More Than Good

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Reality is so complicated. 

The week before last, I bought a little cord switch to replace a wonky one for the aquarium light. There was a small diagram on the package but no instructions. I scanned the picture and printed it enlarged so my old eyes could make it out. It showed where the wires were to go, but didn't say whether the insulation was to be stripped. We finally guessed that when the case was closed, metal spikes would pierce the insulation and make contact. We gave it a try, and bazingo, it worked. That's life. We figure it out as best we can, guess because we aren't sure, and it sometimes works. 

Metaphysics is our owner's manual for life. It is presented to us as infants by our culture. It needs to be simple enough that we understand so we can make it work. One simplification is dualism, dividing reality into this and that, love and aversion, spiritual and material, peace and conflict, good and bad. 

If our metaphysics isn't simple enough, we don't understand. If it's too simple, we misunderstand. You may have noticed that my metaphysics avoids dualism because that introduces paradoxes such as why bad things happen to good people, and we waste our time misunderstanding simplicity. Instead, I suggest that God is reality, the way things are, including what we are thinking, good and bad and everything between, a metaphysics known as monism. Reality is what it is, and it's complicated. Don't insist that it be simple. 

Anyway we need to try our best to understand. Do we strip the insulation or not? We are going to be disappointed if we flip the switch and the light doesn't come on. In our ignorance, we choose and learn from consequences.

A monist God includes everything: predator and prey, conflict and peace, love and aversion. The goodness and badness emerges from choices and consequences. A monist paradigm regards our judgment of good and bad as contingent on relationships, who our friends are, who we love better, and our perceived duty to them. So what is good for one friend may be bad for another. What is good for our sheep may be bad for those wolves. What is good for our family may be bad for the nation. What is good for our children may be bad for our grandchildren. The monist metaphysics presents us with competing affinities and duties, leading us to actions with consequences that are often conflicted and surprising. We choose without being sure, and are sometimes wrong.

It must be so. Reality is far too complex to understand perfectly. Good here and now implies bad elsewhere later. More than that, the consequences of our choices show up everywhere because reality is one thing. Calling something good or bad is our strategy to make it thinkable. Whatever we do will be  a compromise with some emotions and practical wisdom striking a balance between competing imperatives. When we choose wisely, we are risking the unknown. It's an adventure. That's life. Ask a politician. Whatever they do, there will be critics.

Reality is more than good or bad.

Yet we know a few things and we have choices. If we get some things wrong, it's OK. We learn from experience, and continue the adventure.

Reality is also the adventure.

********************

Beyond the Meaning Crisis: Jessica Böhme, Human-ing

Moral Choices In An Immoral World: Jessica Böhme, Human-ing

Global Cost of Climate Change: Potsdam Institute For Climate Impact Research

Transcen-dental Floss

I was in bed last night before I remembered to clean my teeth. Getting forgetful. I need to floss between the ears to keep the brain from getting cavities. So I'll think hard and write another note about God redefined as reality. Consider this note my transcen-dental floss routine. 

Reality 

During my last dental cleaning, I traded stories with the hygienist about how dental care has changed over my lifetime. I told her that my Dad got dentures sometime in his forties. Now in my eighties, I still have all but two original teeth. Not to be outdone, the hygienist told a story about her great great aunt who got ready for marriage by having all her teeth extracted in anticipation of the lean years to come. She didn't want to pay for fillings. That was during wartime. Lean years indeed. Smart lady.

I was four when the second world war ended. Back then life was simple; you could brush your teeth with baking soda.

After the war, as the economy expanded, dental care became big business. "You'll wonder where the yellow went when you brush your teeth with Pepsodent." Now in 2026, you can spend your whole morning at the pharmacy reading toothpaste labels: anti-cavity, anti-halitosis, desensitizing, fluoride, whitening, small-medium-large, many flavours, many brands.

Reality evolved and we learned to do things differently. In 1968 when we moved to Guelph, our new dentist said we should floss as well as brush. We were assured that with proper care our teeth would outlast us. Good. We began flossing. Now fifty-eight years later, I'm still flossing and smiling.

Meanwhile, reality has moved on. So we need to keep flossing our metaphysics.

