Synergy, AntiSynergy and Annihilation
Synergy is what happens when the total is greater than the mere sum of
the parts. The opposite can happen as well. In the process of nuclear
fusion, whether in the heart of a hydrogen bomb or in the depths of a
star, two atoms each of identical mass combine to form a new atom. What
is unusual is that the combination has less mass than the sum of its
two constituents. This would seem to be a form on anti-synergy - when
the total is less than the sum of the parts.
However the truth is the opposite - and this actually is the secret of
the great energy released during nuclear fusion; some of the mass (m)
has been converted to energy (e) according to Einstein’s famous
formula e = mc2 (c is the speed of light). Less is more - the less
mass remaining, the more the tremendous energy of the explosion. What
seems to be antisynergy is revealed as a great synergy indeed.
When looking at the mass alone, this seems to be a negative synergy,
but taking into account the energy release, we see that it is actually
an impressively synergistic process.
Some questions are so good, so penetrating, that they are almost
inevitable better than any answer. Some questions have various answers,
and the combination can be more convincing than any individual answer.
However sometimes there are so many answers to a particular question,
and they perhaps contradict one another, that the very fact that there
are so many answers reduces the convincing power of the totality - a
form of antisynergy.
Someone arrives late, and is asked “why are you late”. They
give several excuse for arriving late - saying “there were no
trains this morning, and also the train was too crowded to get on, and
also I slipped getting out of bed and had to go to the doctor, and also
my alarm clock did not go off until much later than it should have, and
also I forgot that I was supposed to come today” then although
each individual excuse is weak, the totality has even less convincing
power than one excuse alone.
In this case not only is the question better than the answer, but even moreso, one answer is better than many answers combined.
Occasionally however, the very fact that there are so many answers can
convince us that the question itself is not a good question. Sometimes
philosophical or theological questions arise, for which there are many
answers, but none are convincing, and neither is the totality; however
one emotional or spiritual experience can lay the question to rest.
When an excuse and its opposite meet, the question is only
strengthened, but when a particle and its corresponding anti-particle
meet, of equal amounts of matter, they annihilate each other, and if
the questio is ‘how much matter is there?’ the answer is
‘no matter’ (only energy remains). Sometimes the only
effective way of answering a good question is not to answer it but to
turn it into a non-issue for the questioner - so that the question does
not matter anymore.
Good questions which are better than their individual answers can also
be better than the negative synergy of their totality - but the
totality can also be a vehicle for the annihilation of the question.
Aware of the potential hazards of a negative synergy, but hopeful of an
annihilation, in this book we will present many different - and
possibly somewhat contradictory - approaches to understanding the
creation account.
Genesis is not falsifiable. Infinite Plasticity of Genesis --> meaninglessness.
Is it the plasticity of the text or the flexibility of our
interpretation/interpretation methodology which allows them to not
contradict?
At what level is there supposed to be a parallel between scientific origin theory and Genesis?
Does the belief that Genesis is of God necessitate that there be a parallel at all?
If Genesis can be made to parallel all scientific accounts from ancient
Greeks to today does that mean that it is empty (if it is so flexible?).
Whatever science will come up with, people will be flexible enough to
say that Genesis is in correspondence with it (however the more
fundamentalist they are, the less this is likely).
Actually Aristotle’s eternal universe was considered problematic
by Rambam who felt Genesis didn’t imply an eternal universe, so
it wasn’t so plastic as to be empty.
On the other hand Rambam said it the creation aspect of Genesis could
be allegorical; Ralbag (?) said it did mean eternal universe. So it is
infinitely plastic.
And people who say Genesis is in accord with the big bang theory
overlook the whole question of the age of the universe, of the method
and order of creation etc etc. They focus on only one aspect,
that it is not eternal. But this is not ‘in accord with’
but rather ‘in accord with one of the fundamental aspects and
totally contradictory of all the other aspects’. And then the
next theory comes along and Genesis is reinterpreted to be ‘in
accord with it’ too.
So if it is so plastic, then what is the true meaning. That is, the
meaning is clearly not literal and not this or that, so what does it
mean? It has to be a meaning which is not correspondent to anything
which could be said by science, ie anything verifiable, then nothing it
says is of the verifiable type of information/description.
And, we therefore need science to tell us what Genesis does not mean.
