Chapter Three—Cosmic Reality

The freedom of the will foundational to any sense of human dignity simply does not fit within modern science. Gray follows a similar line of scientific logic in discarding freedom of the human will: Because it denies the mind the power to pursue truth, the soul the agency to choose its own path of action, a modern science divorced from all other sources of truth must rob thought of meaning and purpose. If not complemented by other sources of truth, modern science indeed pushes the thinker trapped within its metaphysically barren limits toward what G.

Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic? They are both movements in the brain of a bewildered ape? But then how can human thought not risk self-extinction so long as it remains within a modern science that views human consciousness itself as a scandalous puzzle? But if science remains mute when contemplating the origins of human consciousness, theoretical physicists have much to say about the ultimate destiny of that consciousness.

For as physicists look into the far-distant future, they anticipate not a vista of perpetual progress but rather a vista of utter extinction. They indeed foresee the eradication of all life everywhere in the cosmos; they even anticipate the eventual extirpation of all sources of light and energy in the universe. In the very end, they anticipate the dissolution of the very atoms that make up the universe.


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Thus chemist Lawrence M. Even the light from all of the stars in the universe may have long disappeared. By this time, the universe will be too diffuse for electrons and positrons to find each other in the desert of largely empty space. A rigorous and probing investigation of science thus thoroughly dispels the optimism surrounding the scientific enterprise. Based on mere fascination with technological marvels or on superficial knowledge of a few explanatory schemata, such optimism disappears from a science that strips man of all moral dignity, grants no secure place for consciousness or free will, and consigns all life to eventual oblivion.

For the knowledge that science finally delivers about the destiny of the cosmos renders mankind not powerful but powerless, utterly incapable of averting the death of the very stars and the atoms that constitute them. Once scientific meliorism has been exposed as a cosmic fraud—or, at best, a very temporary palliative for those marking time while awaiting certain extinction—nothing but despair awaits those who regard science as their only source of truth.

Still, those who would defend ultimate human hope and dignity err greatly if they simply dismiss science as irrelevant or attack it as a philosophic enemy. Science threatens human dignity only for those who unnecessarily allow it to contract and define the limits of truth. For those who see in it only a part of truth—a significant part, but not the most important part—science can complement and enrich truths derived from other sources. Science can indeed clarify our non-scientific thinking in several important ways. First, because of the very way an exclusively scientific perspective undercuts the metaphysical premises of hope, of dignity, and of free will, examining that perspective actually—and paradoxically—can open up a clear and definitive human choice.

On the one hand, the modern thinker can shield himself against error and confusion by restricting his intellectual horizons to empirically testable and mathematically predictable scientific truths. But whether they initially realize it or not, those who make this choice finally trap themselves within a cosmos lacking in ultimate hope or meaning.

Carl Sagan

On the other hand, the modern thinker may hope to find philosophical, moral, and noumenal truth by venturing beyond science—so exposing himself to increased risk of error, deception, and illusion, but also opening up the possibility for finding hope and moral purpose. Perhaps surprisingly—given the large claims he makes for science—Medawar himself chooses the second option by refusing to keep his search for truth within scientific parameters.

One of the benefits of investigating science thoroughly and rigorously is thus the discovery of the profound human need for non -scientific truths. What is more, the grim ultimate cosmologies can lend urgency to the search for these very truths. The galaxies themselves must die. For while we can identify one ultimate and transcendent source i. Rigorous training in empirical science and long pondering of its grim ultimate prophecies for the cosmos may indeed prove especially beneficial in preparing the seeker of non-scientific truth for the faith that focuses on the Incarnate God, Jesus Christ.

In the ultimate sense, perhaps it does. Such a formulation, however, can obscure and diminish our appreciation of the true wonder and structure of the biosphere as a self-organizing living system. The human body is an even more intimate example of the creative power of distributed intelligence.

It is in turn comprised of tens of trillions of individual living cells, each a decision-making entity in its own right with the ability to manage and maintain its own health and integrity under changing and often stressful circumstances. Simultaneously, each cell faithfully discharges its responsibility to serve the demanding needs of my entire body on which its own health and integrity and mine depend.

Resources are shared based on need, not greed. We are also learning that trillions of non-human micro-organisms inhabit our skin, genital areas, mouth, and intestines with essential roles in supporting and regulating our bodily functions as members of a high-functioning living community. Each is integral to a larger whole of which no part or sub-system can exist on its own. The cells lining the human stomach have a turnover of only five days. Red blood cells are replaced every days or so.