Metaphysics 

Looking back, when times were tough, we just accepted what the parents told us to believe and assumed somebody had it figured out so it must be true. 

Mom and Dad deserve credit. They did their best. However, their teeth didn't last, and that tells us something. We can likely improve on the way they managed their reality.

Long after the war, the economy expanded, we grew up and got jobs and had families. We began thinking for ourselves. We had a choice between continuing with the old wartime God of law-obedience-justice-retribution or brushing and flossing some new thoughts of our own more fitting to a life of peace-sufficiency-plenty. We imagined a God of gracious providence, charity, forgiveness. 

Reality kept evolving.

We are now in a reality that we didn't see coming: climate change, pollution, ideological and political polarization, poverty, intolerance, wealth disparity, nationalism, government by psychopath, empire building, drone warfare, toxic social media. 

What if God is no longer the gracious provider of abundance and growth ?  How do we keep smiling while reality contracts into exploitation, neediness and conflict ?

If reality demands living well with less, that has been done before, and we can do it again with new insight added to traditional wisdom. Whatever we are thinking about God, there is more.

Reality (God) is more than grace (metaphysics).

Yet reality may be gracious
if we choose to make it so.

Not sure where this is going.

I shall carry on flossing.

****************

The Heresy of Waking Up: Jim Palmer, A Non-religious Lent, Week 1

The God of the Philosophers vs The God of the Bible: Benjamin J. Curtis, Journey Through Reality

Collapse: Living Without the Future We Were Promised: Adrian Lambert, A Grand Unified Theory of Doom

More Than Human

We have been watching from our easy chairs as athletes go faster, higher, stronger to earn glory. The Olympics is a spectacle promoting a lot of proud nationalism and egocentric obsession with winning. We might justify that as a harmless expression of instinctive competitiveness, which once kept us from being eaten. 

Fine, but in a friendlier world, we need to shift attention away from who's the better predator to what we have in common. We need to get over ourselves and pay attention to our interdependence with everything that exists. 

If that all-inclusive reality is God, and if our metaphysics places everybody and everything on God's team, then it's not a competition. It is mutual striving: faster, higher, stronger together.

Nevertheless, we bring our vestigial instincts with us, and we want God to be on our side in the contest. As a result, our metaphysics is human-biased, tribal, egocentric. We won't be satisfied with a reality that leaves us needy losers. So we imagine ourselves (our tribe, our nation, humanity) as God's team. We're going to win and the 'others' are not. Too bad about the bees and birds.

Now get real (know God).

Go back far enough and we are distant cousins of bees and birds and all of the other species, even turnips. 

Life on earth has been evolving and diversifying for more than four billion years. Maybe 99% of species that ever existed have gone extinct. Perhaps 8 million remain. They come and they go, and our turn to go is coming.

We would like to think we are different, that we can thrive indefinitely because God (reality) made us clever. The other species are just food or pets or pests or unimportant. We have invented a metaphysics that is good for humans without much regard for more-than-human life and the physical world we inhabit.

To be real, sooner or later there will be an end to humanity, either because we have messed up the planet, or a virus mutates faster than vaccines can keep up, or warring nations nuke everything, or the sun has run out of hydrogen. We share with other species unavoidable impermanence.

Yet we are a bit different than the others. We have more brain than bees and birds and turnips. We can accumulate knowledge and collaborate like a superorganism with billions of brains. We can use our knowledge to intentionally alter reality so we last a bit longer, assuming we get our metaphysics right. 

We haven't been getting it right.

Getting it right means respecting all things living and nonliving, and valuing the future more than cheap fuel and economic growth in the present. The old metaphysics lets us take what we can get and defer the consequences long enough that it won't matter, leaving the details up to God who has a plan and is taking care of things for us so we can win. 

Why would God (reality) be so obliging when we are busy messing things up?

Eventually, whatever we do, it determines how well we live and how long we survive.

A new metaphysics will be more-than-human, recognizing the interdependence of all species and the physical world, a fragile, metastable global ecosystem continually evolving.

A new metaphysics ? 

