Why the God Paradigm?

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        The God Paradigm asserts that, a purely physicalist view of nature, would misdirect the evolution of society toward a technologically empowered barbarism, unprecedented in human history.  The Bible’s final book, The Revelation, foretells that society and its consequence.

        The God Paradigm is neither science nor religion.  It is not science, but it is supported by the scientific evidence and by reason.  It is not religion in that it claims no special authority, and no special revelation except that which is available to everyone.  It is Bible-based, and of course the Bible is superior to it.

        The God Paradigm is a worldview which contradicts physicalism, and which when accepted will help to direct humanity toward fulfillment of our true nature, both individually and collectively, both physically and spiritually.

Only by acknowledging a spiritual basis for physical reality can science ever progress to answer its great questions.

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Angels (and Demons)

Chapter 16

Are Angels Real?

 

Have you ever heard someone tell you a story that might have been easily dismissed as untrue, but the person telling it could not possibly have been untruthful?

 

There was an elderly lady in her eighties (or maybe nineties) who recounted the following story when she had been asked if she had ever encountered an angel.  I will repeat it as best I can from my fallible memory.  The details are shaky, but the gist of the story is memorable.

 

One Friday afternoon, her gas stove stopped working.  She called an appliance repair service.  The person who answered the phone informed her that, since it was late in the day, and all the repairmen were out on calls, no one would be available until Monday morning.  The person on the phone said, don’t use the gas stove until then.

 

The lady said she was upset, because she lived alone, and would not be able to cook until Monday.  Resigning herself to her fate, and looking forward only to cold meals for the weekend, she hung up the phone and went to her pantry.

 

Just then, there was a knock on the door, and when she opened it, there stood a man with a toolbox and wearing a repairman’s garb.  I’m here to fix your stove, he said.

 

At this point, you had to have been there to see the lady’s demeanor as she seemed to relive her confusion.  But, she said, I was told that no one could get here until Monday.

 

Well, I’m here now.  Can you show me the stove?

 

So, she said, she took the man to the kitchen.  He then pulled the stove from its position at the wall, looked downward, and said, well, there’s the problem right there.  It’s the regulator.  I’ll replace it for you.

 

Kneeling down, he opened his small toolbox.  The only thing it contained was a new regulator, and the two or three tools needed to disconnect it.  Soon, the job was finished.  He pushed the stove back into its position, and tested it.  It worked perfectly.

 

The lady then said, how much do I owe you?

 

The man said, well, wait until you get the invoice.

 

He then left, and the lady enjoyed the weekend.

 

Monday morning, there was a knock on the door.  When the lady opened it, there stood a different man than before, with a toolbox, and wearing a repairman’s garb.  I’m here to fix your stove, he said.

 

Oh no, she replied.  It was repaired last Friday afternoon.

 

Again, you had to have been there.  The man, the lady said, had a confused look on his face, and said, did you call another repair service?

 

No, but right after I hung up the phone, someone was at the door, and he fixed it.

 

As the lady told this story, I got the impression that she did not realize that the repairman either did not believe her, or else, he thought she was mentally confused.

 

So he said to her, well, would you mind if I have a look, just to make sure that the stove is safe to use?

 

She then led him to the kitchen, and allowed the man to pull the stove from its place.  There, the lady said, she noticed that the previous repairman had left the old regulator on the floor, near the newly installed one.

 

The repairman then picked up the old regulator, and said in amazement, I haven’t seen one of these in many years.  I don’t think they even make them anymore.  It’s a good thing he replaced it when he did, because a gas leak from this could be dangerous.  Where did he get it?

 

The lady replied that the previous repairman had had it in his toolbox, with only the necessary tools.

 

I got the impression (from the way the lady told it) that the repairman either did not believe her, or thought she was confused.  He remarked how unlikely it was to have this rare item, and only those tools, in his toolbox.

 

He then asked her where the previous repairman had come from, what company?  The lady said she did not know, but that he had told her to wait for a billing invoice.

 

When you receive the invoice, the man said, could you give me a call?  I’m really curious to talk to this guy.

 

The lady promised to call, as soon as she got the bill.  And I would have, she said, but no bill ever came.

 

Chapter 17

Angels and Demons

 

Angels (and demons) are the subject of much misunderstanding.  In order to clear up those misunderstandings, this chapter will rely on the Bible, as taught by the Baptist Faith, and by sources attached to the Roman Catholic Church^[1] and Jewish tradition.  Any errors in this chapter are mine, not those of the sources.

        The first misunderstanding to clear up is to understand the similarities and differences between humans and angels.

        Angels are not human, and never were.  No human ever becomes an angel, and no angel ever becomes a human.  Angels are of spirit, not of material substance, although some of them can, at times, assume physical appearance, perhaps even to the point of eating material food.  Humans are spiritual beings with a physical component.  Upon death we are temporarily separated from our bodies, but after a future event called the Rapture, we will become forevermore both of spirit and of physical substance, although that future physical substance will be incorruptible.

        Like humans, angels have life, consciousness and free will.  Unlike humans, angels are of several different kinds, and these ranks and choirs, as they are called, are very different from each other, vastly more different than are the races of humans.

        One vital fact to recognize is that one-third of the angels rebelled against God and are as a consequence fallen, having transfixed themselves permanently into evil.  The other two-thirds of angels remained loyal to God, and are now permanently sanctified such that no sin can ever corrupt them.  They are eternally and forevermore, sinless.

        It is important to note that angels are never to be worshipped.  The fallen angel, Satan, sought to be worshipped in place of God.  Angels loyal to God refuse to be worshipped, and instead, themselves worship God and only God.

