The Joshua Letters, 1-5

LETTER 1 – 1.859: THE JOURNEY

Hi. I am Joshua, and these are my letters. They are a summary of findings from my journey to discover and comprehend the truth about life’s great questions. Although these questions are the base subject matter of the world’s great disciplines; religion, philosophy, cosmology, physics/astrophysics, quantum mechanics, etc., I will state for the record that I am not formally schooled in any of them. However, just to stir up a bit of plot (wink, wink), I will also state that despite the fact that for the first time in history all of the information needed to put the picture together and logically come to a conclusion of the truth is readily available, no one has done it and published it (or at least not that I can find). So yes, I Joshua am indeed declaring myself first to present the picture depicting of the truth on our own existence. I don’t do so to boast but rather I, (1) hope to find others out there who have likewise discovered these truths; (2) invite the challenges of those who may disagree; and (3) ultimately hope to give many others the opportunity to consider these most important topics for themselves.

So let’s get started. I stated above that the purpose of the journey was to discover and comprehend the truth, which are two vastly different things and so, I will first focus on discovery, which requires knowing what it even is. The dictionary gives a very simple definition: Truth - “Reality. Things that are fact”. Well, what does that mean? Back to the dictionary: Reality - “The world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them”; Fact - “A thing that is indisputably the case”. This provides a good understanding of the truth, but I find it a bit lacking. I could go on looking up more terms in the dictionary, but the requirement of keeping track of many definitions is tiring. We need a one-stop-shop comprehensive definition of the truth and the best one I know of comes form the Mormons (yes, I’ve searched many a resource in my journey and so I’m sorry if you don’t like them or anybody else I will be referencing in these letters, and oh yeah… given we are on this tangent I might as well finish it: excluding potential sources of the truth is a sure fire means of never finding it, so don’t do that). Anyway, the Mormon definition of truth is written in context as if God himself were providing it (calm down, we’ll get into the topic of whether or not he exists later), and who better would know what truth is than God. The definition is found in a book called ‘The Doctrine and Covenants’, in the 93rd Chapter and is as follows: “And truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come”. I would love to go into detail on how profound this definition is, but that would force me to jump ahead and so for now, take it for what it is worth. Anyway, that is the basis of my journey, my search for truth. I want to have ‘knowledge’ of things are they are, as they have been and as they will be.

Now that we have a definition of truth, we need an accurate means of identifying it so that we will know when we have found it and when we have not. Truth is very interesting stuff by its very nature in that it is singular while error and falsehood on the other hand have infinite possibilities. Thus, truth, by it’s very nature ends up being hidden like a proverbial needle in a hay stack… a very big haystack that is continually growing in size. Thus, if we don’t have an accurate means of identifying the truth, then we have a better chance of winning the lottery than we do at finding the truth amongst so many possibilities. Also, there is another property of truth that combined with it’s singularity makes it very elusive, as evidenced by the fact that the entire world has been trying to pin it down throughout history and yet not succeeded. Along with being singular, truth is also connected with itself in a loop, with one truth leading to and being interwoven with another, which continues on until the full circle is completed and the whole truth revealed. In other words, something that is true can stand against all tests and challenges because no matter how deep you dig; all of the other truths will support it. Thus, in a way, truth is like a very close knit and exclusive family. Only worthy members get in, there is no way to fool them, and once in you are there forever and have the full support of every other member of the family.

The big problem that these two facets of truth bring us to however is the obvious question they inspire: “How does one complete this circle of truth so as to arrive at a sure knowledge of ‘things as they are, things as they have been and things as they will be”? Well, sorry about the ensuing answer but… you don’t. The only possible way to complete the circle is to first know everything because anything less than such leaves the possibility that something new and undiscovered will come along and disprove what you thought was true. Thus, I have already in my first letter taken the air out of my opening statement that - I was going to present truths that no one else ever has. Of course, this cannot be the case because I don’t know everything and neither does anyone else.

