Meeting God

Have I got your attention? Here you are reading in spite of the off-putting title. There are others who have silently declined. I probably lost them with the previous title, "Outside The Box", and the intriguing promise of an explanation for quantum mechanics, which turned out to be a polemic on dogmatism and the limits of understanding. 

Anyway, here you are again looking for more confident prolixity. I will resist the temptation. There, I just deleted 854 words. Not sure what's coming next, so I took a look back at the archive. Over ten years ago, I posted this 'gem',

I was thinking of understanding and life as a zero sum dichotomy. That is a popular idea among those who would rather trust their gut than think. I must have been feeling poetic when I thought that one up. Like any idea, this one may be true or untrue or both depending on how you look at it. In rebuttal, consider this: there is more to life than understanding, but if you understand you may live better, and if you live well you understand better. Understanding and life are complementary and synergistic. The head and the heart should cooperate.

We all have a box into which we put things we trust. We may or may not have a name for the box. One of the names is god, although there are other names such as intuition, reason, scripture, science, power. We may trust what's in the box because we understand it, or because of what we have read or heard or experienced, or because trust is the price of membership in a group, or because not trusting leaves us without direction or hope, or because thinking it through is just a bother. We have a choice. We can trust blindly, or open the box and go to work on what's there. 

I like to take a peek in the box. Among the things I find there are knowledge (information plus what we make of it), understanding (making things we know fit together), wisdom (understanding the limits of understanding), and faith (taking a chance when we aren't quite sure we understand). 

I'm sure there's more. 

This has been me meeting God.

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A Starting Point For Fundamental Interfaith Theology: Daniel Liechty, Progressive Christianity

Faith-based Beliefs Are Inescapable In Science: Marcelo Gleiser, Big Think

Outside The Box

This is about quantum mechanics. You're going to need a coffee.

First, some definitions.

You may have heard of The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle which applies to very small objects like subatomic particles. The more sure you are of where a particle is, the less sure you are of where it's going and how fast. Certainty has a limit. Don't be too sure.

There is an analogous principle in linguistics. The fuzzier the meaning of a word, the more likely you are to use it. The more precisely a word is defined, the less likely you are to use it. Therefore we can't be too sure what people are trying to tell us. Let's call it The Prolixity Paradox.

In the domain of concepts, we have the Confidence Oxymoron: the more certain you are that you have the right idea, the less likely you are to improve your understanding. Put another way, the more confident you are that you understand, the less your confidence is justified.

Back to quantum mechanics. According to Richard Feynman, nobody understands quantum mechanics.

Let's apply the Confidence Oxymoron to that proposition. If you are sure that nobody understands quantum mechanics you are unlikely to get at the truth of the matter. Don't be so sure. Ask around. There might actually be somebody who understands.

To make the issue more confusing, the Prolixity Paradox suggests that Richard's use of the word 'understand' may be somewhat facile. What did he mean? We will never know, because he's not here to enlighten us. However, with a few words of our own we can get a better understanding of what it means to understand. I leave the dictionary definition up to you. I didn't find it very helpful.

Introspection got me a bit further. When presented with a novel experience or concept, I feel uneasy because I'm not sure what to do with it. I want to make it fit with what I already know because not knowing could get me in trouble, and not understanding makes me feel stupid. Understanding is satisfying.

I find that my mental unease can be improved in at least four ways.

(1) Find something I already understand that is similar to the novel discrepant thought.

(2) Revise my model of the universe to accommodate the new thought.

(3) Discount the evidence. Maybe the new thought is illusory.

(4) Discard the new idea as irrelevant. Some things just don't matter.

Richard Feynman used a fifth strategy. He dismissed our cognitive dissonance by assuring us that we have good company in our ignorance. It's OK to not understand because nobody else understands either. Sounds like church. We can get happily lost in the mystery together. Still it would be better to understand. I suspect that many scientists understand quantum mechanics using some mix of the strategies above. So I disagree with Richard Feynman. Am I not clever?

Nevertheless, quantum mechanics is a puzzle. Does anybody understand Schrodinger's cat; you know, the one in the box that is both alive and dead until you open the box? Never mind. I don't get it either. We can keep each other company in our ignorance. No nerds allowed here.

However, I imagine that somewhere there is a box with an idea in it. Maybe the idea is a good one or not; but if I trust it and don't peek in the box, it becomes a belief. Maybe my friends trust it too, providing group motivation and direction, making the activities of the group more focused and productive. We carry on blissfully as long as we don't peek in the box.