The surface of the skin recycles every two weeks. Most of this cellular and molecular activity occurs far below the level of our personal awareness. So long as we provide the essentials of nutrition, hydration, rest, and exercise, our bodies' cells fulfill their responsibilities to maintain our healthy function without specific instruction from our conscious mind.

Cells can and do go rogue, with terrible consequences. Within limits, the body has mechanisms to eliminate such threats. If those mechanisms fail, the body dies and the rogue cells die with it. The Grand Machine story says no; the processes are mechanical. The Integral Spirit story says yes—the capacity for conscious choice is a defining quality of life and indeed of all being.

Probably not, but we may never know, because with the exception of mystics who have developed a capacity to bridge the barrier between themselves and the meta-consciousness, we have no recognized means to experience a consciousness other than our own, and least of all the consciousness of a single cell. What seems evident is that intelligent choice-making is a hallmark of living organisms at all levels. Similarly, although the biosphere self-organizes on a global scale and is subject to external influences from other celestial bodies, the locus of agency is everywhere local.

The dynamic consequences of local choice-making play out through the biosphere's fractal structure and create global dynamics that in turn shape local choice-making with no evident central authority. Buddhism teaches that this illusion of separation is the cause of humanity's self-inflicted suffering. Photo by Nadezhda Bolotina. Exactly how it all works may forever remain a mystery beyond our human understanding. Based on what we do know, however, our bodies, the biosphere, and the cosmos all express as fractal structures that self-organize from the bottom up rather than from the top down—exactly the opposite of what the Distant Patriarch story suggests.

To the contrary, we are only a tiny element of an expression so grand as to be beyond our perception and comprehension. This is pure conjecture on my part, but I believe there may be clues in the relationship between the individual cells of our body and our conscious mind. I may care deeply about their good health, yet I cannot discern the condition or function of any individual cell—let alone consciously intervene to save an errant cell from the consequences of its bad choices.

Imagine the distraction if our minds attempted to track details of the life of each individual cell in our bodies. It is for good reason our minds are highly selective in the information to which they attune. It seems similarly unimaginable that the living Earth is conscious of my individual existence or behavior as a human cell in its larger body.

If we scale this logic to the cosmic level, it would suggest that the living cosmos is unlikely to be conscious even of the Living Earth as one of the countless celestial entities that comprise it. There is no necessary contradiction here with the reports down through the ages from spiritual mystics who experience the melding of their human consciousness with an undifferentiated consciousness that transcends all of material reality.

If all creation is a manifestation of undifferentiated Integral Spirit, then the system of distributed intelligence discernible in a living, evolving cosmos is derivative of the undifferentiated meta-consciousness. Perhaps the individual human consciousness, with proper training and discipline, has the capacity to penetrate the illusion of separation to experience a temporary reunification with the undifferentiated spirit.

Perhaps we all have the ability through meditation and prayer to tap into the wisdom of the higher levels of consciousness from which we manifest, and thereby tap into and experience the beauty of its creative wisdom in a very personal way. It does not, however, follow that the undifferentiated meta-consciousness has the intention, desire, or capacity to attune to us individually, to intervene in our individual or collective human lives, or to change the operant rules of the self-organizing processes of the differentiated consciousness that shape the unfolding of the cosmos or its individual elements.

This is not to suggest that the cosmos is indifferent to our existence. It may care deeply with the love that some believe to be the binding force of the universe. Consider also that as manifestations of the Integral Spirit, we are instruments of its agency. Similarly, when we pray for divine intervention to save us from the consequences of our individual and collective choices, we in effect appeal to ourselves as agents of the Integral Spirit.

The important point is that, right or wrong, our choice of creation stories has real world consequences. If we choose to believe our fate lies with purely mechanistic forces beyond our control in denial of our own agency and responsibility, we then resign ourselves to the outcome of forces beyond our control. If we assume that a parental overseer—whether it be God, the market, a new technology, or compassionate space aliens—will save us from our foolish behavior, we likewise absolve ourselves of responsibility for our actions as we await divine intervention.

Recall the Buddhist teaching that the illusion of separation is the source of human suffering. As manifestations of the spirit, we humans are instruments by which the spirit God expresses its agency in the material world. Thus, our appeals to God for salvation from our suffering are in effect appeals to ourselves.

