, you cannot find the absence of something. The absence of that thing is literally the fact that you cannot find it. Nonorigination is the absence — in any moment of experience — of anything that can be found to exist, not-exist, exist and not-exist, neither exist nor not-exist. It is an absence of four logical ways of existing, not the presence of something else that could be labelled “nonorigination.”

But this absence is not merely a rhetorical or logical point — it really is the actual fundamental nature of reality. In other words, whatever the universe is — whatever appears to us — really does have this nature of nonorigination, this complete absence of existing, not-existing, both, or neither. This means the universe is far more unexplainable than can even be imagined.

The Primordial Nature of Reality

We have found that whatever there is, it must be nonoriginated. There is no other logical alternative. Even nonorigination is nonoriginated. So while there is no final isolated thing we can point to as nonorigination itself, the fact that whatever we can point to is always found to have a nature of being nonoriginated is a fundamental truth. In fact it is perhaps the fundamental truth. It’s the one logical conclusion that we always reach no matter what we analyze.  All roads lead to nonorigination.

Nonorigination is a truth that is even more true than a mathematical truth. Mathematical truths apply to this universe, this reality. But the truth of nonorigination applies to all possible universes, all possible realities. There is no reality that is beyond it. In this sense it is the most important, most fundamental, primordial truth. Because it is primordially true to this degree, it is perhaps one of the greatest, if not THE greatest, truth that anyone can ever realize.

If we say that the universe is nonoriginated, then it doesn’t exist the way that most scientists and even most religious thinkers imagine it to. While it’s not nothingness, it’s also not something, or any other alternative. This absence of having an existential status is in fact the way it really is, it is its primordial and ultimate nature. We can also say that this absence of existential status is the primordial nature of reality itself. There is no reality other than nonorigination in fact.

This means that reality itself is beyond the limits of existing and non-existing. This may defy common sense, or even feel impossible to imagine, yet it is the only logical option — it is inconceivable yet must be so. The fact that it cannot be conceived by the ordinary logical mind does not mean it is not possible. In fact, the inconceivability of nonorigination is its very nature. This barrier of inconcievability hides it from ordinary thought — keeping it effectively secret throughout the ages – yet it is not completely hidden. All the great religions and mystical traditions ultimately reveal it – indeed it is the great secret at the heart of every great spiritual tradition.

Many great religions all agree on this point at their highest levels of philosophy: Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism, Islam and Hinduism all agree at the purest conception of the Divine is really inconceivable and unnameable, and certainly primordial (not created or conditioned by anything else). At it’s very purest essence the universal truth of all religions, and even of science, is that there must be, and is, something uncreated and unconditioned at the root of reality.

Whether the universe is theorized to have sprung out of perfect randomness or nothingness, or it is an eternity, or there are infinite parallel universes, the only logically tenable way that the entire reference frame can exist is if it is nonoriginated. This nonoriginated, uncaused and unconditioned nature, is the primordial nature of reality — of the universe and/or the Divine — regardless of whether one believes in just one, or in both.

Likewise, if one pursues science relentlessly, never accepting a partial answer or mere concept or provisional finding for the ultimate truth – one will also eventually arrive at pure logic, and from there, it is inevitable that nonorigination will be found to be the only option.

So there we have it: the essence of the universe and the essence of the Divine are the same primordial nonoriginated reality. We can call that the universe, we can call it God, or we call it Buddha, Christ, Allah, Tao, or something else. It doesn’t matter what we call it really, it is nameless.

Freedom

If something is truly nonoriginated, in other words, uncaused and uncreated, then it is totally free. In particular it is free of all concepts and beliefs about it or anything else. It is free of all limitations. We cannot say that it has a particular name and no other name. We cannot say it can only be reached through one path and not others. We cannot say that it can only be served by obeying particular rules and not others. We cannot say that only some people have access to it while others don’t, or that anyone is closer to it than anyone else. This freedom of the ultimate nature of reality can be found equally in science and religion.

Who are we to say anything that would limit something that is totally uncaused and unconditioned? Something cannot be partially free. Either it is totally free or it is not free at all. There is no middle ground. If we truly believe in a conception of a “God” that is totally free, then we have to be careful not to impose further concepts onto it or onto ourselves or anyone else. The closer one is to knowing God, the less one can really say about God.

The same goes for science: we eventually must reach similar conclusions about the fabric of reality and the origin of the universe. We may be able to describe and predict all sorts of things about the physical universe, but the deeper or farther we look in space and time, the more it starts to appear increasingly indescribable, spontaneous and unconditioned.

At the smallest scales and the largest scales, and in fact at every scale in between, the origin and nature of the cosmos is and will always be a mystery. The best we can do is categorize it and glean some understandings about how it functions, but we’ll never be able to explain it. The universe, like God, is also beyond conception. It is either uncaused and unconditioned itself — which means it is free — or it depends on something that is uncaused and unconditioned. Either way, it is free from limitations.

Think about that for a moment. If the universe is free, or depends on something that is free, then either way, what takes place in the universe is ultimately uncaused and unconditioned, meaning the universe is effectively free in both cases.

What does “free” actually mean? It means literally that anything can happen. Any universe is possible. Any set of physical laws are possible. Any kind of world or event is possible. Anything at all is possible — even things which we can’t explain and which perhaps are contradictory to the physical laws (such as anomalies, miracles, etc.). This doesn’t necessary mean anything will actually happen or that everything that is possible already exists. It simply means anything is possible. There are no limits.

Observation

But then why do only particular things appear to happen, rather than other alternatives? Why do only some things happen rather than everything happening? Why does the universe appear to obey particular physical laws? Why don’t we observe miracles or other anomalies that contradict the physical laws (note: some people do claim they observe these phenomena, so we cannot say with certainty that they don’t happen at all…)? But in any case, why does the universe seem so rational and orderly if indeed absolutely anything is possible?

One school of thought on this question (the Many Worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics) answers that in fact everything does happen, but in parallel universes, all at once. So there’s no real choice being made — all possibilities from those that are consistent with the universe we know to those which are totally outlandish or seemingly impossible do happen, all at once.

Another school of thought claims that somehow the universe makes choices and that these choices come about whenever observations take place, and that they have something to do with probability — the universe is not precisely deterministic, but not entirely non-determinstic either. If that is the case, then the act of observing something essentially causes the universe to choose what actually happens from the set of all the things that could possibly happen.

But if the universe makes quantum mechanical choices at each moment of observation, then what comes first, the act of observation, or what is observed? What creates reality, what causes the choice that selects one possibility versus all the others? Is what appears literally caused by the observer, or is it there before being observed — does it cause the observer to observer it, or does the observer cause it to be observed? It’s unclear, according to quantum mechanics at least; It’s a chicken-and-the-egg kind of problem. In fact, the situation is better characterized as a kind of feedback loop, or a dance of sorts, that’s been going on forever.

The universe is ultimately free; anything can happen. But anything does not appear to happen, only some things happen. This is currently said to happen because of choices that are made when observations take place, at least on a subatomic level.

But while observation may cause or condition reality on the quantum scale, on the macroscopic level — the level of people and cars and houses and trees, and so forth — the act of observation does not seem to function in the same manner; it doesn’t cause things to happen. Or does it? The classic Zen koan, “If a tree falls in the woods and there is nobody there to hear it, does it make a sound?” addresses this question.

In fact, if there is no observer to hear the sound, how can we say there is a sound? When the tree falls it causes vibrations, but those vibrations only make a sound if they move the eardrum of something that can hear. If there is no observer, but only a recording device in the woods, there is a recording, but not yet a sound. The sound only can be said to exist when the recording device is actually used to play the recorded sound to an observer. Until that happens, the sound is not observed.

Quantum Mechanics

This strange fact is reflected in scientific experiments such as the famous “Double Slit Experiment” and many variations. In that experiment, the act of measuring the path that a photon takes causes it to appear to appear to behave like a particle, while if you don’t measure the path it appears to behave like a wave. In fact, this effect is even stranger — experiments have been done which seem to indicate that this effect can even go backwards in time. Even if you wait to measure the path the photon takes long after it has traveled through the experiment, that observation seems to effectively go backwards in time and cause the photon to retroactively behave one way or another, in the past.

Another famous thought-experiment which illustrates the interaction between observation and reality is the “Schroedinger’s Cat” example, in which a cat in a box is either dead or alive depending on whether a random event happens, but until you actually open the box you can’t know it’s actual status — and on a quantum level in fact, until the cat is observed you cannot really say it is either dead or alive; it exists in a kind of intermediate state. The moment of observation somehow causes the intermediate state to collapse into a particular quantum state. This is very odd stuff. And for a while it was thought to really only apply at very small scales, although more recently there is some evidence that similar logic may apply even at macroscopic scales.

What this all means is that there is something about observation that seems to cause the universe to make choices about what actually happens versus what could potentially happen. Another way of expressing this is that the universe — because it is totally free — has the freedom to make choices, and this happens through the act of observation.

This would also imply that the universe is intelligent and creative, and in fact, it would be fair to say this because the universe does produce and contain things that make observations (sentient beings like humans, for example), things that are intelligent and creative. If the universe can contain intelligent, creative beings, then certainly it must be vastly greater in scope – it must be vastly more intelligent and creative as a whole than the individual beings it contains, even if only in an emergent, collective manner. Or perhaps, as some have posited, the universe isn’t happening out there on it’s own but is in a very real sense, imagining itself through an unfolding process of creatively making observations via the beings within it. If this is the case then universe could be thought of as co-creating itself via the observations of the beings within it. Of course this leads to many logical contradictions and in the end, while fascinating to ponder, it does not tell us more than we already have discovered: The universe is nonoriginated, and so is everything within it.

The Improbability of the Universe

If the universe either is something totally free, or depends on something totally free, then either way, the universe is totally free.  It cannot be partially free for that is not freedom. That is to say there are no limitations on it. Anything can happen.

How then is it that we observe particular things and not everything happening? Why don’t each of us experience all possible parallel universes? Why is the universe the way it is, and not even slightly different? Why are things the way they are? We can look at physical things and use scientific knowledge to understand their trajectories and dynamics. That certainly helps us explain a little bit about those physical things. But it doesn’t tell us why the initial conditions were not different, or why the universe is such that the physical laws and physical constants are what they are.

Even a slight change in the structure or unfolding of the universe would have resulted in a vastly different outcome — the physical laws would be different, the physical constants would have different values, and this would result in different kinds of universes. Some would have very different properties than the one we live in. Some would support life, some would not. Some would have led to our planet and human beings, some would not. Some would have stars and galaxies, yet other extreme cases would burn out and collapse into giant black holes almost immediately, while other configurations would have led to the universe breaking into countless separate universes or literally exploding and then dissolving into countless separate black holes. And there are many other possibilities too. These claims may sound wild, but in fact they are predicted using our current scientific model — if we simply change the initial conditions of the early universe slightly.

So why did things turn out the way they did? And why does our universe seem perfectly balanced to support human life — or any life for that matter? There are so many possibilities for how the universe might have unfolded, and most of those possibilities do not result in a universe that could support human life at all. In fact the universe we live in is one of the more statistically improbable outcomes. The odds of our universe happening are infinitesimally small. So how did it happen?

Furthermore, at least on a quantum level it appears that until an act of observation takes place we cannot really say the universe makes a choice about what happens. So what about the early universe — before there were any human observers, or any living things at all to make observations? So what was made the first observation? Was there a “prime observer” at the first instant of the universe, and if not, how could it have come into being since on a quantum level without being observed it could not have had a particular state.

Or alternatively was there some other kind of outside observer that made the original observations of every ancient quantum interaction, enabling the universe to make choices, at least until living observers could evolve to make their own observations? Or, has the universe effectively made all those choices retroactively — for example, now that there are observers, has the effect of our present choices gone back in time and caused the universe to make all the necessary past choices to lead to the way things are today (that one is a mind-bender, but on a quantum level it is not unreasonable or impossible to consider — space and time are not obstacles on the quantum level. For more on this, read about the Anthropic Principle in physics and cosmology)

Perhaps only universes that can support life can therefore contain observers, and so only such universes can actually happen because without observers quantum level choices cannot be made — in other words, possible universes that don’t contain observers effectively cancel themselves out and never even happen, leaving only those universes that can and do support observers. This would at least eliminate a lot of possible universes and improve the odds of universes like ours ever happening. But there are still innumerable, literally countless, variations that are possible even within that set of observer-friendly universes. Why did it turn out that exactly one and only one of those possible universes — ours — is what happened?

Here’s another question that we have to consider as well: If observation is required for the universe to make choices and effectively collapse on various states out of the space of possible states it could be in, then either there was a first observer (which leads the contradiction that the first observer could not happen because it was not observed) or there has to be an infinite regression of observers, or we couldn’t have the present universe at all. Once again, we come to the logical problems we encountered earlier when discussing the universe and God. Either we end up in contradictions or regressions.

One possibility is that the universe is an observer of itself. We know that since the universe can contain observers (for example, humans), it is capable of making observations. So why should observations only happen on the human-scale. Perhaps there are larger systems within the universe that can make observations too? But even if we believe this it still doesn’t solve the problem — even if the universe can observe itself, what observes the universe? Alternatively, if we posit some kind of outside observer of the universe, then again, what observes that? In either case, we end up with a logical contradiction or an infinite regression.

Is there any way out?

Yes, there is one, and only one, way out of this labyrinth: It all comes down to consciousness.

Conscious Awareness

Just as we found that in order for the universe to exist either it must be nonoriginated, it also must be inherently observed. Without observation, nothing could happen, choices could not be made, at least according to quantum physics. Without observation, the universe would be an amorphous field of probabilities for potential events, but no actual events would ever take place. Observation is the key that transforms potential to actual.

But if this the case, what made the first observation that started it all? The answer is that there was no first observation. Instead, observation must be inherently unified with nonorigination. Just as we have used logic to establish there can be no first cause, there also can be no first observation. Nonorigination is the absence of an origin, including any original observation. There is no other alternative, at least if observation is necessary for the universe to exist, on a quantum mechanical level. Therefore there is no first cause, there is no first observation.

In other words, the universe does not require an outside observer or a first observer — yet observation does take place. The universe observes itself via its own creations — yet since the universe is nonoriginated, this self-observation is also nonoriginated. In other words, the observation of the universe by the universe is a relative-level phenomena which in fact is ultimately nonoriginated. Observation is necessary and does take place, yet it has no ultimate origin, it is free of all logical extremes.

So what is this mysterious capacity to observe? It seems to be pretty close to what we mean when we use the terms “consciousness” or “awareness.”