Now what if we get curious and open the box? What if our belief could be right or wrong or both at the same time depending on perspective? We may discover that what we believe is wrong, or not quite right, or it depends, which means we have to think differently and do things differently, and that's a bother. The group is aware of the risk of questioning beliefs. New understanding means lengthy discussions and disagreements because it threatens group solidarity and the credibility of authority. How can we do partisan politics or serious religion or applied science when people keep questioning their beliefs? So the group warns us away from opening the box, promising that if we take a peek, God or Trump or peer review will smite us.

It's nonsense, of course. Our job is to tease the error out of a belief and explore a new idea until we decide whether it is heresy or prophesy. It's hard, thankless work, but let the one who has never been curious cast the first aspersion. The smiting threat protects privileged authority by labelling beliefs as Absolute Truth when they are merely the price of membership, collectively maintaining our blissful ignorance so we don’t waste time discussing what we don’t understand.

As for Actual Truth, Moses had the right idea: it is what it is, although he got muddled a bit by using the subjective voice, “I Am what I Am,” wrapping the existential mystery in the familiar metaphor of intentional consciousness to make it comfortably comprehensible. Moses was unaware that consciousness didn't come into it until the last blink of 13.8 billion years of cosmic evolution. When our species became conscious, we began collecting our favorite ideas in a box. Some of us were sure it was all about us, so like spoiled brats we began messing things up to make ourselves safe and comfortable. It will soon be over for people unless we pay attention to the uncertainty, get curious, understand things better, stop making it all about us, and quit messing things up.

Anyway, it will be what it will be.

This has been confident prolixity on quantum mechanics. I see you're out of coffee. Sorry. I do go on and on as if I knew what I was writing about. I thought I was sure about uncertainty, but now I'm not so sure.

Keeping the Love Alive

Yesterday at noon I asked Dorothy what she wanted for lunch. She said she wasn't hungry. She just wanted tea. So I asked her what kind of cheese she would like. That's right. She said 'tea' and I heard 'cheese'. That sort of misunderstanding goes on all the time at our house. So whatever I think I hear, I'm a bit skeptical. 

The truth goes astray in many places: sensation, perception, understanding, intention, finding the words, telling the story, hearing the story, decoding meaning, making sense of it, making a plan, doing what is required. It is a miracle when you want tea and actually get tea.

It's Good Friday today and Easter is coming. Some of us will spend an hour this Sunday reminding ourselves that Jesus arose after death. Do we imagine that crucifiction and resurrection pay the price for our sin? Do we disrespect, exclude, libel, abuse those who do not share our belief? In the absence of humble skepticism, we may glorify the Easter story and ignore the Truth to which it points. 

Perhaps it isn't about
reassembling Jesus' molecules
to prove that
OUR GOD is bigger than their god. 

Maybe resurrection is
keeping the Love alive.

Happy Easter from our house.

Canada Votes

We got our voting cards today. Guess who we support in the coming federal election. This is the Liberal party sign that we asked to be displayed on our front lawn.


When I took this picture, the wind was from the northwest and the Liberals were leaning right. That's a joke. Get it? Campaigning has been in the west the past few days. Lots of rightwing thinking on the prairies, and lots of promises from all the parties aimed at winning their support.

OK. It wasn't that funny. But it is something to think about. They know what they are doing. They are buying votes. Why are they not ashamed, all of them, every party? And why do we tolerate it? Well, we tend to tolerate dirty tricks if it's our party playing them, because tricks are justified if they work. Why are we not ashamed? There should be one promise, to serve all the people leaving nobody behind.

Now look here.


When I took the picture from another point of view, the Liberals are leaning left. Nothing else has changed. I conclude that the way we do politics is much too simple. The terms right and left don't tell us who to vote for. Even the party names are misleading. You don't know what you are getting until you examine the policies. No, you don't know what you are getting until they are actually in office making decisions. No, you don't know what you are getting until you see the consequences. No, those consequences persist, so the great-grandchildren might have a better idea whether we got it wrong. I was going to say right rather than wrong, but that would be confusing.

The problem with democracy in its current iteration is the party system, a contest which rewards those who best appeal to the lowest levels of human motivation: simplicity, indifference, fear, anger, avarice, selfishness, thoughtlessness, tribal unity. They figure out what we want and make promises, sometimes different promises as they move about the country. Of course, when they form government, they discover that every issue involves weighing multiple competing imperatives, costs, benefits, values, loyalties. You can't please everybody all the time, but what you get is criticism from everybody all the time because there is always something to complain about and complaints are more fun than praise. What sort of idiot would enter politics just to be the target of everyone's dissatisfaction?

What we need in government is people who want to make things better for everyone, with a variety of perspectives, who can think as well as emote about an issue, who aren't taking orders from the party whip, whose status is not tied to an ideology or the reward of their group winning an argument. We need to flatten the hierarchy, less power at the top, so that all elected members have a say and decisions are made on the basis of what is revealed by the discussion rather than who wins. If the decisions are good, everybody wins.

