on the nature of the physical universe, and how i interact with it

the big bang seems to indicate that this universe showed up one day.

as we delve further back into the universe’s history, and closer to the event horizon, it becomes more difficult to “see” what was going on, to the point that once we reach a certain point back in history, we can no longer know anything about what went on.

as we learn more about particle physics, and develop quantum physics to describe how such particles/waves go about being, we come across confusing concepts that fly in the face of our everyday existence.

for instance, it seems downright impossible that a particle can exist as both a point and as a wave at the same time — yet the evidence shows that they do.

it seems impossible that waveforms don’t collapse into points until measured. yet, again, that is what happens.

it seems impossible that a waveform spans the entire universe, and has as great a chance of collapsing into x location as it does of collapsing into y location. and yet that is what happens.

the universe, at its most basic parts, just barely exists at all until something observes it.

it exists in a fuzzy, quantum, state, and the mere act of recognizing that it exists at all seems to cause it to collapse into the physical, measurable world.

so that has led me to consider this:

did the spirit that is god one day find “him”self observing the universe, and by that observation cause it to collapse into measurable existence?

when god said to itself, “let there be light”, is that no different, perhaps, than my own spirit saying to my mind, “let my arm move” ?

let me dig into that more.

we human beings seem to be made up of three basic parts: spirit, mind, and body.

my spirit is the “me” that makes me ME.

it is the eternal part of me.

it is that part of me that is truly me.

my body is not me, and if you were to dig into my body with sharp things to try and find ME, you would in fact be damaging the one thing that allows ME to interact with YOU.

“i” am not located in this one place where my body is.

am i even in “a location” ?

is it even sensical to refer my spirit as “being in a place” in the same sense that my body is?

my body is merely the collection of cells that is assembled in such a way that it is able to manipulate the physical world and is also take in information about its surroundings. the body takes such information and stores it by changing some cells in certain ways so that that information can be located and read at a later date. we call such things “memories”.

if we think of memories as in a computer system, then let us consider how such memories are accessed.

they must be encoded and stored in a certain way, or when the system goes to access the information it will be unrecognizable.

the body does this without us having to think anything about it.

we create and store memories, we access memories, we use memories without out ever having to deal with the physical processes involved in doing so.

but it is a physical process that does all of this creating and storing and accessing.

that is why drugs work.

if my body gets caffeine, it processes information differently than if it gets alcohol.

using such drugs is, at its core, hacking the system to make it behave in different ways than it would by default.

when i want to be able to focus more, access in formation faster, pay more attention to things, i hack my synapses with caffeine.

but that leads us to one of my main points: what is that makes me want to do anything?

where do my intentions come from?

i have a will. i have intents. i have desires. and, somehow, i have the ability to manipulate the physical universe (or at least some part of it) so that it obeys my will with me having to even think about it.

i simply say to myself, “let us move my arm” and my arm moves.

my spirit somehow communicates my will to a collection of cells and they obey.

i will it, and the universe itself changes and obeys my will.

i believe my mind is that which my body and spirit both have access to, which allows my spirit to pass information back and forth to the universe.

my mind is my spirit’s gateway into the world.

when my spirit is interested in typing, it accesses my mind and thereby controls this group of living cells to open my computer up and type.

that is some amazing stuff!

so then, in light of all the things i’ve written about here: how does god enact his will?

we talk about “god’s will” and we speak of god as spirit, and we talk as if god has no location, being “everywhere all at once.”

that sounds similar to me, only on a grander scale…

if i have an intention, i will my arm to move and pick up my coffee….

if god has an intention, he wills the moon to orbit the earth and the tide comes and goes…

god has another intention, and the wind blows…

i will it and it is — as long as “it” is within the realm of my control.

similarly, god wills it and it is — as long as “it” is within the realm of god’s control.

except, of course, the realm of god’s control is ever so much larger than mine.

another thing that occurs to me is that i can allow another intentional being’s will to overcome my own intentions.

if my mother wishes my arm to move, she can use her own to pick it up and move it.

if i allow her to do so.

if my will is not opposed to her will, i will allow her to use her body to move part of my body.

i believe this is similar to how god’s will is when it comes to our bodies.

he could have control over them, our bodies being made of particles in the universe that exists at his whim.

and yet he allows my spirit to have almost complete control over it.

(i do not have complete control over it, of course. i cannot fly, no matter how much my spirit may will it. this is one way god retains control over my body.)

so all this leads me to conjecture that the entire universe, including my body and your body and my dog’s body and my body’s arm and coffee and my mom’s body and my mom’s body’s arm and the moon and the ocean and the tide and light — everything that we our bodies can see and measure and interact with in the physical universe, is god’s body.

as long as my spirit is willing, and my body is able, i exist “in it” and my body is alive and moving about.

if my body is sufficiently damaged, my spirit is unable to interact with it anymore and goes on to wherever spirits “go” when they can not control the physical universe anymore.

is such the same with god?

if the universe goes and moves and stays as it is because of god’s intent, because his observations of it causes it to collapse into the thing we find here, when the universe is done what happens to god?

do i exist without a body to control? does my spirit persist? does my spirit remember existing before my body came along? will it remember controlling my body when my body has entropied into dirt?

will god’s spirit continue to exist in any real way when the physical universe entropies into non-existance?

does god find himself tied to the universe the way i find myself tied to my body?

i can’t explain why i exist, nor why i am able to control this collection of atoms known as “my body”.

is god just as surprised at his own existence?

do i exist for the eighty years or so that my body is around, and after that, poof?

does god exist for the few hundred billion years that his body is around, and after that… ?

brian greene’s research seems to indicate that the universe comes and goes, over and over, expanding and collapsing into itself every few hundred trillion years.

at each expansion, when the universe explodes outward again creating spacetime all over again, is that a “new heaven and a new earth” ?

each time, does god will species to be created, trying all over again to find the balance of allowing a species with its own will to arise and yet somehow communicating with and to that species that they are around only at god’s whim and that they owe god adoration because of it?

does god hope they will love him for it, while trying to strike a balance between forcing them to do so and a complete lack of evidence that he exists at all ?

it seems to me that god could overwhelm our senses and force us to believe.

he could reveal himself to us in such a way that we have no choice but to do his will.

after all, i could force my dog to obey my will.

i could physically manipulate his body into his crate, shut the door, and my will would keep him there.

but i don’t because i like the fact that my dog loves being around, and likes to obey me.

god could do the same with us, but does not.

he loves the fact that we’re around, and enjoys it when we like being around him.

and so, at times i think god has interacted with people in order to fill them us in on the true nature of the universe, and what it is he wants for and from us as a species.

he interacted with abraham, it seems.

and moses.

and isaiah and elisha.

and jesus.

in the christian tradition we don’t like the idea that god might also have revealed himself to krisha, buddha, or mohammed, but from where i’m sitting, that doesn’t seem unlikely.