In the book [*] (“Tales” from now on) I juggle alternative cosmologies and pictures of reality. On the one hand, I think this is not a bug but a feature. On the other hand, some readers (including me) miss a main picture to hold in mind.
My forthcoming book, titled “Astounding universe, amazing grace,” will be a streamlined, simplified, and much shorter version of “Tales.” I’ll skip minor and unclear points, tangential thoughts, caveats and qualifications.
I’ll try to sketch one clear, clean, integral picture of the universe and our cosmic, transcendent future. By “integral” I mean both internally consistent, and consistent with intriguing ideas in science, philosophy, and religion.
Here’s is a short summary:
- We live in a wonderful world. Records of the past are imprinted in the present. The future is not fully predictable from the past. Creative evolution favors life and mind. You are an important free agent.
- The ordinary world of things that exist in space and time is a small island in the deep ocean of physical reality (deep reality). Space and time, matter and mind, emerge from deep reality. There are other island worlds.
- Non-local threads connect all places, all times, and all worlds through deep reality. The past and the future co-create and co-adjust each other with self-consistent causal loops in time. Other threads connect separate worlds.
- The fabric of deep reality is endowed with awareness and choice. All minds are parts of the minded fabric of deep reality. Superior minds all the way up to Mind at Large live and act in deep reality. You can, if you want, identify Mind with the God(s) of your religion.
- From our in-time perspective, it might be the case that Mind awakens in the very far future. But then Mind trickles down in time and is present and acting at all times, and creates all worlds.
- Future humans will go to the stars, master space and time, gain access to deep reality, become superior minds, create and remake worlds, resurrect the dead, and contribute to the awakening of Mind. This is our cosmic imperative and destiny.
- Here and now, we must take better care of our Spaceship Earth and its crew, and at the same we must strenuously strive toward interplanetary and interstellar spaceflight.
Now I just have to expand this bullet point summary in a short and easy to read book. This is very challenging, but I’ll do my best. In the meantime, please criticize my summary. Is it clear? Is it clean? Is it consistent? At this moment I think it is (I have thought long and hard about every word), but I guess I’ll have to edit it.
Update, October 4: I have revised the summary after feedback and discussions. I borrowed the term “Mind at Large” from Aldous Huxley [**].
Besides cosmology, in my new book I will address practical philosophy for everyday living and the pursuit of everyday happiness. Perhaps even (some) politics.
I’ll emphasize he importance of spaceflight (last bullet point). This is not meant to exclude other important things: Besides making humanity a multi-planetary species less vulnerable to existential risks, spaceflight will catalyze all sorts of needed advances in science, technology, and culture. Expanding into space, and making the Earth a better place for everyone, are not mutually exclusive but mutually reinforcing goals.
The cover picture is a stylized image of the evolution of the Life pattern in Turing Church’s logo, with a background of stars. The pattern leaves a permanent memory wake behind, a never ending stairway to infinity that looks like a DNA helix.
[*] My book “Tales of the Turing Church: Hacking religion, enlightening science, awakening technology” is available for readers to buy on Amazon (Kindle | paperback).
Please buy my book, and/or donate to support other Turing Church projects.
[**] Huxley introduced the concept of Mind at Large in his essays “The Doors of Perception” (1954) and “Heaven and Hell” (1956). Huxley hinted at “the totality of the awareness belonging to Mind at Large” and the perception, by Mind at Large, “of everything that is happening everywhere in the universe.” I’m agnostic on Huxley’s claim that psychedelic drugs can expose users to Mind at Large.
Cover picture background from Wikimedia Commons.