We humans have this special capacity to experience our minds and senses — to not only be aware of phenomena but to be aware of our own awareness — and it appears that animals and other forms of sentient life have this capacity too. We are able to observe and react to stimulus, but also to know it. We don’t just react automatically, like springs bouncing back from being compressed. We experience what we observe — we know — we are and we know that we are. We have a sense of our own being, we are aware that we are aware. This is observation in its most naked form.

Although anything can happen in theory, sentient beings — meaning beings who are aware such as ourselves — make observations. That is our function in the universe in fact –  and these observations have quantum level repercussions that actually cause the universe to choose particular actualities from the space of possibilities, which in turn feedback to affect the probabilities of our future observations. In a very real sense, observation creates reality. Through us, the universe observes itself. This means that the universe has the capacity of awareness, at least via the medium of sentient beings that are individually aware within it.

The universe could not appear at all, according to current quantum mechanical theory, without the act of observation, and yet the act of observation (aka awareness) is something totally mysterious and itself nonoriginated. Because awareness is nonoriginated, yet is what brings about the appearances of the universe, it plays a very special role in reality. It is like the flip side of nonorigination — it is inseparable from it, like the opposite face of a coin. Nonorigination could never appear in the form of the universe without awareness, and awareness could never be possible without nonorigination.

Whether you posit that the universe itself is aware independently from the sentient beings within it, or that it is only aware via the sentient beings it contains, the conclusion is the same: the universe is sentient, it is aware. Awareness — the essence of consciousness — has a very key role in the universe, and/or in whatever we think of as God. It is in fact THE key to it all. Awareness and nonorigination are not separate phenomena; they are interpenetrating yet distinct aspects of the same inconceivable primordial nature of reality.

Cause and Effect

From this discussion so far, we have concluded that the universe is nonoriginated. That is to say, the only logical option is that it exists in a nonoriginated manner — it does not arise from nothing, itself, or something else (OR if it arises from something else then that thing must be nonoriginated, or at least something at some point that is causally upstream from it has to be nonoriginated). For example if the universe comes from God, then either God must be nonoriginated, or that which God depends on has to be nonoriginated, and so on. The point is that the series of things and things that create them is finite, not infinite. There is no infinite regress.

This does not deny the operation of cause and effect within the universe, nor does it deny that there can be an infinite series of causes and effects that lead to or stem from any event within the universe. It only denies that there can be an infinite series of causes and effects the lead to the creation of the universe as-a-whole. In other words, on the relative level, within the universe, cause and effect can operate just as science (or even various religions) might predict. However, the universe as-a-whole is not caused, or eventually depends on something that is not caused.

Therefore the universe as we know it is not contradicted by claiming that it is nonoriginated. Nor is cause and effect contradicted by stating that ultimately the universe as-a-whole, or whatever is that which is nonoriginated, is totally and completely uncaused, unconditioned and therefore free. Furthermore, even though observers — individual sentient beings — within the universe are expressions of that primordial freedom (by virtue of being aware), they are still subject to the laws of cause and effect within the universe.

For example, a particular observer may make an observation, and in doing so they perturb the universe on a quantum level, which conditions what they end up observing. Observation is a cause. What is observed is partially an effect of the act of observation, and partially an effect of other causes and conditions that relate to it. When an observer makes an observation, together with the appropriate set of causes and conditions, a particular event is observed to take place. Similarly, that event then acts as a cause or condition for other observations and events to take place for that observer and/or other observers.

In this manner everything that happens within the universe is the result of a complex network of causes and conditions, in which observers play critical roles. Observers actually change the topology of the network (the patterns of linkages between various causes and conditions and observers) whenever they make observations. This ability to rewire the network by making observations is something that is unique to sentient beings — only true observers that are conscious are capable of causing this to happen.

In fact, without observers actively making observations we cannot truly say the network exists in any particular state — it could be in any of an infinite number of possible configurations representing any of an infinite number of possible timelines of universes. The act of observation is what triggers chains of cause and effect to “fire” (almost as if they were patterns of neurons and dendrites in the brain firing sequentially to generate various thoughts). When there is no observation taking place we might say that the universe is frozen in a kind of indeterminate state. Only when observations happen are particular chains of potential cause and effect in time and space activated, and thus particular events they bring about appear to take place.

The process of cause-and-effect changes the probabilities of various events, making them more or less likely to take place, that is, to be observed. And it is the act of observation itself which triggers the chain of cause and effect, which powers it, which makes it happen. This is how the universe works on a quantum level, and also perhaps how it works on other levels too (for example, the law of Karma in Buddhism is effectively this very process of cause and effect, or what is also called dependent-arising, taking place not only in the external physical world and the body, but within all sensory modalities and even within the mind).

But is cause-and-effect required for the universe to function the way it does? Is there an alternative?

Suppose that there were no cause-and-effect within the universe. Instead imagine what it would be like if everything happened randomly. In a totally random universe every event has an equal chance of happening, so either all events would happen at once, or none of them would. We don’t see either of these taking place however. Instead we see very non-random distributions of events taking place.

When you exert a force on an object it is highly likely to exert and equal and opposite reaction on you, and it is quite unlikely that it will do the opposite of that. But in a random universe both events would be equally likely, at least over all time and space and observers and possible universes. So if the all events are equally likely then we could not have the universe we experience, in which that is certainly
not the case.

One might move the problem down a level however by suggesting that perhaps this universe is only one universe in an infinite number of parallel or possible universes, which are all equally likely to happen, and we just got lucky somehow. We happen to be observers within this one, where things fall towards the force of gravity rather than being repelled by it, and so we are able to stand here on the planet and the planet retains its atmosphere, etc.

It’s fine to hold that view, however, even if one does, within this universe at least, it appears to be as if cause and effect is in operation. Whether cause and effect sequences are really happening sequentially over time and are influenced by the free will of observers, or they all happen all at once from the perspective of eternity and thus free will is illusory, what we experience would be the same. Thus these two alternatives are equivalent.

In this universe — which is the only one we observe — it appears to us as if cause and effect processes are unfolding over time, and for all intents and purposes, from our perspectives, whether causality unfolds creatively and non-deterministically over time and in part due to the free will of observers like ourselves influencing what we observe, or it’s all preordained in eternity, its equivalent.

What this means is that for this universe to happen, cause and effect is necessary. There may be other possible universe in the set of all possibilities which may not appear to contain processes that resemble cause and effect, but we are not experiencing any of them right now, nor can we even prove they exist. So from our perspectives it is as if they do not exist. Notably however, we cannot prove they do not exist either.

Now the question is how can a universe that appears to operate by cause and effect, within it, be nonoriginated? How could a universe full of causes and effects not have a cause? How can nonorigination and cause-and-effect be compatible? Isn’t that equivalent to claiming it is an effect (the univeres) that has no cause (nonorigination), and isn’t that therefore a logical contradiction? No. To make such a claim would indeed be a logical contradiction — an effect is the result of a cause and cannot exist without a corresponding cause. The solution is to not claim that the universe is an effect, nor to claim that nonorigination is a cause.

It is contradictory to assert the existence of an effect apart from its cause. Therefore the universe cannot be asserted to be an effect that has no cause. It is simply nonoriginated, it is not the result of anything. For it to be the result of something would contradict nonorigination, which we have already found is the only logical way that the universe can exist at all (because it can’t come from nothing, itself, or something else, so therefore it must either not exist at all, or it must exist in a nonorignated manner, and since it does appear to exist, it must exist in a nonoriginated manner).

Nonorigination requires that the entire universe is not a cause nor an effect. But although the entire universe is not a cause or an effect, it can appear to contain what look like, and function within it as, causes and effects — sequences of events that are causally linked over time and space in complex interdependent networks. This is a real mind-bender and will take some time to explain. Cause-and-effect is a relative level process — it is provisionally true — but on an ultimate level the process and everything within it is nonoriginated.

For example, we probe further, into any particular event, and we trace back its origins within the universe, and if space and time are infinite, then we may find an infinitely broad and deep network of causes and effects both upstream (leading to it) and downstream (stemming from it) in time. Since these sequences are infinite, they are from a logical perspective infinite regressions. To claim that any effect comes from an infinite series of causes and effects, is logically fallacious — we cannot prove such a claim since we cannot test infinity to see whether or not the series is truly infinite or not, or even what all the causes and effects in the alleged series even are.

Cause and Effect is Nonorigination

Therefore, from a logical level, even though causes and effects may appear within an infinite universe, they too must be nonoriginated — it is the only manner in which they can be said to exist without commiting a fallacy: They must exist in a manner that is free from four logical extremes. In other words, they cannot exist, not-exist, both exist and not-exist, or neither exist or not-exist.

They cannot exist because of infinite regression. They cannot not-exist because that is a logical contradiction and also conflicts with what we observe. Combining existing and not-existing is a logical contradiction. Rejecting both existing and not-existing leads to logical contradiction and also conflicts with what we observe. So while on a relative level the process cause-and-effect appears to operate, on the ultimate level of analysis, it is equivalent to being unoriginated, from our perspectives at least.

Another way of expressing the same thing is end result is that if the space and time are infinite, then the universe as well as its contents (including all causes, effects, observations, and observers) must be ultimately nonoriginated. And since it’s not possible to have a finite sequence of causes-and-effects (because that would mean that at least one cause or effect would not have a corresponding effect or case, which is not possible (because a cause and an effect are inseperable, it is a contradiction to claim you have one without the other), a finite universe of causes and effects is impossible. Therefore finite universes are impossible, since only universes that contain causes and effects would not be random.

Therefore our universe must be infinite, because we do observe processes of cause and effect, and it also must be nonoriginated (or be equivalent to something that is nonoriginated — for example be being part of an infinite series of causes and effects of universes or by being created by some kind of God’s free will, not by cause and effect (where God is by definition not orignated by anything else). These are the only logical possibilities.

The lines of reasoning in this section, and those above it, prove that lead us to conclude that only infinite universes in which cause and effect appear to operate are possible, and that such universes (and the causes and effects they contain) must be ultimately nonoriginated, and observed, in order to be said to occur.

In other words, cause and effect is nonorigination. Whatever appears to be generated by causes and effects is ultimately nonoriginated.

Nonorigination is Cause and Effect

The same is true in the reverse direction. We cannot say that something is nonoriginated unless there is some relative-level appearance of a thing to make that statement about. The notion that nonorigination could exist on it’s own without some subject or object that is nonoriginated is a contradiction. Nonorigination is a phenomenon that requires a complementary relative-level facet, namely whatever is being asserted to be nonoriginated. To assert nonorigination apart from anything else would be like positing a penny with no sides. A penny must have a heads and tails. It can’t be a penny without them.

Therefore where there is cause and effect is the result of nonorigination and observation, and where there is nonorigination and observation there is some phenomena — some event appearing to take place, and since phenomena do not happen randomly, the only alternative is that some combination causes and effects are at work.

It is the process of observations, causes and effects that makes some possible phenomena more or less likely than others at various locations in space and time. Without such a process all possible phenomena would be equally likely at all possible locations in space and time. That would not result in our universe, or anything like our universe, at least as far as we observers can know from our positions within space and time.

Perhaps one might argue that maybe if we could see eternity we might find that our universe was randomly generated as-a-whole, but that is not possible either — for if all universes were equally likely then they would either all happen at once or none of them would happen at all. The fact that this universe appears refutes the possibility that none of them happen at least. As for the possibility of them all happening at once, this is a possibility, but we can’t determine this for sure unless we can see eternity ourselves. From our perspective, and as far as we can know, only this one is happening.

Nonorigination is therefore equivalent to cause and effect, and vice-versa. The process of cause-and-effect is not refuted by nonorigination, indeed it is required by nonorigination, and vice-versa. The proof is that this universe is appearing and functioning the way it does.

Trinity

At each moment of our lives, of each moment of observation no matter how brief or precise — there is something else taking place that is NOT nothingness and NOT exactly whatever appears to us either.

For example when we observe a tree, we see the appearance of the tree visually. That appearance is there, at least as a mere visual image, not unlike an image in a dream. It may be a real image of a real tree, or a dream image of a dream tree — but that doesn’t matter, the two cases are equivalent for in fact we really cannot tell the difference at the moment of its appearance.

The image of the tree before us is of some thing which we may believe exists “out there” in the “real world” beyond our body and mind, and that it is really just a depiction of the object out there in the visual spectrum, formed by our particular sense organs and their abilities and limitations, and then rendered via the circuitry of our brains onto some kind of internal viewing screen, or to some further set of cognitive processes which then do things like interpret it, label it as a “tree” etc. That’s all fine — whether or not any of that is really what is taking place or not — at the very moment of an appearance appearing that is all hypothetical from our own perspective. All we can know at the moment of an appearance is that it is there in its own unique way, and that we know it.

The appearance is the object side of a moment of experience. The “we know it” part of the experience is the subject side. There are these two sides to every ordinary moment of experience. This is consciousness, a dualistic interpretation of what is taking place in every moment into having two poles of subject and object that are somehow two different things. Most people spend their lives experiencing everything — themselves, the outside world, others — in this dualistic mode of cognition. Note that dualism is not inherent, it is a conceptual interpretation of raw experience. Experience itself is not dualistic — there is no actual boundary that we can find between subject and object and we cannot separate them to have one without the other. This dualistic frame of mind is a deep-seated habit and unquestioned belief that is part of our “filter” of the world. It prevents us from knowing experience the way it actually is, and instead splits it like a prism splits a single beam of light, into multiple beams of “subject” and “object” halves of each moment.

It’s key to notice that the dualistic frame of mind — ordinary consciousness — is a kind of artificial division of the moment into two parts. It comes about because a misunderstanding on our own part of what is actually taking place in each moment. What we call the object side of experience is any appearance in any sensory modality or the mind. The subject side of experience is the label we give to the part of the moment that seems to be witnessing it, or being it.

In fact there are not really two things like this, divided and separate from one another. Instead there is only one thing taking place that has both of these aspects. What is taking place is nonorigination. It has two aspects: awareness and appearance. Actually this triad can be expressed in three formulas:

Nonorigination = awareness + appearance    (N = A + A’)

Appearance = Nonorigination – awareness     (A = N – A’)

Awareness = Nonorigination – appearance     (A = N – A’)

Each moment of experience combines all three of these together into a trinity — they are unified yet still distinct. This might in fact be The Ultimate Trinity of all trinities. Furthermore, if we focus on appearance we will find that it is nonorigination. If we focus on awareness we will find that it too is nonorigination. If we try to focus on nonorigination itself we never find it, instead we always find moments of awareness plus appearance. Yet if we then try to find the awareness or appearance on their own they dissolve back to nonorigination.

This Trinity is THE most important philosophical point of all. And I cannot take credit for it. Evertying I know about it or have said here is based on what I’ve learned from Buddhism and quantum mechanics. In particular there are thousands of years of highly developed Buddhist logical treatises on precisely this point.

What is Actually Happening

When things happen they don’t just appear out of nothingness.