There is a bright side to truth however in that it cannot change. A truth that changes wasn’t a truth in the first place. If this facet of truth did not exist, then there would be no way to arrive at the truth for it would be a moving target that would render useless any success in finding truth because one could not thereafter rely on it remaining true. Fortunately, truth does not change and what I will present in these letters, although it cannot be the entire truth, is something new that I think you will find supported in the circle of truth as far as we know it.

My next letter will begin to unfold what I have found.

Until then...

Joshua


LETTER 2 – 1.859: CAN YOU SEE THE PICTURE

In the previous letter, I stated that my goal was to both find and comprehend the truth and that these two things are very different. Thus, as we have previously discussed discovery, let us now turn to comprehension. In so doing, I want to turn to a topic that we will dive much further into later, but for now will use only to make a point. The topic, what are we made of? What is Matter made off?

This topic is actually one of the classic questions that science has undertaken and thus, there is much information readily available for discovery. The question in a nutshell is simple, how many times can you break something down until you finally reach the point that it can no longer be broken down. For example, a rock can be broken into smaller rocks, which can be broken into gravel, sand and dust, etc. If this process is continued you will eventually reach the point where you have the individual atoms that make up the rock. However, this is the point where things get interesting because zooming in further reveals that atoms are not solid at all but are rather areas of almost pure vacuum space wherein much smaller particles exist in a manner that they only seem like they are solid. And guess what, the same thing is true for the particles that are inside of the atom, at least for the Protons and Neutrons, they are mostly vacuum space made of fast moving smaller particles called Quarks. The next question is obvious, “what are Quarks and Electrons made of”? Well, we don’t know because we’re now talking about things that are so unbelievably small that we have no current way of finding out. However, evidence already exists indicating that Quarks and Leptons (an Electron is a type of a Lepton) are made up of smaller particles. Thus, despite our best efforts to zoom in and find what things are made of, we still don’t know. We just come up with vacuum space that is occupied by fast moving particles that are too small to pin down.

Additionally, if we view this topic from a different angle we can learn a great deal more about Matter. Let’s consider Black Holes. Black Holes are areas in the universe where Matter is so dense that it exhibits a gravitational force strong enough to prevent all things, including light, from escaping it. A common way for a Black Hole to form is when a star becomes too large and collapses under its own gravitational force. The theory is that this process causes the particles that make up the star (Quarks, Leptons, whatever they may be) to stop acting like normal atoms and instead gather together very tightly in a much more condensed form with an extremely high density. I heard it once explained in a spitball kind of way that if you had a ball of Black Hole material, it would be one million times smaller than the Earth yet it would weigh one million times more than the Earth or, it would have a density one trillion times higher than that of Planet Earth. That is fascinating. What this says is that what we think we are seeing as solid material is actually 99.9999999999% pure vacuum space. And what about us?  The Earth is approximately 5.5 times more dense than we are. So, considering ourselves, if we could collapse the Matter of our own bodies down into personal Black Holes, we would be 5.5 trillion times smaller than we are now… at least.

Now, taking this information to mind I would ask, do you comprehend what it means? I chose this example specifically to accomplish two things; (1) to set the stage for letters to come but, (2) to push you to comprehend the near unbelievable weight of what this information means... to push you to start connecting the dots which, brings us to the discussion of comprehension.

Comprehension is the ability to process the information that you discover into a useable form. It is the ability to draw the correct conclusions from what you have discovered. However, comprehension is different from discovery in that it cannot stand alone. Discovery can happen singularly, but in order to comprehend, the connecting truths that surround the discovery must also be known and used correctly to formulate a conclusion. This is why the circle of truth is so important. In order to truly comprehend the truth on any given subject, you have to have access to all of the surrounding truths that are connected to it, or at least as much of them as you can. Thus, you have to be willing to follow one truth to another without bias or agenda, and this brings me back to what I started in my first letter. For the first time in history, there is enough information out there to put the whole puzzle together and answer the questions of who we are and how it is that we exist. However, as far as I can tell no one is willing to add it up. I do not say that they are not able; because it really isn’t that hard if you are willing to do it, but my observation is that few are willing even when the facts are plainly before them. Well, I am willing to do it, and that is what I will present in my letters. It will take some time for me to do so, so please be patient.

