7. TRANSFORMING
Fly in the Ointment
Using redundancy, God sends us information about His Rulership in various forms: through Creation, through His Spirit in His written Word, and through the life, death and rising again of His Son. But our Adversary has been trying to garble the message by introducing noise into the signal, through using fallen human nature to destroy the environment, to blight YHWH's written Word, and to educate through every possible media for disbelief in a God who loves and forgives but must finally judge those refusing remorse and mercy. Down the ages the Lord of the Flies has put not a few flies in the ointment, the healing balm, of YHWH's translated Word.
The Word of YHWH goes out into a corrupt world. How many times does He warn us to "keep" or "watch", i.e. guard, His Word. This Greek verb (NT5083) is not used to describe simple observation. It is used to describe what a guardian, a look-out, or a watchman does, to protect by watching over a treasury, a prisoner, a city, any number of things that are valued as they are, but vulnerable to being compromised if not guarded.
How much does God value His Word? A biblical word that has been corrupted or misused can no longer be depended on to function in the way God intended. As His children we have a responsibility to watch out that His Word remains as pure, as clear, and as clean as possible, not by enshrining it in an unalterable sacred form, nor by making it fit into the latest cultural jargon, but by constantly testing how it should function against how it does function in a world where language changes daily.
In his book, Semiotics: The Basics, Daniel Chandler says this, "...we may come to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us -- we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized."
A special mention should be made here about the genetic code - the information necessary for life. Recent research has discovered just how amazing it is. Charles Darwin explored the tip of the iceberg. Today molecular biologists are involved in a "constitutional crisis" over whether Darwin's theory of natural selection is still able to explain how life "evolved", much less arose in the first place.
The difference between life and non-life is that a new life form requires an initial infusion of highly complex genetic code -- of information. There is now a scientific estimate of the amount of time needed for a single beneficial mutation to arise by chance (see link 3 paragraphs below). The earth is not old enough for life to have happened by chance; the odds are infinitesimally small.
For thousands of years humanity was under the illusion that the universe is eternal. All physicists today admit the fact that the universe had a beginning, a first cause. Just as the universe itself had a cause outside itself, so does life. Both required information, and information requires intelligence. We can never know or ever find out about such a source using the scientific method, because that source is outside or invisible to the known universe.
The scientific establishment since Darwin is still prone to denial, preferring to posit life on earth seeded by aliens. That idea, however, only removes us farther from the answer, so that we must discover who made the aliens. Of course, such arguments are only pathetic attempts to buy time until today's hidden genius finds the true answer, but when it comes to discovering ultimate reality, scientific research is forced to accept its current position as insufficient.
____________________________________________________
A Physicist’s Explanation of Why the Soul May Exist
BY TARA MACISAAC TIME MAY 4, 2022
Henry P. Stapp is a theoretical physicist at the University of California–Berkeley who worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He does not seek to prove that the soul exists, but he does say that the existence of the soul fits within the laws of physics.
It is not true to say belief in the soul is unscientific, according to Stapp. Here the word “soul” refers to a personality independent of the brain or the rest of the human body that can survive beyond death. In his paper, “Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory With Personality Survival,” he wrote: “Strong doubts about personality survival based solely on the belief that postmortem survival is incompatible with the laws of physics are unfounded.”
He works with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics—more or less the interpretation used by some of the founders of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Even Bohr and Heisenberg had some disagreements on how quantum mechanics works, and understandings of the theory since that time have also been diverse. Stapp’s paper on the Copenhagen interpretation has been influential. It was written in the 1970s and Heisenberg wrote an appendix for it.
Stapp noted of his own concepts: “There has been no hint in my previous descriptions (or conception) of this orthodox quantum mechanics of any notion of personality survival.”
Why Quantum Theory Could Hint at Life After Death
Stapp explains that the founders of quantum theory required scientists to essentially cut the world into two parts. Above the cut, classical mathematics could describe the physical processes empirically experienced. Below the cut, quantum mathematics describes a realm “which does not entail complete physical determinism.”
Of this realm below the cut, Stapp wrote: “One generally finds that the evolved state of the system below the cut cannot be matched to any conceivable classical description of the properties visible to observers.”
So how do scientists observe the invisible? They choose particular properties of the quantum system and set up apparatus to view their effects on the physical processes “above the cut.”
The key is the experimenter’s choice. When working with the quantum system, the observer’s choice has been shown to physically impact what manifests and can be observed above the cut.
Stapp cited Bohr’s analogy for this interaction between a scientist and his experiment results: “[It’s like] a blind man with a cane: when the cane is held loosely, the boundary between the person and the external world is the divide between hand and cane; but when held tightly the cane becomes part of the probing self: the person feels that he himself extends to the tip of the cane.”
The physical and mental are connected in a dynamic way. In terms of the relationship between mind and brain, it seems the observer can hold in place a chosen brain activity that would otherwise be fleeting. This is a choice similar to the choice a scientist makes when deciding which properties of the quantum system to study.