        How many angels are there?  The Bible tells us that there are myriads of them, but this does not reveal to us a precise number.  It is believed by some scholars who study “angelology” that the number is so large that it is beyond counting.  The question of whether there are an infinite number of angels is perplexing, but the reference in the Bible to one-third of the angels makes better mathematical sense if the number of angels is finite rather than infinite.  In any case, the number of angels is likely beyond human comprehension, possibly greater than the number of grains of sand on the earth, and possibly orders of magnitude greater than that.

        Angels are neither male nor female.  They do not reproduce, nor do they die. The names by which they are referred to, may sometimes coincide with the names of men, such as Michael and Raphael, but this does not mean that the angels themselves have gender, at least nothing that resembles human genders.

        The angels are classified by scholars into three levels, called spheres, and within each of the three spheres, there are three levels called choirs.

        The three spheres are not given specific names, except to order them by number as the first (highest) sphere, the second sphere, and the third (lowest).  Within each sphere there are three choirs, and these are named as follows, from highest to lowest rank:

1.       Seraphim

2.       Cherubim

3.       Thrones

 

4.       Dominions

5.       Virtues

6.       Powers

 

7.       Principalities

8.       Archangels

9.       Angels

Other names for the ranks of angels are used by some scholars.

        The ranks of angels have been diagrammed by some as consisting of circles surrounding God, with the highest order of angels (the Seraphs) being closest to the throne of God, and the lower ranks farther out.  While the higher ranks might be assumed to have authority over the lesser ranks, it is probably incorrect to equate this with earthly authority.  Instead, each sphere and choir has a separate purpose and function in the hierarchy of heaven.  For example on earth, a high government official may have authority over a low ranking technician, but the prime minister does not tell the jet engine mechanic how to do his job, at least not if he intends to safely fly on that aircraft.

        In heaven, the angels have been sanctified, eternally perfected by God Himself, and therefore, no jealousies or conflicts ever arise between angels.  Of course, they never question God, and they worshipfully obey His every command, based on the mutual love between them.

        The God Paradigm diagrams reality as an outer circle, an inner circle, and the center.  The outer band (a doughnut shape) represents the physical world, and also represents, very loosely speaking, the realm of Jesus, who took on physical form to save humans from self-destruction.  I speculate that this outer band is also the realm of the third sphere of angels, which are the Principalities, the archangels and the angels.  I must emphasize that this speculation is only a very loose analogy, for of course Jesus is not restricted, and the angels of any rank go where God directs them.

        The inner disk of the diagram is then, by very loose analogy, the realm of God the Father (who is not restricted), the realm of natural law, and if I may speculate, the realm of the second sphere (Dominions, Virtues and Powers). 

        Finally the absolute center of the diagram, a center which itself has no center, that is, neither a beginning nor an end, represents (very loosely, I continue to emphasize) the Holy Spirit, the Alpha and the Omega, and the realm of the first sphere of angels, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones.

        Although scholars have arranged angels into nine categories, it should be noted that Fr. Pariente taught that each angel is personally unique, not merely in minor detail, but in the very core of its being.  He said that one might go so far as to say that each angel is its own kind of angel.  The spheres and ranks merely group the angels into functions and duties.  Also, there is no possibility of overlap among the spheres— they are as widely separated from each other as is the highest mountain top from the lowest depths of the ocean, and more so.

        Now for a very unpleasant subject, that of the fallen angels, the demons.  We shall touch only on a very few points, ones that in my personal and biased opinion should be important to every Jew and Christian.

        The obvious and painful question is, how was it possible that angels, living in heaven, could rebel against the God who created them?  Even if they thought that such a rebellion had a chance of success, why would they ever even consider it?

        I must begin by saying that there is no answer.  Only those who do rebel against God can give any answer, and certainly that answer must be irrational, and worse than irrational, beyond comprehension.

        The rebellion seems to have begun with Lucifer, and Lucifer seems to have been the highest of all the angels.^[2]  As such, he was closest to God.  Tradition holds that Lucifer was overcome by avarice and jealousy, by a hunger for power that led him to attempt to usurp God and seize the throne for himself.  While these motives may be common among humans who are close to the seat of power in their nations, my suspicion is that Lucifer was not led by temptation, but actually tempted himself.  His free will alone, his decision, his choosing, led him to do the unthinkable, to rebel against the loving God who had given him everything he could ever legitimately desire.  Again, there is no understanding of this, and frankly, I hope never to understand it.

        Just as with Lucifer, those who joined him in the rebellion were not the victims of Lucifer’s powers of persuasion, nor by his powers of deception.  They victimized themselves, each seeking to aggrandize himself with whatever perceived benefit they had deceived themselves into coveting.

        Since heaven exists outside of space and time, there is probably no human way of expressing the events of the rebellion.  We tend to think in terms of, first this happened, and then that happened, which finally led to this result.  In the spiritual realm, however, these might not apply, at least not in any manner we can comprehend.  Nor need we to comprehend any sequence of events, but only the Biblical account.

        After his defeat in heaven, Satan had not learned anything.  He had already transfixed himself into eternal, irreversible evil, and therefore, placed himself beyond ever accepting God’s forgiveness.  He came down to earth, and continues to wage war against God, even knowing that he can never succeed.  One preacher I listened to explained this by saying that although Satan knows that he can never undo the work of salvation by Jesus, although he can never take away our salvation, he can deprive us in this lifetime of the joy of that salvation.

        Imagine if you had been informed that a month from now, you will inherit a billion dollars, but imagine also that nobody believed you when you told them.  Therefore, you could not borrow against the inheritance, nor enjoy any monetary benefit at all from it until you actually get the money, and that there was no possible way to get around these conditions.  You had to live, financially speaking, just as you always have.

