— J.X. Mason’s Blog Post of 11-2-21
— J.X. Mason is the author of ContinuingCreation.org
How can our Spiritual Practice of Continuing Creation be based on science, when science is so uncertain?
It’s true that science seems to be uncertain, particularly in sub-atomic Physics, where new theories like the Standard Model, String Theory, Loop Quantum Gravity, and E8 seem to breed like rabbits.
We also have a host of phenomena that seem real to physicists (usually because they can understand higher mathematics), but not to other educated people. These phenomena include the fact that particles can be waves, and waves can be particles, depending on what you are looking for in your experiments. Or maybe they are “fluctuations in a field,” but they act like waves and particles depending on how they are perceived. This phenomenon is called the Wave-particle Duality.
Then, there’s the phenomenon that Einstein dubbed Spooky Action at a Distance. This takes place when two particles are so fundamentally joined that they act as one, even when one of them has been separated in a laboratory and sent far out into outer space. Today this is called Quantum Entanglement.
And what is space anyway? We used to think outer space was empty, but now physicists say it is really full of tiny sub-particles popping into and out of existence. Most of us think of gravity as a strong pull by Earth on our bodies, but Einstein’s Theory of Relativity says that gravity is due to a curvature of space itself, and that space and time are really a four-dimensional thing called Spacetime. Science also recently decided that outer space has great regions full of Dark Matter and Dark Energy, both of which seem to be outside human senses to discern, even with our instruments. Instead, we can “infer” them from other things which we can sense and measure, such as the speed at which the universe is expanding.
(There are also disagreements about how the Scientific Method works (or fails), and whether it – or whether Reason itself — is too marred by logical paradoxes. But that’s a topic for a future Blog Post.)
A good reason for basing the spiritual practice of Continuing Creation on science is that new theories of physics usually (eventually) encompass and extend the old theories. The Theory of Relativity does not contradict Newton’s older Law of Gravity, it extends the older Law of Gravity into the much greater distances and much higher speeds of space travel. Without the Theory of Relativity, we would not be able to go to Mars or send travelling machines out into our galaxy.
A second reason for basing Continuing Creation on Science is that the sciences of intermediate scale (“human scale”) – e.g., geology, chemistry, biology, evolution, ecology — have so far remained discernable and understandable to most educated people.
A third and strongest reason the Spiritual Path of Continuing Creation remains based on science is that over time, while physics and astronomy have become more confusing, science has led to new and useful technologies – like the computer, the laser, wind turbine, and solar panel. Science has also expanded our ability to detect wavelengths that are outside our human body’s ability to sense — frequencies like infra-red, ultraviolet, and radio waves. Still other new technologies now allow us see pictures made by sonograms, x-rays and CAT scans.
So long as the various and changeable theories of the sciences continue to produce new technologies and continue to advance the applied-sciences such as engineering and medicine, then those scientific theories, if usefully tested, place our Practice of Continuing Creation on a firm basis with Science. Thus, Continuing Creation: The Growing> Organizing> Direction> of the Cosmos, remains “A Spiritual Path Based on Nature, Reason, & Science; without any myths or miracle stories.”
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