Dear Joe,

Thanks for this. I read it as a sign of the deep basis in the cosmos of realistic hope for each and every human life. For change to be change, some aspect of reality must become different, some aspect of reality must remain the same. Everything that can be known, the definite patterns of continuity, is finite and subject to change, and therefore so is all knowledge and all synthesis.. The relationship of the One (continuity) to the Many (differentiation) is one of the names given in the human cultural traditions to the mystery of the universe, the whole of which all are parts, so that it cannot be known, but in which we all participate. By our questioning, our limited knowledge and understanding, and most of all by the small wisdom by which we try to identify ourselves with that mystery. The possibility of such a small wisdom by which we can to some degree participate in mystery seems to me to be an authentic definition of realistic, though inexorably finite, hope.

This seems to me to echo Steve Quackenbush's discussion of Jean-Paul Sartre at our gathering. Like Steve I believe that we could faithfully attribute to Sartre a sentiment something like, "if we believe in the dignity of human freedom, then our main responsibility is to hope. I also think this is another way of looking at the sort of mission that we are mulling over and trying to formulate: it should be a message of realistic hope and be helpful in pointing out where and how each of us might go about looking for signs of that hope.

All good wishes,,

Frank

Francis J. Ambrosio, PhD

Associate Professor of Philosophy

Georgetown University

202-687-7441

On Mon, Jul 16, 2018 at 2:59 PM Joseph Michalski <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

Dear Colleagues:

I understand everyone has busy intellectual agendas, but I thought I'd share an interesting parallel discovery from the past weekend (beyond the recent discovery of neutrinos from a distant galaxy!). My wife and I were flying back from England, reading next to each other on the plane. I was reading Roberto Unger and Lee Smolin's The Singular Universe and the Reality of Time as part of my efforts to understand the cosmos and our broader TOK mission. My wife, who's a Sufi Muslim, was reading Sadegh Angha's (41st Sufi Master) The Hidden Angles of Life in her efforts to understand the cosmos from a religious worldview. Here's what we were reading at the same time from our respective books:

Joe, the scientist, read on p. 8: “If, however, everything is time-bound (a key argument of the book), that principle must apply as well to the laws, symmetries, and constants of nature. There are then no timeless regularities capable of underwriting our causal judgments. Change changes. It is not just the phenomena that change; so do the regularities: the laws, symmetries, and supposed constants of nature.”

Farnaz, the spiritualist, read on p. xi: “(T)he laws of physics are fundamentally and essentially variable (for example, there is much evidence and documentation that most of the constant principles of nature and those influenced by gravity are in fact not constant). Existence itself is in motion.” (emphasis in the original)

Just some food for future thought. If I arrive at any great insights from all of this, I'll be happy to share. At the same time, perhaps others on the list have had their own "a-ha" moments in terms of understanding the evolving nature of the universe, the constancy of change, and the implications that nature's laws might best be viewed from a cosmological, historical perspective. Yours kindly, -Joe

Dr. Joseph H. Michalski

Associate Academic Dean

King’s University College at Western University

266 Epworth Avenue

London, Ontario, Canada N6A 2M3

Tel: (519) 433-3491, ext. 4439

Fax: (519) 433-0353

Email: [log in to unmask]

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eⁱ^π + 1 = 0

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