Well, not so new. Forgotten. "Hoarding won't save us. All flourishing is mutual." This is precolonial indigenous metaphysics about more-than-human reality sustained by respect, restraint, reciprocity and generosity. It has been reimagined by Robin Wall Kimmerer in her essay, "The Serviceberry, an economy of abundance". (link in footnote)

Reality (God) evolves as everything participates in it. Metaphysics needs to keep up.

It's about more than people and the things we love.
God (reality) isn't going to fix things just for us.
We are the part of reality that cares.
If we don't care, God really doesn't care.
We are the part of reality that is intentional.
Since we're so smart, we could intentionally stop messing things up so we last a bit longer.

I'm sure I'm missing something. What's next?

*******************

The Serviceberry, an economy of abundance: Robin Wall Kimmerer, (Emergence Magazine).

There Is No Clean Way To Be Alive: Jessica Boehme, Human-ing

More Than Love

I checked the news this morning. 

This is going to keep me awake until after lunch.

No worries. I'll just write what I'm thinking. Writing hath charms to soothe the savage breast. 

Same old news: Covid outbreak at the hospital, winter Olympics, ICE brutality, layoffs, missing children, civilians killed in Nigeria, airstrikes in Gaza, Alberta separatism, power outage in Pimicikamak, teachers dealing with physical violence, price of chocolate going up. 

No, not chocolate !  This could spoil my nap. Have to keep writing.

We really need help with things, and we're thinking God can help. However, we might not like all of what God does: hurricanes, volcanoes, droughts, earthquakes, toothache, mosquitoes, spilled milk, along with chocolate and some other good stuff. We want just the good stuff please.

Better write about some good stuff.

We imagine God cares and will be good to us if we follow the rules and don't act stupid. So we should be good to each other because there's a rule and it's smart to treat others the way you want to be treated. Yet even when we do our best, every day brings bad along with the good. Life still hurts, so we wind up stuck in another puzzle.

Why does God allow suffering?

Solving this puzzle is called theodicy. Let me give it a try, thinking of God as reality.

Whether we like it or not, reality includes
  chance as well as intention,
  grief as well as joy,
  exclusiveness as well as inclusiveness,
  conflict as well as peace,
  limitation as well as freedom,
  duty as well as privilege,
  brokenness as well as wholeness,
  endings as well as beginnings,
  aversion as well as love,
  and more stuff I left out just to be kind.

So far, so bad. Got to get it off my chest. Write. Write. Write.

If we got only the good stuff, we would not have learned to deal with bad stuff. In a perfect world, we would be stupid, useless, bored, God's spoiled brats always in trouble. If we only got good stuff we would become the bad stuff.

Reality is what it is, and it keeps us busy, for better or worse. Either way we learn from experience.

That is where Homo becomes sapiens:

where we learn peace
because conflict is expensive and risky,

where we prefer inclusiveness
because we are stronger together,

where we notice what's broken and fix it
because it's great when it works,

where we are drawn in pity to the vulnerable
and try to help,

where love works when other motives fail.

"God is love" is a comforting mantra.

Looking better. Don't stop now.

However, no metaphysics is complete and absolute. Love, as good as it is (egoic, erotic, familial, tribal, national, chocolate, whatever) presents another puzzle.

When we love and care for each other, 

we survive and thrive, 

we live longer, 

the population grows, 

we use up resources creating garbage and pollution,

we exceed the regenerative capacity of the Earth, 

we end with expensive chocolate, disaster, conflict, suffering and death.

When we do good here and now,
there may be bad consequences elsewhere later.
This isn't what we had in mind. 

Not so good. Never mind. Just write.

Love is a feeling, automatic, quick and easy, no effort required. Love without ethics, practical wisdom and effort can be trouble. 

That's reality, and also the spicy plot of many troubled stories, some with happy endings. I should write a happy ending.

However, if we don't feel the love, then by wisely treating the less-loved as if they were loved, we may learn from experience to love better. That's reality too. An inspiring story must include at least one or two ethically wise heroes making good stuff happen. 

Better !  Almost there.

God is more than love.

Be loving, ethical, and wise, or there's no chocolate.

To be loving, I try to keep these missives brief.
To be ethical I confess that this one took me more than a morning.
To be wise, I don't publish the first draft.
There. I've done my best,
although it's my fault we're out of chocolate.
Anyway, time for another nap. Writing works every time.