There isn’t really any nothingness. Nothingness is impossible by virtue of the following proof: Something appears right now. Nothing and something are mutually exclusive.

Furthemore, even IF nothing was possible, it could never generate anything because there is no way to turn nothingness into something other than nothingness.

Instead of nothingness there is a kind of space of knowing or being — what might be called awareness. This space is not inherently personalized — it has no concepts or sense of I or of being an observer, etc. This awareness has the characteristic of being nonoriginated — we cannot find it or call it a concrete, truly-existing, isolated “thing.”

At the same time as there is any knowing or being, appearances spontaneously develop within its scope. For example, this is just like dreaming. In a dream there is the space of the mind and then within this space various appearances (and other sensory experiences, for example of sound, etc.) unfold. We then identify with a particular character or perspective in the dream and the appearance of its body — and we call that “I” or “self.” That is a habit — there is nothing inherently real about the character we see ourselves as in a dream — it is not really us, not really our body or our actual mind but rather just a dream image of a body and mind. We label it as “I” or “me” out of habit. In fact, our real body is alseep in bed and is not in the dream, and our real mind and self are having the dream they are not really in the dream. Or are they?

When we dream, dreams don’t appear out of nothing, they appear out of awareness.

The same goes for all the experiences (aka appearances in various sensory modalities) that we call a moment of “our universe.” At each moment of experience there is the space of awareness plus at least some appearance. Neither the awareness or the appearances are truly-existing or even separate, they are just two aspects of nonorigination.

Nonorigination — or what in Buddhism is called “emptiness” is not a final fundamental thing that can be grasped or found either — if you find it you find that it dissolves into awareness and appearances and these dissolve back into nonorigination, endlessly.

Time unfolds as the process of this infinite loop — the Trinity of nonorigination, awareness and appearance — iterating. We are always either looking at an appearance, our awareness, or nonorigination. In either case as soon as we make such an observation what we find is that these dissolve into their counterparts. As we keep observing we trigger the process of cause-and-effect which continues to perpetuate appearances and that is what powers the universe so to speak. The energy we put into it by making observations drives it to “run” this program so to speak, endlessly iterating new moments of experience that then trigger us to make further observations and so on.

On a quantum level, the process of enacting awareness, via simple acts of observation — is literally what causes the universe to make quantum decisions that jolt the quantum field of possibilities to “collapse” onto a single possibility whenever we look for it. This is analogous to being able to cause liquid water to suddenly freeze into ice by just looking at it. When we don’t look, it’s water, but when we do look it instantly freezes into a particular shape.

We can never really see it in its water form, it always freezes just when we look for it. But we can infer the water from the frozen shapes that appear. Even ice has has waterlike qualities — it’s clear, and it melts back into water when heated after all. If we look closely at any observation (any shape made of ice in this analogy), to find its nature, this is analogous to heating the ice we are looking at, which melts it back to liquid form.

Once it melts we can no longer see it (in this analogy) until we make the next observation as we continue to look for it again. Our next observation is conditioned by the previous observation — the network of probabilities for what can appear next are changed by the previous observation — and this causes it to follow from it, statistically, rather than to be completely random — this is the process of cause-and-effect in a nutshell. Therefore our acts of observation crystallize and perpetuate our experience in an ongoing, recursive process.

Each act of observation effectively loads the dice for the next act of observation and so changes the odds of the next possible dicerolls. If the world did not work this way it would be totally random. Since it’s not totally random — it does appear to behave in a non-random fashion, we are able to make various kinds of predictions, there is a certain amount of consistency over time, this is how the universe must and does work. Cause-and-effect makes the universe non-random and non-randomness of the universe results in cause-and-effect operating.

Metascience: What are the Possible Beliefs We Might Hold?

So far we have explored some very deep questions about the origin and nature of the universe and, if one believes in God, then of God too. We have found that all these questions converge on the same ultimate reality — the reality of nonorigination.

But while they may all converge on that point eventually, there are many different schools of thought within science and religion, and regarding how they relate to one another. So how do we choose what to believe in?

It is necessary to make such choices in order to simply function on a day-to-day level, to resolve difficult moral questions, and to figure out how to live or what to do in the future. Many people just accept the choice that is handed to them by their parents, or by authorities they trust. But if one has the freedom and presence of mind to question this themselves, then on what basis can an intelligent choice be made?

It’s difficult to make sense of the range of belief system choices available, and their biggest differences or main points. One could proceed on an extensive voyage of exploration — surveying every field of science and religion over decades (what I did by default). But the whole task might be a lot faster and more efficient if one had a map to start with.

I propose a field of thinking about what to believe that we might call “Metascience” in which we make maps to help people navigate possible belief systems more intelligently. In this approach we address big philosophical questions from a higher level, starting by enumerating the space of possible beliefs we could hold about them — rather than by starting with a particular choice of belief. (Note: Another word for Metascience might simply be philosophy or metaphysics. But Philosophy and more specifically, metaphysics, have gotten totally lost, irrelevant, and non-objective. It’s time for a refresh.).

So, regarding the choice of beliefs about the relatoinship between God and the universe — Instead of immediately diving into the rathole of arguing the specifics of any one particular belief system or position on the issues, first let’s at least try try to agree on what the set of possible beliefs and positions is, and on a way to enumerate them as elegantly and usefully as possible. Is a universally agreeable metascience possible? Can we come up with a way to enumerate all the possible belief systems about God and the universe that everyone can agree with?

A Categorization of All Possible Beliefs About The Universe and God

So here is my first attempt at mapping out the exhaustive metascientific enumeration of all possible philosophies regarding God and the Universe.

(A)  Hierarchical Approach: Either the universe or God is more fundamental and/or includes the other

• Theories in which the universe – or all time and space – take place within God’s mind and/or body and is subject to God’s laws and will
• Theories in which God exists as something within the universe, subject to it’s physical laws and conditions

(B) Dualistic Approach: The universe and God are two separate things

• Theories in which God is the first-cause, creator or “blind watchmaker” who started the universe and then detached from it
• Theories in which God is watching the universe from some place outside and separate from it and may or may not intervene
• Theories in which God and the universe are separate things that co-exist within an even higher-order universe and/or pantheon
• Theories in which either God or the universe is more potent or real than the other, and they are separate things

(C) Non-Dualistic Approach: The universe and God are one unified thing

• Theories in which the universe is a vast, intelligent, aware, sentient being of some sort (that we name “God”)
• Theories in which God is just a synonym or label for the universe, or vice-versa.
• The universe and God are a dichotomy; they are neither the same nor different. The universe and God are distinct but connected or merged together as one entity (e.g. God or the universe is considered to be the fundamental aspect and the other is considered to be relative aspect of the same dichotomy, the wave-particle duality, space-time, matter-energy, mind-body, one-many, etc.). Or in other words, theories in which God and the universe are two sides of the same coin so to speak — two distinct sides of the same thing
• Theories in which either God exists and the universe doesn’t, or the universe exists and God doesn’t

(D) Existential Approach: The universe and/or God is a provisionally existing thing

• Theories in which God or the universe has only a provisional kind of existence that when analyzed proves to reduce to a deeper level of existence, or to non-existence.
• Theories in which God or the universe is merely a conceptual construct or label for something that actually has no valid existence of its own (e.g. “the horns of a rabbit”)
• Theories in which God is a conceptual label for something that is impossible (e.g. “this statement is not true)
• Theories in which God is a fictional character in a story (e.g. the character,
  “Aslan” in the Chronicles of Narnia), or is a mental fabrication or projection of someone’s mind
• Theories in which the universe is fictional but taking place – a mere fantasy or dream or a mental fabrication or projection of someone’s mind — it doesn’t exist in reality, it only exists in each of our own perceptions or at least in someone’s mind.
• Theories such as nihilism which posit that there is actually nothing at all (a contradictory, and irrational assertion)

(E) Nonconceptual Approach: The universe and/or God is inconceivable

• Theories in which the universe and/or God is neither posited to exist, not-exist, both exist and not-exist, or neither exist nor not-exist (e.g. the Buddhist theory of “emptiness” or “freedom from four logical extreme views”)
• Theories in which God or the concept of the universe is a conceptualization of something real but inconceivable (e.g. “infinity” or “zero”)
• Theories in which God and/or the universe cannot be conceived of for some axiomatic reason, such as being transcendental, beyond the scope of thought or words, beyond logic, not in the material realm, higher-dimensional, beyond time and space, etc.

There are no other major categories that I can think of regarding the Universe and God. I believe this may be then an exhaustive list. But feel free to add your own thoughts in the comments below.

Are These Questions Worthwhile?

At this point, for the skeptics among us, we should ask whether it is even meaningful and worthwhile to try to unify science and religion.

It is certainly clear that science has value. But what about religion?

Firstly, much of the world’s population believes in some form of religion and these beliefs are at the root of much of what takes place in the world — culturally, politically, economically and more. For that reason, if nothing else, we really should have as deep an understanding of all the various conceptions about God as we can. But that’s just the start. In fact there are sound scientific and philosophical reasons for exploring the topic of God as well. The theory that God originated the universe is just a valid a hypothesis as any other theory — and may even be testable at some point in the future. It’s certainly no more outlandish than some of the more exotic and hard-to-test cosmological hypotheses put forth in recent decades.

In addition, many people (including even many scientists) have had personal experiences that indicate that there is some greater entity beyond the body, mind or individual self, and perhaps even beyond the physical limits of space and time. While not everyone has had such experiences, and there is no way to validate the experiences of others, the fact that such experiences are so common and so similar, is another data-point that makes this topic worthy of consideration both by those who claim to have had such experiences, and by those who claim to have not had them. They may be artifacts of the particular architecture of the human body and brain, or they may be pointing to a deeper reality that exists just as objectively as the physical world.

Finally, from a purely scientific perspective, the origin of the universe is a mystery, and therefore the possibility of God is as much an open question as it ever was. Science has been able to learn about how the universe works to some degree, and to map parts of it, and even to form conjectures about how it has developed — but where it comes from, how it started (if it even has a beginning at all), and even where it is located ultimately are a mystery. If one posits any kind of a beginning — such as a Big Bang — then that immediately begs the question of where did the Beginning come from?

Religion has certainly learned a lot from science over the millennia. But perhaps, ironically, science has as much to learn from religion in coming millennia, at least when it comes to understanding and exploring the farthest possible reaches of cosmology and the mind. The strange relationship between mind and matter may be what the next great scientific revolution will focus on.

Similarities Between Sciences and Religions

While science and religion may disagree on certain points, at the very deepest level, they may actually be more compatible than we might think. In fact, I would go so far as to propose that a grand unification of science and religion may come about in the future as we probe ever deeper into the edges of what we know about cosmology, subatomic physics, and even our understanding of consciousness and the mind.

The strangeness at the boundaries of science already points to a reality that goes beyond a strict division of mind and matter. For example, the simple act of observation seems to have an influence on what is actually measured to take place, according to the field of quantum mechanics. Similarly, at the borders of cosmology, questions still abound on the origin, structure, and fate of the universe. And in particular, given the improbability of a universe such as ours, which seems to be precisely balanced to support the emergence of intelligent life, how did this universe happen?

In many cases scientists are very careful to state that they simply don’t know certain things yet. But at the same time, as scientific theories come into vogue, they often get out of control. For example the theory of the Big Bang. This particular theory, like most other scientific theories, has gone from being a new and contentious proposal, to a major and mainstream scientific belief, to a term that even non-scientists embraced as fact, and now today there is new evidence that perhaps the Big Bang theory is flawed and/or totally incorrect.

In the field of the philosophy of science, which studies how scientific paradigms are born, how they develop and compete, and how they are overturned, there are many other examples (the view of the Newtonian universe versus the view of Relativity, for example, or various explanations for the quantum world, and more recently String Theory). As scientific belief systems emerge, their proponents sometimes develop a kind of faith in the veracity of their beliefs that is not yet justified by the evidence, or that can never be justified in some cases — this scientific faith is quite similar to religious faith. It’s a strong belief in an explanation of nature for which there is some evidence but not yet final proof.

In fact, in science, theories can only be falsified, they can never be established as permanent and final. One never knows if and when new evidence may emerge that overturns the received view, or points to a deeper understanding.

It should also be noted that it is not the case that science is rational and religion is not. In fact, most if not all religions claim that that at least some of their beliefs are verifiable by individuals who follow a rational and repeatable process (for example, do certain things and you will get certain results). In addition at least some religions also apply rigorous formal logic to support their viewpoints. Those religions that provide an experimental method (do certain things and anyone will get predictable results) and that also apply rigorous logic to their reasoning, are applying a form of scientific method. It may be a weak form of scientific method, but it is not irrational.

So while science and religion have very different methodologies, at least with regard to their answers to the really Big Questions, such as the origin and ultimate nature of the universe, they both require a certain amount of faith, and they are both rational processes to some degree.

Differences Between Sciences and Religions

However there are also certain key differences between sciences and religions. In particular, many religions are built from axioms (creation myths, dieties, stories, traditions, and rules) which are established tautologically (they are considered to be true because simply they are defined to be true). For example, those religions which found their belief systems on ancient manuscripts that are said to have come directly for God, are building their belief systems from axioms. Such texts are claimed to be axiomatically true and cannot be disputed for they are God’s Word.

Some relgions also make the claim that the only way to test and verify the truth of their beliefs is to first take them on faith as true. In other words, the only way to verify that x is true is to first believe that x is true, and then after you believe it, the evidence will start to emerge. In other words, not having faith — asking questions or having doubts — actually prevents one from discovering the truth. It is the act of having faith that actually opens the door, so to speak.

Putting faith first is the opposite of the scientific method. The scientific method starts with doubt. It invites questioning — nothing is too sacred to examine, and if some theory can’t stand up to scrutiny, or can’t be shown through experiment or logic to be true, then it can’t be said to be scientific fact. In fact, to accept that something is true without having doubts, but prior to having proof, would be a grave scientific error. This is a key difference between the methodologies of sciences and religions in general.

However, different though it may be from the scientific method, the religious approach seems to work. Billions of people throughout human history who have followed various religions have been able to verify, for themselves at least, the authenticity of their beliefs. Whether or not the stories in a certain religious text are literally true or only metaphorical or allegorical, the fact remains that the religious process of faith, devotion, prayer and personal growth do lead, in a predictable and repeatable manner, to profound religious experiences and in some cases even to unexplainable “miracles” at times (such as the many documented cases of spontaneous healings, for example). While this is certainly not the scientific method, it appears to work pretty well nonetheless.

It is not my intention to prove that the scientific method of “proof before faith” is better or worse than the religious approach of “faith before proof.” In fact, I think they both have their place, and they both work, for different purposes.