The earlier assertion that evolution has hard-wired cooperation, service, and compassion into the healthy human brain does not negate our capacity for free will. Free will and the illusion of separation are both essential to our human potential to contribute to the creativity, adaptability, and resilience of a living Earth and thereby to the whole of creation. If we lose sight, however, of the interdependence behind the illusion, the sense of separation can become so terrifying as to overwhelm our predisposition for cooperation and lead to us to use our free will in deeply self-destructive ways.

Modern Age

Free will conveys creative responsibility, not individualistice license. Whether specific details of our chosen story are right or wrong is less important than whether its overarching narrative awakens us spiritually; inspires cooperative, mutually beneficial relationships; supports a way of living that recognizes the wonder, beauty, goodness, ultimate meaning and value of life; and puts us on a path to a viable future.

Most important at this moment in the human experience is that our chosen story calls us to accept adult responsibility for the consequences of our choices for ourselves, one another, and a living Earth. Consequently, on purely pragmatic grounds, the Integral Spirit story in its many variations is the obvious choice. If wrong, we lose nothing. A clockwork cosmos could care less. A loving parent God will be pleased with our progress toward mature adulthood. If right, we avoid self-extinction, our lives take on profound meaning, and we unleash yet unrealized capacities for creative expression.

The Integral Spirit and a New Economy Both the Distant Patriarch and Grand Machine cosmologies contribute to a sense of detachment from life that leads to a devaluation of nature. They also lend legitimacy to an undemocratic centralization of institutional power and authority.

Further, the social Darwinism of the Grand Machine cosmology lends moral authority to flawed economic theories that instruct us to value money more than life and actively celebrate the behavior and ethics of the psychopath as a cultural ideal. Whether or not the stories themselves are the cause of the deep, self-inflicted social and psychological pathology expressed in our self-destructive relationships with one another and Earth, their broad cultural acceptance poses a serious barrier to healing. In our confusion, we forget that the only true wealth is living wealth , pay more attention to financial deficits than social and environmental deficits, and assume that the economy and business exist to make money rather than to serve life.

The living systems perspective of the Integral Spirit cosmology provides a framing story to guide our path to a planetary system of local bioregional living economies aligned with the needs and realities of the Ecozoic Era. The foundational insights of the Integral Spirit cosmology hold the conceptual key to our collective passage to what cosmologist Brian Swimme and eco-theologian Thomas Berry call the Ecozoic Era, the fourth in the succession of life eras identified as the Paleozoic, the Mesozoic, and the Cenozoic.

In The Universe Story , they note that our passage to this new era depends on a fundamental shift in the human relationship to Earth grounded in four foundational insights:. Because of its organic quality, Earth cannot survive in fragments…. The integral functioning of the planet must be preserved. Although the Earth is resilient and has extensive powers of renewal, it also has a finite and nonrenewable aspect…Once a species is extinguished we know of no power in heaven or on Earth that can bring about a revival.

I think our knowledge of the actual proceedings comes from letters of some of the attendees. From what I understand, there are some official Vatican documents, but they are fragmentary. Astrum did not refer exclusively to what we call today a star, but referred to any heavenly body.

Therefore, when Bruno spoke of the Earth, the Sun and other astra, he was just referring to the Earth, the Sun, and other heavenly bodies. Words are shifting sand. Know then that the world exists for you: This science doth not permit that the arch of the horizon that our deluded vision imagineth over the earth and that by our fantasy is feigned in the spacious ether, shall imprison our spirit under the custody of a Pluto or at the mercy of a Jove. We are spared the thought of so wealthy an owner and subsequently of so miserly, sordid and avaricious a donor.

Nor need we accept nourishment from a nature so fecund and pregnant, and then so wretched, mean and niggard in her fruit. Thus not in vain is that power of the intellect which ever seeketh, yea, and achieveth the addition of space to space, mass to mass, unity to unity, number to number, by the science which dischargeth us from the fetters of a most narrow kingdom and promoteth us to the freedom of a truly august realm, which freeth us from an imagined poverty and straitness to the possession of the myriad riches of so vast a space, of so worthy a field, of so many most cultivated worlds.

Very different are the worthy and honourable fruits which may be plucked from these trees, the precious and desirable harvests which may be reaped from the sowing of this seed. I completely agree with you assessment that the show should have paid a bit more attention to some historical facts rather than sneaking in a few generalizations. I also understand that you are coming at this mainly if not purely from an academic point of view. What I cannot really stand however, are the religious apologists, such as Thomas L.

