Editing notes
Geo video, slide at beginning
sciene --> science
idea is presented in brief (1.5 min) and then in more detail (9 min) taken from another lecture....
A crucially important but somewhat subtle point
(which will certainly have escaped some readers attention)
The claim that the Earth is the center of the universe in an absolute sense, in a physics sense, is no more incorrect scientifically than the claim that the sun is the center in this sense. Both are wrong scientifically. And so is any claim about any other location being the center. There is NO unique center in the physical sense, as I labor to indicate in the various GR-based parts of the article. Philosophically of course we can consider humans as central as I pointed out above, etc. And Kaballistically etc; but to claim it in the physical sense is counter to science. However it is fine to consider it as center for various calculations, for way of speaking etc.
There is a light shift in the BH reader version compared to the BH journal version, from 'geocentrism is as valid as any other view" ie comparing geocentrism to a generic view, to "geocentrism is as valid as heliocentrism", meaning both are scientifically-invalid if taken as absolute physical statements, and both are equally valid as perspectives.
Also one could say that "geocentrism is no more invalid than is eg heliocentrism or any other view which claims there is a unique center to the universe, so the Copernican revolution which claimed to dethrone Earth from its position as center has itself ironically been overthrown since the sun is no more the center of anything than is the Earth".
See the BH article p9 right column, first full paragraph: "indeed valid" and "equally valid" for any choice, whereas the BH Reader p81 explicitly refers to the above point by comparing geocentrism to heliocentrism. Most readers might not understand that both are invalid as statements of exclusive fact, but both are equally valid as choices of 'frame of reference'.
That's also why I included the Eddington quote in the beginning of the BH Reader version. Truth is it would be better to leave out the sentence before the quote, and simply quote him and then offer my explanation.
The focus of an article meant for students on campus
In my opinion it would be startling and off-putting to non-religious university students to hear that Judaism requires belief that the Earth is stationary and the sun goes round it etc. I personally don't believe the Torah implies this, nor that it implies that we should believe it to be so. See the first sentence of footnote 1 of the BH journal article.
And I think that the essential issue is not whether psukim in the Torah have literal meaning implying geocentrism but rather the philosophical implications which were attached in the past to the issue, eg re human significance, and therefore whether even if there is a God if God would care about what we do etc, and whether even if the universe was created, the creation had as a central purpose the creation of humanity, and these types of issues, not whether we are meant to believe geocentrism. Instead, if humans are central to achieving the purpose of the entire creation, then humans are indeed central, in a far deeper sense.
It is like 'heaven': people used to think it meant a physical location at a higher elevation, but now we understand it as meaning a reality which is all spiritual, rather than a physical location, and it would be quite odd for someone to insist that Judaism required belief that Heaven is some height above the Earth, and also it would be odd to think that the fact that people once thought this is somehow a proof that the Torah is false or not from God.
So I think it makes sense to subtly change the focus of the article to the deeper issues, eg by moving the last section re significance to become the first section, or at least to start with an opening discussion about the issue, as I do in the website version, so that the discussion which follows, re being the 'center', and general relativity etc, is placed in this context, ie to show that what the Torah states is not so false that it somehow contradicts science in a way that would make it impossible for someone who enfranchises science to believe in it, as would be the case eg for a 'Biblical flat-earthism' or insisting that the Torah requires belief that Heaven is a physical location at a certain physical distance from the surface of the Earth.[The last section of the Geocentrism article is about human significance, and this is perhaps the most important part of the article in the larger overall view of how the issue of geocentrism impacted "the conflict between science and religion" for most people (for them the issue was not whether scripture was accurate but rather whether the new discoveries indicated that humans are insignificant rather than being created in the image of God etc). In some sense therefore that last section belongs in the beginning of the article, or at least there should be some mention of that point/section in the beginning of the article.]
Operational definitions
If someone supports actual geocentrism, then it would really be necessary to explain what this means operationally, ie is there a prediction regarding a physically-doable experiment which would produce a different result according to that view vs what science would predict? eg would a year-long video of the Earth and sun, taken in space far away from the sun, show something that would surprise science? If not, then what exactly is meant by 'geocentrism'?
