Consistent Reality

Lamp Oil

Luke 12, NKJV

35“Let your waist be girded and your lamps burning; 36and you yourselves be like men who wait for their master, when he will return from the wedding, that when he comes and knocks they may open to him immediately. 37Blessed are those servants whom the master, when he comes, will find watching. Assuredly, I say to you that he will gird himself and have them sit down to eat, and will come and serve them. 38And if he should come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, and find them so, blessed are those servants. 39But know this, that if the master of the house had known what hour the thief would come, he would have watched and not allowed his house to be broken into. 40Therefore you also be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”

 

Do you believe you'll exist on Earth after God's Tribulation is finished?

 

Then you better prepare for what is to come.  Even if you don't, attempting to help those who may can't be bad.

 

Jesus will rule as benevolent King, but people will have need to interact, organize, and be productive.  The King may decide to implement self governance, so consideration of those principles may be required. People will not lie idly by, doing nothing, creating nothing, merely in bliss like in a drug-induced stupor. There will be reason for those who persist to do so besides the inactivity of an endless high.  Ultimately, it's all for God's good pleasure, but purpose will trickle down. Education of children will continue, as it cannot help but, if there were to be any.

 

I have realized ways to improve the understanding of people in various areas. (Realizations do not come from analysis. They come from nowhere we know how to prove, like all inspiration.)  I intend to document these things so they may be found by those who remain, if God inspires them to look in the right place.  If these are judged to be improvements toward Truth I assume they will be available to those who seek it.

 

I am attempting to fill a backup bottle of lamp oil, that there may be light for those who faithfully waited for and received their master.

 

There is no point in buttering burnt toast.    // Because you can't fix what is already ruined.

Chapter 1 - The Beginning

 

JD, Joseph Daniel, his chosen name, was at a technical training seminar waiting for class to start while many students and instructors were socializing and talking at the front of the classroom.  JD picked up a discussion about the book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance", by Robert M. Pirsig, and asked to nobody in particular, "Is that a good book?"  A tallish slender dark-haired well-dressed gray-bearded man with intense eyes and a severe aspect heard, and, looking over directly into JD's eyes, locking his gaze, stated with certainty, "It will change your life."  That was all, and he disappeared into the socialization never to be perceived by JD again.

 

And he was right; it did.

 

The Consequence

The book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" includes a philosophical discussion of the abstract concept of Quality, and its importance to Reality.  JD could understand the concepts being presented, but saw that they were incorrect and incomplete. This sparked his own mediations about Reality at a new level of awareness, and from these meditations his realizations accumulated and his understanding increased along several disparate paths of contemplation. It was only years and decades later that all this understanding led to new realizations that tied it all together into an explanation of self Consistent Reality, that is, the physical plus the spiritual.

 

Definitions and Thought

In order to think, one must use the precise definitions of the words under consideration, and must use correct logic to make deductions, extrapolations, interpolations, inductions, or any other sense of the words, what they mean, how they are associated and distinguished, and what correlations if any arise between or among them.

 

A Term is a word with a formal definition within the current context. This current context is the outermost level: this document. _Terms are capitalized to indicate that the formal definition is in effect, but when important ambiguity might arise, the capital letter is preceded by an underscore '_' for precise clarification. The ordinary English language usage of a term with lowercase is still specified to be the formal definition in the context; the capitalization is added for clarity and specificity, to minimize perceived ambiguity–but there is actually no ambiguity; once a Term is specified in a context, it always means that and nothing else. I say what I assert. No objection is relevant to that. (You may not put words in my mouth, nor argue with yours as if they were mine.)

 

Reality::The Physical Plus The Spritual.   // means Note: a double-colon '::' means the preceding Term has the subsequent definition.

 

The-Physical::What is observable.           // primarily by physics and its derivatives like chemistry and biology, cosmology, geology, etc.

 

The-Spiritual::Preferences about directly experienced Awareness::the senses: sight, sound, scent, taste, touch, spatial orientation; including memories, thoughts and their cousins: ideas, dreams, and imagination, projections and judgements; including feelings and emotions, and including the realization or recognition of abstract correctness (often called the "Ah Ha!" moment) and assessment of importance.