        Even though you had not yet received the money, you would probably be overjoyed just knowing that in a short time, you would have all the money you could ever have dreamed of having.  That month might seem like a long time, but even so, you knew that your every financial need would be taken care of.

        This is by no means a perfect analogy, but it represents what every saved Christian should experience, the joy of eternal salvation.  We have an inheritance in heaven that is worth far more than all the money in the world.

        Imagine then that some spiteful person brings great suffering into your life, ruining the joy that you otherwise would feel, making you even forget the promised inheritance, perhaps even causing you to doubt that you would ever receive it.

        That spiteful person is Satan.

        Satan cannot cause you to lose your salvation.  Jesus already paid the price.  Salvation is yours forever.

        Only the saved person himself can cause him to lose his salvation, and that is by accepting the mark of the beast.  This sin is also called, blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.  It is not a sin that is easy to commit.  It requires exact knowledge of what one is doing, it requires persistence over a long period of time, and it requires a strenuous act of free will.  During that process, the soul will, figuratively speaking, howl and shriek and try everything to prevent its eternal damnation.  It is easier to walk slowly into a raging furnace than to accept the mark of the beast.

        Even so, many people will accept it.  Why?  Again, no one can explain it.  The self-damning soul must reject God, must reject His love, must refuse His forgiveness.  There is no answer, except that some people will do it.

        Satan may think that it is he who is doing this to so many humans, but he is not.  They do it to themselves.

        The angels in heaven will rejoice at each and every soul who repents of his sin and accepts Jesus as his savior.  The demons will rage and weep, because they know that they can never destroy a soul who has loved Jesus.  When you willfully accept Jesus as your savior right now, Jesus ensures that you will never accept the mark of the beast.  Please pray to Jesus now, to forgive your sins, and to seal you forever as His own.

 

        In heaven, as we said before, the angels know no strife among themselves, but instead, fully cooperate in every way to serve God, and to do His will.  The heavenly angels seek nothing for themselves.

        In Hell, by contrast, the fallen angels, and the condemned humans, have no such motives.  Not only do they hate God, they hate each other.  Not only is Satan jealous of God’s throne, but so is each and every demon and fallen human— jealous not only of God, but of Satan as well.  Each seeks only for himself, each seeks as much as he can get, and each will be satisfied with nothing short of everything.

        They have deprived themselves of every spiritual nourishment, and so they are in a constant state of hunger, but hunger for that which they detest:  love, faith, and charity.  Spiritual needs can be satisfied only by God, only by joyful worship of Him, only by seeking to please Him, even at the cost of one’s own life.  Without these, the human soul is in a state of eternal starvation.  The condemned soul is in a wretched state, and yet it forever refuses redemption.

        Rejoice in your salvation, in the salvation of your brothers and sisters, and in the love of God.

 

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[1] The Catholic source primarily used here is the book, Beyond Space, by Fr Pascal P Pariente, TAN Books and Publishers, Inc, Rockford IL 61105, ISBN 0-89555-053-9 copyrights 1961 and 1973.

[2] There is some dispute about this, since in Ezekiel 28:14 there is a passage that seems to identify Satan as a Cherub, the second highest rank of angels.  One attempt to explain this is to say that Cherubs were formerly the highest sphere, now superseded by the Seraphs, but to me this seems awkward and unlikely.  In any case, I will not attempt to resolve this issue, as it seems clear that Lucifer was the highest of all angels.

Élan Vital and the Life Force

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From my very early years, I was interested in the question of, what is life? What is it really?  Not, what does it look like, or what does it do, although I was interested in those also, but what actually, in its essence, is life?
 
I (quite naturally) thought that I might find the answer by studying the science of biology.
 
I imagined that the process would be something like this:  look under a microscope at living cells, until one day, the actual thing that is life could be identified.
 
Needless to say, it doesn’t work that way.
 
I came across a quote from an established biologist who must have had the same attraction to biology that I had had at the beginning.  He said, the more I studied life, the less life I found.
 
What biology scientists have concluded is that life is not a thing; it is a process, a chemical reaction.  However complex that chemical chain reaction is, it is only that, and nothing more.
 
Somehow, I could never believe that.  It seems to me that I am something more than a chemical.
 
At some point, I came across the theory of Élan Vital, the life impetus, more commonly known as the life force.  That, I believe, is what I was looking for.

The trouble is, biologists reject the theory.  And because it is traceable back to the year 1907, and much earlier than that, in many forms, perhaps the idea needs to be updated.


 
My notion is that the life force is what sparks, guides and sustains the chemical reactions associated with life.  It is not an emergent phenomenon of physics, but is better thought of as a fundamental force, but not really a force in the sense of nuclear forces in an atom.  Life is fundamental to nature.
 
To those who decry the notion, we might argue rhetorically that the universe itself is a life force.  After all, the very structure of the universe, from the largest scale to the smallest, is precisely configured to support life.  Moreover, it supports not only primitive life forms, but indeed humanity, with its civilization, technology, science, and all the meaningful activities we associate with life. 
 
Life is closely associated with consciousness and our free will, neither of which can be traced to physics.  Indeed, the inward experience of consciousness cannot be defined adequately, and free will is forbidden by physics.
 
These three, life, consciousness and free will, are at the foundation of physical reality.  Without them, the universe could not exist.  Among those who say it could, even they ask, what would be the point?  
 
Growing evidence points to an intimate connection between those three, and physical reality.  In particular, consciousness, the inward perception of reality, cannot be defined by physical reality.  Peculiarly, consciousness perceives not only outward reality, but even itself.
 