I am sure that those who hundreds of years ago believed in geocentrism would have been sure that if humans could go out into distant space and see the sun and earth and watch it for a year, they would come to the conclusion themselves that geocentrism was correct. I don't know exactly what they would have expected one would see or how that would prove geocentrism, but I am sure they would have believed that.
When I say I don't know what they would have meant, it is because after learning GR one sees that Einstein thought very deeply about all this and why he came to the conclusion that there cannot really be any physical meaning to such a claim since one would have to establish the reference frame of the one making this observation, eg are they staying stationary relative to an observer on Earth's surface who of course sees the sun going round them? (first one must distinguish between the daily relative motion and the annual relative motion).
What's the claim?
[Maybe someone has explained what chabad might mean by 'geocentrism'? If it means kabalistically or psychologically or philosophically or whether there is a physical claim....]
Maybe the claim is only that the Torah would not use this language if it was totally factually incorrect, and that although of course we don't believe in geocentrism any more than we believe in heliocentrism, the fact that the Torah uses geocentric type phraseology means that it cannot be disproven, not that it is correct in any physical sense. And then marshall evidence from GR to support the claim that it cannot be disproven.
But then one needs to discuss all other 'non-scientific' sounding phraseology in TOrah.
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,..,,,,,
First of all I recommend that that anyone for whatever reason interested in my views read the newer version of the article on my website (quite old already).
Also, an important disclaimer: I am not nor ever have been "chabad", and however much I admire chabad and the rebbe I am not bound to taking everything the rebbe ever said as eternally valid or an expression of normative yiddishkeit obligating me.
Personally I have no doubt whatsoever that Rambam would have loved modern science and accepted the "Copernican" structure of the solar system and the notion of no-center to the physical universe, and would have embraced the big bang theory since it is solid scientifically, but especially since it is so pro-Breishis. He was conversant with the science of his day, as chazal in Talmudic times were of their day, Aristotelian etc, and had he lived today he would have written within the context of the science of OUR day.
For several hundred years we have known that the old conception of up and down is wrong, there is no universal up and down, it was simply developed from the perception of the direction of gravity on our spherical planet in OUR location, whereas we now know that up here is down on the other side, and so there is no meaning to thinking of the moon as "up there" or anything like that. And we know that the planets and stars are as physical as the Earth, or conversely the Earth is as spiritual as the stars.
The reason it was thought that the heavenly planets are spiritual is that they moved not in a straight line, and that is possible only for intelligent willed beings, so it was thought they were willed beings and were executing God's Will to move in circles because circles are perfect etc. Today we don't think of it at all in this way, so I am sure Rambam would not have thought of it that way as well. And he would have written the Moreh Nevuchim by couching the mystical secrets within it using the language of modern scientific conceptions rather than the Aristotelian conception he used. I think the way he dealt with literal meanings of the creation account and of statements of chazal were clearly meant by him to also be applied to his own writings.
Today we understand spirituality in a totally non corporeal manner, as Rambam would have loved and Heaven and Earth or spiritual and material, are different realms not related to physical distance or spatial location(just as we dispense with notions of up and down in relation to Heaven and Hell etc, and with the specialness of extra-Earth bodies, and not thinking that God or angels are in any way "out there" physically, or that the outside Earth realm spatially is somehow more spiritual than the Earth, or that the shapes of the orbits are necessarily one shape or another etc. Instead). And I don't believe anything in this modern conception remotely contradicts religion or Chuamash/Tanach or chazal or kabbalah.
And Ramabam would have totally embraced all this I am sure.
As indicated in the website version of the article, I think that though GR shows that the language of geocentrism is not 'wrong', it also shows it is certainly not 'correct', but rather that one should think in such hidebound terms at all, only speaking relatively. So just as one should not criticize geocentric language used in Torah one should also not adopt it as though it is the Torah-mandated view.
I really don't think Hashem meant for us to take words like "God saw" or "God said" literally, and think that God has vocal chords, and in the same way I don't think we need to be bothered at all with words and phrases which used to be understood within the geocentric scientific picture of the physical universe until a few hundred years ago.