The Boundary Between Science and Religion is Fuzzier Than One Might Think

The boundary between where science ends and religion begins is fuzzy at best. In fact, they are so intimately connected at the deepest levels that perhaps they will one day turn out to be the same thing.

Already we have found that on the quantum scale there is an intimate and strange connection between conscious observation and what appears to happen. This is not well understood yet, but it is observed experimentally. Yet we don’t have any real understanding of what consciousness is, or how it interacts with what is observed. The sciences have very little understanding of the mind at all. In fact, many scientists don’t even believe there is a mind; they think the brain is a machine and the mind is a kind of illusion. There is no soul, no consciousness, no being at all. Yet others disagree. The jury is still out.

Religions on the other hand have been studying consciousness for millennia, and some are downright scientific about it. For example the ancient Hindu and Buddhist tantric sciences provide extremely detailed and sophisticated technologies for using the breath, posture, visualization, sound, and concentration to bring about extremely unusual states of body and mind (which have recently have been measured in scientific laboratories in a number of studies). Religions are in some ways way ahead of science when it comes to understanding the mind.

The mind is one of the places where science and religion are going to collide and most likely converge. Another is the ultimate nature of the universe — the nature of space and time. The boundary between science and religion becomes fuzzier as one begins to explore the mind, the relationship between mind and matter, and simply as one views the universe at the largest or smallest scales.

There have been many past attempts by scientists at proving and disproving the existence of God. In fact the question of God’s existence was once considered an acceptable topic of enquiry by scientists such as for example, Sir Isaac Newton, and many others. In the past science was concerned with all questions about nature — including questions about the nature of reality and the mind, and even the possibility of a soul. But in recent times the focus of mainstream science has shifted far away from such topics — which are now seen as almost taboo. But why should they be taboo? They are just as much a subject for enquiry as ever. God has not been proved to exist or not-exist by science, and therefore the jury is still out. The question is whether there is any way to prove that God exists or not? It may in fact be possible to do this, scientifically, eventually.

In any case, just as is the case for the question of God, there are many scientific questions that also have not been answered yet, especially in the fields of cosmology and theoretical physics. Where does the universe come from? What created it? What came before the Big Bang (if there was a Big Bang)? What medium is space-time taking place in right now, or if there is nothing beyond space time then how did it ever happen, what does it come from, how could there be nothing beyond it? Does the universe have any edges and if so what is outside them? If there are multiple universes, what separates them from each other, or are they connected and if so how? Do all possible states of all possible universes already exist or are they truly unfolding over time? Is everything predetermined by the physical laws, or is it all open to chance, or is there some level of intelligence and creativity taking place in the universe?

Even if science someday were able to describe and define everything there is to know about the physical universe, there would still be something more to know that could not be proved or described or defined. Godel’s famous Incompleteness proof established this on a formal logical level — there will always be gaps in our knowledge — of any formal systems we construct. No formal system can be both consistent and complete at the same time. We will never have perfect scientific knowledge of the universe. And even if we could, it would simply beg the question of what is beyond that — no matter what we say the universe is, the question will always come up: well, then where does it come from and how or why is it happening?

Whether through science or religion, all paths lead to the possibility of something inconceivably beyond what we know. And this is where the boundary between science and religions gets so fuzzy that it dissolves completely.

Making a Choice

Assuming we can all at least agree on the meta-level choices (the set of possible choices), we can then discuss possible criteria for comparing, testing, and even ranking the various possible choices available to us.

At the end of the process of course there may be no final best choice that everyone accepts (in fact, I can guarantee there will not be!), nor any agreement as to what are the best or correct criteria for choosing among them. But at least we can all at least agree on what the choices are and how they compare to one another in various ways.

This could go a long way to promoting and improving tolerance and understanding. Better yet, this kind of process might even lead to useful meta-level or inter-belief-system dialogues that may eventually lead to important discoveries and even grand unifications in the future.

However, for now, regardless of what belief system we prefer, we simply have to accept that the belief system we choose, if any, is a matter of personal choice (some might call that faith, others might call it aesthetic preference, others might call it a hunch or intuition) — at least until such time as someone comes up with a way to objectively prove to everyone else that there is only one correct choice. Until that time, even if we have our own favorite belief system choice, we still have to keep some measure of open-mindedness in the face of the set of other choices available and the fact that we can’t today prove objectively (to everyone) that we made the right choice.

At least however, we should be clear that if we are willing to believe anything about the universe, there are strong reasons why we therefore should keep an open mind with regard to the possibility of God. It is not that huge a leap in fact. If we are willing to accept that something as vast and inconceivable as the universe exists, then why not God too? We really don’t have much solid grounds for holding any beliefs about such things — to do so is really just an act of faith either way. We should not have illusions about that. Believing in scientific explanations of the cosmos is really not that much different than believing in religious ones.

The good news at least is that so long as our conception of God has the properties of being uncaused and unconditioned, we are likely to have made the right choice. This also means that all the great religions, at least at their cores, are in agreement — they are all worshiping the same ultimate God, regardless of what different names they use for it. You really can’t go wrong as long as you believe in an ultimate nature that is uncaused and uncreated. However — where you certainly CAN go wrong is in imposing any further beliefs on it. And many make that mistake.

Nonduality

I have shown in this article that if one believes in the physical universe described by science, then in fact there is a logical requirement that the universe is ultimately nonoriginated.

I have also shown that the same holds for belief in God — God is also logically required to be nonoriginated.

Therefore the universe and God have the same ultimate nature.

In addition I have shown that for the universe to make choices about what happens from the set of all possibilities, observation, and therefore awareness, is required. Furthermore the nature of sentient beings, and of God, is precisely this unique capacity of awareness. Both the universe and what we think of as God are characterized by the same nature of being nonoriginated and aware.

In fact, at this level, the ultimate nature is not very different from the core idea of what God is. On an ultimate level there is not really much of a distinction between the ultimate nature of the universe and the ultimate nature of God — it is just one ultimate reality. The universe and God may be one thing, or they may be two things, or only one and not the other may exist, but in any and all of these cases, there is still only one ultimate nature: nonoriginated awareness.

There is no escape from this logic. There is no question that somewhere down the line, we must finally accept that there is something greater than the universe — whatever we think the universe is — and the characteristics of that greater thing are in fact the one common theme of the conception of God across all religions. We can name it what we want, and certainly different religions do. We also may have different perspectives on it, and add all sorts of other details. But what all the great religions have in common is an ultimate nature that is essentially transcendental.

In other words, science and religion are two sides of the same coin. You really can’t have one without the other. They are a dichotomy, but not a duality. They are distinct yet unified.

We do however have the freedom to choose our relative level beliefs about science, and our religious tradition. This freedom is an expression of the primordial freedom of the awareness — our ability to choose what to observe — and this in turn is the ultimate nature of reality. Intellectual freedom is therefore not only irrepressible, it is a reflection of the nature of the universe, it is our birthright.

On the ultimate level everything is unified, but on the relative level, there is no one correct science or religion, there will always be different views, and they probably won’t always agree on all points, and this is perfectly in accord with the freedom of the universe, and each individual. So while science and religion may be unified on the ultimate level, they certainly are not unified on the relative level, and in fact even within each indivividual field of science and each religion, there are differing viewpoints and schools of thought. And this is good.

There is a menu of different belief systems in both arenas and various items on the menu are or are not compatible with one another, or with the beliefs of others. It’s really our personal choice to make. However, what should be clear from the above argument is we have to choose both a main course and a desert: science is undeniable, and religion is unavoidable, they are two sides of the same coin.

Science and religion are different on the relative level (though not as different as some might think), but they definitely converge at ultimate level and this convergence is not a matter of faith, it is a matter of logic. Therefore, regardless of whether we prefer science or religion, or any particular sect within either camp, at least we should not err on the side of thinking they are mutually exclusive.

Unifying Physics and Consciousness: The Next Scientific Revolution

If you pursue science to the very edges, you reach nonorigination. Similarly if you become as close as possible to the diety in any religious tradition, you reach nonorigination. Moreover, nonorigination is the nature of appearances and awareness, and vice-verse. They are never separated. It’s a trinity.

The ultimate nature of the universe, and the ultimate nature of God (if you believe in a God) – must logically be precisely the same. This nature unifies the physical world of seemingly “external” sensory experiences and seemingly “internal” mental events, with the unfindable yet undeniable dimension of awareness, and the unfindable yet logically required nature of being nonoriginated.

The beauty of this is that on the ultimate level there really is no question at all about whether or not the universe exists, or whether or not God exists — the appearances of primordially aware nonorigination is the truth — and it is the most amazing miracle of all. It is irrefutable, it is logically required, and it establishes a basis for authentic and universal spirituality. One can logically derive or directly experience this logical trinity through the vehicle of focusing on and logically analyzing any phenomena (the universe, the mind, God, etc.). When this trinity is recognized as the nature of reality, and directly experienced as such, that is the deepest scientific observation or religious experience possible.

The universe including the body and all other physical things in space and time, the conceptual mind and its mental realm of thoughts and emotions, and all possible real or imaginary deities, all have at their ultimate root, the same primordially nonoriginated awareness.

Proving this once and for all in a non-religiously couched manner — using pure logical reasoning — enables science to progress beyond its present day limitations to finally begin to make sense of the strangeness of the quantum world and of the role and nature of consciousness, and the ultimate nature of space and time.

The next frontier in science will not be simply be a deeper understanding of the physical world — it will be a broader and more integrated understanding that includes both the physical world and the realm of consciousness — the mental realm.

To fully explain and understand the physical world science must find ways to include and measure the crucial role of conscious observers. Each physical event has both sides on a quantum level: the side of the observer and the side of what is observed. Science has so far been focused exclusively on understanding the side of what is observed. But what is observed cannot fully be understood or explained without an equal measure of scientific understanding of the observer and the act of observation.

Similarly, the only way to fully understand consciousness is to include and measure the crucial relationship between consciousness and the process of appearance (namely cause and effect). Both the physical world and consciousness are nonoriginated — they are empty of having an origin, not having an origin, having both, or having neither.

We don’t have the tools for measuring or exploring consciousness yet, but we’re close. Experiments that show the impact of observation on reality are indicators that consciousness is a phenomenon that can affect the observable world. This means that consciousness is indirectly detectable via measurements of the physical world around observers. It may be that consciousness — the act of observing — cannot be directly measured or observed except on its own — by and “within” each individual — but may still me indirectly measured or detected via its affects on the quantum field in the environment when it is present.

By analogy, this is similar to how space is measured, so it is possible to imagine doing this for consciousness. In the case of space, we cannot see it, touch it, or measure it directly. We can only infer things about it by measuring other things — like the way light travels, or the way things move. These indirect measurements lead us to an understanding of space.

Similarly we may be able to triangulate on consciousness by measuring the effects of various physical changes on consciousness (as reported by a conscious observer) and/or by the effects of consciousness (some observer) on physical phenomena (such as the Double Slit experiment). This is definitely an interesting possibility for further exploration, and perhaps the next scientific revolution is waiting just over the horizon in this direction.

Our civilization has not even scratched the surface of this new frontier — a unified science of physics and consciousness. But we will soon. We have to. It is unavoidable. Our quest for knowledge and understanding will take us there whether we like it or not. Already there are cracks in our present scientific theories, and experiments are showing us gaps and contradictions in our theories that we cannot explain. And the light is spilling through them.

I have been thinking about the situation in the Middle East and also the rise of oil prices, peak oil, and the problem of a world economy based on energy scarcity rather than abundance. There is, I believe, a way to solve the problems in the Middle East, and the energy problems facing the world, at the same time. But it requires thinking “outside the box.”

Middle Eastern nations must take the lead in freeing the world from dependence on their oil. This is not only their best strategy for the future of their nations and their people, but also it is what will ultimately be best for the region and the whole world.

It is inevitable that someone is going to invent a new technology that frees the world from dependence on fossil fuels. When that happens all oil empires will suddenly collapse. Far-sighted, visionary leaders in oil-producing nations must ensure that their nations are in position to lead the coming non-fossil-fuel energy revolution. This is the wisdom of “cannibalize yourself before someone else does.”

Middle Eastern nations should invest more heavily than any other nations in inventing and supplying new alternative energy technologies. For example: hydrogen, solar, biofuels, zero point energy, magnetic power, and the many new emerging alternatives to fossil fuels. This is a huge opportunity for the Middle East not only for economic reasons, but also because it may just be the key to bringing about long-term sustainable peace in the region.

There is a finite supply of oil in the Middle East — the game will and must eventually end. Are Middle Eastern nations thinking far enough ahead about this or not? There is a tremendous opportunity for them if they can take the initiative on this front and there is an equally tremendous risk if they do not. If they do not have a major stake in whatever comes after fossil fuels, they will be left with nothing when whatever is next inevitably happens (which might be very soon).

Any Middle Eastern leader who is not thinking very seriously about this issue right now is selling their people short. I sincerely advise them to make this a major focus going forward. Not only will this help them to improve quality of life for their people now and in the future, but it is the best way to help bring about world peace. The Middle East has the potential to lead a huge and lucrative global energy Renaissance. All it takes is vision and courage to push the frontier and to think outside of the box.

If Middle Eastern nations annually invested hundreds of billions of dollars into research and development of alternative fuels and alternative energy technologies, they could definitely capture and lead the market in post-fossil-fuel energy technologies. They could provide energy itself to the global grid, as well as technologies for utilizing or generating non-fossil-fuel energy such as new kinds of engines or components, generators, batteries, fuel cells, and more.

By doing this, they could achieve two important goals: Their land would no longer be strategically important to other nations and so the foreign military presence in the region would diminish and eventually leave altogether, and secondly, they could ensure a tremendous long-term revenue stream for their nations (via patents, manufacturing, and supply of products). The Middle East could become a world center of excellence in alternative energy. This is really the future of the Middle East. They must sell abundance, not scarcity. They must lead the world in this.

Middle Eastern nations have another huge asset besides what is under the ground — it is what is above the ground — the sun and space itself. They have a lot of open space and a lot of sunlight annually. It is the perfect place to create enormous solar collection farms, and wind farms.  It would also be an ideal location to position rectennas for receiving space-based solar power (via microwave transmission). These are just the near-term opportunities. Longer-term, the Middle Eastern nations should and can develop specialized R&D labs, university programs, and major global corporations to develop, license and sell green energy, and alternative energy technologies to the rest of the world.

There are of course other very difficult political and social issues to resolve — for example the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the rise of Islamic radicalism, corruption, human rights, terrorism, etc. But I believe that the best way to make really positive progress towards resolving these problems is to focus on improving the level of education, economic prosperity and stability, self-esteem, and long-term opportunity in the region.

If the oil issue wasn’t there complicating all of the other problems in the region, it would change the game radically for everyone and might open up a range of new potential solutions that today are not even possible to consider.