McDonald over at patheos, who are twisting all of this into yet another attack on religion. Perhaps Cosmos is rightfully guilty of giving them the ounce of ammunition to do so. The very apparent intent of the Bruno vs clergy caricature is to picture Bruno as saintly, and the clergy satanic, in order to lay the groundwork for misrepresenting Christianity as having prevented, and as still preventing, science from progressing. This dogma, which is widely believed, and which the person hosting the program advances in many youtube videos, is well known by science historians to be bunk.

All a person did, in that era, was to assert publicly that he did not hold the view he was exploring, which of course was commonplace. In an era when a decent education was still a rarity, you could get one through the Church. The clergy were some of the most well-read, intellectually stimulating, liberal, sophisticated, not to mention debauched, men in the world.

The Catholic Church got its name, Catholic, by joining disparate Churches. To keep this vast organization of contentious personnel, all absolutely certain of their own ideas, from re-fracturing, this system of nominal public assent, to whatever the tireless councils may decide was orthodox, was eventually evolved, because there is no other uniting system. Meanwhile, the contentious factions mulled over every idea they liked, and pushed for revision of orthodoxy when opportune. Instead of bunk, what was the true impediment to the Copernican system being accepted?

Science itself, as a system not invoking the action of gods, did not have a consistent system. Many new ideas had to be developed in order to allow a system with a moving earth that did not contradict other physical ideas. So, it was science that burned Bruno at the stake? Science hauled Galileo into court? I guess it was science again that burned Joan of Arc at the stake? It was placed on the Index in until corrected. It was removed from the index in with a handful of very minor changes, all of which were perfectly correct in term of the scientific facts available at the time.

This occurred only within Italy. Outside of Italy people just ignored the Inquisitions corrections and carried on reading it, even in Catholic countries. Galileo hauled himself into court in a dispute that actually had very little to do with science and a lot to do with a clash of egos and the problems of absolutist politics. It years before Bruno, and did not involve the Inquisition.

Well she was burned because she was a witch, a religious crime, although the burning was done by the civil authorities. The court that tried her was a high-powered religious court, specially assembled. The Church could not execute people, but handed them over to the secular authorities,. That is why John Locke, at the end of the century, stated that experimental natural philosophy could never become scientific.

In holding that he could provide more than probabilistic hypotheses through the use of observation and mathematics, Galileo was running counter to the intellectual tradition. That is why the clash seems strange to us, now that these are established methods. In our terms, he was right, more or less. In early 17th-century terms, it was Bellarmine who was right. This might not have mattered so much, had not the Church been so much in need of defending against Protestantism.

Galileo proposed the reinterpretation of passages of scripture, against the tradition of the Church, without having provided the necessary proof. He then refused to stop publishing on the matter. He even mocked his friend, the very Pope who eventually condemned him. In emphasizing that, Cosmos avoided portraying the conflict as one of religion vs.

This shifted the focus to the importance of freedom of thought and expression. I viewed the overall message not as anti-religious, but as anti-authoritarian and anti-dogmatic. This at least partially implicates government officials along with the leaders of the church, making the message anti-authoritarian rather than specifically anti-church. The animation sets out deliberately to create a false impression. Splitting hairs is the last refuge of the desperate.

White, yellow or red, the Church officials were deliberately displayed as daemonic figures to contrast with poor honest heroic human Bruno, If you deny that then there is no hope for you. The physical attribute you cited that marked them as resembling demons was red eyes. Do you have anything else to support your assertion? Their faces were drawn as demonic, complete with dark lines under their eyes and, IIRC, eyes like slits.

No doubt about it. The original Cosmos bungled some of its history of science in the cause of making the stories more dramatic and focused—the Hypatia segment being a prime example. Bruno in his own time could not test his concepts nor draw his inferences from data that could be observed and verified by anyone else in his time.

While in hindsight today his statements may seem visionary and ahead of his time, in his own time and in the proper context he was NOT engaged in science. So why did a program supposedly espousing science feature him in the first place? I must say the whole Bruno kerfuffle is going to make me highly skeptical and suspicious of the rest of the series.

DeGrasse Tyson specifically said that Bruno was not a scientist, and that his view of the cosmos was a lucky guess that would only be verified much later. He also gave a great, very succinct description of the scientific method right at the beginning of the episode.

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The point of the Bruno segment was that in order for science to flourish, ideas even those not yet testable by science should not lead to punishment. That is, people should not be afraid to express their ideas, even if they run counter to current dogma whether that dogma be religious or scientific in nature.