Perhaps it would be better form my perspective if the article would not take things so literally, and not feel constrained to interpret physical structures in these ways; then, what would remain would be a metaphorical treatment of the physical universe as a mashal to kabboloh ideas, which could be nice, especially as "histakel be'oraisa ubara alma" etc and the notions of the matching between the spiritual and physical realms as outlined eg in Ramchal. So I think also that the writings of Rambam and chazal in general which used geocentric terminology should be 'translated' into a more modern scientific framework, so that the deep hidden teachings in them could be manifest in language/conceptions relevant today.
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regarding geocentrism, the question of whether the earth rotates about
the sun or v.v:
1) There is no scientific meaning to the question "which REALLY
rotates about which" since there is no measureable 'objective' etc
means to make such a determination.
VIP: This does NOT mean that therefore the question is open from the
scientific viewpoint; from the scientific viewpoint it is a
scientifically MEANINGLESS question.
2) From the scientific point of view there is relative rotation etc
between the two and that is all that can meraningfuly be said.
VIP: A theory which makes a determination as to which 'really' moves
about which is NOT a more complete scientific theory, it is a
MEANINGLESS theory from the scientific viewpoint.
2) Science does not claim to have exclusive TRUTH, it deals only with
issues capable of resolution via 'objective/scientific' etc means, and
so science does not 'disallow' one from talking about religious or
metaphysical truths, and so for example science/scientists don't think
science 'disallows' speaking about "which one 'really' rotates about
which" as long as one is not claiming to be speaking from a scientific
viewpoint, but is rather aware that they are presenting metaphysical
etc beliefs.
3)All the following statements are FALSE (not only from the scientific
viewpoint):
"science teaches that the earth rotates about the sun",
"science teaches (or the therory of reltivity shows) that the sun
rotates about the earth"
"science cannot determine which one is really - in the scientific
sense - rotating about which"
"science has proven that the earth does NOT rotate about the sun"
"science has proven that the sun does NOT rotate about the earth"
even the following is false "it is equally true scientifically to say
that the earth rotates about the sun as to say that the sun rotates
about the earth".
THEY ARE IN RELATIVE ROTATION: THAT'S ALL THERE IS TO IT.
4) 'Judaism' does NOT require belief that the sun goes around the
earth; outside the chabad community no rosh yeshiva or gadol or
philosopher ever deals with this issue - I do not mean this in a
disprespectful sense, only in the sense of speaking precisely: it is
only Chabad's approach to Jewish beliefs which perhaps has this issue:
it would therefore in my opinion be misleading if someone were to
present this as a Judaism/science issue, so that readers would believe
that this is the view of all Orthodox Jews, and also that if they do
not accept the argument then they are in contravention of 'Jewish'
belief.
Avi Rabinowitz
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In my article, written in 1986? I may have said that the geocentric
and heliocentric view were equally correct, as per my previous e mail
you can see that now I would not phrase it that way.
The point of the article would be that:
1) it is incorrect to say that "science disproved the geocentric model
in favor of the heliocentric" or even that "science proved that the
geocentric model is incorrect";
2)science does not offer any scientific objection to someone claiming
some religious truth that in some sense the earth is the "center" of
the umiverse
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Email: "New article: Significance: re-working old BH Geo article, and MInd"
Why we ARE significant
Physics used to be thought of as the arbiter, but physics does NOT encompass mind, which is the basis of all, the most fundanetal. Physics has no way o grapple wiht it, to een erecognize its existence.
Due to their ossession of a Mind, humans are qualitatively diff than inanimate, and maybe than other biological entities at leas itn degree, we dont hold other morally responsible, ie we hold ourselves to a higher level, our actions have a greate significance
So scinece, physics, biology, anthropology etc cannot be bsis for a conclusion aobut the signficanc eof humanity
significance is a feeling/concept in human (or other) Minds, so by definition WE decide what is significant :) so maybe sig means nothing on an absolute scale but there is NOT absolute scale...
difference between "we ar einsignificant" and "can;t say we are significant"
THe first is a judgement depending on the existenc eof an absolute scale, gsed n which we are not sig, but tha tis not what those people are claiing of course
It is not logical to project a human's feeing of insignificance on to "the universe", as if the universe is making a judgement; instead, it is simply that one person'sindiivual FEELING And if a feeling tha thuman ar einsignificant is valid then o is isthe feeling that humans ARE significant!
are there reasons to assume humans are NOT significant/
People thought science somehow demonstrates our lack of sig: via
evo bb , randomness of our emergence etc
no need for a god, so no god, so we are not in divine image
no real absolute morality etc so dont magnify our obsession with that
mind doesnt exist
sould doesnt exist
we are not center of the unverse as previously thought
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Fallacous argument -types
the other side clais the same so oyour clai is not valid (the corectns sof my side is not dependent on noone else claining tha ttheir side is the valid one.)
it goesaginst a princile, egequiy etc (who said tha tprinciple is vali?!)
