In James Gleick’s biography of Richard Feynman, Genius, he refers to an early theory developed by Feynman and John Wheeler as “a classical theory, not a quantum one. It treated objects as objects, not as probabilistic smudges.” Mr. Gleick is speaking in terms of concepts of mainstream thinkers in physics and I’m not criticizing him, … [Read more…]
[The original version of this essay was published as Ways of Speaking and True Being. It was finished and uploaded on 2008/11/22.] Wikipedia tells us that metaphor is: is language that directly compares seemingly unrelated subjects. In the simplest case, this takes the form: “The [first subject] is a [second subject].” More generally, a metaphor … [Read more…]
[The original version of this essay was published at The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 5. The Einsteinian Universe. It was finished and uploaded on 2007/02/24. This version includes some changes made for the approaching publication of a collection of most of my weblog entries over the past 5+ years.] Einstein gave a great … [Read more…]
[This entry was originally published as The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 1. An Overview on 2007/01/11. This is a slightly corrected version which will be printed under the current title, Why I Misuse the Term ‘Universe’ in my upcoming collection of weblog writings to be published as a big ebook.] In my book … [Read more…]
[While working on an ebook containing a large number of my weblog posting, I decided this article, The Christian in the Universe of Einstein: 6. Adopting the Techniques of Negative Theology to Physics and Metaphysics, first published under that ugly title on 2007/03/09, provides a good summary of some of the fundamental, metaphysical aspects of … [Read more…]
As matters currently stand in theories about physical reality and in philosophical analyses of those theories, there are no signs of homogeneity in the nature of spacetime at various scales of time and space though some assume and others hope. In general, created being at the quantum level (think of ‘subatomic’ levels of energy changes … [Read more…]
[Because of its importance to ideas which have been simmering in my mind for years, I’m publishing a minor update of one of my first weblog entries: Symmetry-breaking, From Physics and Mathematics to Metaphysics first published on 2006/12/05. I’ll soon be publishing a new entry which builds on some aspects of the ideas in this … [Read more…]
As I read books on mathematics and science, I’m always thinking of issues in theology and metaphysics and politics and history. My inclination, whatever works I produce as byproducts, is to absorb knowledge as if it were background knowledge for a novelist. This doesn’t mean ‘research’ that will produce reliable historical novels but rather the … [Read more…]
The issue of mythology arises in this article about the responses of Joseph Ratzinger (Pope Benedict XVI), and some related thinkers, to neopaganism in modern times. The article tells us: In [the] judgment [of a philosopher supporting polytheism], man always needs myths, and the important thing is that these myths be numerous and open to … [Read more…]
Relationships of a more abstract sort, such as those in politics and economics, are not so much different from concrete relationships as we might think. Not so much different as we’ve led ourselves to believe. Those concrete entities which are more complex, such as a man or a rhinoceros, are made of substances which have … [Read more…]