So if Genesis is not in conflict with any possible scientific scenario,
then we should say that outright - there is no contradiction with any
possible physical theory, and therefore Genesis can also never be said
to have predicted a particular theory nor is it ‘perfectly in
accord with’ in that sense. It is perfectly in accord with
science in the same sense that a poem is (not to say that it is a
poem); finding Genesis to be ‘parallel’ to this or that
theory should therefore not be surprising nor taken as an indication of
something relevant. In fact, no one should bother trying to find
parallels since it is not necessary, since whatever the scientific
theory of the time, t is not ‘a contradiction’ to Genesis,
because Genesis does not contain any verifiable information - and
therefore is not falsifiable.
....................
Introduction to Part III and IV
Just as an object of art is an expression of the artist, the physical
universe expresses divinity. The laws of nature shed light on the Mind
which designed them. Can it be that study of these leads to a
contradiction with a book written by the same source?
This has been the dilemma faced by philosophers accepting the divine
origin of the Bible. Resolutions have been presented via many
approaches and this book is a compendium of various such paths followed
by traditional understandings of the Bible.
The Bible does not begin with a statement such as "I, God of the
universe, am giving the following book to man" or even "These are the
words of God as revealed to Moses.." . Instead it opens, without
introduction, without telling who is the narrator, or even what the
source of the information is. There is even dispute in Tradition as to
what the first passage means.
We are not told by the text if the creation account
is an actual description of physical events, or perhaps is poetry. We
are not told in the text why the story is told, whether the fact that
it is told means that we must read it, study it, know it, or if we must
believe that it is an actual description of physical events.
Certainly anyone can see that it contains many
inconsistencies, so that it could not have been meant as a purely
surface-meaning translation-literal account of actual physical events.
But what it is and why it was given and how we must relate to it are
not in the text.
Such a text must be accompanied by an oral tradition
to be complete. The oral tradition can tell us all about the book -
where and when it originated, why it was written, how it is to be
understood.
The Bible has been transmitted from generation to
generation for thousands of years, and those who transmitted it also
transmitted along with it a framework within which it was to be
understood. This framework provides the traditional meaning of the
Bible with far more authenticity than that of a literal 'translation'
of the written text.
Those who transmitted the Bible to us through the
generations had a comprehensive, flexible, and even multi-faceted
attitude toward the meaning of the Bible. As a result, the Bible as
interpreted within the framework of approaches taught by Jewish
tradition is very different from its literal 'translation'.
In the following section, we shall explore a number
of different approaches to understanding Genesis, some of them perhaps
too radical to be comfortably accepted by all traditionalists, yet
nevertheless all of them consistent with the entire Torah including
Genesis being the direct word of God as given to Moses at Sinai.
There is no one unique traditionally accepted interpretation of the
creation account, nor is there an undisputed dogma in Tradition as to
what the creation account is intended to represent, other than that it
is part of the Biblical text revealed by God to man via Moses. There
are in fact many traditionally accepted ways in which the creation
account has been understood, and many other possible interpretations
which are not part of the traditional approach but are nevertheless not
contradictory to Traditional belief .
Although it is true that certain specific types of
interpretations of the creation account may conflict with modern
scientific theory, many interpretations allow a mutual acceptance of
both the scientific origin theory and the divine origin of the Bible.
Thus any perceived conflict between science and Genesis can be
attributed to a conflict between scientific theory and certain types of
interpretations of Genesis, rather than a conflict between scientific
theory and religious belief.
The approaches we offer are speculative and are
presented here not as 'the true meaning of Genesis', but rather they
are offered as an indication of the breadth of interpretational choice
available to the reader of the creation accounts in Genesis - without
violating basic traditional guidelines.
............
The opening chapters of the Bible relate a powerful and enigmatic
narrative about the creation of the universe. Tradition has struggled
without cease to understand these words and has come up with numerous,
and wildly different interpretations/explanations. Understanding how
these interpretations relate to one another, and then to the
explanations offered by the world of science can be an extremely
difficult endeavor. As a professional physicist with extensive
formal religious schooling, I have had to struggle with many of these
ideas at their most intense levels.
text seeks to lay out the various “options” one has in
coming to grips with the great variety of explanations offered with
respect to the beginnings of the universe and what to make of these as
they relate to scientific origin theories.
We do not undertake here to solve the great mystery of creation or to
push a particular point of view - the book is informed by a wide
variety of religious, philosophical and scientific sources.
how to assimilate the answers provided by Tradition with those provided by science.
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