Science, Natural Revelation,
And Cognitive Thermodynamics
Through science/natural revelation, we see that the universe is expanding at an ever-increasing rate so that eventually no interaction between the furthest parts of the structure can occur, neither electromagnetic nor gravitational. This will lead to space-time ripping apart; the destruction of the substrate of all material things in the universe. Scientific American March 2005: "If the acceleration (of our expanding universe) itself increased, it could eventually grow strong enough to tear apart all structures, leading to a “big rip.” Nothing in the material universe can survive this.
According to cosmologists here is the way of material things:
This is the mother of all problems! The first thing God said to us according to the book of Genesis is; subdue the world. And God’s message in the book of nature is; eventually you must transcend this world. The good news is we are complying with this request. The best of our science, technology and economy is converging with God to a point where life makes a critical transition from where a flow of material is necessary for our survival to a fully spiritual life. The spiritual life is purely growth in understanding. In the infinite continuum of life, understanding evolves over time. That is how we subdue the world and that leads to our salvation. From the transcendent spiritual viewpoint our salvation is guaranteed but from the humanist view inside space-time our salvation requires work.
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A non-biological approach to life that has also yielded stunning results over the last few years is the one based on information and directly influenced by Cybernetics and Information Theory. Life is viewed as information capable of replicating and modifying itself. http://www.thymos.com/tat/biology.html |
The work of life is to exist and grow. Growth in understanding is essential to the efficient application of the work of life. When we call “work applied to growth in understanding” the Holy Spirit, we can apply the fundamental laws of physics to our spiritual life. Today there is a branch of science emerging called Cognitive Thermodynamics. In this study love becomes a process where events of communication are the input. It is the source of cognitive energy. This call is a signal and an expression that fills the world. We also receive a stabilizing signal from each other, and there is even an intuitive internal channel. In the love process we turn our attention to the energetic expression in which is encoded an infinite reservoir of truth. In our spiritual life we live off of this truth. The efficiency of the love process depends on how much of this we connect to, how peaceful the environment is, and the ease at which we can forgive. Ignoring some of this impedes the process.
An expression impresses. That is the cognitive energy transfer that fuels and inspires us. Work is done on our being. It motivates us and this is inspiration. And natural revelation teaches us that any process needs an exhaust. Forgiveness is that exhaust in the study of cognitive thermodynamics.
Like a heat engine, life converts objective truth into understanding.
From Wikipedia: A heat engine performs the conversion of heat energy to work by exploiting the temperature gradient between a hot "source" and a cold "sink". Heat is transferred to the sink from the source, and in this process some of the heat is converted into work. The theoretical maximum efficiency of any heat engine is defined by the Carnot Cycle. The carnot heat engine (the ideal imaginary heat engine) has an efficiency equal to (T1 - T2)/T1 where T1 is the absolute temperature of the hot source and T2 that of the cold sink.
Energy = word
High quality Source = Glory of God
Sink = forgiveness
This becomes important when we consider that in the coming years computer/human interfaces will become so intimate that users may reasonably be considered superhumanly intelligent transcendent humans, or "transhumans". If this concept of cognitive thermodynamics is correct then we should expect the love process to cause the lower hierarchy of needs to fall away and so naturally the transhuman becomes benevolent and self-actualized. As material needs diminish, transhumans will increasingly be sustained by a powerful flow of Word (rather than material) that can be called the Glory of God. In giving up competition and control strategies, we grow to be all that we can be; Christ-like.