Podcast — Some things will never change, part 2
- timothyharleywright
- Mar 5, 2024
- 8 min read
We live NOW in the best of all possible worlds.
Related:
Music: Gustav Holst, "Jupiter," from The Planets
Script:
It's The William Tell Show. I call myself William Tell; you can call me Bill. Thank you for including me in your world.
A lot of the 2016 Presidential election had to do with who was and who was not being included. Political correctness was, and still is, all about including some people and excluding others.
We're back, after several months away. Obstacles kept me from recording or producing this podcast; obstacles with the tablet I was using; obstacles with the platforms at WordPress and Anchor; some obstacles with physical health, as I became (Here's a word for you.) nar-co-lep-tic. And finally, there were and are some emotional obstacles as regards this episode. "Some things will never change," and, in short, I have deep personal objections concerning some things that will never change.
Hmmm. Okay, I'm writing up this script in an app called TextPad, one of my favorite apps, but it has no word count.
Einstein did not win the Nobel Prize for the Theory of Relativity. He won it twenty or thirty years earlier, for the paper that BEGAN the world of quantum physics. This pertained to the photoelectric effect.
He observed that when light shines on a piece of metal, electrons — Apparently, even that word had not been coined yet. — electrons popped out of it. The number of electrons being emitted depends on the brilliance of the light involved. The SPEED of the electrons depends on the COLOR of the light involved. And when one starts measuring those speeds, things got really strange.
In the macroscopic world, the world of objects large enough to see, an object can move with pretty much any speed whatsoever. When your car accelerates from zero m.p.h. to 60, it speeds up through a continuum, at one instant or another traveling at every single speed between zero and 60. It was not so with these electrons. There was no continuum of speeds. There were specific speeds at which any one moved, with no speeds in between; the specific speeds depending on what specific metal was involved.
Next came the question of measurement. As went the efforts to find both an electron's location and its speed, at any moment, it became apparent that there were trade-offs as to how closely one could measure either one. The act of measuring had an impact on, it CHANGED, the thing being measured. And it was such that the more closely one measured one aspect, the less closely one was able to measure the other aspect.
In our macroscopic world, that sounds absurd. Measuring cannot change the thing being measured. You hold up a ruler to a plank of wood, and measure it, and that's that. The wood is not changed. But in energy systems, it's different. The electric meter at your house USES electricity to measure how much you're using. It uses a tiny, tiny amount, as compared to the amount of energy it's measuring. But in the microscopic world, it's different. The energy of measurement is much closer to the energy being measured. You're inevitably using light waves to measure things that those light waves — MOVE, or speed up, or slow down.
A man named Werner Heisenberg managed to pin this down, in what is called the Uncertainty Principle. It applies to many different features of subatomic particles that one may seek to measure. But in the starkest case, it says one can find a particle's location perfectly, only if one gives up finding any information about its speed; or, one can find a particle's speed perfectly, only if one gives up finding any information about its location. On the one hand, this produced a crisis in the world of philosophy, as people came to question whether there's any such thing as absolute truth, or objective fact; since, most certainly, the particle at any moment does have a very specific speed and also a very specific location. As to where one might find an electron within an atom, however, it boiled down to this: We don't know where it is, but it's in there somewhere.
Along came Erwin Schroedinger, who managed to pin that down further. We know that an electron can only have one of a collection of certain speeds. Exactly what those speeds are, in any case, depend on the chemical element involved. But WHERE is an electron LIKELY to be found, if it does have one of those specific speeds? He worked out the probabiliites, and found certain shapes, or places or locations or "loci," where an electron was most likely to be, depending on its speed. The first one, for the lowest speed, is a sphere. We cannot know where the electron is, at any moment, on the surface of that sphere; but that's where it has to be. It can't be anywhere else. For the next speed, the shape is basically a dumbbell, two lobes. We can't know where the electron is, on the surface of that shape, at any moment; but if it's moving at that speed, somewhere on the surface of that shape is where it has to be. It cannot be any other way.
If it could be any other way, the cosmos would disintegrate into chaos, or else cease to exist.
The macroscopic world that we know of, is built on those fundamental principles. They control all possible physical events; not what DOES happen, but what CAN happen. The physical universe that we have, is the only one that can exist.
If it's the only one that can exist, then it must be, can only be, the best of all possible worlds.
Let's take a break.
[Commercial break, with or without a commercial.]
We're going to shift now, somewhat, into the world of religion. I would not invite you to ADOPT MY beliefs, but instead suspend for a while the dogmas and teachings others may have handed you, and just consider what you actually see happening in the real world.
All physical events that can occur, or do occur, do occur consistent with the laws of physics, which do not change. There is also the spiritual world, the world of thoughts and feelings, which is subject to a body of laws ANALOGOUS TO the laws of physics. All things which do occur, or can occur, in the spiritual world — the world of thoughts and feelings — do occur consistent with those laws.
There are not, in fact, two separate sets of laws or principles. There is only one, that governs both the physical and the spiritual worlds, together, seamlessly.
The most prominent analog between the physical and the spiritual world, is that ATTENTION is the analogue of GRAVITY.
Whatever you attend to, pay attention to, you will be drawn toward, for better or for worse. You are completely free to choose WHAT you pay attention to, and HOW you FEEL — That is the meaning of "free will." Whatever you pay attention to, is what you've chosen to make matter for you.
Some of Jesus' teachings are inscrutable, because he does not tell us how the world SHOULD be, but how it IS; not what SHOULD happen, but what DOES happen.
So we come across statements like, "Seek, and ye shall find." In terms of probabilities, we don't need to doubt that one is more likely to find something if one seeks it, than if one does not. The job search, for example, is hard. It's hard for anyone. I can tell you that. I've been through it. My blog includes records of the diligent job searches I made over extended periods of time in the past. Since 2013, I never FOUND work; but certain it is, that a man who LOOKS FOR work is MORE LIKELY to FIND it, than the man who does not. I went through the applications and interviews. But if I were sitting idly on the curb, no one is likely to just walk up to me and say, "You're hired."
Seeking and finding also applies to peace, joy, and happiness.
We can all seek the best, and find it, and so have greater happiness in this world.
Not everyone does that. Certainly, not everyone knows they CAN do that. There are those who do the opposite. And here comes the question of God's will, God's PLAN, and human free will.
To me, the term "God's will" refers not to any agenda of events that are to take place in history. Instead, the term "God's will" refers to the body of laws that govern existence, the laws of physics and the laws of the spiritual world, that control not all that DOES happen, but that CAN happen. These laws are inviolable, just as God's will is inviolable.
Well, people say, "People violate God's will all the time." I've just said that that's not so; that it cannot be so. But does God have a PLAN of events that are to take place in history?
To me, God's PLAN is no more nor less than this: that people exercise free will, choose what to pay attention to, choose how to feel, and live with the results of those choices.
That happens to be what is called "karma."
God does not intervene in the exercise of free will. We are completely free to choose whatever we will — and live with the results of those choices.
So, for example, there is no cosmic interference with what we call "evil." People are completely free to choose and do that, and will meet no interference with those choices.
There are people who have chosen to make their lives a train wreck. There are whole communities of such people, who have chosen to make their lives a train wreck. And like a real train wreck, when you see such people or such communities, you're prone to feel some kinda way.
A real train wreck is an actual disaster. There are people who are seriously hurt. People in pain. People who need help. But on the one hand, you, the observer, may be powerless to help them. What else can one do? It is feasible to look and look, and get wrapped up in some kind of perverse pleasure at the gore, and be distracted from the things one can actually do in one's own best interest and the best interests of others.
The latter is a lot of what liberals are really about.
Then there is the prospect that, if one does try to help such folk, one may meet rejection. For reason that, what YOU think they NEED, IS NOT what they WANT.
So they may reject, despise, the things or help you offer them. Because, at bottom, what THEY need most of all is to CHANGE THEIR WAYS.
You may never have seen these people; most Americans haven't. But they're there. In the past, I have lived among them. There are people who will DESTROY ANY GOOD THING you give them.
All that said, the best is still available to seek.
This is the way the world is.
Some things will never change.
The world that is, is the ONLY world that CAN be.
Accordingly, it is the best of all possible worlds.
The best of all possible worlds, here and now.
The Kingdom of God — Jesus said, "The kingdom of God is at hand." That was two thousand years ago. It was at hand then. It is at hand now. It's not waiting for some future event, to come. The Kingdom of God is in place, present, here and now, and God is reigning.
What can we do?
We can seek the best.
For today's music, since we've been discussing cosmology and the shape of the universe, it seemed fitting to me to choose a number that speaks to the cosmos. Gustav Holst wrote a suite called "The Planets." One of the foremost movements in that suite is called "Jupiter." So, I've linked to it. Enjoy.
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