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Recently in the news it was announced that
Charles Townes, a UC Berkeley professor who shared the 1964
Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum mechanics work, has won the
$1.5 million Templeton Prize for progress in spiritual
knowledge. With his devout South Carolina Christian
background, Mr. Townes for decades had struggled for decades
to define a convergence of science and religion.
If you have a reasonable grasp of the
technical analogies that underlie the temporal aperture
concept and have made sense of the implications in these
essays, then you may have a clearer picture of the convergence
that has dogged Mr. Townes. A high level academic
background in Physics is actually not necessary for this
understanding.
Earlier it was proposed that there is a
temporal aperture - literally opening in time - continuum
whose extent ranges from tiny such as for the hypothetical
amoeba to infinite for a bona fide Deity. Human beings
are intermediate between these two extremes. The
amoeba's tiny temporal aperture surround comprises mostly
automatic reaction to simple microscopic sensations.
Humans extend over a range that covers all sensual,
perceptual, and conceptual functionality within a large
universe of knowledge and experience through history. Beyond
humans is the interesting area (actually a volume) extending
past our mere 3 dimensions and including knowledge and
experience that is beyond concept. At the far extreme is our
hypothetical entity possessing an infinite temporal aperture
where all objects and events over all time past, present, and
future in all dimensions constitute that entity's
here-and-now. Such an entity has no form as we know
it.
On our hypothetical continuum we would
say that the extent of a temporal aperture surround is
directly related to its inclusivity. In general, a larger
temporal aperture extent is more inclusive than a less complex
one. The amoeba's temporal aperture does not contain
art, science, nor any religion. A human's more complex
aperture can contain these things and more. The limit
isn't clear, and that makes human life interesting.
An infinite temporal aperture would be
absolutely all inclusive. It would contain all science,
all religion, all knowledge about everything throughout all
time. More than merely science and religion, there would
be a convergence of absolutely all experience, including that
of humans through all time. Most religions envision a
god or gods with such traits, and so we now have a working
model for such deities which elegantly scales up a continuum
from our own more limited temporal aperture scenario.
Humans would thus in effect be fancied up amoebas and stripped
down gods.
What would this tell us about spiritual
aspirations? If a person wished to move up the temporal
aperture continuum, it is implied that they would:
- Make it a habit become as inclusive
as possible in every way.
- Make it a habit to become as
psychologically flexible as possible.
- Learn as much about the widest
balanced variety of areas to the greatest depth their mind and body
would support. In effect become a super-renaissance
person or
polymath.
- Make sure to pick up some non-verbal
skills such as from the arts or spiritual pursuits. Words
and logic are a filter that is in effect a consciousness
jail. Any expression beyond 3 dimensions would be
non-verbal.
There is untested speculation that when
a critical mass of experience and knowledge is reached in
these endeavors, there may be a quantum leap in consciousness
up the temporal aperture continuum - yet another analogy from
physics. But for now we must take
this on faith.
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