Until next time…

Joshua


LETTER 3 – 1.859: WHAT IS IT THAT WE ARE LOOKING AT

I’ve said before, that despite the fact that for the first time in history all of the information necessary to answer life’s great questions is available, I can’t find anyone that has put it all together and published it. I don’t know exactly why this is, but I speculate that it is not because the answers are overly complex but rather because they are all together unbelievable. This brings me to the last topic on truth itself that I will discuss prior to proceeding - belief. If you go through the trouble to discover and comprehend the truth, yet then for one reason or another chose not to believe it, what good is it? However, this is exactly what I find amongst the groups that have attempted to tackle these questions, and it is true for both sides of the isle. Both Religion and Science appear to be so caught up in age-old arguments (which began long before there was enough information to intelligently have the arguments in the first place) that they can’t or won’t see the truth when it finally becomes available. My opinion is that they are trapped in the snare of what occurs when you allow yourself to enter any argument… the goal quickly transforms from discovering the truth to winning the argument, rendering the would be truth seeker entirely disabled. Anyway, I won’t linger too long on this subject, but I will simply warn the reader " if you are caught up in the argument on either side, you’ll likely find no comfort in what is to come in my letters. Let’s find out by testing the water.

In the last letter we discussed the classic question, “What is Matter made of? To date, the answer is, “we don’t exactly know because whatever it is, it’s too small to observe in a manner that would allow for a definitive conclusion to be made”.  However, what we do know about Matter is unbelievable, which seems to make us want to drop the issue at the point of discovery and refuse moving on to comprehension and belief. For example, the Earth has a Schwarzschild Radius (I don’t want to tie these letters down with lots of technical definitions, such things can be easily researched via Google or other means) of 8.9mm or a diameter of 17.8mm. Wow! Does that blow anyone away other than me?

What that means is that if you take all of the Matter that Planet Earth consists of and collapse it into a Black Hole, it would be no bigger than a ping-pong ball. However, the full depiction of what we have discovered says that it is not even that big. The 8.9mm distance is only the size of its Schwarzschild Radius. Science believes that the actual mass of a Black Hole is consolidated inside the Schwarzschild Radius within a single point (again, go Google Black Holes, infinite density and all the other stuff that will make your head spin). In other words, discovery has revealed that you can take as much Matter as you want; Planet Earth, Jupiter, the Sun, a Red Giant, an entire Galaxy. Whatever it is, it can be collapsed all the same into a single point in space that is smaller than an atom with the only variations being the resulting mass of the Black Hole and the size of its corresponding Schwarzschild Radius. But how could this be possible?

Now, let’s look at it again from the atomic particle level. An atom is made from Electrons that orbit a nucleus made of Protons and Neutrons. An analogy that I once heard for this is that if a basketball represented the atom’s nucleus, then the Electrons would be like small marbles orbiting the basketball at a distance of approximately 20 miles. However, the marbles would be orbiting at speeds so incredibly high that they would appear to fill out the entire 40-mile diameter sphere, making it behave as if it were indeed solid. In addition, this principle is true for the Protons and the Neutrons. They are likewise made of much smaller particles (Quarks) that move near the speed of light, making the Protons and Neutron appear solid when they are not. So when considering our example, not even the basketball is solid, but rather almost a pure vacuum space. Also, new discovery suggests that this same principle is true for the Electrons and Quarks " they are likely not solid particles but are similarly made of smaller particles moving at high speeds. This principle could then go on and on as you continue to zoom in on smaller and smaller particles and logic derived from what we know about Black Holes tells me that such must be the case. If not, then how could it be possible to take enormous and varying amounts of Matter and collapse them all the same into points in space that have no size?

Can you begin to comprehend what all of this means with respect to you and the world and universe around you? Discovery on these topics is fun and fascinating, but comprehension is startling and scary which in turn makes belief very difficult, but the writing is on the wall… we are not really made of anything, at least not in the tangible kind of way that our senses would lead us to believe? In essence, although it is not a 100% accurate analogy, the best I can come up with is that we are hologram-like beings in a holodeck-like universe. Kind of hard to swallow isn’t it, but such is where all of the known evidence points.