Science works by constantly testing new ideas. I do wish they had been more accurate in the history of the Bruno segment, but I thought the overall message was quite good. Just remember, virtually all of science begins with something that is unproven though hopefully testable , namely, an hypothesis. And thus, if one is going to discuss the nascent or emergent history of human ideas about the cosmos, then there clearly a place for thinkers such as Bruno.

To suggest otherwise is to be an unimaginative thinker with little understanding for what drives scientific thought from the get-go. By claiming to be a program about science for the general public the creators of Cosmos takes on the additional burden of presenting science. A program about walking zombies or a high school teacher making meth can take some artistic license since their main goal is entertainment. Personally I found the segment on Giordano Bruno confusing and or mixing the two.

Religion, Science, and Spirit: A Sacred Story for Our Time by David Korten — YES! Magazine

By including the material and leaving out much of what is known of the man the writers of Cosmos did not make a clear enough distinction and missed a great opportunity to better inform the general public what science really is — the Scientific Method. These people were all natural philosophers, contributing to a field of study subordinate to theology, as they were well aware. They each held different beliefs about the relationship between God and creation, which profoundly influenced their contributions to astronomy.

Wait, so Kepler, Galileo and Newton never came up with hypothesis that could be tested by observation and verified by others? Was Bruno versed enough in physics that he was proposing mathematically based theory on physical phenomena? In other words other scientist were able to set up experiments and document their observations because those physicist who proposed the concept of gravity waves did so in a form that could be tested and observed.

See, as you might recall, this is why the subject of this discussion came up in the first place. I hear they still such at this. I mean, for starters, geez, where are his peer-reviewed articles in 21st century academic journals? Of course, this would be an absurd way to look at history. In other words, it seems best to widen the lens to consider the whole of the situation, whereas you contract the scope of your vision to the point where you just might be right i. Thus, while your perspective has some merit as one possible angle with which to look upon history, there is an inherent limitation to your logic.

After all, while the people of the past physically die, their influence lives on, lest we deny the science DNA or the existential facts that prior thought not only lives on, likewise embedding itself in our consciousness, where it stays alive, albeit usually in new and diverse forms.

Those ideas were eventually proven correct, overall, and it seemed that mystic experiences, not religious ones, aided him in his imagination. In that light, Cosmos pulled off a double message: A program that is suppose to be about science should clearly delineate the untestable, unobservable and unrepeatable from science, or at least demonstrate how the explanation of the world through shear mental exercise alone is not science until it is subjected to the scientific method and proven systematically to be true.

No quibbling here for the most part. Nonetheless, the whole point of the program of science is to plunge into the unknown so that we might finally come to observe what we previously could not. Maybe if we stop ignoring the way thinkers like Bruno think and operate, we might learn a thing or two about the ever-mysterious first step in the process of generating hypotheses, because if nothing else, it must be conceded that Bruno was pretty damned good at that—for whatever reason.

Personally, I think that ignoring in general is tantamount to, well, ignorance. Heck, we might even want to embrace the spirit of scientific inquiry and check things out. To say the least, the ability to so strongly influence how we look at the cosmos is the key to consciousness as well as the key to consciousness. I mean, is it that unimportant to consider how scientists came to see that which they previously did not?

Should we restrict ourselves to observing things yet never consider how we came to develop our sense of perception and relative focus? It seems to me that Dr. Tar is employing a definition of science, which, while currently defensible, arose in more recent times. This idea of testable hypotheses was not au current a few centuries back, yet people still developed some solid science, along with a lot of intellectual junk. Thanks for the Bruno discussion. After doing extensive research on the Roman Inquisition I realized that the Roman church has been essentially exonerated.

It appears that Catholic historians all agree that the church had little to do with the excesses of the Inquisition, and that civil and secular authorities are to blame. Civil authorities are blamed for most all of the atrocities and the Roman Church has been falsely accused. In fact, you might say I was stunned. And so, there is truth to this.

It was not, in my own opinion, a lucky guess. I have had such peak experiences myself as a psychologist. And I can tell you that there are a lot of people who are quite thankful for this. And let us not forget, as a Catholic Monk, he would have possibly felt he was walking the path of Jesus, who was crucified by the powers that be, for speaking his ground breaking truth.

Although, that message was not completely original either. Digges, but both complimenting one another. Many scholars think the character of Propero in The Tempest is based on Bruno. So then, why is Bruno so overlooked given the unprecedented scope and scale of his contributions? We tend to hand out the blue ribbons of historic recognition to the guys and gals who cross the finish line with their theories, whereas guys like Bruno—the people who made the race possible in the first place, get overlooked.