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Below: Full content of my email: "for Geo and for new book re mind and human signifiicance"
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The material below is now on the site.
For myself as a scientist, science is a programmatic attempt to find naturalistic explanations for objectively-observable phenomena. That's it. So for me, in my perspective, it cannot be false inasmuch as it is just this. Maybe the naturalistic explanations are not what actually happened, but if it is a good explanation of HOW IT COULD HAVE HAPPENED then s far s I am concerned it is valid as fulfilment of its mission. Maybe the laws of nature exist and the universe exists only because there is a creator and continue to exist ONLY because that creator CONTINUES to wish that it continue to exist, as Jewish and other religions teach one way or another, but as i see it that is not the concern of science since from my perspective it is a programmatic attempt to find NATURALISTIC EXPLANATIONS, and so from my perspective sceince is not meant to NOT deal with "what actually happened" or "what actually is the case". And in any case, maybe I am a pattern of energy in a sophisticated alien simulation computer and al the big bang and evolution theory was invented by the simulation and fed into my pattern and no universe ever emerged from a big bang and the laws of physics I know of are bogus, they fit only the simulation-created 'physical reality'.
..
And in any case, I know that nc is fundamentla and it is that which interests me most, far more than physical law, however deep. And the values which exist in that realm ar emoe important to me than the knowledge of science. But I am fascinated by physics and there is somethign about studing and discovering how the physicla universe works which siumulates the mind nd gives rise to mind-level good states, and perhaps physics and other science can lead to greater understanding of nmc,...etc..
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Give my definition of a religion, and therefore why an ethical AMN is religious as far as I'm concerned.
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It is hard to make a case that science and religion conflict when some of the greatest physicists ever were mystics: quote newton, einstein, eddington, jeans. And Bohr (his mother was Ellen Adler, who came from a wealthy Jewish banking family). And it is hard to deny the existence of nmc when some of the greatest physicists clearly knew it exists, quote Wigner (Wigner was born in Budapest, Hungary to middle class Jewish parents. ) etc, and Witten & Linde.
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New for Geo & allegory: for new book (re mind and human signifiicance)
How do we understand the geocentric language (and other reflections of older pictures of the physical universe) used by prophets, by King David in the psalms, and even in phrases in the Chumnsh (five books of Moses)?
Imagine a couple in love at that time, the husband is singing to his wife "my beloved is like the sun which rises in the morning, proud like the unicorn which gallops in the field" imparting his deep feelings to her, and cries with joy when hearing them...but then we transport her to our time where she learns the sun does not actually rise and there are no unicorns, and she feels her husband betrayed her with lies. Absurd, right? Or if we were to ask her to write the poetry of her husband for us, would we ask her to first study contemporary astronomy and physics in order to re-write it accordingly? Nonsense.
It is an accepted Traditional Jewish teaching that God dictated every word of the chumash to Moses directly, using human language - even when describing God's own actions. So in the creation account we are told "and God said "let there be light". But htis is a lie, since God does not 'speak'. Speaking means generating sound waves via a larynx etc etc, and it is nonsens eot think tha thtis is wha tis meant. "And God saw tha tit was good". But God does not 'see" which required light receptors and photons etc. The Torah is written in human-language. And certianly the prophets wrote in language refelcting thwir own human contemporary undestandings of nature.