My personal belief is that terrorism and war are obsolete and never solve problems. Violence begets violence and that will never lead to peace or prosperity in the Middle East. The solution is economic prosperity, education, human rights, and freedom. With regard to Israel, I believe that peaceful co-existence between Israel and other Middle-Eastern powers can and must be achieved, but that this will be
easier to achieve once the oil issue is off the table. Why? Because once the oil issue is off the table, much of the funding for terrorism will vanish. Similarly much of the foreign interest in a strong military presence in the region will also vanish. This will
significantly de-escalate and de-militarize the conflict for both sides, thus making it more likely that a peaceful, lasting solution can be found.

Ultimately, for a long-term peace in the Middle East to take place, moderates on all sides need to be driving the process. But moderates lead only when civilizations are prosperous and safe — when their people feel they have a good enough quality of life and future that they don’t want to risk losing that. A major step in this direction is to improve the economic situation for lower and middle-class citizens of Middle Eastern countries. People who have happy families, good incomes, and bright futures generally do not want to fight wars or become suicide bombers. Instead of pouring money into terrorism, counter-terrorism, military might, secret weapons, etc, money should be poured into creating and building more opportunity and prosperity for everyday citizens of the Arab world.

Fossil fuels are the real enemy of peace and prosperity worldwide: they are finite, dwindling, and controlled only by a minority as well as outside influences. This must change if peace and prosperity for the Middle East is truly important. In fact, there is a much great opportunity in renewable energy and alternative energy than fossil fuels. We must shift our world from one that is based on control of finite resources, to one that is based on distribution and use of abundant and/or renewable resources. This is the really the best path for the Middle East, and the rest of the world.

I had an interesting thought today about the long-term preservation and transmission of human knowledge.

The Wikipedia may be on its way to becoming the one of the best places in which to preserve knowledge for future generations. But this is just the beginning. What if we could encode the Wikipedia into the Junk DNA portion of our own genome? It appears that something like this may actually be possible — at least according some recent studies of the non-coding regions of the human genome.

If we could actually encode knowledge, like the Wikipedia for example, into our genome, the next logical step would be to find a way to access it directly.

At first we might only be able to access and read the knowledge stored in our DNA through a computationally intensive genetic analysis of an individual’s DNA. In order to correct any errors in the data from mutuation, we would also need to cross-reference this individual data with similar analyses from the DNA of other people who also carry this data in their DNA. But this is just the beginning. There are however ways to stored data such that there is enough redundancy to protect against degradation. Assuming we could do this we might be able to eliminate the need for cross referencing as a form of error correction — the data itself would be self-correcting so to speak. If we could accomplish this then the next step would be to find a way for an individual to access the knowledge stored in their DNA in real-time, directly. That’s a long way off but there may be a way to do this using some future nano-scale genomic-brain interface. This opens up some fascinating areas of speculation to say the least.

Why The Wikipedia?

The Wikipedia has certain qualities that make it better than other forms of knowledge preservation and transmission:

• The Wikipedia exists primarily in electronic form. It is not subject to age or decay like a physical encyclopedia or document. This means it can persist forever, and will not be lost to time, if it continues to be maintained electronically in the future.
• The Wikipedia is replicated in multiple locations around the world. The fact that it is so easy to replicate, and is so widely replicated means that it is less at risk of being lost due to a local disaster at any given storage location. It also means it is more likely to continue, somewhere, as a living document that goes on to reflect majority consensus reality into the distant future. It is highly improbable that it will ever suffer the same fate as certain ancient
  documents which only existed in one place and were subsequently lost in
  floods, fires, or wars, etc. At this point only a planet-wide extinction level event could erase the Wikipedia and/or prevent future generations from finding it.
• The Wikipedia is highly viral, it’s content is increasingly cited and it is far ahead of any competing system in terms of coverage and brand-recognition. Because so many other pieces of content on the Web and in other media refer to the Wikipedia as the world’s global authority for knowledge, it is considered increasingly authoritative and is increasingly visible and increasingly cited. The Law of Increasing Returns indicates that this will continue to self-amplify, making the Wikipedia the best candidate for an authoritative global repository of knowledge.

What this means is that if you have any knowledge that you want to preserve for future generations, a good place to put it is in the Wikipedia. Putting it there almost guarantees that it will propagate around the world and throughout the human-explored universe (in the future, if we become a spacefaring civilization), and into the distant future of human civilizations.

The Potential For Storing Knowledge in DNA

Is it possible to store knowledge — such as the Wikipedia — in human DNA? It would certainly be useful if we could do this. By storing knowledge in human DNA of living humans, or of common bacteria for that matter, it could then potentially be passed down and spread through generations into the far future. However the mutability of DNA over time might gradually introduce errors that would degrade the information within particular lines of DNA over long periods of time.

Perhaps this could however be mitigated by comparing DNA samples from a large cross-section of individuals within the population of descendants of original holders of DNA-knowledge-archives in the future — this would effectively enable statistical error cancellation. The farther in the future from the date at which the knowledge is “written” to the DNA of some number of humans, the more people’s DNA would be needed to eliminate the errors statistically. This would however in
principle counteract mutations and enable the reliable recovery of messages in DNA even very far in the future.

The fact that it is in principle possible to encode knowledge into human (or other) DNA begs the question of whether there is already knowledge stored there? It’s certainly worth a look! Maybe there is already a message there for us? One can only wonder if there is already an ancient “Wikipedia” of sorts already written there.

Interestingly enough, when certain statistical tests are run against human DNA,  it does seem to have properties that are indicative of written language, but only in the “junk” regions of the genome. Maybe it’s not “junk” after all. Below is an article that discusses a recent discovery related to this:

Language in junk DNA

You’ve probably heard of a molecule called DNA, otherwise known as “The Blueprint Of Life”. Molecular biologists have been examining and mapping the DNA for a few decades now. But as they’ve looked more closely at the DNA, they’ve been getting increasingly bothered by one inconvenient little fact – the fact that 97% of the DNA is junk, and it has no known use or function! But, an usual collaboration between molecular biologists, cryptoanalysists (people who break secret codes), linguists (people who study languages) and physicists, has found strange hints of a hidden language in this so- called “junk DNA”.

Only about 3% of the DNA actually codes for amino acids, which in turn make proteins, and eventually, little babies. The remaining 97% of the DNA is, according to conventional wisdom, not gems, but junk.

The molecular biologists call this junk DNA, introns. Introns are like enormous commercial breaks or advertisements that interrupt the real program – except in the DNA, they take up 97% of the broadcast time. Introns are so important, that Richard Roberts and Phillip Sharp, who did much of the early work on introns back in 1977, won a Nobel Prize for their work in 1993. But even today, we still don’t know what introns are really for.

Simon Shepherd, who lectures in cryptography and computer security at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom, took an approach, that was based on his line of work. He looked on the junk DNA, as just another secret code to be broken. He analysed it, and he now reckons that one probable function of introns, is that they are
some sort of error correction code – to fix up the occasional mistakes that happen as the DNA replicates itself. But even if he’s right, introns could have lots of other uses.

The next big breakthrough came from a really unusual collaboration between medical doctors, physicists and linguists. They found even more evidence that there was a sort-of language buried in the introns.

According to the linguists, all human languages obey Zipf’s Law. It’s a really weird law, but it’s not that hard to understand. Start off by getting a big fat book. Then, count the number of times each word appears in that book. You might find that the number one most popular word is “the” (which appears 2,000 times), followed by the second most popular word “a” (which appears 1,800 times), and so on. Right down at the bottom of the list, you have the least popular word, which might be “elephant”, and which appears just once.

Set up two columns of numbers. One column is the order of popularity of the words, running from “1″ for “the”, and “2″ for “a”, right down “1,000″ for “elephant”. The other column counts how many times each word appeared, starting off with 2,000 appearances of “the”, then 1,800 appearances of “a”, down to one appearance of “elephant”.

If you then plot on the right kind of graph paper, the order of popularity of the words, against the number of times each word appears you get a straight line! Even more amazingly, this straight line appears for every human language – whether it’s English or Egyptian, Eskimo or Chinese! Now the DNA is just one continuous ladder of squillions of rungs, and is not neatly broken up into individual words (like a book).

So the scientists looked at a very long bit of DNA, and made artificial words by breaking up the DNA into “words” each 3 rungs long. And then they tried it again for “words” 4 rungs long, 5 rungs long, and so on up to 8 rungs long. They then analysed all these words, and to their surprise, they got the same sort of Zipf Law/straight-line-graph for the human DNA (which is mostly introns), as they did for the human languages!

There seems to be some sort of language buried in the so-called junk DNA! Certainly, the next few years will be a very good time to make a career change into the field of genetics.

So now, around the edge of the new millennium, we have a reasonable understanding of the 3% of the DNA that makes amino acids, proteins and babies. And the remaining 97% – well, we’re pretty sure that there is some language buried there, even if we don’t yet know what it says. It might say “It’s all a joke”, or it might say “Don’t worry, be happy”, or it might say “Have a nice day, lots of love, from your friendly local DNA”.
(source)

Now to complete this thought: what if the information-carrying capacity of the so-called Junk DNA of the human genome is sufficient to hold the content of the Wikipedia? Then all we would need is some way of writing to it — perhaps via gene therapy via infection by a virus that carries a copy of the Wikipedia.

This would enable volunteers to accept copies of the Wikipedia into their DNA and become vectors for the Wikipedia. They and their descendants would become walking encyclopedias and would preserve human knowledge for future generations. If only some people had this done then they and their lineages would be a sort of priesthood with particular importance for the future of humanity. It
sounds like the basis for a really great science-fiction thriller!

By copying the Wikipedia into our own DNA we might be able to ensure that wherever human beings end up in the universe, the Wikipedia will go with them. Even if in some distant world humans destroy their civilization in a nuclear holocaust or are almost wiped out by an asteroid and have to rebuild from the stone-age again, they will eventually rediscover genomics and soon after that they will find the Wikipedia in their genome.

This is a kind of “backup strategy” for our civilization and all the knowledge we consider to be most important. Of course it is not clear yet whether the Junk DNA could carry enough information to encode the entire Wikipedia, nor is it clear that the Junk DNA is actually “junk” — perhaps there is already something there that should not be overwritten? Or perhaps it serves some other purpose in human
development and evolution that we shouldn’t mess around with. It remains to be seen.

Check out this fascinating article about a new show on the BBC:

ne bright morning in St James’s Park and a stream of tourists
approaches Buckingham Palace, where trumpets will shortly herald the
Changing of the Guard. In the middle of the crowd walk five very short,
very odd-looking men. They carry camcorders, gesticulate wildly, and
talk in a language no one can understand. In the heart of
picture-postcard London, this bizarre group stands out like a sore
thumb.
       
         
         
            

  Further investigation reveals that a film crew is tracking the party, at a
  discreet distance. Something is going on. In fact, the cameras are bearing
  witness to a historic event: the odd-looking group, whose skin is dark and
  whose smiles are wide, and who all measure around five feet tall, are on the
  verge of completing an extraordinary social experiment.

Inventor, John Kanzius, has figured out a way to burn salt water. This could provide a clean, naturally available alternative fuel source. Salt water is one of the most abundant natural resources on our planet. Here’s a video.

nin

A very cool experiment in virtual reality has shown it is possible to trick the mind into identifying with a virtual body:

Through these goggles, the volunteers could see a camera
view of their own back – a three-dimensional "virtual own body" that
appeared to be standing in front of them.

When the researchers stroked the back of the volunteer
with a pen, the volunteer could see their virtual back being stroked
either simultaneously or with a time lag.

The volunteers reported that the sensation seemed to be
caused by the pen on their virtual back, rather than their real back,
making them feel as if the virtual body was their own rather than a
hologram.

Volunteers

Even when the camera was switched to film the back of a
mannequin being stroked rather than their own back, the volunteers
still reported feeling as if the virtual mannequin body was their own.

And when the researchers switched off the goggles,
guided the volunteers back a few paces, and then asked them to walk
back to where they had been standing, the volunteers overshot the
target, returning nearer to the position of their "virtual self".

This has implications for next-generation video games and virtual reality. It also has interesting implications for consciousness studies in general.

ool

Whenever a scientist says something like, don’t worry our new experiment could never get out of the lab, or don’t worry the miniature black hole we are going to generate couldn’t possibly swallow up the entire planet, I tend to get a little worried. The problem is that just about every time a scientist has said something is patently absurd, totally impossible or could never ever happen, it usually turns out that in fact it isn’t as impossible as they thought. Now here’s a new article about scientists creating new artificial lifeforms, based on new genetic building blocks — and once again there’s one of those statements. I’m guessing that this means that in about 10 years some synthetic life form is going to be found to have done the impossible and escaped from the lab — perhaps into our food supply, or maybe into our environment. Don’t get me wrong — I’m in favor of this kind of research into new frontiers. I just don’t think anyone can guarantee it won’t escape from the lab.

Steorn, the Irish company that claims to have invented a mechanical device that generates unlimited free energy with no fuel, is scheduled to demonstrate their device publicly for the first time in London tomorrow. A panel of 22 independent world experts has been recruited to study the device. It should be an interesting demo!

My brother pointed me to this video of some incredible kinetic sculptures by a man who appears to be a modern-day Da Vinci. Watch the video to see what I mean.

Josh sent me this link. It’s a video of a new technology for doing laser graffitti on the sides of buildings at night. Josh and I have been discussing how to do this for years. You could also project onto clouds. And of course with a computer to control the image you could make some very nice looking pictures, and ads…

Read this fun article that lists and defines some of the key concepts that every post-singularity transhumanist meta-intellectual should know! (via Kurzweil)

Ok, here’s a very unusual news item:

During his time as head of the Ministry of Defence UFO project, Nick
Pope was persuaded into believing that other lifeforms may visit Earth
and, more specifically, Britain.

His concern is that "highly credible" sightings are simply dismissed.

And he complains that the project he once ran is now "virtually closed" down, leaving the country "wide open" to aliens.

Mr Pope decided to speak out about his worries after resigning
from his post at the Directorate of Defence Security at the MoD this
week.

"The consequences of getting this one wrong could be huge," he said.

Read the rest here.  I have several thoughts about this  news and what it might mean… 

Mr. Pope has been speaking out on these issues for years. What’s
most interesting is that the MoD allowed him to. This seems to tacitly
confirm that what he’s saying may have some truth to it. If he was
actually wrong or a lunatic they would have fired him long ago, or had
him conveniently committed to an asylum. Since they didn’t fire him,
this would seem to indicate that the higher-ups must have at least
enough respect for him to keep him on as one of their chiefs (or maybe
he had some kind of government job that he couldn’t be fired from?).