I'm dreaming, of course. We won't do away with the party system in my lifetime. That won't stop me from imagining government based more on reason and conscience and less on ambition and slogans.

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Cluster Thinking is Damaging Our Politics: Jonny Thomson, Big Think, March 2025

Campaign Highlights: CBC News, April 2025

Climate Change Policy: Aaron Wherry, CBC News, April 9, 2025

B.C. Drug Consumption Sites: Ashkay Kulkarni and Katie DeRosa: CBC News, April 9, 2025

Housing GST Policy: Andrew Chang, About That

About That

One more note in this trilogy: This, That and The Other. That directs our attention to the environment. However, the notion of the environment as something separate from the self is a paradigm with implications I must challenge once again. 

A video produced by the IPCC in 2023 ends with the slogan "Our climate. Our future" demonstrating a sense of responsibility (good) barely emerging from a sense of ownership, management, use and control (maybe not so good). Whose climate was it before we showed up? Who will be responsible for it when we are gone, and then whose future will it be?

We need to see the world first as a whole within which humanity is one species among millions, a problematic late arrival rushing to the sixth mass extinction with a presumption of entitlement. Meanwhile microplastics accumulate in our brains, another unintended consequence of our ingenuity. 

We have a choice. We could aspire instead to belong with respect and restraint to a regenerating world where happy children play for seven generations and more.

I've said all of this before. You can read it again in earlier notes.

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Some environmental thoughts from past blogs:

Belonging to the Earth: Nov 2021

While Heaven Thaws: Jan 2022

Make a Plan: March 2022

Cousins of Wolves: Aug 2022

Spring Again: March 2023

Seeds: March 2023

Paving Paradise: March 2024

I Wonder

Here is the promised sequel to This, That and The Other. I was going to write about this (the self), but noticed after the first sentence that I was already fully engaged in the other (what I make of it). So what follows is entirely what I make of the self. If you are looking for an exposition on the actual self, you are on your own.

I know. It's hard. You don't want to do it on your own. Neither do I. So I read some books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Robert Sapolsky, etc. But when I did that, I got what they made of it rather than the actual self. I keep yes-butting, reminding myself "never sell your soul for a theory". 

I continue wondering. I look closer for the self within systems of organs, tissues, cells, organelles, molecules, atoms, electrons, protons, neutrons, up-quarks, down-quarks, antiquarks, the Higgs boson (remember the God particle), wavicles, and such: that train of thought still leaves me wondering. I don't see myself in there.

We bring God into this because theologies are older than the Higgs boson and demonstrate the point very well. If we knew God we might know ourselves better. But don't tell God what to be because God is what God is in spite of what we think. Maybe God is not the omnipotent champion of our tribe who will ensure victory over the unbelievers, who, by the way, are in possession of something we want. If we don't sell our souls for that theory, good for us. Maybe God sees us as friends who are tragically stuck in a false idea of who we are. 

I wonder.
That's what I make of myself. 
I am a wonderer.

This, That and The Other

One of my readers will recognize the title of this note because it was her idea, another phrase like 'here and there' or 'now and then', redirecting our attention in saccades to simplify and get a complete picture bit by bit. OK, let's go with this, that and the other.

Reality can be deconstructed in a variety of ways. For this note and perhaps a few to follow, I choose these categories: the self (this), the environment (that), and what we make of it all (the other). 

To begin, notice that paying attention to one thing means ignoring all the rest, at least for the moment. Take for example apostle John's assertion that the origin and totality of things is the WORD, ignoring that a word is a symbol in which we store meaning and that meaning derives from experience and that experience requires sentience that emerges from the singularity only after billions of years of random events in an arbitrary universe. John was ignorant of semiotics, mathematics, physics, cosmology, chemistry, biology, evolution and all the other conceptual schemes I left out. His world (not his reality, but rather what he made of it) began a few days before Adam, who, according to legend, appeared in an instant, awake and full of words. Not very likely, but we can believe anything if we try.

I stopped trying about grade 11 when I learned that before the word arrived, almost everything was already here. The word is an emergent phenomenon generated by an organism that came late in the story and may be gone in an instant. 

Let's be humble about words. When we are done with deconstruction, we have to put the pieces together as best we can to have a coherent idea of reality. This and that is far more than the other we describe with our humble words, our 'isms and 'ologies.

But we can have some fun trying.

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Some interesting this and that.

Global Fossil Fuel Emissions Increase in 2024: Global Carbon Project, Nov 2024

Canada's Climate Plan is Working: Gov Canada National Inventory Report, March 2025