When a spiritual poet like King David looked at nature, he was filled with awe, and joy, and there welled-up a closeness to its creator, and this was expressed in song. The words were written from the persepective of a person living three thounsand years ago, long before science developed its understandingds, and so the 'science' which could be etracted from thos ewords would fit the contemporary science , ie that of sumeria, egypt and babylonia. The significant element is the feelings which well-up in the reader, reflecting the deep spiritual intentions imbued in the songs by the great mystic David, God's beloved shepherd, who wrote those words under the influenc eof divine inspiration. The cosmographic model reflected in the words are not relevant, and Judiams does not expect God to reveeal the physics of thousands of years ahead to his prophets for them to incoporate it into their songs. In Biblical Hebrew, the word 'navi' which is translated as "prophet" means "someone in contact with God" not "someone who predicts the future" Sometimes God told the future to a prophet and asked theprophet to relay this to the people. But most of the messages were not about the future. The essence of prophecy is the connection to God and the ability when "in a state of prophetic inspiration" to receive comprehensible relayable spiritual messages (not at all necessarily predictions about the fuiture), and often to then say them to others in ways they will understand. When the prophets spoke in poetic language, this was the essence of their prophecy, not some cosmographic model which formed the literary basis for their poetry, and God most certainly does not expect that we shuld adopt those cosmographic models, it would be a trivialization of the prophecy to think that was its intent.
And if the prophets lived today and were overcome with awe at the wnders of the universe, and the deth of the big bang theory and of quantum physics and general relativity, and composed a song to God which transported its hearers to higher spiritual levels, and this would be sung for humdreds of years - until in 250 years we discovered the full theory of quantum gravity which replaced all our current theories, when we would quickly hide those songs in shame. Absurd. So do we expect that God would reveal those future theories to prophets if they lived today? Just to make their spiritual prose "scientifically-correct'? Nonsense.
So there is absolutely no relgioius reason to try to 'rescue' geocentrism.
However there IS a religious reason to show the interesting fact that when some theologians at the time of Copernicus were certain that scinece had 'disproved' the Bible and so tried to disprove science, that they were wrong on both counts - the passages were not disporven, and in fact the science was correct, expect tha tit was wrong in exactly the way thatthey thouight it made the Biblie worng, ie by inapporpriately attributing an absolutist inteprretation. Geocentrists thought Earth is the cente rof the uiverse in an absolute sense and they were wrong, and Copernicans thought the same about the sun and they were just as wrong. The sun is not even at the cente rf its own galaxy, let along of the yunverse. Except that anyweher ein theuniverse one could as per general relativity, state that one is at the center. Many people would probably agree that there are interesting and deep psychological, theological and scientific lessons to be learned from all this.
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Tying non-geo to loss of sig, and interpreting Bible literally re socmgraphy, is perhaps holdover of ancient pagan materialist notion of god
Prior to the arising/emergence of nmc, people thought of gods as physical entities, just more powerful, and living up there in the sky' or on top of a great mountain (eg Olympus). The physical universe was all that existed for them, and so its structure was important from a 'religious' point of view. For example huimans could be significant only if they were at the center, and indeed one sees the sun and moon orbiting the earth, ie all is cenetered on us humans. And so it was unsettling for those who maintained this type of perspective when it was realized that this physical cosmography was incorrect. However to the nmc, it is clear tha tthe signficiance lies in nmc, whichever creature possess it is connected to the essence of existence, the higher deeper level than is manifest in the physical universe (in matter and energy in space and itme and in the structure-pattern of the larger scale eg geocentrism, sun-centrism, or whatever). However this physical-based persepctive is inappropriate for nmc's, who ar emeant to understadn that the essence lies in that realm, not in the physical. Humanity is signficant because it s nmc-connected, and via this (or the 'soul') connected to the deepest levels, and because machines and rocks do not 'feel' as do nmc's, and wha tis significant is the feelings of nmc's, the strivings, the free-willed moral chocies, all of which are at the nmc-lavel and cannot exist in a purely-material universe, and so do not exist in the material level of our dual nmc-physical universe. It is absurd to judge the signifciance of humanity based on the cosmography of the physical structure of the material aspect of the universe.
Any nmc being is significant. so humans are sig. and Bible introduces this notion in its way, re tzelem ruach and MR.
indeed, re the notion of 'significance':
in binder: Jeans quote re significance is based on mind, universe physical exsts in our mind or due to it, so how can we be insig?!