The quantum explanation of how the mind and brain can be separate or different, yet connected by the laws of physics “is a welcome revelation,” wrote Stapp. “It solves a problem that has plagued both science and philosophy for centuries—the imagined science-mandated need either to equate mind with brain, or to make the brain dynamically independent of the mind.”
Stapp said it is not contrary to the laws of physics that the personality of a dead person may attach itself to a living person, as in the case of so-called spirit possession. It wouldn’t require any basic change in orthodox theory, though it would “require a relaxing of the idea that physical and mental events occur only when paired together.”
Classical physical theory can only evade the problem, and classical physicists can only work to discredit intuition as a product of human confusion, said Stapp. Science should instead, he said, recognize “the physical effects of consciousness as a physical problem that needs to be answered in dynamical terms.”
How This Understanding Affects the Moral Fabric of Society
It is imperative for maintaining human morality to consider people as more than just machines of flesh and blood. He wrote of the “growing tendency of people to exonerate themselves by arguing that it is not ‘I’ who is at fault, but some mechanical process within: ‘my genes made me do it’; or ‘my high blood-sugar content made me do it.’ Recall the infamous ‘Twinkie Defense’ that got Dan White off with five years for murdering San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.”
In another paper, titled “Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics,” Stapp wrote: “It has become now widely appreciated that assimilation by the general public of this ‘scientific’ view, according to which each human being is basically a mechanical robot, is likely to have a significant and corrosive impact on the moral fabric of society.”
____________________________________________________
To learn more about what physics and molecular biology have discovered, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture have created a fascinating video which explains what the scientific community is wrestling with and how good the evidence for intelligent design really is. Twenty minutes of great explanation, examples and animations of real molecular machines and processes -- see it here.
YHWH has done an incredible thing by encoding His message of life in countless forms, creations which have inspired humans throughout the span of our species memory. One of my favorite forms is the olive tree - for ages valued for its nutritious fruit, medicinal leaves, durable wood, and lamp-oil, it is long-lived, evergreen, and hardy . Yeshua used it twenty centuries ago as a symbol encoding how YHWH has grafted in His New Covenant people to His Old Covenant people to create one long-lived tree, one which YHWH carefully and at His appointed times, waters, feeds, prunes and guards.
He values this "tree", this grafted-together people, Jew and gentile, because He is using it to restore people of His choosing who do not yet know they are chosen. Through this olive tree - His "one new man" people - He brings healing; He gives food to the hungry; He brings light to those in darkness. Through His people He brings His life-giving Word to the world.
The Word of YHWH goes out into a corrupt world. How many times does He warn us to "keep" or "watch", i.e. guard, His Word. This Greek verb (NT5083) is not used to describe simple observation. It is used to describe what a guardian, a look-out, or a watchman does, to protect by watching over a treasury, a prisoner, a city, any number of things that are valued as they are, but vulnerable to being compromised if not guarded.
How much does God value His Word? A biblical word that has been corrupted or misused can no longer be depended on to function in the way God intended. As His children we have a responsibility to watch out that His Word remains as pure, as clear, and as clean as possible, not by enshrining it in an unalterable sacred form, nor by making it fit into the latest cultural jargon, but by constantly testing how it should function against how it does function in a world where language changes daily.
In his book, Semiotics: The Basics, Daniel Chandler says this, "...we may come to realize that information or meaning is not 'contained' in the world or in books, computers or audio-visual media. Meaning is not 'transmitted' to us -- we actively create it according to a complex interplay of codes or conventions of which we are normally unaware. Becoming aware of such codes is both inherently fascinating and intellectually empowering. We learn from semiotics that we live in a world of signs and we have no way of understanding anything except through signs and the codes into which they are organized."
A special mention should be made here about the genetic code - the information necessary for life. Recent research has discovered just how amazing it is. Charles Darwin explored the tip of the iceberg. Today molecular biologists are involved in a "constitutional crisis" over whether Darwin's theory of natural selection is still able to explain how life "evolved", much less arose in the first place.
The difference between life and non-life is that a new life form requires an initial infusion of highly complex genetic code -- of information. There is now a scientific estimate of the amount of time needed for a single beneficial mutation to arise by chance (see link 3 paragraphs below). The earth is not old enough for life to have happened by chance; the odds are infinitesimally small.
For thousands of years humanity was under the illusion that the universe is eternal. All physicists today admit the fact that the universe had a beginning, a first cause. Just as the universe itself had a cause outside itself, so does life. Both required information, and information requires intelligence. We can never know or ever find out about such a source using the scientific method, because that source is outside or invisible to the known universe.
The scientific establishment since Darwin is still prone to denial, preferring to posit life on earth seeded by aliens. That idea, however, only removes us farther from the answer, so that we must discover who made the aliens. Of course, such arguments are only pathetic attempts to buy time until today's hidden genius finds the true answer, but when it comes to discovering ultimate reality, scientific research is forced to accept its current position as insufficient.