Free will, according to physicalist reality, is impossible.  Free will violates a stated basic property of physical reality, that of cause and effect.  Free will makes us sovereign entities, capable of actions not forced by strict causation.  Also, free will is based neither in determinism nor in randomness.  It is its own thing.
 
Yet, the triad of life, of consciousness and of free will, is what give us our basic identity as human beings.  The attempt to reduce them to the status of happenstance effects of an uncaring universe fails on its face.






 

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Are Paranormal Phenomena Compatible with the God Paradigm?

 

      For thousands of years, there have been reports of what today are called, paranormal phenomena.  These reports include a wide array of topics, including fortune telling, communications with spirits, extra-sensory perception (ESP), telekinesis (moving of objects by thought), reincarnation (memories of previous lives), mind-reading and various others.

      To this day, many people believe, to one degree or another, that “paranormal” events do occur, at least sometimes.  Anecdotal evidence is abundant, in terms of what people report to have experienced.

      Natural-materialist scientists, however, are exceedingly skeptical.  In many cases, what was (at first) thought to have been strong evidence for paranormal events has been explained as coincidence, optical illusion, and even downright fraud.  Scientists have looked into the matter, and have not produced any compelling, scientific reasons to believe that paranormal events are physically real.

      How is the ordinary person to decide?

      Of course if you have personally encountered such things, for example “ghosts,” then you might be inalterably convinced that spirits of the departed can inhabit (or haunt) a house.  The problem is that, simply being convinced, however firmly, is not proof, unless you can persuade skeptics, based on hard evidence.

      One of the best arguments against believing in fortune telling (to use one example) is that no fortune teller has ever become a millionaire by predicting the outcomes of horse races.  For that matter, none of the reported paranormal phenomena have been useful in any way as far as producing consistently reliable, productive results.

      By contrast, science has produced useful results that are astounding to such a degree that only a few decades ago, say in the 1700s, one might have been burned as a witch for demonstrating the technology that today we take for granted.  It was not ESP that sent men to the moon, or produced microwave ovens.  We do not need merely to “believe,” nor to rely on isolated reports, to credit the rules of science for producing the magnificent gadgets we use every day.

      Why, given all that, do so many people continue to believe in the paranormal, and why do most scientists adamantly reject it?  Are people ignorant?  Are scientists stubborn?  Or are these simple cases of misunderstanding?

      I am an example of someone who has personally encountered paranormal events.  I cannot explain them in “normal” terms, yet at the same time, I understand that there might in fact be a “normal” explanation, although I doubt that there is one.  In that sense, I am somewhat of a microcosm of society in general, and in another sense, in the “no man’s land.”  What am I to think of these experiences?

      As a Christian, I turn to the Bible.  The God Paradigm accepts the Bible completely, and is totally subordinate to it.  Everything in human affairs is best understood in the context of Bible teachings, beginning with the Creation, continuing with the Golden Rule, and finally culminating with our eternal destiny.

      What then, does the Bible say about the paranormal, and how does it compare with what science says?

      In the Bible, the First Book of Samuel, Chapter 28, deals with what today would be called a spiritual medium, someone who communicates with the spirits of the dead.  On the eve of a great battle, King Saul of Israel, in disguise, consults the medium of Endor, and asks her to summon forth the spirit of the deceased prophet Samuel, who had anointed Saul as king.  The medium is very reluctant to do so, for Saul himself had strictly enforced the Jewish law against the summoning of spirits (i.e., divination).  When she relents, and summons Samuel, the woman becomes greatly distressed, for then she perceives that Saul is the one in disguise— but he calms her fears, and commands her to proceed with the séance.  Samuel, for his part, is not pleased at having been disturbed from his place in the spirit world.  Saul then asks Samuel what he should do.  Samuel responds with bad news, predicting that in the battle, Saul and his sons will die, a foretelling which comes to pass.

      In the New Testament book, The Acts of the Apostles, Chapter 8, verse 9, there is a further account of divination: “But there was a certain man, called Simon, which beforetime in the same city used sorcery, and bewitched the people of Samaria, giving out that himself was some great one:”

      These are two instances (there are others) in which the Bible seems to accept the paranormal as a matter of course.  At the same, time, we must bear in mind this passage:

      Leviticus 20:27 - A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard, shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood [shall be] upon them.

      This is the passage which refers to the Jewish law that Saul had enforced, and for which reason the medium at Endor was vexed, in 1 Samuel 28, which we recounted a few lines ago.

      Deuteronomy Chapter 18 deals with proscriptions against divination in the context of the Israelites entrance into the Promised Land, which includes modern day Israel.

      These Bible passages (and others) give us an important picture of how we are to think about the paranormal.  First, the paranormal is real.  Second, we are to steer clear of it.  We are to avoid involvement with spirits of the departed, with fortune telling, and with magic.

      The physical world is connected to the spiritual realms through two avenues of access.  One of them is evil, the other is good.

      In the New Testament book of Matthew, Chapter 4 presents the account of Jesus being tempted by Satan.  Here is an excerpt.

      8 Again, the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them;

      9 And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.

      I think that an important point being made in all of these passages is that evil things appeal to our selfish nature, and that when we seek to obtain the false promises of evil, we must worship false gods, thereby losing our souls to evil.  It is vital, then, that we avoid involvement with the paranormal spirit world, and instead restrict ourselves to the physical world, except that we pray to the one true God, and no other.

      If we do happen to encounter the paranormal, how are we to know whether it is good or evil?