So after I speak of sig as mind, this is good to insert, it ties a basic theme, of mind as fundamental, to the other main theme, significance, and it shows that if one is nmc then the psychological roots of AMN disappears.
nmc is plggd into and derives form a level beyon the physical, so noo nmc would deduce form facts in physical un that nmc's are insig where sig is itself existent only due to the existence of nmc!
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Quantum Kabbalah: re 'sophistication': If a theme of the book is counter-AMN, then I can insert my essay re quantum sophistication as part of idea answer to the AMN existentialist idea that we cannot have knowledge,ie Indeed this imay well be true for a mechanistic universe in which human brains are less sophisticated than the minimum required ofr comprehending all of nature, but we are tzelem, so...
(However we need to understand that the situaitn is sophisticated.)
Also:
Quantum Kabbalah: Bohr complementarity is for the way religion and science see the universe, the way to understann breishis and allegorical poetry in tehilim etc.My creation story poem with lots of zohar etc, is a mashup, illustrates a mixing of viewpoints, and it is all 'true'.
When we analyze investigate the phsicla universe using the scientific method and paradigm (explaianing all under the assumtopin that it follows from naturla law), we find the big bang and evolutionary theoiries etc. These are true in that sense. When we do the same from the spiritual perspective, we find another explanation, and the the Torah is an explnation provided by God to us. Various perspectives can be simultaneously 'true'.
If we want ot try toi somehow unify two perspectives, it may or may not be psosible.
In the cas eof the big bang theory andthe spiritual nmc persepctive we presented, it turn out to be possible in some main essential aspects - Wheller's diagram with the author's inteprpretaiotn of free willed moral consicousness as the choice-mechanism allows for us to 'explain' the juxtaposition/conflation of the creaiton and emergence of humanity in the Torah's account.
And our nmc undertanding of nmc allows us to see a teleological explnation superpose donto the big bang & evolutionary theory to produce an ID model which fits the essentials of the Biblical model 9and even if we go to granular detail, re seeing the 6 day account as design of the blueprint).
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Geo: Copernican revolution displaces Earth as center and placed th sun there. But this is as false according to GR as geo. And if one means only that coperncan ie sun-centered model is simpler, then well it is simpler to describe the motions of the planets but the Copernican is simpler in terms of what we observe as what is moving etc. The point is more that geocentrists thought the ible is telling us atronomical info, and the alleged info was not correct as an absolute tatment, and the bible is form absolute truth so it seemed like a constradiciton to religion, but all this was built of false ideas of religion, of the bible, of the role of theplaent nd stars etc, and of the absoluteness of the sun as center etc.
[Interesting that one doesnt need copernican idea to dethrone geocentrism: Imagine if no copernian discovery, just telescopes to see we are in a galaxy of stars , mny with anets, maybe wih beings. Then it would not at all be obvious that religious people would assume earth is the center.It is only bec turally when people thought only earth existed an the sky ws lights that thry thought earth ws the center, resonable.
And so why didnt God tell them otherwise and write chumash otherwise? Same answer as for why God doesnt tell us know the secrets of physcs and cosmology we will discover in a thousand years. ie what should GOd have written in the bible, the copernicn wrond interpretaitom or GR which is known to be not fully correct?
Then later would be discovered that are far off center. iin the glxy, then that ther ar many other galaxies, and then later the understnaing that frm wherever one is, one sees oneself as the cente rof expansion of the universe, but everyhere would feel the same. This would be equivalent to the copernican revolution.
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Sulam, rav Ashlag: giving for the purpose of giving, ie an altruism impossible for physical beings, but possible for humans with spiritual development beyond ego
AR: Free will is an acuasality which transcends the material
so too, there is a true altruism which is impossible in the material level, but is accessible if one transcends one's ego.
Is it true for both fw and altruism that it is related to ego? Well ,for altruism it is by deifnition. But maybe also for fw - need to overcome the desires of the material brain etc.
Altruism is also acausality (as is fw): ie any altruistic act is necessarily fulfilling our will, by definition, a form of causation, can;t happen unless we want it to happen, so to go beyond this (ie to 'impossible altruism') is a form of acausality.
So both are maybe related to ego-reduction/spirituality.
Are both related as fw is to good/evil? Altruism leads to actions that are good not evil, so it is similar to free will, it is ?? the mechanism for GOOD??
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There is a vital fundamentla difference between science and religion, but not a conflict.