So then, what do we do with this knowledge? What is to be comprehended from it? Well, as I stated earlier, comprehension requires connecting a given truth with the other truths that surround it in order to see a bigger picture. In my next letter, I will dive into one of the connecting truths that is likewise unbelievable and equally important.

Until then…

Joshua


NOTE 1 – 1.859: HUDDLE!

I am posting this as more of a note than a letter. It is my response to a string of comments that I have received that have brought me to realize the necessity of covering one more important aspect on the topic of truth.

Since the time I started actively seeking truth, I have frequently heard, “Truth is relative dependent upon the person who is interpreting and their perception of it”. This is I believe, a misunderstanding that stems out of the goodness of people’s hearts, wanting to avoid confrontation and maintain the peace. It is a misconception so common that it has acquired it’s own catch phrase, “perception is reality”, but I would hope the reader would understand that such is not true… perception of truth does not equal truth. To help make this point let me present an example. For every given person, the question can be asked, “Are they dead or alive”. The truth to this question is generally easy to pin down. However, if the person is dead, the question, “How did they die?” can be much more difficult, even impossible for us to accurately ascertain, but this does not mean that the truth on the matter somehow ceases to exist and becomes relative dependent upon the one interpreting the data regarding the cause of death. If such were the case, what point would a murder trial (or any other trial as far as that goes) have as everyone’s conclusion on the truth, no matter how different they may be, would hold equal weight.

It is not questions such as this that have lead to this misconception of truth. As a rule of thumb, if we as humans feel that we have concrete, tangible means of gathering data on a question, then we tend to believe that the truth on the matter is singular and we only need find it. However, when it comes to matters that hold their truths in worlds that our senses cannot detect and/or which lie hidden beneath layers of complexity that are deep enough to discourage the truth seeker from seeking… well, this is the poison soil where truth being relative finds its roots. The question of all questions, “Is there a God who created all things?” lies firmly in the realms of this territory and it therefore is deemed by many to have an answer that is relative. Additionally, answers to the other great questions that stem from this question, “What is God like? & What does God want me to do?” lie so far away from being tangibly ascertained that I find nearly everyone is wanton to concede relativity on the matters.  However, doing so amounts to no more than a cop-out.

The truth does exist on all matters and whether it be a topic of science, religion or the controversial grounds where they cross, allowing the difficulty of the search to get you to settle for the best you can personally come up with at any given point in life does you no good service.

Never stop searching for the truth…

Joshua


LETTER 4 – 1.859: LET’S WRAP IT UP AND SWITCH GEARS

In the last letter I presented that Matter is actually not made of anything solid or tangible but rather is comprised of something that only manifests itself to us as being so. Thus, whatever the heck it is that ‘Matter’ is - it is some very interesting stuff and the more we find out about it… the stranger it gets. Let’s dive a little further into what is known.

Science has discovered that on the atomic scale, the smallest entities (Photons, Electrons, etc), exhibit a strange characteristic in that they can behave as both a wave and a particle. This means that sometimes they act like marbles traveling through open space and sometimes they act like a wave traveling across the surface of water. This principle is known as Duality and is fairly deep so I encourage the reader to do a bit of research on it. The efforts that science has made to figure this puzzling characteristic out have yielded information that is fascinating and it is that information that I would like to focus on in this letter.

The Dual Slit Experiment that was conceived by Thomas Young in the early 19th Century and expanded upon by Claus Johnson in the 20th Century, was the first, and to this day is the best, experiment related to the topic. It has yielded information about Matter that is monumentally important and likewise, monumentally strange. Again, to keep this letter short, I will not delve into the ins and outs of the experiment. Such is readily available online
(I recommend this short movie:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnPEKbMCxso&feature=related, or there are many other sources online). 

This experiment discovered that atomic size particles behave as a waves until an observer makes a conscious attempt to pin them down and observe accurately where they are (in the case of this experiment, which slit the particle passes through), at which point they stop acting like waves and act like particles instead. Thus, it appears that the dual nature that atomic particles exhibit can be toggled from one state of existence to the other by the mere act of observation (known as Collapsing the Wave Function). Efforts to understand and explain this discovery have lead to many different theories, none of which have yet been proven. In fact, most theories on this topic are still developing presently at the forefront of science and… new theories are coming forward as we speak and (hint, hint " letters to come) as I write.

The Dual Slit Experiment lead to other experiments being conceived and conducted to further explore this theory. Some examples are Dr. Masaru Emoto’s Message From Water Experiment, Schroedinger’s Cat Experiment and various other random event experiments such as the flipping of coins or the now ongoing GCP (Global Consciousness Project being conducted by Princeton University). All of these in one way or another have resulted with the researchers finding data that supports the theory - that we has humans do have the ability to effect the outcome of events by means of our own consciousness. 

So let’s review the topic of Matter. If you zoom in on the atomic world, you find nothing tangible but rather vacuum space that somehow appears to the human senses to be solid Matter. If you zoom out and view outer space, you find that independent of how much Matter you start with, it can be collapsed all the same into a Black Hole that is a single point in space without any size at all. If you consider how Matter behaves, you find that it can act like a wave (or in other words it can be in an infinite number of positions at the same time), but if a human observes it (whether by means of their own senses or by the aid of a device) it stops being in many positions and collapses into a single position that is custom fit for the observer to observe. 

So what the hell then are we to make of all of this? We are standing at the door of comprehension, but with our mouths open, afraid to go in. There is no shortage of scientific and religious philosophers trying to make head or tails of it all and I have spent a great deal of time sifting through their theories. However, I find that both sides are missing the target. The pieces of the puzzle seem clear for the adding up, but I can’t see that anyone is adding them up and I can only conclude that it is because both sides cling to preconceived notions that have rendered them unable to see except through the prism of their side the argument. What argument? Why of course God, the topic that everything always has and always will hinge on, and the concept of which makes this whole puzzle really interesting.

I will dive into that in my next letter.  Until then…

Joshua



LETTER 5 – 1.859: LET’S BRING GOD INTO THE PICTURE

So far in these letters, we’ve only covered one of life’s big questions, “What is Matter made of?” but this is because I think it so fundamental to everything else. Thus, I apologize if I seem to be stuck on the subject, but we need to cover it a bit further before moving on to other questions and ideas. However, now I want to cover the question assuming that there is a God. That is not to say that I am declaring there is one. Whether God exists or not will be covered later. For now, given that it is possible that God exists, I want to explore the question at hand as if such were the case. In doing so, I will introduce a concept that is part of what I am referring to when I say the world seems to be missing the mark in their efforts to figure out life's great questions. It is an idea that came to me long ago and is one of the things that drove me to begin actively searching for truth in the first place.

If God is all that Religion tells us he is, all knowing, all powerful, etc. then trying to understand this world and universe on any other terms than his is illogical. In my search for truth I have talked with so many people from so many different religions, and I don’t know if they know they are doing it, but they are trying to understand God on their own terms. It is a bit hard for me to explain, so let me try to expound by referencing the thing that gave me the idea. It is from the Bible, a section that someone was trying to use to explain something to me and to this day I am not sure what they were getting at, but  the scripture brought something to my mind that was captivating.

In the book of 1st Corinthians, Chapter 2 it says, “But as it is written, eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God”. Upon hearing this, a picture formed in my mind of a man locked in a room with no windows or doors and I understood that he was stuck there with no way to get out. The thought continued that if he were born in the room and then lived his entire life there, what ability would he have to know about the world outside, let alone understand anything about it. This picture then lead my mind to the analogy: We are likewise stuck on this Earth with no more ability to discover the things of God than what this man had to discover the outside world while confined to his room.

I kept this concept tucked away for a long time not really knowing what to make of it. However, as I went on to learn more about the world and what Science had discovered, it eventually came back up and hit me over the head. I am not sure about any of you, but the information that Science has discovered regarding the Universe and Matter (all of the things we have been discussing in these letters) was startling for me to learn and consider. In fact it still kind of is.