In any case, I wonder why he thinks aliens would have bad
intentions? Perhaps he has information that is not available to the
public. But if aliens exist, and if they have such advanced
technologies, and if they have bad intentions, wouldn’t they have
invaded long ago? What would be their reason to wait if their intention
was to invade? Waiting would only give us more time to develop
technologies to fight them with.

The fact that, despite quite a lot of evidence of UFO’s, they have
NOT invaded, seems to indicate that their intentions are not harmful.
Perhaps they are here to study us, or protect us from ourselves, or to
refuel and re-provision enroute to somewhere else? Or maybe they are
missionaries? Or maybe they are not interested in humans at all. Maybe
it’s the cats they are here to talk to. Let’s face it — the cats are
clearly much cooler than the humans.

Then again, this reminds me of an old Twilight Zone episode from the
early 1960′s that I read about in which aliens landed and stated that
their sole purpose for coming to earth was for the betterment of
humanity. They had a special text of principles entitled, "To Serve
Man." It wasn’t until the end of the episode that it was revealed that
this text was actually a cookbook.

Below is the text of my bet on Long Bets. Go there to vote.

“By 2050 no synthetic computer nor machine intelligence will have become truly self-aware (ie. will become conscious).”

Spivack’s Argument:

(This summary includes my argument, a method for judging the outcomeof this bet and some other thoughts on how to measure awareness…)

A. MY PERSPECTIVE…

Even if a computer passes the Turing Test it will not really beaware that it has passed the Turing Test. Even if a computer seems tobe intelligent and can answer most questions as well as an intelligent,self-aware, human being, it will not really have a continuum ofawareness, it will not really be aware of what it seems to “think” or”know,” it will not have any experience of it’s own reality or being.It will be nothing more than a fancy inanimate object, a clevermachine, it will not be a truly sentient being.

Self-awareness is not the same thing as merely answering questionsintelligently. Therefore even if you ask a computer if it is self-awareand it answers that it is self-aware and that it has passed the TuringTest, it will not really be self-aware or really know that it haspassed the Turing Test.

AsJohn Searle and others have pointed out, the Turing Test does notactually measure awareness, it just measures informationprocessing—particularly the ability to follow rules or at leastimitate a particular style of communication. In particular it measuresthe ability of a computer program to imitate humanlike dialogue, whichis different than measuring awareness itself. Thus even if we succeedin creating good AI, we won’t necessarily succeed in creating AA(“Artificial Awareness”).

But why does this matter? Becauseultimately, real awareness may be necessary to making an AI that is asintelligent as a human sentient being. However, since AA istheoretically impossible in my opinion, truly self-aware AI will neverbe created and thus no AI will ever be as intelligent as a humansentient being even if it manages to fool someone into thinking it is(and thus passing the Turing Test).

In my opinion, awareness isnot an information process at all and will never be simulated orsynthesized by any information process. Awareness cannot be measured byan information processing system, it can only be measured by awarenessitself—something no formal information processing system can eversimulate or synthesize.

One might ask how it is that a humanhas awareness then? My answer is that awareness does not arise from thebody or the brain, nor does it arise from any physical cause. Awarenessis not in the body or the brain, but rather the body and the brain arein awareness. The situation is analagous to a dream, a simulation orvirtual reality, such as that portrayed in the popular film “TheMatrix.”

We exist in the ultimate virtual reality. The mediumof this virtual reality is awareness. That is to say that whateverappears to be happening “out there” or “within the mind” is happeningwithin a unified, nondualistic field of awareness: both the “subject”and the “object” exist equally within this field and neither is thesource of awareness.

This is similar to the case where weproject ourselves as dream protagonists in our own dreams—even thoughour dream bodies appear to be different than other dream-images theyare really equally dream appearances, they are no more fundamental thandream-objects. We identify with our dream-bodies out of habit andbecause it’s practical because the stories that take place appear fromthe perspective of particular bodies. But just because this virtualreality is structured as if awareness is coming from within our heads,it does not mean that is actually the case. In fact, quite the oppositeis taking place.

Awareness is not actually “in” the VR, the VR is”in” awareness. Things are exactly the opposite of how they appear. Ofcourse this is just an analogy—for example, unlike the Matrix, thevirtual reality we live in is not running on some giant computersomewhere and there is no other hidden force controlling it from behindthe scenes. Awareness is the fabric of reality and there is nothingdeeper, nothing creating it, it is not running on some cosmic computer,it comes out of of nowhere yet everything else comes out of it.

Ifwe look for awareness we can’t find anything to grasp, it is empty yetnot a mere nothingness, it is an emptiness that is awake, creative,alert, radiant, self-realizing.

Awareness is empty andfundamental like space, but it goes beyond space for it is also lucid.If we look for space we don’t find anything there. Nobody has evertouched or grasped space directly! But unlike space, awareness can atleast be measured directly–it can measure itself, it knows its ownnature.

Awareness is simply fundamental, a given, theunderlying meta-reality in which everything appears. How did it come tobe? That is unanswerable. What is it? That is unanswerable as well. Butthere is no doubt that awareness is taking place. Each sentient beinghas a direct and intimate experience of their own self-awareness.

Each of us experiences a virtual reality in which we and our world areprojections. That which both projects these projections and experiencesthem is awareness. This is like saying that the VR inherently knows itsown content. But in my opinion this knowing comes from outside thesystem, not from some construct that we can create inside it. So anyawareness that arises comes from the transcendental nature of realityitself, not from our bodies, minds, or any physical system within aparticular reality.

So is there one cosmic awareness out therethat we are all a part of? Not exactly, there is not one awareness norare there many awarenesses because awareness is not a physical thingand cannot be limited by such logical materialist extremes. After allif it is not graspable how can we say it is one or many or any otherlogical combination of one or many? All we can say is that we are it,whatever it is, and that we cannot explain it further. In beingawareness, we are all equal, but we are clearly not the same. We aredifferent projections and on a relative level we are each unique, eventhough on an ultimate level perhaps we are also unified by beingprojections within the same underlying continuum. Yet this continuum isfundamentally empty, impossible to locate or limit, and infinitelybeyond the confines of any formal system or universe, so it cannotreally be called a “thing” and thus we are not “many” or “one” inactuality, what we really are is totally beyond such dualisticdistinctions.

Awareness is like space or reality, something sofundamental, so axiomatic, that it is impossible to prove, grasp ordescribe from “inside” the system using the formal logical tools of thesystem. Since nothing is beyond awareness, there is no outside, no wayto ever gain a perspective on awareness that is not mediated byawareness itself.

Therefore there is no way to reduce awarenessto anything deeper; there is no way to find anything more fundamentalthan awareness. But despite this awareness can be directly experienced,at least by itself.

That which is aware is self-aware.Self-awareness is the very nature of awareness. The self-awareness ofawareness does not come from something else, it is inherent toawareness itself. Only awareness is capable of awareness. Nothing thatis not aware can ever become aware.

This means awareness istruly fundamental, it has always been present everywhere. Awareness isinherent in the universe as the very basis of everything, it is notsomething anyone can synthesize and we cannot build a machine that cansuddenly experience awareness.

Only beings who are awarealready can ever experience awareness. The fact that we are aware nowmeans that we were always aware, even before we were born! Otherwise wenever could have become aware in the first place!

Each of us “is”awareness. The experience of being aware is unique and undeniable. Ithas its own particular nature, but this cannot be expressed it can onlybe known directly. There is no sentient being that is not aware.Furthermore, it would be a logical contradiction to claim that “I amnot aware that I am aware” or “that I am aware that I am not aware” andthus if anyone claims they are not aware or have ever experienced, orcan even imagine, there not being awareness they are lying. There isnobody who does not experience their own awareness, even if they don’trecognize or admit that they experience it.

The experience ofbeing self-aware is the unique experience of “being” — an experienceso basic that it is indescribable in terms of anything else —something that no synthetic computer will ever have.

Eventually, it will be proved that no formal information processingsystem is capable of self-awareness and that thus formal computerscannot be self-aware in principle. This proof will use the abstractself-referential structure of self-awareness to establish that noformal computer can ever be self-aware.

Simplyput, computers and computer programs cannot be truly self-referential:they always must refer to something else—there must at least be a setof fixed meta-rules that are not self-referential for a computer orprogram to work. Awareness is not like this however, awareness isperfectly self-referential without referring to anything else.

Thequestion will then arise as to what self-awareness is and how it ispossible. We will eventually conclude that systems that are self-awareare not formal systems and that awareness must be at least asfundamental as, or more fundamental than, space, time and energy.

Currentlymost scientists and non-scientists consider the physical world to beoutside of awareness and independent of it. But considering that nobodyhas or will ever experience anything without awareness it is illogicalto assume that anything is really outside of awareness. It is actuallyfar more rational to assume that whatever arises or is experienced isinside awareness, and that nothing is outside of awareness. Thisassumption of everything being within awareness would actually be amore scientific, observation-based conclusion than the oppositeassumption which is entirely unfounded on anything we have ever or willever be able to observe. After all, we have never observed anythingapart from awareness have we? Thus contrary to current beliefs, theonus is on scientists to prove that anything is outside of awareness,not the other way around!

Awareness is quite simply theultimate primordial basic nature of reality itself—without awarenessthere could be no “objective reality” at all and no “subjective beings”to experience it. Awareness is completely transcendental, beyond alllimitations and boundaries, outside of all possible systems. Whathubris to think we can simply manufacture, or evolve, awareness with apile of electrified silicon hardware and some software rules.

Nomatter how powerful the computer, no matter what it is made of, and nomatter how sophisticated or emergent the software is, it will stillnever be aware or evolve awareness. No computer or machine intelligencewill ever be aware. Even a quantum computer—if it is equivalent to afinite non-quantum computer at least—will not be capable ofawareness, and even if it is a transinfinite computer I still have mydoubts that it could ever be aware. Awareness is simply not aninformation process.

B. METHOD OF JUDGING THIS BET…

So the question ultimately is, how do we measureawareness or at least determine whether a computer is or is not aware?How can we judge the outcome of this bet?

I propose a method here: we let the bettors mutually agree on a judge.If the judge is a computer, fine. If the judge is a human, fine. Butboth bettors must agree on the judge. If both bettors accept that partyas the judge then the result will be deemed final and reliable. If acomputer is chosen by both parties to judge this, then I will concededefeat—but it would take a lot for any computer to convince me thatit is aware and thus qualified to judge this competition. On the otherhand, my opponent in this debate may accept a human judge—butobviously since they believe that computers can be aware if they accepta human judge they would be contradicting their own assertion—if acomputer is really intelligent and aware why would they choose a humanjudge over a computer judge?

This “recursive” judge-selection judging approach appeals to ourinherent direct human experience of awareness and the fact that wetrust another aware sentient being more than an inaminate machine tojudge whether or not something is aware. This may be the only practicalsolution to this problem: If both parties agree that a computer canjudge and the computer says the other computer is aware, then so be it!If both parties agree that a human can judge and the human says thatthe computer is not aware, so be it! May the best judge win!

Now, as long as we’re on the subject, how do we know that otherhumans, such as our potential human judge(s), are actually aware? Iactually believe that self-awareness is detectable by other beings thatare also aware, but not detectable by computers that are not aware.

C. A REVERSE TURING TEST FOR DETECTING AWARENESS IN A COMPUTER…

Ipropose a reversal of the Turing test for determining whether acomputer is aware (and forgive me in advance if anyone else has alreadyproposed this somewhere, I would be happy to give them credit).

Here is the test: Something is aware if whenever it is presented with acase where a human being and a synthetic machine intelligence areequally intelligent and capable of expression and interaction BUT notequally aware (the human is aware and the machine is not actuallyaware), then it can reliably and accurately figure out that the humanbeing is really aware and the machine is not really aware.

Ibelieve that only systems that are actually aware can correctlydifferentiate between two equally intelligent entities where one issentient and the other just a simulation of sentience, given enoughtime and experience with those systems.

How can such a differentiation be made? Assuming the human andcomputer candidates are equally intelligent and interactive, what isthe signature of awareness or lack of awareness? What difference isthere that can be measured? In my opinion there is a particular, yetindescribable mutual recognition that takes place when I encounteranother sentient being. I recognize their self-awareness with my ownself-awareness. Think of it as the equivalent of a “network handshake”that occurs at a fundamental level between entities that are actuallyaware.

How is this recognition possible? Perhaps it is due tothe fact that awareness, being inherently self-aware, is alsoinherently capable of recognizing awareness when it encounters it.

Onanother front, I actually have my doubts that any AI will ever beequally intelligent and interactive as a human sentient being. Inparticular I think this is not merely a matter of the difficulty ofbuilding such a complex computer, but rather it is a fundamentaldifference between machine cognition and the congition of a sentientbeing.

A human sentient being’s mind transcends computation.Sentient cognition transcends the limits of formal computation, it isnot equivalent to Turing Machine, it is much more powerful than that.We humans are not formal systems, we are not Turing Machines. Humanscan think in a way that no computer will ever be able to match letalone imitate convincingly. We are able to transcend our own logics,our own belief systems, our own programs, we are able to enter andbreak out of loops at will, we are able to know inifinities, to docompletely irrational, spontaneous and creative things. We are muchcloser to infinity than any finite state automaton can ever be. We aresimply not computers, although we can sometimes think like them theycannot really think like us.

In any case, this may be “faith”but for now at least I am quite certain that I am aware and that otherhumans and animals are also aware but that machines, plants and otherinanimate objects are not aware. I am certain that my awareness vastlytranscends any machine intelligence that exists or ever will exist. Iam certain that your awareness is just as transcendent as mine.Although I cannot prove that I am aware or that you are aware to you Iam willing to state such on the basis of my own direct experience and Iknow that if you take a moment to meditate on your own self-awarenessyou will agree.

After all, we cannot prove the existence of spaceor time either—these are just ideas and even physics has notexplained their origins nor can anyone even detect them directly, yetwe both believe they exist, don’t we?

Now if I claimed that asuitably complex computer simulation would someday suddenly containreal physical space and time that was indistinguishable in any way fromthe physical space and time outside the simulation—you would probablydisagree. You would say that the only “real” space-time is actually notin the computer but containing the computer, and any space-time thatappears within the computer simulation is but a mere lower-orderimitation and nothing like the real space-time that contains thecomputer.

No simulation can ever be exactly the same as what itsimulates, even if it is functionally similar or equivalent, forseveral reasons. On a purely information basis, it should be obviousthat if simulation B is within something else called A, then for B tobe exactly the same as A it must contain A and B and so on infinitely.At least if there is a finite amount of space and time to work with wesimply cannot build anything like this, we cannot build a simulationthat contains an exact simulation of itself without getting into aninfinite regression. Beyond this, there is a difference in medium: Inthe case of machine intelligence the medium is physical space, time andenergy—that is what machine intelligence is made of. In the case ofhuman awareness the medium is awareness itself, something at least asfundamental as space-time-energy if not more fundamental. Althoughhuman sentience can perform intelligent cognition, using a brain forexample, it is not a computer and it is not made of space-time-energy.Human sentience goes beyond the limits of space-time-energy andtherefore beyond computers.