In fact, unlike Bruno, Copernicus waited until he was on his deathbed before daring to suggest that the Earth revolves around the sun. Moreover, he made this suggestion on briefly in his final book—giving his scant attention—and underscored the fact that this was merely an idea or theory and thus, he wanted to make it clear that he was not actually claiming that this was literally the case. In addition, even as he timidly suggested that the earth might revolved around the sun, he preserved the idea of celestial spheres—the notion that the planets swirled around us in some sort of crystalline layers.

Well, Bruno not only had the good sense to say this was all preposterous, but he criticized Copernicus for not having the courage to say so because, unlike those who still fail to give Bruno his due credit. Bruno gave Copernicus credit for knowing better, yet fearing to tell the truth. Bruno never lacked for such courage, just as he never lacked for vision. Perhaps the problem is as simple as this: For that matter, some people might start asking themselves, gee, how exactly does a guy like that make so many correct guesses that turn out to be verified centuries after his death?

To understand Bruno you have to look at him in his detailed historical context, not through a lens of teleology. I beg to differ. In any case, ironically, I would suggest your view, especially in this regard, is patently ahistorical and likewise betrays a teleology, and unfortunately, such an argument is unlikely to progress given this seems to be the case. All I can say is—I am discussing Bruno in terms of the Church theology and Copernican understanding of his era.


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You are discussing him in terms of quantum theory, holography, and general relativity from centuries later. Simply echoing my charge of teleology carries no credibility in that context. If not, I highly recommend them. In short, all I can say is, nobody carried the flag for it as publicly as Bruno or brought as much attention to it, whether among scholars of his time or the general public.

Nobody ventured into as many forums in as many places, making it a point of debate, if nothing else. And if Bruno did not give birth to this exploration, he certainly conceived of it, literally, metaphorically, or historically. I love the way your mind works. I hope you continue to write here because I like that you are well reasoned, wide-ranging in your knowledge and analysis, and elegant in your presentation. The writer of this article would be well to pay attention to voices such as yours. Gee, um, thanks blush.

Anyway, thanks so much again for your nice comment. I just find it sort of appalling that our kind moderator while reasonable seems to be accusatory about things he seems unable to fully grasp. I in no way compare myself to Bruno, but I too try to look at things holistically and have studied a looking back on it ridiculous number of fields.

I see The Tree of Knowledge or Life depending on your orientation growing up in all things. An ex, who was doing bleeding edge physics for a living, said my mind was a good one if overfilled with trivia and pop culture. In any case, it has been a distinct pleasure listening to your words and I hope to get to speak with you more fully at a later date. Well, to begin with, anyone who can duly note a difference between the Tree of Knowledge vs.

Thing is, whereas sometimes we might feel hesitant to praise ourselves for a given habit or trait i. But then, to a certain extent, other people ARE extensions of ourselves, or if you will, fractals of ourselves—some more than others. This, in turn implies that—Holy Frac! Actually, one of the things I love best about Bruno is how he quite intentionally and meta-conscioiusly contemplated the relationship between the highest of things and the lowest of things. One minute he was reflecting on ultimate questions and the next he was making the bawdiest observations.

No doubt, he saw some union between everything, and yet, by no means did he suggest that one thing is the same as the next in some sort of ecstatic Kumbaya vision of oneness. But whatever the case, I definitely appreciate your proximity. As for the moderator and his thinking style and general orientation, he would seem a tad less proximate. And as far as I can tell, this seems to be THE critical factor in how people view Bruno and his contributions.

Well now, I thought I put a photo here. My phone sometimes gets wonky and refuses to allow me to pull up the keyboard thus reducing me to sending pictures of agreement. In any case, I found your comments both comforting and discomforting. That life itself could be viewed the same way, that thought, motion, relative speeds of things all depended on their place in those trees. I actually saw all the other trees at the same time.

I was, if I recall, reading books on handicrafts sewing, knitting and books on agriculture and fiction books about true love and the like. It was a moment that changed me. Now, I have a reply to a reaction about something you said. I speak of your comment: I would point out that no less an expert on the subject, Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield sees value in that sort of ecstasy. Additionally, the Freedom Riders sang that exact song to bolster their spirits before they went out and died trying to show that we are, indeed, fractals of one another.

It is, reasonably, an easy target. But from a great enough distance everything looks connected, and in fact is. For your other myriad points, I can only say: