KEN RUEGG
VICTIMIZED BY MILLIONS
God and Man Evolving: Our steady-state misconceptions
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  MAN SEES HIMSELF, AND HIS GOD, AS BEING STEADY-STATE:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           GALILEO GALILEI was forced to recant his discoveries, and placed under house arrest for life, because the Pope, and almost everyone else at that time, was certain that Creation, reflecting the God who created it, was steady-state. A cosmology, taught by the Catholic Church, placed the Earth at the center of the Universe. Galileo challenged this, placing the Sun at the center of the Solar System. He had invented and built the first telescope, and had used it to examine the heavens more closely. Galileo was convicted of heresy by an ecclesiastical court, consisting of Cardinals who refused to look through his telescope! They were certain that scripture and church tradition alone validly described Creation! Galileo Galilei was forced to refute his discoveries publicly, dressed as a heretic wearing a dunce cap, after having been shown implements of torture, and was then placed under house arrest for life! Man still saw himself as being part of an ancient cosmology, ultimately based upon unaided vision, and thus steady-state.                                                                                                                                                                                                                           A STEADY-STATE GOD WOULD CREATE AN UNCHANGING MANKIND, AS PART OF AN UNCHANGING COSMOS CREATED BY THAT GOD, AND MAN WAS CERTAIN OF THAT!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         A PROBLEM FOR MAN at any time, is that there isn't any significant change in himself, in terms of his species, of which he is aware. He sees himself in biological terms, and believes that he has one species of mind, which is the result of his one species of body. Speciation occurring in Homo sapiens sapiens is obviously absent.                                                                                                                                                                     AN ADDITIONAL PROBLEM FOR MAN is that his mind, and world, are filled with ways of seeing inherited from the past.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               MENTAL SPECIATION IN MAN IS SCIENTIFIC HERESY! He sees his mind as produced by his body. By the biochemistry of his brain. He is one species. AND HE IS CERTAIN OF IT!                                                                                                                                                                            SUCH SPECIATION IN GOD HIMSELF IS UNTHINKABLE! RIDICULOUS! CONTRARY TO THE MONOTHEISTIC RELIGIONS! The "Epilogue" contains important ideas, relevant to those presented here, under "On Mind", and "On Mind contemplating Mind". The premise of an infinitely evolving ETERNAL MIND is a conclusion drawn from other ideas presented on this website.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        MENTAL SPECIATION IN HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS OCCURS SO SLOWLY, that the species doesn't notice it. And the idea, presented on this website, is being presented for the first time. It is totally new. The website adequately covers everything but the issue of an evolving GOD, or ETERNAL MIND. The following text examines this issue:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             ANSELM OF CANTERBURY postulates God as the greatest Being Who can exist, arguing further, that since a real God is greater than an imaginary God, God exists. I ARGUE THAT a God evolving eternally, without end, is greater than a God who remains at any one point, being defined by limitation.              There is no end to evolution of mind, and stages of mental development, for a God who is without end, and growing, or evolving, mentally: achieving stage after successive stage of mental advancement, through Self-contemplation, to infinity.                                                                                                                                            PLACE A LIMITED GOD at any point on that upward infinite progression, and AN "EVOLVING" GOD IS GREATER, advancing beyond that point.*                                                                                                                                                           AN "EVOLVING" GOD FULFILLS HIS NATURE. CONTEMPLATION IS NECESSARY TO MIND. MIND CEASES TO EXIST WITHOUT IT.                                                                                                                                                               GOD BEING ETERNAL, AND THUS EXISTING OUTSIDE TIME, is relevant to His mental evolution being infinite, because TIME IS NUMBERED MOTION, and ONLY MATTER AND ENERGY MOVE. Aristotle's concept, based upon cause and effect, which involves one in an infinite temporal regression, of an UNMOVED MOVER, applies.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         THE CONCEPT OF "SELF-CREATION", either by matter and energy, or by God Himself, is a non-sequitur: to create itself, a cause must exist, while to be created, that same cause must not exist.                 Simultaneous existence and non-existence, in the case of the same phenomenon, is not possible. And to assume that a phenomenon always existed in a temporal framework, involves one in an infinite temporal regression, with no starting point from which to reach any other point.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   GOD EXISTING OUTSIDE TIME, IMPLIES THAT HE HAS NO BEGINNING, AND NO END. HE SIMPLY IS. HIS EXISTENCE IS ETERNAL (i.e. NON-TEMPORAL). BEGINNINGS AND ENDINGS OCCUR ONLY WITHIN TEMPORAL PROGRESSIONS.                                                                                                                                                                                                         THE INFINITY OF ETERNAL MIND IS THEREFORE NOT WITHIN TIME. TIME ITSELF, NUMBERED MOTION, BEGINS WITH THE "BIG BANG", GOD'S ACT OF CREATION.**                                                                                                                                                                                            MIND EVOLVING TO INFINITY, WITHIN TIME, NEVER REACHES INFINITY. AT ANY PARTICULAR MOMENT, IT IS AT SOME FIXED POINT IN TIME, AND LESS THAN INFINITE. THIS INABILITY TO ACHIEVE INFINITY, LASTS FOREVER.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           ETERNAL MIND, OUTSIDE TIME, ACHIEVES INFINITY IN "NO TIME AT ALL": "ALWAYS", "UNCEASINGLY", "WITHOUT END", MAINTAINING ITSELF TO INFINITY, WITHOUT CHANGE, THROUGH SELF-CONTEMPLATION. THE INFINITY OF ETERNAL MIND, EXPRESSED DIFFERENTLY, IS THE DOCTRINE OF GOD'S OMNISCIENCE.                                                                                                                                                                   SELF-CONTEMPLATION BY GOD IS CHRISTIAN DOGMA. THE HOLY TRINITY RESULTS FROM IT. GOD THE FATHER, contemplating Himself, brings forth His SON, and the FATHER AND SON, contemplating each other, together bring forth THE HOLY SPIRIT. GOD REMAINS ONE GOD, BUT IN THREE DIVINE PERSONS, FATHER, SON, AND HOLY SPIRIT.***                                                                                                                                  GOD REMAINS GOD, WHILE FULFILLING HIS NATURE THROUGH SELF-CONTEMPLATION!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               ETERNAL MIND WOULD CREATE HUMAN MIND, IN HIS OWN IMAGE AND LIKENESS:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  EVOLVING ETERNAL MIND WOULD CREATE EVOLVING HUMAN MIND. Evolution of Mind in humans is evolution of the Human Race, throughout the duration of its existence in time.                                                                                                                                                                                                          GOD WILLED THE "BIG BANG" TO CREATE MIND, EVOLVING IN A WAY CONSISTENT WITH HIMSELF, BUT TEMPORALLY. MANKIND WAS NOT INTENDED TO EVOLVE INTO GOD'S EQUAL, AND CANNOT, EVEN IF GIVEN INFINITE TIME TO DO SO.****                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      "CRIME", OR "DYSFUNCTIONAL BEHAVIOR", DAMAGES THIS PROCESS. VICTIMIZING OTHERS IS VIOLENCE, TO SOCIETY, TO EVOLUTION, AND TO GOD HIMSELF:*****                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            "Whatever you do to the least of my brethren, that you do unto me!"                                                                                                                                                                                                     -Jesus, the Christ                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       *postulating such advancement as finite, by assuming a limit to the number of successive stages of mind attainable, denies the nature of mind. Men, being finite, the process for humans ending upon death, and for their race upon extinction, at least in this world, think in finite terms. They cannot continue the process forever on Earth. Eternal God, in His Heaven, however, continues it "unceasingly", or, to put it differently, maintains Himself to Infinity of Mind (i.e. Omniscience). Isaac Newton observed, "What I know, is like a drop of water, and what can be known, is like the drops of water in all of the oceans of the world!". Newton communicated in this way to those less gifted than himself. He knew knowledge to be infinite. Albert Einstein later observed, "We still do not know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us!". Learning occurs in stages (Piaget), and thus the potentially attainable stages of mind are limitless.                                                                                                                                                                                 **should theoretical physicists, due to further discoveries in astronomy and mathematics, determine that the "Big Bang" was not, in fact, the beginning of it all, this will have no effect on these arguments, because there had to be a beginning. Anything else involves one in an infinite temporal regression, with no starting point from which to reach any position in time, no matter where. Considerations of "space-time", and time travel, are irrelevant. The nature of time, either as a progression, or as a regression, requires a starting point from which to reach any other point. With no beginning, you couldn't be anywhere.                                                                                                                                                     ***all of this is about evolution of mind, but not about the content of mind. I know about the process by which Eternal Mind, or the "Mind of God", evolves, or "proceeds", which is different from knowing either the thoughts, or the structure, of that Eternal Mind. Knowing how mind works, doesn't reveal the content of the thinking, or even what mind is, that it should exist. Only aspects of the Creator are visible in His Creation.                                                                                                                                                                                                             ****considerations of personal immortality are covered in the last paragraph of "Epilogue". Such immortality requires an order of being independent of time, as God is, created by God as part of His purpose, and placed in Man. Most religions refer to such an order of existence, being present in Man, as Man's "immortal soul". Some religions consider it to be Man's mind.                                                                                                                                                                                                             *****atheists, or others who do not believe that God created the "Big Bang", some theoretical physicists being among them, cannot discredit Evolution of Mind as a real progression from matter and energy, to life, to mind advancing in life, by the addition of components acquired in stages. The process itself is real regardless of considerations concerning its origin! Added to this creation of mind is the development of artificial intelligence by humans: man himself is building computers capable of thinking on their own! Another factor is that such machines may become able to advance mind by creating more complex thought processes in machines themselves! See the items THE MACHINE STOPS, COLOSSUS: THE FORBIB PROJECT, and FORBIDDEN PLANET, in "bibliography and notes", under "contact", for three disaster scenarios based upon machines and artificial intelligence.