 

Awareness::Anything directly experienced.

 

Preferences::That which is cared-about, in total. Each individual awareness has its own preference and associated importance that contributes to the whole.

 

Priority::The relative importance of a Preference.

 

Preferences and their associated priorities are dynamic, changing with time and circumstance. For example, if one is not hungry that one has a low priority on eating. Later the priority to eat will increase with the perceived hunger. And, you usually don't pee unless you feel a need to go..

 

Priorities descend from, first ones Values::The few topmost-in-importance most-persistent ideals; and the Principles::desires consistent with those values not associated with physical sensations of awareness.

 

An example of a Value is Truth.  A principle associated with that value is Honesty.

 

Exists::Is Somewhere.

 

Has-Ever-Existed means it existed at a point in time, meaning it was somewhere at some time.

 

A thing does not exist that has never existed, even now.

 

A person is not Honest unless they have had the opportunity to make a dishonest choice, and make an honest one instead.

 

A person does not have good character unless they have encountered situations to exhibit bad character, and chose instead to exhibit good.

 

Do you think people that have never been honest or exhibited good character get into Heaven, or are those requirements?

 

On Love

 

Love::Doing something for others without Earthly benefit to self.     // Heavenly/Eternal benefit is distinct and excluded.

 

A mother derives joy and pleasure and satisfaction when her children are successful and healthy and do well. Therefore, acting on behalf of her children is also directly acting in her own self interest; it is not Love that fits in this definition. Similarly a husband and his wife, or kids and their parents. These are not altruistic Loves, since they include Earthly benefit.

 

A person who volunteers to join the military or otherwise offers to sacrifice his life for his community is acting on behalf of others without regard to Earthly benefit (a soldier's or fire-fighter's or police-officer's sustinance-level compensations are not why they volunteer to suffer) is exhibiting Love consistent with this definition.

 

A person who mends a broken wing and takes care of it until the bird may once again fly away has exhibited this Love.

 

About JD

At the time of this very writing, JD is 70 years old, a short man who wishes he were taller, with gray and white beard and gray and brown hair that have been turning darker for about a year, and his most mentioned feature: blue eyes. Also about a year ago his 25+ year need for corrective vision glasses (progressive tri-focals) disappeared without explanation. 

 

He retired at age 66 with a fancy title that amounts to "top-level software engineer" while working with a technical contractor to NASA working at Johnson Space Center outside of Houston, TX, where he helped build the simulation for the International Space Station (ISS) 57 foot long 7-jointed robotic arm (Space Station Remote Manipulator System, aka SSRMS), and later developed an architecture and software implementation for autonomous adaptive instructor-independent training of astronauts in the use of the robotic arm to capture ISS Visiting Vehicles, such as the well known Space-X Dragon capsule.

 

JD took up electric guitar when he retired, concentrating on the blues that he always loved and came to understand learning to play diatonic blues harp (or just simply "harp") [harmonica-info.com], and after 4 years became fairly well competent in playing lead guitar, having played piano and other keyboard instruments since a single-digit child, and having learned to play harp over the previous 30 years.

 

On April 18, 2023 JD visited a karaoke bar for the first time, Mother Shucker's (oysters too) and saw and participated in the event.

 

Playlists and music videos are available at his main website: http://jdAdamson.com

 

Oh yeah, JD twists his hair sometimes, compulsively and without good control–consistent with Trichotillomania symptoms. Like now, and recently. It's worse with stress, and having figured out a couple of important considerations, JD's stress level significantly improved, and the affliction is a little bit less than it was a a couple of days ago.

 

Ongoing Moments

JD just realized something else forgotten in the process of sitting down to write it. Hmm. There has to be a better way.. I'm Not listening to hours of voice recordings! Maybe if I talk to Alexa or Google Home or Siri.. Hey Siri, remember this! But I forget. And then I'd still forget to type it in, and you still won't know the mystery I just solved. Sigh.

 

Alright! Somebody ask an important question.

 

I'm waiting..

 

And waiting.,.   // I use dot-comma-dot .,. to indicate "tongue in cheek" or otherwise joking or kidding around.