There are theologians and scientists who have created conflits in the name of science and of religion, but these are conflictds between the views of specific theologians and specific scientists, not between science and religion.
Science self-limits to phenomenon whjich are objectively measureable, whereas religion can enfranchise that hiwhc is known to an individul despite their not being able to measure it 'scinetifically' or prove its existence.
As a religoius scientisit, I feel that a conflict between religion and science woud exist if an experiment was set up and religion and science predicted different outcomes, and then the results supported one or the other. However if such happened, then presumeably whichever was wrong would accept that and correct itself. As to theoiries and suppositions and projections into the past, the isue uis far more subtle, after all we cannot diasprve solipsism, or even the brain in a jar scenario or that we are a simulation. Perhaps no earth ever existed nor huans and you the reader are a simulaiton and were programmed ot believ you are a yuman with a brain and a body, inhabiting a physicla univers,e which never actually existed. So it is ratherpointless to argue over smaller issues which after all cannot be proven. However there is a very succesful scientific method, or so it seems in this 'reality' and it should not be seen as really in conflict with anyhting if it sticks to provable experimental facts. And modern medicine bases itself on paradigms arising from sicientific theories, and seems to successfuly counter various ilnesses and conditions, so it would seem that the theories are at 'legitimate' in this sense, and we can get to the moon and othe rplanets and have various otehr techmologies which work and which wer einvented base do the scientific theories and pardigm so they are seemingly quite ligetiate in that sense, but there is not a real conflict between any of that and religion, only between propoents of one or the other who extend the relm of valaidity of one or another of these in an illegitimate way,.
Some scinetists may feel it is nonsense if it is unprovable, not objectively displayable, and if it seems to them impossible, but in my opinion as a scienist this is not a sicentific dispute as long as their objections cannot be experimentally proven or they can experimentally disprove the claim of the other side.
For example the very existence of nmc is in this category, a phenomeon known to exist by many prominent physicists but totally unprovable. And similarly for various religious beliefs, which ar eusaully not claimed to be known as nmc is known, but rather believed.
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Sig does not mean arrogance or usingbeings at a 'lower levels' in ways that they would consider to be detrimental to them , eg fascism etc and Nietzchean interpretations deriving from a type of nihilism used ot justify subjugating the needs of others in order to achieve one's own goals. Quite the opposite: Adam &Eve were caretakers of those at a lower levle (the vegetation and naimals of Eden), and Noah too, feeding the animals nin the ark and cleaning up after them. Insert my ego-related parsah vorts.
And this is an essential teaching...eg Abraham (vayera) and Moses (helix), how to bring about the revelation of the presence of God via intense humility - meaning active intevention, arrogant-seeming even, but selfless in the extreme, for the benefit of others, altruism. So altruism i the means for lowering thee go and thereby revealing the spirit of God, ie a mystical encouinter, a prophetic level, true spirituality, at whic pint one's state is not describably in the purely-mechanistic material realm language. eg as per Sulam(R Ashlag).
These are examples of the teachings embedded in the Torah, not geocentrism, nor even that the world is 6,000 years old (which is NEVER mentioned as its age explicitly, never in the chumash and not even once in all the rest of Tanach!.
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Humanity progressed through various ages, there was the period of Avraham and then later Moses, the greatest levels of prophecy, and then a decrease to the level of the neviim and then the inspired leaders in ktuvim, and then decreasing further. However at the same time there was an increase - in scientific understanding. Perhaps there is a reason for this two-way development, one can easily thinbk of reasons. One benefit of the increase we are experiencing is at least we now have a better understanding of what the Torah is NOT teaching, and a better understanding of how it might be that God created the universe and deisnged it and humanity to fit each other, as a poor substitute for the decrease in prophetic and inspired understanding we had thousands of years ago before the ealriest developments of science .
Perhaps a greater gft that modern times will bestow will be when new discoveries will enables us to understand nmc better as for example Penrose has written extensively about, and to develop it further, as is done by various practitioners in various cultures, along with developing our spiritual aspects especially via refining our own charachter as for example outlined by Ramkhal.