      In 1 John Chapter 4 we find this:

1 Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits to see whether they are from God, because many false prophets have gone out into the world. 2 By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; 3 and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world.…

 

      Natural-materialism rejects the Bible, and is therefore a false philosophy.  It is leading science astray, and impeding its progress.  Divination is evil, and also leads us astray.

      The third way is God’s way, and it is our only productive path.

Purpose (Does Anything Matter?)

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When a prominent physicist was asked, does the universe have any purpose (?) he responded, I don’t think so.

That is a strict physicalist viewpoint, and even among many non-physicalists, it is the predominant opinion.

Among other people, for example, Creationists, the universe does have a purpose.  It is to provide a habitat for humanity (no reference to the house-building charity of the same name).  The habitat is not merely a house, but a complex environment which permits civilization, technology, art, and all the other meaningful activities of human beings.

The question of whether the universe has a purpose should not be lightly dismissed, not even by strict physicalists.  How we characterize reality has a direct bearing on how we perceive ourselves.  That, in turn, strongly influences how we treat others.

Does anything matter?  Life is exceedingly short.  It has been said that if humans were somehow to truly understand how ephemeral we are, how our lifespans are almost an unnoticeable flicker in the span of the universe—then we would either be in a panic, or else, frantically hastening to achieve something worthwhile while yet there is time.

If the universe has no purpose, if life has no empiric meaning, then all of reality is a moral wilderness.  If so, then there are no moral laws, no noble principles, except those which we arbitrarily contrive.  We contrive them for what purpose, if there is no purpose?  To comfort ourselves during our infinitesimal instant of a lifespan?  To justify our existence?  To excuse our deeds?

If there is no purpose, if we have no soul, if life is the “brief candle” mentioned in Macbeth after which there is nothing but “a tale told by an idiot,” then on what grounds do we pretend to be anything more than a molecule that soon dissolves?  Under that circumstance, all our pontifications about what is right and wrong, who is right or wrong—all that reduces us to the status of pompous asses, hypocrites making noises that are meaningless and futile.

On the other hand, if we do have souls, then there are indeed meaning and purpose in life, and we had better seek them and act accordingly.

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Aliens are Lurking in the Dark Forest—a Serious Scientific Theory—and Beyond

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There is a theory described at

https://mysteriousuniverse.org/2020/01/the-dark-forest-theory-a-grim-answer-for-where-all-the-aliens-are/

which suggests a solution to the Fermi Paradox.  It proposes that there are many space-faring technological civilizations among the stars and planets of our galaxy, but that we have not detected them, because they are hiding.  Furthermore, the Dark Forest Theory (DFT) posits that they are hiding not only from us, but also, from each other.

And with good reason.

In the galaxy presumed by the DFT, every technological civilization that arises has one priority:  to survive.  As in any wilderness or frontier, only the fittest survive.  There are two main methods of doing this.  One of them is to eliminate (kill) all threats.  The other method is to hide from those threats that one cannot eliminate.

It can be argued that any civilization that does not successfully execute one or both of these survival methods does not survive.  Those who failed no longer live.  Therefore, all the surviving exo-planetary alien civilizations have either eliminated the threats against them, or are hiding.

As reasonable as this theory sounds, there are those who argue against it. 

The dissenters propose that, in order to survive, an alien civilization has to be, well, civilized.  Being civilized, means that a society has to solve its problems in an orderly way that furthers its progress.  In the early stages, this means using the “kill or be killed” policy, but in the later stages, there comes a time when this becomes counter-productive.  War is expensive.  Instead of producing wealth, it destroys it.  Even though warfare does incentivize technological advancements, it does so only in the early stages.  As the destructive potential of advanced technology increases, the risk of both sides destroying each other reaches unacceptable levels.  Therefore, the optimum survival strategy requires cooperation.  Let’s call that, the Friendly Aliens Theory (FAT).

If there are numerous exo-planetary alien civilizations in the galaxy, one of these theories may be correct.  Indeed, some combination of them may apply.  For example, they may be at war with each other, but in circumstances that favor defense over offense.  One might compare that condition to the situation in World War One, where both opposing sides were safer in their own trenches, than they were when attacking across the “no man’s land” that separated them.

The main problem with the FA Theory, compared to the DF Theory, is that, if the aliens are not in hiding, then we have not yet solved the Fermi Paradox.  If all the neighbors are friendly, they should stop in and say hello.  Even if the distances are too great, they should at least turn the front porch light on, that is, to send some sort of signal.  Instead, we see only darkness; we hear only silence.

What is it, then?  Should we favor the Dark Forest Theory, the Friendly Alien Theory, or the Trenches Theory?

Before we settle on one of these, we should carefully consider the possibility that none of them is even close to being right.  We may be anthropomorphizing, that is, assuming that the aliens are like us, at least in terms of how they (and we) solve the problem of survival.

Let’s speculate.  Let’s do so reasonably.

Let’s speculate that life has arisen on faraway planets.  Let’s assume that on a dozen or so of them, life arose billions of years ago, as it did on earth, but that on those dozen or more planets, either the event occurred long before it did on earth, or else, that it afterward, developed much more quickly than we did.  In either case, we are reasonably speculating that any space-faring civilization is much older than ours.  Indeed, even the most advanced civilization on earth is only about five thousand years ahead of the hunter-gatherer phase.  Five thousand years compared to a galaxy is the blink of an eye.

Moreover, because technology moves at an ever-faster pace, we have advanced amazingly far in only the last five hundred years.  In less than a century we both invented the first airplane, and traveled to the moon and back.