 

Here's something. It's not that men don't understand women. It's that women cannot understand men, certainly partially because they lack the Y chromosomes that produce genes that express physical characteristics that result in men caring about things that women cannot, having insufficient bio-chemistry to make it possible.  So men understanding where women are coming from, having a full X chromosome and all associated genes, but may consider other things that women cannot comprehend to be more important than the woman does, so the women think the man does not understand or he would see it her way, when in fact he does fully understand, but takes more into account than she is able. Perhaps that's why Biblically the woman is not allowed to teach, or have authority over a man (ref Tim 2).

 

Ah! I know what it was! About this title: "Lamp Oil", and the parable it refers to which it refers get over it.  Prepare for your master's return, and do not be foolish (and run out of lamp oil).  I am preparing for "my Master's" return, Jesus, and the new kingdom He will establish. They will need to do away with the deceived, foolish, corrupt, incorrect thinking and writings and media and beliefs that was in widespread belief at the end. They will need something to help, that clarifies some of the misunderstandings and explains some of the mysteries and shows how everything all fits together, nicely and logically, and how The Bible agrees with the to be then old Scientists of that End Era.

 

I know too many answers. There are too many secrets there is no point sharing now–no point buttering burnt toast. (No possibility of buttering burnt bread, right?)

 

Words and Logic

Meanings of words is what matters to thinking. Coupled with logic, that is how one reasons, the essential component of rationality.  Unfortunately, in English every word has multiple meanings–and there is no customary or succinct way of identifying the one in the attempted communication–where the initiator intends the receiver to correctly interpret their meaning.  (I have adopted the convention of using "their" as a singular pronoun in place of gender specifity where none is needed. I also use capital E to mean a gender-neutral other, as I is a gender-neutral self. E told me a secret, but I didn't believe em.)  So the receiver makes their best guess based on their understanding of the current context and the situation and the attempted-communicator and experience and mood and predelection and education and intelligence, and is expected to guess properly.

In most cases, neither the sender nor the receiver of the intended message has any idea whether the communication was successful. Which meanings of each words was utilized by the receiver, how was the overall message affected, and was the intended message successfully received? Probably not. Otherwise most plots would evaporate..  // I use two-dots to mean: consider the implications.

 

Misunderstandings are the essence of interactions in English.  Communication is doomed because nobody knows with certainty which meaning of each word was intended; they have to guess–and some do better at that than others.  This is exacerbated by the fact that most initiators of communication do not know the meanings of the words they use.  So, they don't know what they mean when they say it, and the hearer has to guess anyway, so when there is no meaning present, since the wrong words were used, and the hearer must guess at no meaning, is communication possible?
 

I think not. "Red is trees."  "Yes, sometimes I sneeze too."  "I take Zyrtek. It has natural colors and ingredients."  "Are there supernatural colors or ingredients?" "I think there must be." "Me too." "Good to be on the same page." Simultaneously, "Wavelength."   Hmm.

 

What's Next?

Well, with improvisation one never knows, or it isn't improvisation. JD prefers to improvise music, be it on piano, guitar, or harp, and whether it is brand new, a variation on a theme, or his own take on someone else's song.  Blues is well suited to improvisation, but he doesn't limit himself to the well suited..

 

"Do Not be Conformed to the World."

 

So, be a weirdo or you lose.  JD noted "check" with some satisfaction, while simultaneously recognizing and hurting from the suffering it causes him.

 

What makes him weird? Well, he does abstract math and physics just because he's thinking about it. He actually philosophises, not content to rehash the existing philosophies of yester-millenia. He plays piano and cousin keyboards and electric and acoustic guitars and harps and sings and records music and makes it available for free streaming. He analyzes the Bible and Science and sees how they are consistent. He does nature photography and writes poetry and fiction. He develops software at home, for example the ImprovMuse web app (http://myquillharp.com/ImprovMuse.html) that writes a melody and generates playable music as well as displaying the standard notation "sheet music" with harmonica tab. He also frequently cracks jokes and puns that cause eyeballs to roll and groans to occur. So, nothing in particular. Maybe lots in general though..