If someone builds a Turing Machine that simulates a Turing Machinesimulating a Turing Machine, the simulation will never even start, letalone be useable! As the saying goes, it’s Turtles All The Way Down! Ifyou have a finite space and time, but an infinite initial condition, ittakes forever to simply set up the simulation let alone to compute it.

Thisis the case with self-awareness as well: It is truly self-referential.No finite formal system can complete an infinitely self-referentialprocess in finite time. We sentient beings can do this however.Whenever we realize our own awareness direclty—that is whenever weARE aware (as opposed to just representing this fact as a thought) weare being infinitely self-referential in finite time. That must mean weare either able to do an infinite amount of computing in a finiteamount of time, or we are not computing at all. Perhaps self-awarenessjust happens instantly and inherently rather than iteratively.

On a practical level as well we can see that there is adiffernece between a simulated experience within a simulation and theactual reality it attempts to simulate that exists outside thesimulation. For example, suppose I make a computer simulation ofchocolate and a simulated person who can eat the chocolate. Even thoughthat simulated person tastes the simulated chocolate, they do notreally taste chocolate at all—they have no actual experience of whatchocolate really tastes like to beings in reality (beings outside thesimulation).

Even if there are an infinite number of levels ofsimulation above the virtual reality we are in now, awareness is alwaysultimately beyond them all—it is the ultimate highest-level ofreality, there is nothing beyond it.

Thus even an infinitelyhigh-end computer simulation of awareness will be nothing like actualawareness and will not convince a truly aware being that it is actuallyaware.

So as a kid you watched Star Wars and since then you’ve wanted your very own Landspeeder. The problem is, how to make things hover without using fans, magnets, or special effects? Well, a maverick UK scientist may have invented a way to do it. By harnessing microwaves, and a loophole provided by special relativity, Roger Shawyer has developed a new kind of "relativity drive" that may be the future of space propulsion, and perhaps even terrestrial hovering cars and aircraft. He’s received high-level interest from the UK, US military, and the Chinese and hopes to test it in space in a few years.

This is a wonderful article about how a chance encounter led to the discovery of a connection between physics and number theory that may help explain everything from quantum mechanics to the prime numbers….and the most incredible thing is that the answer may actually really be "42" after all. You’ve heard of "Life Imitates Art," well this is "Life Imitates Humor" at it’s best.

Just read an interesting article on the possibility of "intraterrestrial" silicon-based life on Earth:

SETI spends enormous amounts of money
and resources looking for life outside of Earth’s realm, but life forms
so alien that scientists may simply not have recognized evidence of
their existence could inhabit the Earth, according to a leading
scientist.

Dr Tom Gold, emeritus professor of astronomy at Cornell University in
America, believes that organisms based on silicon – completely
unrelated to all the carbon-based life man has encountered so far – may
live at great depths.

In a forthcoming book he will suggest that scientists should take the
possibility more seriously. Gold, who is a member of the Royal Society,
previously predicted that vast amounts of more conventional bacteria
live miles down within the Earth’s crust. Scientists initially
dismissed the idea, but many now agree with him.

"So
long as nobody suspects there could be silicon-based life, we may just
not be clever enough to identify it," he said last week.

Rocks bearing signs of silicon-based organisms may already be sitting
in laboratories, he believes, with their significance overlooked.

Every known living organism, from bacteria to mankind, is based on the
chemistry of carbon, which forms the complex molecules such as DNA that
are central to our existence. Scientists believe that if
extraterrestrial life is found, the chances are that it, too, will be
carbon-based.

Editor’s Note: While the prospect of silicon-based life is an interesting subject for further research, what the above scientists failed to note is that there is already a large population of Silicone-based life, particularly in Hollywood. Of course they probably can’t get government funding to research THAT subject!                      
                        
                        
                        
                        
                        

The New Scientist published a nice overview of the emerging theory of Loop Quantum Gravity. I’ve been following this for a number of years, ever since my friend Bram turned me onto it. It’s related in some ways to other models of discrete space-time, such as cellular automata and digital physics.

LEE SMOLIN is no magician. Yet he and his colleagues have pulled off
one of the greatest tricks imaginable. Starting from nothing more than
Einstein’s general theory of relativity, they have conjured up the
universe. Everything from the fabric of space to the matter that makes
up wands and rabbits emerges as if out of an empty hat.

It
is an impressive feat. Not only does it tell us about the origins of
space and matter, it might help us understand where the laws of the
universe come from. Not surprisingly, Smolin, who is a theoretical
physicist at the Perimeter Institute in Waterloo, Ontario, is very
excited. "I’ve been jumping up and down about these ideas," he says.

This
promising approach to understanding the cosmos is based on a collection
of theories called loop quantum gravity, an attempt to merge general
relativity and quantum mechanics into a single consistent theory.

The
origins of loop quantum gravity can be traced back to the 1980s, when
Abhay Ashtekar, now at Pennsylvania State University in University
Park, rewrote Einstein’s equations of general relativity in a quantum
framework. Smolin and Carlo Rovelli of the University of the
Mediterranean in Marseille, France, later developed Ashtekar’s ideas
and discovered that in the new framework, space is not smooth and
continuous but instead comprises indivisible chunks just 10^-35
metres in diameter. Loop quantum gravity then defines space-time as a
network of abstract links that connect these volumes of space, rather
like nodes linked on an airline route map.

From
the start, physicists noticed that these links could wrap around one
another to form braid-like structures. Curious as these braids were,
however, no one understood their meaning. "We knew about braiding in
1987," says Smolin, "but we didn’t know if it corresponded to anything
physical."  Read More

As the distance a spaceship travels through space increases, so do the odds that it will collide with debris in its path – such as interstellar dust, micrometeorites, asteroids, dark matter, dark stars, etc.

If you are traveling at super high-speed, through uncharted territory, there is no way to know what is out there.

Even if it is charted territory, debris is always flying through – sometimes at incredibly high speeds. Especially when you near solar systems, or in denser areas.

It should be possible to say that after a certain distance the odds are 100% that a spaceship will experience a fatal collision.

As a result, only short range space travel is probably safe enough to be feasible unless some kind of shield technology is invented that can withstand the  blasts that result from collisions with even tiny things at such high
speeds.

My guess is that if advanced interstellar civilizations exist, they do not travel linearly through space because it is just too dangerous. They must have a way to “tunnel” – either by using or creating wormholes, or some other means of teleportation, or hyperdimensional travel.

In speaking about this, my friend Josh, suggested the following:

Yeah- and here’s another aspect to that problem.

Assume you are using a near light speed drive to go from star to star.

Any detection system you are using (radar, etc) will only extend slightly in front of the ship- because it is only moving slightly faster than you are- and the faster you go, the less
time you have to detect and deal with obstacles or objects.

If you are moving slowly- perhaps a generation ship or a “frozen cargo” scenario- you could use radar connected to an autopilot- but you still need something to protect you from micrometeorites and interstellar dust- maybe a big electrostatic shield extending far in front of the ship that will attract and deflect such objects (most meteroids are ferromagnetic, so they respond well to electromagnetic fields…)

You really need a rapid response detection system…

150 years ago, German physiologist Emil Du Bois-Reymond discovered that electric currents could speed up the healing of flesh wounds. But his research has been ignored ever since. Until now…

Now Josef Penninger of the Austrian Institute of Molecular
Biotechnology in Vienna and Min Zhao of the University of Aberdeen, UK,
have demonstrated that natural electric fields and currents in tissue
play a vital role in orchestrating the wound-healing process by
attracting repair cells to damaged areas.

(snip)

The researchers grew layers of mouse cells and larger tissues, such as
corneas, in the lab. After "wounding" these tissues, they applied
varying electric fields to them, and found they could accelerate or
completely halt the healing process depending on the orientation and
strength of the field (Nature, vol 442, p 457).

This is a really cool science and art project — Researchers in Japan have developed a device that uses waves to cause images to form on the surface of water. Check the link for a cool picture.

A new test for telepathy harnesses a "completely objective" virtual world.

OK this is a clip from Fox News, which is not normally a source that I consider to be factual or trustworthy — but it cerrtainly is an interesting story. The video clip profiles an inventor who has developed a novel method of converting water to useful fuel. He powers a welding torch and a car in the video. It’s pretty interesting to watch. What is most strange to me is that although his welding torch can generate enough heat to burn holes in rock, the tip of the torch stays cool enough to touch. Check it out.

Wow — this page has some fabulous photos of devices for locating things using sound. Think radar, only much louder…

I’ve been interested in bacteriophages for a few years, ever since I first heard about them. This article goes into more detail about why they may present a new and better alternative to antibiotics in the treatment of resistant bacterial infections.

In the 1920s and ’30s, with diseases like dysentery and cholera
running rampant, the discovery of bacteriophages was hailed as a
breakthrough. Bacteriophages are viruses found virtually
everywhere—from soil to seawater to your intestines—that kill specific,
infection-causing bacteria. In the United States, the drug company Eli
Lilly marketed phages for abscesses and respiratory infections.
(Sinclair Lewis’ Pulitzer-winning Arrowsmith is about a
doctor who uses phages to prevent a diphtheria epidemic.) But by the
1940s, American scientists stopped working with phages for treatment
because they no longer had reason to. Penicillin, discovered by the
Scottish bacteriologist Alexander Fleming in 1928, had become widely
available thanks to synthetic production and zapped infections without
the expertise needed for finicky phages.

But now the equation
has changed. Many kinds of bacteria have become
antibiotic-resistant—prompting a few Western scientists, and patients,
to travel to former Soviet Georgia to give bacteriophages for treatment
a try. Phages have been used in the former Soviet Union for decades
because scientists there had less access to antibiotics than their
American and European counterparts did. Phages were a cheap
alternative, and in Soviet clinical trials, they repeatedly stopped
infections. Now in a bid for medical tourists, Georgia has opened a
center in its capital, Tbilisi, which offers outpatient phage treatment
to foreigners. In connection with the Eliava phage research institute,
which Stalin helped set up in Tbilisi in 1923, the treatment center
offers personalized cures for a host of infections the United States
says it can no longer do anything about.

This is pretty cool. It turns out you can freeze water at room temperature, creating so-called "hot ice." There are at least two known methods for doing this. Hot ice effectively transforms water into a solid that is like a form of glue. This opens the door for some interesting potential applications — including using water to seal food packaging (instead of chemical glues), using water to seal leaks in ships, tunnels and pipes (imagine self-healing hulls and pipes that use water to seal leaks), and perhaps even using water to destroy cancer cells — the potential applications are endless.

A major, virtually unfixable, security flaw in the design of nearly all cell phones and other mobile devices will be announced this week by researchers at the Foundation for Microwave Safety (FMS). According to sources, it turns out that due to a coincidence in engineering, ordinary household microwave ovens can actually be used to receive and eavesdrop on all cell phone calls made or received within a 1 mile radius. Better yet, you can also use them to broadcast to all cell phones within a 1 mile radius!

According to the study, which will be released next week, the technique is ludicrously easy: simply go to any microwave oven. Set the power level to high. Next, on the microwave keypad or time setting dial, enter a time in that is at least a minute or so. Then hit the "Start" button. Next, press your ear against the microwave oven door as it runs and listen carefully — you won’t believe it, but you will actually hear cell phone calls. If you then wish to broadcast to all the calls you are hearing, simply speak loudly, while your head is pressed against the microwave door.

(Editor’s Note — WARNING: Do not try this at home!!! Permanent injury may result — Please see warning at end of article.  If you try this you may end up cooking your brain. If your brain is already cooked, make sure you set your microwave on "Reheat: Canned Vegetables" setting to avoid over-cooking, and season lightly with salt and butter.)

Why does this work? It turns out that the microwave transmission elements in ordinary microwave ovens are not so different from what’s in your everyday cell phone, except much broader spectrum and slightly more power. "When microwave ovens run they act not only as transmitters, but also as receivers — or what are called ‘transceivers,’" says Philippe Connerie, of the FMS.

Although there is no true audio output or input, the microwave shielding in the case still resonates to the frequency of whatever is being received. If you press your head tightly against the casing you can hear these vibrations — which are actual cell phone calls. When you speak it sends resonance back through the shielding which scatters the reflected microwaves to the frequency of your voice, which are then received back into the microwave, acting as modulators of the carrier wave of the emitter, which effectively broadcasts what you are saying across a range of microwave frequencies at once. Click here to read the paper.

WARNING: Pressing your head against any device that is actively emitting microwaves — such as microwave ovens, cell phones, or other mobile devices — may result in permanent injury, brain damage, cancer or death. Please do not do this, unless you are really stupid, in which case, go right ahead. But first read the paper (linked above) so that you understand that this is truly not something worth doing. If after reading that paper you still insist on trying this then I give up. — The Editor

The theory of quantum evolution is a radical new take on how mutations
in DNA occur. Basically the theory postulates that DNA molecules are in
fact macroscopic quantum objects that undergo quantum interference. It
is spearheaded by Johnjoe McFadden, a professor in the UK and makes for an interesting
read. Here is a brief overview of the main ideas of the theory. He also has some interesting ideas about a possible interaction between electromagnetic fields and consciousness.  It’s way too early to tell whether he is correct in his hypoetheses, but I give him high marks for original thinking! Very interesting stuff.

Introduction:

This article proposes the creation of a new open, nonprofit service on the Web that will provide something akin to “collective self-awareness” back to the Web. This service is like a “Google Zeitgeist” on steroids, but with a lot more real-time, interactive, participatory data, technology and features init. The goal is to measure and visualize the state of the collective mind of humanity, and provide this back to humanity in as close to real-time as is possible, from as many data sources as we can handle — as a web service.

By providing this service, we will enable higher levels of collective intelligence to emerge and self-organize on the Web. The key to collective intelligence (or any intelligence in fact) is self-awareness. Self-awareness is, in essence, a feedback loop in which a system measures its own internal state and the state of its environment, then builds a representation of that state, and then reasons about and reacts to that representation in order to generate future behavior. This feedback loop can be provided to any intelligent system — even the Web, even humanity as-a-whole. If we can provide the Web with such a service, then the Web can begin to “see itself” and react to its own state for the first time. And this is the first step to enabling the Web, and humanity as-a-whole, to become more collectively intelligent.