____________________________________________________
A Physicist’s Explanation of Why the Soul May Exist
BY TARA MACISAAC TIME MAY 4, 2022
Henry P. Stapp is a theoretical physicist at the University of California–Berkeley who worked with some of the founding fathers of quantum mechanics. He does not seek to prove that the soul exists, but he does say that the existence of the soul fits within the laws of physics.
It is not true to say belief in the soul is unscientific, according to Stapp. Here the word “soul” refers to a personality independent of the brain or the rest of the human body that can survive beyond death. In his paper, “Compatibility of Contemporary Physical Theory With Personality Survival,” he wrote: “Strong doubts about personality survival based solely on the belief that postmortem survival is incompatible with the laws of physics are unfounded.”
He works with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics—more or less the interpretation used by some of the founders of quantum mechanics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg. Even Bohr and Heisenberg had some disagreements on how quantum mechanics works, and understandings of the theory since that time have also been diverse. Stapp’s paper on the Copenhagen interpretation has been influential. It was written in the 1970s and Heisenberg wrote an appendix for it.
Stapp noted of his own concepts: “There has been no hint in my previous descriptions (or conception) of this orthodox quantum mechanics of any notion of personality survival.”
Why Quantum Theory Could Hint at Life After Death
Stapp explains that the founders of quantum theory required scientists to essentially cut the world into two parts. Above the cut, classical mathematics could describe the physical processes empirically experienced. Below the cut, quantum mathematics describes a realm “which does not entail complete physical determinism.”
Of this realm below the cut, Stapp wrote: “One generally finds that the evolved state of the system below the cut cannot be matched to any conceivable classical description of the properties visible to observers.”
So how do scientists observe the invisible? They choose particular properties of the quantum system and set up apparatus to view their effects on the physical processes “above the cut.”
The key is the experimenter’s choice. When working with the quantum system, the observer’s choice has been shown to physically impact what manifests and can be observed above the cut.
Stapp cited Bohr’s analogy for this interaction between a scientist and his experiment results: “[It’s like] a blind man with a cane: when the cane is held loosely, the boundary between the person and the external world is the divide between hand and cane; but when held tightly the cane becomes part of the probing self: the person feels that he himself extends to the tip of the cane.”
The physical and mental are connected in a dynamic way. In terms of the relationship between mind and brain, it seems the observer can hold in place a chosen brain activity that would otherwise be fleeting. This is a choice similar to the choice a scientist makes when deciding which properties of the quantum system to study.
The quantum explanation of how the mind and brain can be separate or different, yet connected by the laws of physics “is a welcome revelation,” wrote Stapp. “It solves a problem that has plagued both science and philosophy for centuries—the imagined science-mandated need either to equate mind with brain, or to make the brain dynamically independent of the mind.”
Stapp said it is not contrary to the laws of physics that the personality of a dead person may attach itself to a living person, as in the case of so-called spirit possession. It wouldn’t require any basic change in orthodox theory, though it would “require a relaxing of the idea that physical and mental events occur only when paired together.”
Classical physical theory can only evade the problem, and classical physicists can only work to discredit intuition as a product of human confusion, said Stapp. Science should instead, he said, recognize “the physical effects of consciousness as a physical problem that needs to be answered in dynamical terms.”
How This Understanding Affects the Moral Fabric of Society
It is imperative for maintaining human morality to consider people as more than just machines of flesh and blood. He wrote of the “growing tendency of people to exonerate themselves by arguing that it is not ‘I’ who is at fault, but some mechanical process within: ‘my genes made me do it’; or ‘my high blood-sugar content made me do it.’ Recall the infamous ‘Twinkie Defense’ that got Dan White off with five years for murdering San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.”
In another paper, titled “Attention, Intention, and Will in Quantum Physics,” Stapp wrote: “It has become now widely appreciated that assimilation by the general public of this ‘scientific’ view, according to which each human being is basically a mechanical robot, is likely to have a significant and corrosive impact on the moral fabric of society.”
____________________________________________________
To learn more about what physics and molecular biology have discovered, the Discovery Institute's Center for Science & Culture have created a fascinating video which explains what the scientific community is wrestling with and how good the evidence for intelligent design really is. Twenty minutes of great explanation, examples and animations of real molecular machines and processes -- see it here.
YHWH has done an incredible thing by encoding His message of life in countless forms, creations which have inspired humans throughout the span of our species memory. One of my favorite forms is the olive tree - for ages valued for its nutritious fruit, medicinal leaves, durable wood, and lamp-oil, it is long-lived, evergreen, and hardy . Yeshua used it twenty centuries ago as a symbol encoding how YHWH has grafted in His New Covenant people to His Old Covenant people to create one long-lived tree, one which YHWH carefully and at His appointed times, waters, feeds, prunes and guards.
He values this "tree", this grafted-together people, Jew and gentile, because He is using it to restore people of His choosing who do not yet know they are chosen. Through this olive tree - His "one new man" people - He brings healing; He gives food to the hungry; He brings light to those in darkness. Through His people He brings His life-giving Word to the world.