What this tells us is that, an exo-civilization that is even five thousand years ahead of us could be so far advanced that, to us, its capabilities would seem magical.  “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Arthur C. Clarke, "Profiles of The Future", 1961

Five thousand years may seem like a long time (okay, it is a long time), but there may be alien civilizations that are a million years, or much more than that, older than ours.  At compound interest, at the accelerating pace of technological advancement, that million years could provide an unimaginable advantage to the older civilization.

What effect age has on survivability, however, is not the main issue here.  One could propose that the first interstellar civilization could easily have conquered the entire galaxy.  Or, one could propose that it chose not to do so, but pursued some other objective, for example, galactic brotherhood.

The effect of age would very likely mean that a million-year-old civilization might have become so vastly advanced technologically, that it has moved into realms that we cannot imagine.

Consider that our scientists now claim to have discovered the existence of dark matter.  Consider further that, aside from its gravitational effects, we have virtually no idea what dark matter might be.  How much less we can imagine, then, what could potentially be done by using dark matter?

Is there a science of dark physics?  Dark chemistry?  Dark biology?  Dark psychology?

Then ask yourself, what else might there be?  Are there fundamental laws of nature that we have not discovered?  Might not any sufficiently advanced alien technology have discovered them, and employed them in their technology?

To speculate even further, might aliens have harnessed the powers of pure consciousness?  Might they have moved beyond the need for physical bodies?  Might they be able to travel between universes?

What has all this to do with Fermi and the Dark Forest?  Only this:  we can only speculate, and our speculations may be hopelessly wrong.

.

Portal to Never (Fiction)

 

Portal to Never
(a brief science fiction story)
by Robert Arvay

The strangest person I ever met was memorable, which is the most ironic of ironies, as you shall shortly see.

I was a very low-level research assistant, in an obscure project, that was running out of its funding.  All the important people were spending more time and energy seeking opportunities elsewhere, than wrapping up what increasingly seemed to be a failed venture.  Even the bottle-washer had gone.  And so, most nights found me staying late, along with the project manager who, in previous months, had deemed himself too important to even ask my name.  He had recently taken note of me, however, and even authorized generous overtime pay for me, from the dwindling funds remaining on account.  Otherwise, I would already have joined the bottle-washer in his quest for greener pastures.

As it was, Dr. Gershner was particularly morose this night.  At first, I attributed his dark mood to his poor prospects for future employment, since the project he had long been leading, seemed now to have been discredited in the journals.  Needless to say, there would be no Nobel Prize in Physics for him.  Ever.  Or, am I saying too much, too soon?

“Quite to the contrary,” Dr. Gershner quipped, “I’ll be lucky if they don’t lock me in a rubber room.  Nobody even claims to know me.  Isn’t that the most bizarre twist?  That I, who caused so many others to disappear, should myself be utterly forgotten?”

At this point, I became a bit uneasy.  Gershner had leaned so close to me that I thought I detected the faintest scent of bourbon on his breath.  Before my silence could grow too awkward, I forced myself to say, “How could you have made anyone disappear?”

Gershner stepped away from the workbench, and glumly strode to his desk, where he brushed aside some papers that once had been important.  “Have a seat,” he said, motioning me to the chair opposite his.  I did as he bade.

“What do you know of our project?” he asked.  It seemed a rhetorical question, but I humored him.

I answered, “Only that it deals with retro-causation.”  Not that I knew what retro-causation is, but I had heard the term often enough, back when there had seemed a sense of excitement among the senior researchers.  Those days of heady optimism were long gone.

“Well, okay,” Gershner said, with a hint of condescension, but just a hint, mind you.  “We’ll call it that.  Retro-causation.  Do you know what that means?  Don’t be embarrassed if you don’t.  Few people do.  It has to do with the Grandfather Paradox.”

“Yes,” I said, hasty to establish myself as not a complete dolt.  “I know what that is.  It says that backward time-travel is impossible, because if it were, the time traveler could go back in time, kill his own grandfather before he had children, and by doing so, prevent himself from ever being born."  I said all that in one breath.  “And this in turn, would prevent him from ever traveling back in time to kill his grandfather.  That proves that backward time travel is impossible.”

 
Gershner chuckled.  “That is the conventional dogma.  And that is why this project uses the term, retro-causation, instead of retro-time-travel.  But here’s the thing, Conrad.  It’s all the same.”
 

Again, I felt the silence to be awkward.  Finally, I spoke.  “Are you saying that it is possible to travel back in time?”

 
Gershner reached downward to open a desk drawer.  He pulled out a half-empty fifth of bourbon, and placed the bottle on his desk.  My eyes must have widened a bit, because he said, “I take it you don’t imbibe.”
 

“Uh, no,” was all I could say.

 

“Just a drop,” Gershner insisted.  “Humor me.  Please.”

 

I’m not sure why, but I took a sip.  He was so pathetic, so forlorn, I could not refuse.

 

“Thank you, Conrad.  I hardly ever drink.  I just have a small sip now and then.  I actually don’t like the stuff, but it settles my nerves.  Yes, Conrad, it is in fact impossible to travel backward in time, at least for humans—at least in the tradition of an H.G. Wells fantasy.  Retro-causality is the reason why there is no time-travel.  But just because retro-causality forbids time-travel, this does not mean that retro-causality cannot exist.”

 

By this time, I was thoroughly confused, and I didn’t mind that it showed.

 

“All right, then,” Gershner said, “I’ll let you in on the secret.  I found a way to change the past.”

 

The bourbon, I presumed.  Even I could sense that it could cloud one’s judgment, just from the tiny bit I had taken.

 

Gershner continued.  “Look, there is nothing unscientific about that.  I got a grant to study the possibility.  The government wanted to make sure.  If it is possible to change the past, then sooner or later, some bad guys will do it, and so instead, we should be first.  My job was not just to prove that it can happen, but to find out how to control it—to prevent others from doing it.”