It should be noted that by “self-awareness” I don’t mean consciousness or sentience –I think that the consciousness comes from humans at this point and we are not trying to synthesize it (we don’t need to; it’s already there). Instead, by “self-awareness” I mean a specific type of feedback loop — a specific Web service — that provides a mirror of the state of the whole back to its parts. The parts are the conscious elements of the system – whether humans and/or machines – and can then look at this meta-mirror to understand the whole as wellas their place in it. By simply providing this meta-level mirror, along with ways that the individual parts of the system can report their state to it, and get the state of the whole back from it, we can enable a richer feedback loop between the parts and the whole. And as soon as this loop exists the entire system suddenly can and will become much more collectively intelligent.

What I am proposing is something quite common in artificial intelligence. For example, in the field of robotics, such as when building an autonomous robot. Until a robot is provided with a means by which it can sense itsown internal state and the state of its nearby environment, it cannot behave intelligently or very autonomously. But once this self-representation and feedback loop is provided, it can then react to it’s own state and environment and suddenly can behave far more intelligently. All cybernetic systems rely on this basic design pattern. I’m simply proposing we implement something like this for theentire Web and the mass of humanity that is connected to it. It’s just a larger application of an existing pattern. Currently people get their views of “the whole” from the news media and the government – but these views suffer from bias, narrowness, lack of granularity, lack of real-time data, and the fact that they are one-way, top-down services with no feedback loop capabilities. Our global collective self-awareness — in order to be truly useful and legitimate really must be two-way, inclusive, comprehensive, real-time and democratic. In the global collective awareness, unlike traditional media, the view of the whole is created in a bottom-up, emergent fashion from the sum of the reports from all the parts (instead of just a small pool of reporters or publishers, etc.).

The system Ienvision would visualize the state of the global mind on a number of key dimensions, in real-time, based on what people and software and organizations that comprise its “neurons” and “regions” report to it (or what it can figure out by mining artifacts they create). For example, this system would discover and rank the current most timely and active topics, current events, people, places, organizations, events, products, articles, websites, in the world right now. From these topics it would link to related resources, discussions, opinions, etc. It would also provide a real-time mass opinion polling system, where people could start polls, vote on them, and see the results in real-time. And it would provide real-time statistics about the Web, the economy, the environment, and other key indicators.

The idea is to try to visualize the global mind – to make it concrete and real for people, to enable them to see what it is thinking, what is going on, and where they fit in it – and to enable them to start adapting and guiding their own behavior to it. By giving the parts of the system more visibility into the state of the whole, they can begin to self-organize collectively which in turn makes the whole system function more intelligently

Essentially I am proposing the creation of the largest and most sophisticated mirror ever built – a mirror that can reflect the state of the collective mind of humanity back to itself. This will enable an evolutionary process which eventually will result in humanity becoming more collectively self-aware and intelligent as-a-whole (instead of what it is today– just a set of separate interacting intelligent parts). By providing such a service, we can catalyze the evolution of higher-order meta-intelligence on this planet — the next step in human evolution. Creating this system is a grand cultural project of profound social value to all people on earth, now and in the future.

This proposal calls for creating a nonprofit organization to build and host this service as a major open-source initiative on the Web, like the Wikipedia, but with a very different user-experience and focus. It also calls for implementing the system with a hybrid central and distributed architecture. Although this vision is big, the specific technologies, design patterns, and features that are necessary to implement it are quite specific and already exist. They just have to be integrated, wrapped and rolled out. This will require an extraordinary and multidisciplinary team. If you’re interested in getting involved and think you can contribute resources that this project will need, let me know (see below for details).

Further Thoughts

Today I re-read this beautiful, visionary article by Kevin Kelley, about the birth of the global mind, in which he states:

The planet-sized “Web” computer is already more complex than a human brain and has surpassed the 20-petahertz threshold for potential intelligence as calculated by Ray Kurzweil. In 10 years,it will be ubiquitous. So will superintelligence emerge on the Web, not a supercomputer?

Kevin’s article got me thinking once again about an idea that has been on my mind for over a decade. I have often thought that the Web is growing into the collective nervous system of our species. This will in turn enable the human species to function increasingly as an intelligent superorganism, for example, like a beehive, or an ant colony — but perhaps even more intelligent. But the key to bringing this process about is self-awareness. In short, the planetary supermind cannot become truly intelligent until it evolves a form of collective self-awareness. Self-awareness is the most critical component of human intelligence — the sophistication of human self-awareness is what makes humans different from dumb machines, and from less intelligent species.

The Big Idea that I have been thinking about for over a decade is that if we can build something that functions like a collective self-awareness, then this could catalyze a huge leap in collective intelligence that would essentially “wake up” the global supermind and usher in a massive evolution in its intelligence and behavior. As the planetary supermind becomes more aware of its environment, its own state, and its own actions and plans, it will then naturally evolve higher levels of collective intelligence around this core. This evolutionary leap is of unimaginable importance to the future of our species.

In order for the collective mind to think and act more intelligently it must be able to sense itself and its world, and reason about them, with more precision — it must have a form of self-awareness. The essence of self-awareness is self-representation — the ability to sense, map,  reason about, and react to, one’s own internal state and the state of one’s nearby environment. In other words, self-awareness is a feedback loop by which a system measures and reacts to its own self-representations. Just as is the case with the evolution of individual human intelligence, the evolution of more sophisticated collective human intelligence will depend on the emergence of better collective feedback loops and self-representations. By enabling a feedback loop in which information can flow in both directions between the self-representations of individuals and a meta-level self-representation for the set of all individuals, the dynamics of the parts and the whole become more closely coupled. And when this happens, the system can truly start to adapt to itself intelligently, as a single collective intelligence instead of a collection of single intelligences.

In summary, in order to achieve higher levels of collective intelligence and behavior, the global mind will first need something that functions as its collective self-awareness — something that enables the parts to better sense and react to the state of the whole, and the whole to better sense and react to the state of its parts. What is needed essentially is something that functions as a collective analogue to a self — a global collective self.

Think of the global self as a vast mirror, reflecting the state of the global supermind back to itself. Mirrors are interesting things. At first they merely reflect, but soon they begin to guide decisionmaking. By simply providing humanity with a giant virtual mirror of what is going on across the minds of billions of individuals, and millions of groups and organizations, the collective mind will crystallize, see itself for the first time, and then it will begin to react to its own image. And this is the beginning of true collective cognition. When the parts can see themselves as a whole and react in real-time, then they begin to function as a whole instead of just a collection of separate parts. As this shift transpires the state of the whole begins to feedback into the behavior of the parts, and the state of the parts in turns feeds back to the state of the whole. This cycle of bidirectional feedback between the parts and whole is the essence of cognition in all intelligent systems, whether individual brains, artificial intelligences, or entire worlds.

I believe that the time has come for this collective self to emerge on our planet. Like a vast virtual mirror, it will function as the planetary analogue to our own individual self-representations — that capacity of our individual minds which represents us back to ourselves. It will be comprised of maps that combine real-time periodic data updates, and historical data, from perhaps trillions of data sources (one for each person, group, organization and software agent on the grid). The resulting visualizations will be something like a vast fluid flow, or a many particle simulation. It will require a massive computing capability to render it — perhaps a distributed supercomputer comprised of the nodes on the Web themselves, each hosting a part of the process. It will require new thinking about how to visualize trends in such vast amounts of data and dimensions. This is a great unexplored frontier in data visualization and knowledge discovery.

How It Might Work

I envision the planetary self functioning as a sort of portal — a Web service that aggregates and distributes all kinds of current real-time and historical data about the state of the whole, as well as its past states and future projected states. This portal would collect opinions, trends, and statistics about the human global mind, the environment, the economy, society, geopolitical events, and other indicators, and would map them graphically in time, geography, demography, and subject space — enabling everyone to see and explore the state of the global mind from different perspectives, with various overlays, and at arbitrary levels of magnification.

I think this system should provide an open datamodel, and open API for adding and growing data sets, querying, remixing, visualizing, and subscribing to the data.All services that provide data sets, analysis orvisualizations (or other interpretations) of potential value tounder standing the state of the whole would be able to post data into our service for anyone to find and use. Search engines could post inthe top search query terms. Sites that create tag clouds could post intags and tag statistics. Sites that analyze the blogosphere could post in statistics about blogs, bloggers, and blog posts. Organizations that do public opinion polling, market and industry research, trend analysis, social research, or economic research could post instatistics they are generating. Academic researchers could post instatistics generated by projects they are doing to analyze trends on the Web, or within our data-set itself.

As data is pushed to us, orpulled by us, we would grow the largest central data repository aboutthe state of the whole. Others could then write programs to analyze andremix our data, and then post their results back into the system forothers to use as well. We would make use of our data for our ownanalysis, but anyone else could also do research and share theiranalysis through our system. End users and others could also subscribeto particular data, reports, or visualizations from our service, andcould post in their own individual opinions, attention data feeds, orother inputs. We would serve as a central hub for search, analysis,and distribution of collective self-awareness.

The collective self would provide a sense of collective identity: who are we, how do we appear, what are we thinking about, what do we think about what we are thinking about, what are we doing, how well are we doing it, where are we now, where have we been, where are we going next. Perhaps it could be segmented by nation, or by age group, or by other dimensions as well to view various perspectives on these questions within it. It could gather its data by mining for it, as well as through direct push contributions from various data-sources. Individuals could even report on their own opinions, state, and activities to it if they wanted to, and these votes and data points would be reflected back in the whole in real time. Think of it as a giant emergent conversation comprised of trillions of participants, all helping to make sense of the same subject — our global self identity — together. It could even have real-time views that are animated and alive — like a functional brain image scan — so that people could see the virtual neurons and pathways in the global brain firing as they watch.

If this global self-representation existed, I would want to subscribe to it as a data feed on my desktop. I would want to run it in a dashboard in the upper right corner of my monitor — that I could expand at any time to explore further. It would provide me with alerts when events transpired that matched my particular interests, causes, or relationships. It would solicit my opinions and votes on issues of importance and interest to me. It would simultaneously function as my window to the world, and the world’s window to me. It would be my way of participating in the meta-level whole, whenever I wanted to. I could tell it my opinions about key issues, current events, problems, people, organizations, or even legislative proposals. I could tell it about the quality of life from my perspective, where I am living, in my industry and demographic niche. I could tell it about my hopes and fears for the future. I could tell it what I think is cool, or not cool, interesting or not interesting, good or bad, etc. I could tell it what news I was reading and what I think is noteworthy or important. And it would listen and learn, and take my contributions into account democratically along with those of billions of other people just like me all around the world. From this would emerge global visualizations and reports about what we are all thinking and doing, in aggregate, that I could track and respond to. Linked from these flows I could then find relevant news, conversations, organizations, people, products, services, events, and knowledge. And from all of this would emerge something greater than anything I can yet imagine — a thought process too big for any one human mind to contain.

I want to build this. I want to build the planetary Self. I am not suggesting that we build the entire global mind, I am just suggesting that we build the part of the system that functions as its collective self-awareness. The rest of the global mind is already there, as raw potential at least, and doesn’t have to be built. The Web, human minds, software agents, and organizations already exist. Their collective state just needs to be reflected in a single virtual mirror. As soon as this mirror exists they can begin to collectively self-organize and behave more intelligently, simply because they will have, for the first time, a way of measuring their collective state and behavior. Once there is a central collective self-awareness loop, the intelligence of the global mind will emerge and self-organize naturally over time. This collective self-awareness infrastructure is the central enabling technology that has to be there first for the next-leap in intelligence of the global mind to evolve.

Project Structure

I think this should be created as a non-profit open-source project. In fact, that is the only way that it can have legitimacy — it must be independent of any government, cultural or commercial perspective. It must be by and for the people, as purely and cleanly as possible. My guess is that to build this properly we would need to create a distributed grid computing system to collect, compute, visualize and distribute the data — it could be similar to SETI@Home; everyone could help host it. At the center of this grid, or perhaps in a set of supernodes, would be a vast supercomputing array that would manage the grid, do focused computations and data fusion operations. There would also need to be some serious money behind this project as well — perhaps from major foundations and donors. This system would be a global resource of potential incalculable value to the future of human evolution. It would be a project worth funding.

My Past Writing On This Topic

A Physics of Ideas: Measuring the Physical Properties of MemesTowards a Worldwide Database

The Metaweb: A Graph of the Future

From Semantic Web to Global Mind

The Birth of the Metaweb

Are Organizations Organisms?

From Application-Centric to Data-Centric Computing

The Human Menome Project

Other Noteworthy Projects

Principia Cybernetica — the Global Mind Group

The Global Consciousness Project

W3C – The Semantic Web Working Group

Amazon’s Mechanical Turk

CHI — Harnessing Networks of Humans

A radical new form of propulsion is being researched that may enable travel from Earth to Mars in 3 hours, and travel to nearby stars in just 80 days. The system is based on a novel quantum theory termed Heim quantum
theory (HQT).

The hypothetical device, which has been outlined in principle but is
based on a controversial theory about the fabric of the universe, could
potentially allow a spacecraft to travel to Mars in three hours and
journey to a star 11 light years away in just 80 days, according to a
report in today’s New Scientist magazine.

The
theoretical engine works by creating an intense magnetic field that,
according to ideas first developed by the late scientist Burkhard Heim
in the 1950s, would produce a gravitational field and result in thrust
for a spacecraft.

Also, if a large enough magnetic field was created, the craft would
slip into a different dimension, where the speed of light is faster,
allowing incredible speeds to be reached. Switching off the magnetic
field would result in the engine reappearing in our current dimension.

The US air force has expressed an interest in the idea and
scientists working for the American Department of Energy – which has a
device known as the Z Machine that could generate the kind of magnetic
fields required to drive the engine – say they may carry out a test if
the theory withstands further scrutiny.

Professor Jochem Hauser, one of the scientists who put forward the
idea, told The Scotsman that if everything went well a working engine
could be tested in about five years.

However, Prof Hauser, a physicist at the Applied Sciences University
in Salzgitter, Germany, and a former chief of aerodynamics at the
European Space Agency, cautioned it was based on a highly controversial
theory that would require a significant change in the current
understanding of the laws of physics. (Source)

It is interesting to note that this
theory shares a similar physical picture, namely a quantized spacetime,
with the recently published loop quantum theory (LQT) by L. Smolin, A.
Ashtektar, C. Rovelli, M. Bojowald et al. [11, 24-28]. LQT, if proved
correct, would stand for a major revision of current physics, while HQT
would cause a revolution in the technology of propulsion. (Source)

Links for further reading on this subject.

The Edge has published mini-essays by 119 "big thinkers" on their "most dangerous ideas" — fun reading.

The history of science is replete with discoveries
that were considered socially, morally, or emotionally
dangerous in their time; the Copernican and
Darwinian revolutions are the most obvious.
What is your dangerous idea? An idea you think
about (not necessarily one you originated)
that is dangerous not because it is assumed to be false, but because it might be true?