I have listened to and/or read the theories of many Quantum Mechanics scholars and other Scientists and the more I hear, the stranger things get. Most scholars believe that we are not the solid physical beings that our senses lead us to believe but are rather manifestations of energy, a conscious energy that fills the universe and that is all connected.

In an earlier letter, I used the analogy that we are hologram-like beings living in a Holodeck-type universe. This really isn’t the best analogy, and none of them are perfect, but I think a better one is the Matrix (popular Hollywood movie) only without the dude in sunglasses trying to kill you all of the time. Consider just for a second a world comprised of computer-made people living in a computer-generated universe. For a time the folks in that world would be ignorant, but sooner or later some of them would become curious and start trying to figure out what they were made of… Well, we know where that leads. Eventually they would discover that they aren’t made of anything, just energy and light. As far fetched as that sounds, that is where we actually stand if science is correct, or at least something similar to that which gets so damn weird when I listen to the experts that it makes me happy to just settle for the computer universe analogy.

Now, returning to religion, almost all Faiths are based upon there being a God or Gods who created all things. There are many books claiming scriptural status (being directly inspired by God) which state definitively that he did in fact created all things. However, they say virtually nothing about how he did it. We ourselves as humans take it from there and presume that he made things the way we make things, assembling and shaping and molding materials. For most of history, what else could they presume, there was nothing else to reference from? However, aren’t we in an interesting situation today during the age of enlightenment? Even as we are discovering things such as, “we really aren’t made of anything but conscious energy”, we are at the same time inventing and using computers and programming them to create what… alternate worlds and universes, where people can live virtual lives i.e. World of Warcraft, etc.

Now, am I postulating that God has a big computer in the sky and we are just images on his computer screen? Of course not, that would be overly simplistic. But, everything points to it being something like that… if he exists and for now, in this letter, the assumption is that he does exist.

So, with that concept, let’s play around with a few scenarios for exploration purpose. Going back to the analogy I spoke of earlier, of the man living his entire life in a room, he would be 100% helpless to have any knowledge of the outside world. In fact, he wouldn’t even have enough information to consider such a concept as a world. However, he could learn of the outside world if we came to visit and teach him about it, but then he would be 100% dependent on us for information. Next, let’s consider that we make his room very fancy… like the Holodeck on the Starship Enterprise. Now our means of educating the man about the outside world would be greatly increased. If our programming were perfectly good, then we could show him the outside world as if he were really there. However, there would likely be some limitations. Our visual presentation may be perfect, but what about the other senses? I’m not sure how good a Holodeck is at smell, feel, taste, and sound. So then let’s move on to the better analogy and consider the concept of the Matrix. What if after the man were born, we instantly plugged him into the Matrix, made him the same baby there as he is here, and then left him plugged in his entire life. If the Matrix were programmed in perfection to exactly replicate this world, and he were programmed in perfection to exactly replicate himself as he grows, would there be any difference in the experience of his life? In other words, if we had direct access to his mind and all of his senses and we were perfect in our programming, then in theory would not his experience be the same?

From what we know of the human mind, the man would never know the difference, the experience would be identical. However, the scary concept of the Matrix is not the man living life inside his own consciousness, but rather the programmer. If you had to actually experience the rest of your life plugged into a Matrix-type world, who would you trust to be the programmer? If placed in any of these analogies, the closed room, the Holodeck world or the Matrix world, you would be 100% dependent on the programmer for what you experience.  You would be 100% at their mercy. Thus, I ask again, who would you trust with such power over your life and the world that you live in?

Well, I don’t know about you but if I have to actually make that choice, I am getting out some scriptures and I am going to hold the programmer to everything I can find on God. He better be all knowing and perfect. He better have unconditional love and concern for me. I would have to be able to absolutely trust him in every way… wouldn’t I?  And, as I sit here at my computer thinking, it all comes home. I am already in the Matrix, or something strangely similar to it from what Science tells me and… somebody had to have programmed this whole thing.  Who is the programmer?

We have plenty to talk about don’t we? Until next time…

Joshua