..\e ietzche: We stated at the outset that we are arguing against a straw-man verion of AMN, and similarly when we use N for this prpose. On the one hand " Nietszchean concepts pervade Nazi propaganda, as well as the more academic work of Nazi philosophers. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that Nietzsche's work occupied a position of influence and authority in Nazi Germany not unlike that of Marx' work in the Soviet Union. " From Nietzsche and the Nazis: The Impact of National Socialism on the Philosophy of Nietzschehttps://larc.cardozo.yu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1215&context=faculty-articles Charles M. Yablon Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, but on the other hand, on the same page:, "I am not arguing, as some have previously done, that Nietzschean philosophy was, in fact, a forerunner of Nazi ideology, or at least contained the seeds of Nazism in some of its aspects. Even less plausible and more repugnant is the claim that Nietzsche himself was a proto-Nazi or had any sympathy for Nazi ideas and doctrines. I will stipulate that Nietzsche himself, unlike his egregious sister, was not an antiSemite, but tended rather to philo-Semitism. He was not a German nationalist, but generally espoused a pan-European perspective. Indeed, to the extent that any ahistorical statements can be made with certainty, it seems certain to me that the historical Nietzsche would have been disgusted and repelled by Nazi ideas and Nazi ideology."
Walter Kaufmann’s “Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist,” 1950 portrayed him as a German humanist in the tradition of Goethe and Schiller, claiming that it was his siter who turned his works into that which Hitler used.
So we are not arguing htis way or th about particular pphilosophers or humanist versions of AMN etc.... only a straw man tha tis convenient as an opposite for the philosophical approach we are outlining.
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R Carmell was a co-author of "Challenge", published 1976,
which was a major resource on the subject at that time,
Much of my evo bb stuff is contained in '86&''87 articles in BH and then Fusion in '89, and the '90 edition with Feldheim.
When I wrote these articles in '86, there had not yet appeared the two books which later changed the situaiotn:
Both 'competing' books were published in the same year, 1990!:
DId they publish articles before publishing the books?
R Carmell's letter to me was written in '94? not long after these were published and so he mentions them, says my book has more physics and jewish sources, but my solution is not as interesting.
I can write in the book(let) that a the time of publication of my articles there was not so
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madregas ha'adam, hebrew, novardok, Yosef Yozel Horowitz https://www.hebrewbooks.org/pdfpager.aspx?req=41717&st=&pgnum=1&hilite=
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Create a pastiche of photos of the relevant parts of the various articles, to create one unified article.
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On my site page for inst un I say "Un is designed to be meaningful".
But to whom?!
Answer: To God , and to us.
To us: need emotions etc. Can say also need nmc, though MCs will say not so, but nmcs will say need nmc for it to be meaningful from the nmc perspective! A bit circular...
Maybe need a "sense of meaning".
To God: the emotions of deterministic nmc machine might be meaningful to God, but for deeper? type need real fw.
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50-page booklet of inst un, maybe as separate from the larger book which is evolving from the idea for a 'booklet compendium of BH articles'
Separate version of a book composed really only of the BH articles or excerpts from them?
print a few versions
distribute in Ohr Sameach, ask rabbis for permission?
insert note re looking for editor.
re using shamir or BH as name of publisher.
Maybe peter kalms, and guy who sponsored inst un, and miami etc would sponsor?
ask ilana re diagram, whether she remembers or has records
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Titles:
Are we God's simulation?
Post modern biblical fundamentalism
Retro inst un
Etc
Place a list of titles, and other questions on last page or on site with url and barcode on booklet, and Ask readers which title they think it's best, capturing the content and catching attention of potential readers.
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My Jewish-Themed Websites with urls: https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/myjewishthemedwebsiteswithurls/home
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Evo BH article 37 pages MSWord or GoogleDoc
File: Evo BH article" Aug 9, 1998 And Gd Said: "let there have been a big bang", and it was so.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fT58YLGmV1FayAk4Vgz17nurskPk1xhI/edit
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"BigBangBHarticle.FromWeb.Edited 2015"
https://docs.google.com/document/d/0B5eDYQ2oWFxuaHRjc21EMnJIMlk/edit?resourcekey=0-lT52pTb45WIIhF2c3HMt1A
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The above webpage is my site:
https://sites.google.com/nyu.edu/geocentrism-existentialism/geocentrism-egocentrism
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