Next note will be "More Than Human."

****************

The Problem of Evil: Sarah Lancaster, Thoughtful Theology

Bittersweet News For Chocolate Lovers: Climate Central, Youtube

Puzzling

We got a call this week from a friend who was planning her funeral. Again. The first time was maybe twenty years ago. Back then she asked me if I would play piano at her memorial service. I said yes, if she would sing at mine. Twenty years later, I don't play and she doesn't sing so we have to make other arrangments. 

That got me thinking of all the years we sang in choir and worshipped the God of love in a community of peace from which we could calmly contemplate an uncertain future and make a joke of planning for death. Thank God for such friends.

Last night we didn't watch the world News before bed. Sleep is more important than obsessing over tyrants using their version of God to justify murder.

This is me puzzling things out. Don't take it too seriously. I'm not pushing my beliefs. I might be suggesting that it's OK for ordinary folks to think about things rather than always trusting tradition, authorities and experts. While we are at it, we can be humble about our own thoughts. Various answers serve different people in different ways. I'm no philosopher. Puzzling is just how I pass the time these days since I don't play the piano.

'God' is a polyseme, a word with many meanings that continue to change in use. Those meanings are sometimes at odds with each other. There are two meanings that might make sense of the rest.

1. God is reality (existence, the way things are)
2. God is metaphysics (ideas about reality, worldview).

In ordinary speech, we assume that our metaphysics is an accurate account of reality, and we've got God figured out. God is likely something we hope for, such as love and providence, demanding only belief and obedience to secure the future. It's OK to think such thoughts. That's what a mind is for.

Nevertheless, reality is what it is, unintentional and careless except for what we sentient beings can manage. We are part of what's real. By this paradigm, we are part of God. Strange thought !

Such metaphysical puzzles put us in an uncomfortable state of cognitive dissonance, which you can read about in this Wikipedia article. It's complicated. Let's not get into that here.

Cognitive dissonance isn't all bad. It demands some effort to resolve, helping us learn better. Since we are all puzzled about such things, or should be, we might be less dogmatic, better friends with those who see things differently. We're in this mystery together.

So I won't dismiss a God who manages and loves everything if you will let me consider a God of evolving reality in which we participate as we learn to manage and love.

It is what it is until we mess with it.

Or that's what I'm thinking about the puzzle today.

Polysemy

Words gather here, but what about those words? Although the title of this note says it all, I should explain. If you are as mystified as I was before I looked it up, you have no idea what polysemy is about. I will explain.

Polysemy means a word has many meanings. 

Are you still there?
OK, there's more.

Most words have multiple meanings. Therefore, to be clear, we should explain what we mean. On the other hand, too many explanations can hamper communication. If it's too much, we just stop paying attention.

But 'polysemy' itself has only one meaning, which I have already told you. It is a technical word used only in lexical semantic analysis. You don't care about that, so I should shut up about polysemy and let you go empty the garbage or have a snack.

Sorry, I have more to say. Read or not; your choice. I'm going to ramble on.

Some words have only one dictionary meaning, monosemy. 

'Lucrative' is one such word with only one meaning "profitable", according to Vocabulary.com. But creative writers are never satisfied with using a word only one way. According to the American Heritage Dictionary, 'lucrative' can also mean "greedy of gain" describing a person running a business rather than the business itself. 

For example, if I insisted you pay to read this blog, and you actually paid, then the blog could be  lucrative (profitable), and I could also be described as lucrative (greedy). This is a transferred epithet, broadening the meaning of 'lucrative'. By the way, neither I nor the blog is lucrative. I'm writing this to distract myself while dinner is in the oven. This note is free.

Polysemy is the rule. Monosemy is the exception. Words accumulate meaning in use. That is the reason there are so few monosemic words. As a result, monosemic words are literally as scarce as hen's teeth. 

Aha !  The word 'literally' in the previous sentence is an example of the point I'm making. 'Literally' implies "actually, factually accurate". But a hen actually has no teeth. Therefore 'literally as scarce as hen's teeth' does not actually apply to monosemic words, of which there are a few more than hen's teeth. In this case, the word 'literally' is used figuratively to stretch a metaphor that doesn't quite fit. 