 

I felt obliged to comment, so I said, “If it were possible to change the past, then reality would be chaotic.”

“Exactly,” Gershner said.  “And there are those who say that, it is, indeed, chaotic.  Think about it.  How do you know that yesterday really happened?  You remember it, that’s how.  But if somehow, yesterday were to change, to become a different version of yesterday, then you would remember only the different version.  You would have no clue that it had changed.  You would correctly assume that the other yesterday had never really happened, because it didn’t.”

 

This was all a bit too much, and I said so.  “Dr Gershner, I’m just a lab assistant.”

 

“Very well,” Gershner said, perhaps growing a bit testy.  “Then I’ll just get to the point.  I caused people to disappear.  Not just disappear, mind you.  I caused them to never have existed in the first place.”

 
He’s crazy, I thought.  Not even the bourbon he was sipping could explain his delusional claim.  Although, I thought to myself, maybe it’s having that effect on me.
 

“See that machine?” he pointed to it.

 

“Yes,” I said.  “The quantum tunnel generator.  But it doesn’t work.”

 

“Oh, it works,” Gershner said.  “But not the way it was advertised.  I lied.  It was never about tunneling through space.  It tunnels through space-time.”

 

“Yes,” I said, pretending to be smart.  “Space and time are two sides of the same coin.  Einstein proved that.”

 
“There was an accident,” Gershner said abruptly.  “So many scientific advances begin with an accident, but this one was tragic.  There was a man named Frank DeBouss.  He was one of our research associates, very well known in the physics community.  Very famous.  But you never heard of him, Conrad.  Do you know why?  Because, after the accident, he never existed.  He had never existed.  Ever.”

 I squirmed.  “Perhaps I should go now.”

 

Gershner openly laughed.  “Not only did you never hear of him, no one else did, either.  I reported the accident.  I told everyone that Dr. DeBouss had stepped into the warp field, generated by the quantum tunnel generator, and that he had instantly vanished.  When people asked me who Dr. DeBouss was, I was astonished, incredulous.  What do you mean, who was he?  We all worked with him.  We all read his books, attended his lectures, reviewed his journal articles.  But, everybody insisted that they had never heard of him.  Ever.  It was exactly as if he had never existed.  Never.”

 

“I remember,” I said, “that you were the butt of a few jokes for a time.  People said you had been working too hard, that you had become eccentric.  Some even called you the mad scientist.  It was touch and go for a while.  But, Dr. Gershner, if Dr. DeBouss vanished, why are you the only one who remembers him?”

 

“That,” Dr. Gershner said, “Is why, for a time, even I began to doubt my sanity.  But then I discovered, that the quantum tunnel generator, generates a reciprocal field, and I had been in it when Dr. DeBouss had inadvertently stepped into the warp field.”

 

“Okay.  And that reciprocal field allowed you, and only you, to remember him.”

 

“Yes.”

 

“I don’t get it.”

 

Gershner frowned.  “You will, Conrad.  I mean that in a nice way, the nicest of ways.  Do you remember Sally Danek?  Of course not.  She never existed.  But I remember her.  She was always very nice.  She even pretended to believe what no one else believed.  She told me so.  She told me that she understood my theory.”

 

“Very well.”

 
“She offered to collaborate with me on a journal paper.  I gave her all my notes.  Everything.  I was confident that, with her reputation as a theoretical cosmologist, the two of us could make others believe, as well.  Conrad, Sally tricked me.  She stole my work.  And then, she tried to turn on the tunnel generator while I was in its warp field.  She didn’t know that I had disabled it.  When I did not disappear from reality, she became angry.  Her plan to eliminate me had failed.  She cursed me, accused me of fraud, and said that she was going to report me.  And report me she did.  The next day I got a summons to appear before the full research committee for a hearing.  Then, Conrad, Sally made the most dreadful mistake.  She stood in the warp field, and dared me to make her vanish.  Dared me!  Conrad, I don’t know what came over me, but I did it.  I stood in the reciprocal field, and I threw the switch.  Sally instantly disappeared.  She disappeared, Conrad, not only from this room, but from reality.  Nobody has any memory of her.  There is no record anywhere of her having ever existed.  Conrad, it’s not just that it seems she never existed—not just seems—Conrad, Sally Danek never did exist.”

 I sighed.  “Indeed, Dr. Gershner.  She never did—except in your memory of her.”

 

“And soon, not even there.”

 

I was puzzled.  Gershner could see that.  I think he intended it.

 “Conrad, I have modified the tunnel generator.  I’m going to make it cause me to forget.  I’m going to make it reverse the reciprocal effect.”

 

“Okay,” I said tentatively.

 

“I’m serious,” Gershner said.  “I can’t live with myself after what I did.  It wasn’t just Frank and Sally.  There were others as well.  They were back-stabbers.  Liars.  Cheats.  Each one of them accused me of terrible things.  I had found the way to commit the perfect murders.  After all, Conrad, you can’t murder someone who never existed.  If they never lived, then they never died.”

 

“True,” I said.  Suddenly, I felt faint.  The drink.  Had Gershner put something in my glass?

 

Gershner spoke to me, but I could barely make out his words.  The room seemed to spin.  “Stand here,” I seem to remember him saying.  Then, something like, “Here is the switch.  When I tell you—”

 

Then I remember him saying, “Now.  Do it now, Conrad.  Turn the switch.”
 

I must have passed out, because I found myself on the floor, struggling to stand up.  Finally, after some time.  I regained my senses enough to look around the room.  The tunnel-generator was gone.