 

JD even improvises software. The design for a sophisticated algorithm might take as much as a minute with sheet and pencil, resulting in a squiggly-line circle, a few dots, a box, and an arrow.  He would occasionally refer back to the design to keep on course.

 

So far "Consistent Reality" (this document, in case I change the Title but forget this reference..) has not had that amount of effort invested in its design, so this appears to be an example of improvisational writing.  The rest follows from what has come before.

 

"The woman remains in transgression," in Luke 2, means "the woman is not forgiven."  One who is forgiven does not remain unforgiven, by the definition of the words.  This terrifies him.

 

Chapter 2 - Soul and Spirit

Have you ever wondered about the distinction between soul and spirit, and what their relationships are? There is a Biblical analogy to "as difficult to separate" as bone from marrow, soul from spirit, so we know they are tightly coupled together–not easy to separate.

 

Here is the relationship:

A Soul sustains its Spirit which motivates its Soul.

 

This is a good analogy: consider a guitar string (or, if you prefer, any other musical instrument's string).  The string is like the soul–without it there can be no vibration to make a sound.  The vibration is like the spirit, without which there is no sound either, yet when quiet it does not exist, but once the string has been plucked the vibration controls the positions, frequencies, and velocities along the string, based on the material properties of the string and the environmental conditions. They work together to produce the characteristic sound, which cannot result without both string and vibration.

 

Here's a 21'st century equivalent: consider an app. The hardware device (phone, tablet, laptop, …) sustains the software that utilizes the capabilities of the hardware to perform the function of the app–e.g. play selected music through headphones.

 

Duality   // Notation: [Element_1 Element_2]

A duality is such an integrated combination of attributes for a pair of elements. The most well-known duality is the [particle wave] duality of Light.  According to Science, light is simultaneously both a particle and a wave, and exhibits either characteristic depending on how you try to measure and detect the light. The most classic experiment is known as the two-slit or dual-slit experiment, where individual photons of light appear to behave as waves and produce patterns of apparent interaction, producing alternating bright and dim lines like waves which can reinforce or cancel each other's magnitude.

 

Search for the "2-slit experiment for light" to find details and pictures of this mysterious behavior of light, that summarizes the incomprehensibility of quantum mechanics nicely all by itself.

 

Triality   //Notation:  

                //[Element_1<Characteristic_Interaction>Element_2]

A Triality::Duality plus its characteristic interaction in its environment. We saw that a vibrating string produces a sound, which is that characteristic interaction. Nobody will confuse a middle-C note played by a piano with that played by a violin or a guitar. The strings are different, and though they vibrate at the same frequency, the timbre is distinct, as well the loudness may be, each with its characteristic interaction, since a different violin playing the note will not be confused with a piano or guitar.

 

Example Trialities

Here are the trialities discussed so far:

 

[String<Sound>Vibration]

[Hardware<App>Software]

[Particle<Color>Wave]

[Soul<Self>Spirit]

 

The [string vibration] produces a characteristic sound, like an acoustic guitar's open 6-string low-E.

 

The [hardware software] combination produces an App(lication) with characteristic functions, e.g. a music player.

 

The [particle wave] produces light with characteristic properties, e.g. its color, like yellow.

 

The [soul spirit] produces a self; like a person.

 

The quintessential difference between a self and not-selves is that

A Self cares about its environment.

 

If you throw a rock into a fire it doesn't care, as far as we know–pity if it does and can do nothing about its situation, like people and theirs..  If you are thrown into a fire, if you are able you will act to alter your environment because you prefer not to be in a fire and burn alive.

 

For clarity, JD does care about his environment.  Therefore,  JD knows he is a Self, and assumes others sufficiently like him are also selves.  But this is necessarily an assumption, as nobody actually knows what others are or are not aware of or feel, and really care about.

 

I Am Aware, Therefore Awareness Exists

JD's first statement of Fact from which all else flows is the above proof of the existence of Awareness.

 

Since he is aware, and so testifies, it is not possible that awareness does not exist.  No mystical interpretation of existence that would abstract the awareness to another matters in the least–Awareness still exists, even if it is not his.

 

And we know that he cares about his environment–for example he prefers not to burn alive–so we also know that Preferences exist. It is not possible for them to exist somewhere and simultaneously not exist at all anywhere.

 

Since Preferences exist, the question may follow: Are all Preferences identical in magnitude?

 

Since JD remembers that burning ones-self is worse than not drinking a beer, it is clear that not all Preferences have identical magnitude. This difference is defined as the relative Priority of the Preference, and can be thought of as how important that preference is at the time of consideration.

 

Dynamic Priorities and Preferences

Things that change in time or circumstance are called "dynamic".  Maybe you don't have to pee now, so the priority to use the bathroom is very low. As time marches on that situation will change. At some point the priority to use the bathroom will increase to the point it initiates action–or you'll pee yourself, which all I have known prefer not to do, even babies preferring to be dry.  Maybe you greatly prefer not to fight, but if somebody wrongly attacks and attempts to injure your child, that priority not to fight may fall beneath the high priority to protect your innocent child from harm, as circumstances dictate.

 

Optimized Satisfaction of Preferences

The term Preferences refers to caring about any and all of the complete set of awarenesses of a Self.  An intelligent Self seeks to optimize the integrated set of Prioritized Preferences to try to achieve maximum overall Satisfaction.  (Perhaps the success of doing so is directly correlated with intelligence to the point of defining what intelligence actually is.)  It is no good to satisfy ones desire for a beer at the cost of burning alive. Where the satisfaction of the "Likes to drink beer" preference may be maximized, burning alive is typically deemed more important, and so the trade-off is judged not worth it, so the decision is not to do it. The self sacrifices drinking the beer to avoid burning alive, which best suits the optimized Overall Satisfaction of Preferences (aka OSP), in the self's judgement. 

 

Important to note the two distinct factors: 1) Satisfaction of a specific individual preference, and 2) Overall Integrated Satisfaction of All Preferences. 

 

Note as well that some preferences are self contingent and contradictory. You may want to eat the whole cake, but not want to gain the weight that would result. As you wrestle with the judgement you may realize a compromise position that fails to completely satisfy the desire to eat the whole cake and fails to completely satisfy the desire to consume no empty calories, but you choose to eat a piece of cake instead, to increase your overall satisfaction without completely satisfying any particular preference. Or you may be wrestling with how to simultaneously do two things you want: have your cake, and eat it too.

 

This process of judgement in considering satisfaction of preferences is directly associated with the Spirit of the Self.  The Spirit sets the priorities, which determine the importance of each preference, projects the consequence of actions, and results in a decision.  

 

As the verse goes: "It's what you Choose that IS what matters. It's what You choose that is what Matters. Your Spirit lets you choose what it is you gain or lose, and whether it's the former, or the latter."

 

Suffer for the Right Reason

You know, not all suffering is created equal. If you suffer to produce the Fruit of  The Spirit of  Truth that Jesus sends to you, that is good, and among the works you want to take with you when you die (ref. Rev).  If you suffer for selfish causes, why would that be credited as good works?  Your works still go with you, for good or ill.

 

[Heavenly-Father<Word=Light>Spirit-of-Truth]

 

In the beginning was the Word, the Life, even the light of men (so there's no confusion about what kind of light), even the light that shines on everyone was coming into the world, who manifested in the flesh as Jesus Christ and tabernacled among us for a while.  This is the deity aspect of Jesus, where God supplied all the Y chromosome, since Jesus had no Earthly father, just the mother Mary and her X chromosomes.

 

I wonder, since God designed the perfect male Y chromosome for Adam, did he use that same perfect Y chromosome for Jesus?  Who should pay for ones sins–the one who committed them, or someone else?

 

In the beginning… God said, "Let there be Light! And there Was Light."  

 

In physics, light is called "the carrier of information."  What is a Word but a carrier of information? 

 

Nobody should think "the beginning" here means the beginning of God, who has no beginning. This refers to the beginning of our Universe–a word not used in Jesus' time, when the word Earth or Heavens and Earth meant "all that exists", as the word Universe is used today.