This is so much fun !
But I should quit tying words in knots.
You are busy.
Let me summarize.

Words in use accumulate meaning.
Dictionaries are always out of date.
We should explain what we mean.
Otherwise we keep each other guessing.
We should keep it simple.
Otherwise people stop paying attention.

I'm done.
It is literally time for dinner.

Phronesis

Pardon my French, or Greek, or whatever. Phronesis is practical wisdom, good judgment, making decisions that get good results. I just baited the line with that strange word to reel you in. You can spit out the hook now. I won't be mentioning phronesis again.

Since you are here, you might as well stay for dinner. Let me mix some metaphors as an appetizer. The main course will be ethics. Dessert is a secret surprise.

This all came to mind while I was dreaming about being a teenage gangster, going along with the guys out under the summer sun, but uneasy about what we were up to. I don't recall what we were up to, so I have nothing to confess except the anxiety of not knowing whether we were doing the right thing. Older now, I'm still not sure we're doing the right thing. By the way, you and I are now in the same gang; don't deny it. OK, whatever. Anyway you can help out in the kitchen. I'm curious about the right thing, so I looked up the recipe for ethics in Wikipedia.

Ethics is a dish with three ingredients: virtue, deontology, consequences. 

Virtue is promoting altruism and suppressing selfishness. Self care isn't bad, but it isn't the whole story. Don't forget the others. No me without us.

Add a spoonful of deontology:
rules,
duties,
responsibilities.
The French call it maîtrise de soi.
Les anglais l'appellent self control.
Excusez-moi. Ici, nous sommes bilingues.

Next stir in some consequentialism: if...then. 
If we care for others and follow the rules,
then good things may happen.
Sinon, de mauvaises choses pourraient arriver.

Here's dessert, hiding under a shiny question.
Who should we care for?
En français: de qui devons-nous prendre soin ?
Or using proper Boomer grammar:
for whom should we care?

  self
  family
  tribe
  those who share our beliefs, customs, goals
  neighbours nearby
  friends far away
  allies
  adversaries
  homo sapiens everywhere
  useful living things
  all living things
  things not yet living but soon to come
  everything useful, living or not
  everything on Earth, useful or not
  planet Earth
  the sun
  the solar system
  the galaxy
  the universe

Things we like best (dessert) are at the top of this list and we like things less as we go down. At the bottom we just don't care. The universe is not on the menu. The galaxy is not something I think about much. The solar system is as appetizing as spinach.

But the sun is interesting (like crème brûlée). You need sunlight to make vitamin D. Years ago, the gang thought sunburn was healthy and peeling was next to godliness. We didn't get that right. Now the doctor says my skin should be a chapter in a medical textbook. She apologized for taking four biopsies. I said it was OK as long as she left me enough skin to collect the pension. 

Now I confess. I told a lie about not mentioning phronesis again. Here it is. Phronesis is part of the meal, even if we're too full of altruism, rules, consequences and dessert to take a bite. Bag it up and take it with you. It's great warmed over.

Let me explain the metaphor. However ethical our efforts, however much we like what we are doing, we don't know all about what things are or how they work. So when unintended consequences threaten, we learn from experience, adjust the rules, make a new plan, and keep trying to get it right. 

Let's stop repeating mistakes. You youngsters, limit your time in the sun and use a good sunscreen or you will end up like me. That's phronesis.

Où est mon chapeau? Je vais faire une promenade.

*************
A step further up the dessert list there's the Earth:
Earth as resource to be managed,
Earth as home in need of serious maintenance,
Earth as Mother of the whole gang.
What are the rules here on Earth
and what about the rest of the list?
I'm not sure we have it right.
Are there risks of using sunscreen?
Damage to coral reefs?
If we carry on with business as usual,
que va-t-il se passer ensuite ?

En anglais : what happens next ?
*************

Gemütlichkeit and Other Ways of Dying: Jessica Boehme, WildPhilosophy

Why Aren't All Deserts Covered With Solar Panels:
Just Have a Think, Jan 18, 2026