 

The security guard came to the door.  “Conrad, are you okay?”

 

“I think so,” I said.

 

“Well, it’s awful late, and I’m locking up.”

“Very well,” I said.  “By the way, the tunnel-generator is missing.”
 

The guard shrugged.  “Make out a report on it.”  He must have thought it was a minor thing.

 

“But it can’t be gone,” I said.  “The darn thing weighs over a ton.”

 

The guard seemed perplexed.  “Whatever.  We’ll deal with it tomorrow.”
 

“And Dr. Gershner,” I said.  “Did you see him leave?”  The guard knew everyone in the project.  Everyone.  Personally.

 

He asked, “Who is Dr. Gershner?”

 

P.S.

 

By the way, for anyone who accuses me of insanity, I wish to assure you, this is only a science-fiction story.  It never really happened.  And Dr. Gershner never existed.

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

 

The Never Machine

--by Robert Arvay
 
As I revealed in my earlier account, I was a lowly laboratory assistant in a research project, run by the famous Dr. Emanuel Gershner.  You never heard of him, because he never existed.  Strange as those words may seem, they are true.  Dr. Gershner invented a machine that tunnels through space-time.  The whole idea behind the machine was to effect retro-causality, that is, to change the past.  Of course, doing that changes also the present.

Dr. Gershner deliberately stepped into the machine’s warp field, and when it was activated, he instantly vanished from existence.  When that happened, the past was changed, his past was changed, in such a way, that no one now remembers him except me.  Gershner had tricked me into standing in the machine’s reciprocal field, which is why I remember him, but no one else does.
 
It must be emphasized, and I know this sounds contrary to reason, but it must be made clear that Dr. Gershner never really existed.  He is a fiction.  When I tried to tell people about him, they thought me daft.  The same had happened to Dr. Gershner when he had told everyone about the disappearance of his colleague, Dr. Frank DeBouss.  No one knows about Dr. DeBouss, not even me, because Dr. DeBouss never existed.  He accidentally stepped into the warp, while Gershner was operating it in the reciprocal field.  Poof.
 
This places me in a very peculiar position, and in a sense, I feel cursed and betrayed.  If Gershner had felt so guilty, why couldn’t he have just vanished without a trace?  Why did he have to explain everything to me in such detail?  Why did he have to lure me into the reciprocal field?  He must have known that, in doing so, I would remember him, but no one else would.
 
That is a heavy burden to bear, as well he knew it would be.  It took me a long time to adjust.
 
But that was not the end of it.  Just when I began thinking that I could pawn off my account of him as a fiction, getting me off the hook—just then, there was a further development that, once again, caused people to doubt my sanity.
 
After taking a week off, I returned to the laboratory, not to resume my job, but to collect my final paycheck.  You see, the quantum-tunneler had vanished when Gershner had.  I’m not sure why that happened, but I am guessing that since Gershner had invented it, the elimination of his past had eliminated the machine’s past.  Does that make sense?  So little does anymore.
 
But upon returning to the lab, I found that there was a similar machine being assembled.  Not only that, but when I introduced myself to Dr. Gershner’s replacement, a Dr. Muhazzim Barsoom, he already knew me.  Indeed, it soon became clear that I had been his lab assistant for more than a year.  I remember none of that.
 
Worse yet, as time went on, I myself began to feel that I had indeed known Dr. Barsoom for more than a year.  It was as if I had amnesia, but was slowly recovering my memory.  Indeed, I met other people who knew me, but whom at first I did not remember.
 
Matters became critical when I contacted my family.  I had a sister whom I did not recognize, but one of my brothers did not exist.
 
Although I was completely sane in fact, but I was mentally ill in effect.
 
As time went on, there was an accumulation of bizarre findings.  History itself was no longer as I remember being taught in school.  Machines had been invented that were unfamiliar to me.  Worse yet, as if things were not already bad enough, I began to find that every day included new things that had not been there before.  A new lab tech showed up for work, but all my coworkers insisted that he had been employed at the lab for many months.  I finally concluded that, whatever had happened to me, it had disrupted the universe.  I feared that there was some kind of chain reaction going on that would reduce everything to chaos.
 
Finally, I was contacted by some very strange people, but people who seemed to know what I was going through.  One of them even sympathized with my plight, agreeing that Dr. Gershner had been selfish.  Gershner had extinguished other people, people who had vanished with no record of their ever having existed—making them in fact never having existed at all.  But Dr. Gershner, although he had become suicidal, wanted to be remembered by at least one person.  So, in a weird sense, he had not completely and totally vanished after all, because his past continued to affect my memory.  That created a glitch in reality, one that kept getting more widespread.
 
That inconsistency in reality, formed a sort of hole in the fabric of the space-time continuum, and the fabric was beginning to unravel.  Nature was somehow trying to correct the defect, but the repair was only an inadequate patch.  It was not holding.  If the defect were allowed to continue to unravel, then eventually, the entire universe would dissolve, and finally, everything would cease to exist.
 
The strange people told me that the only solution will be for me to enter the warp field of a machine operated by the strange people.  There is no other choice for me but to trust them.  In any case I am going insane, so I might as well go out on a positive note, saving the universe.  Once I do that, everything will return to normal.  If this works, even I will return to normal.  I will forget all the strange things that happened.  My memory of it will vanish.
 
The universe will return to the moment when Dr. Gershner vanished, never to have existed.
 
Of course I asked, won’t the process just start all over again?  Won’t someone else repeat the experiment?
 
No, the strange people assure me.  We’ll take care of it.  And you, Conrad, you will return to your hobby of writing science-fiction stories.
.