Just what is this stuff? Have you ever wondered? I was a Physics and later a Chemistry major before graduating with a Degree in Electrical Engineering. I find the question fascinating. I started years ago, at the age of 17, by rethinking my entire experience of my knowledge of the Physical Universe. I did this by uncovering thoughts that are not my own and discarding them. Of course this does not mean I failed all by college exams, but I knew they were just theories. This stripping away of dogma, starts a spiral of personal risk, and a separation from warm reassurance. I went down this road at my own pace. One can not force these things, you can only coax them out into the open.

After ten years, I created a personal view, for myself, that was almost the exact inverse of the standard Newton model used by 18-th century science. For the next ten years, I became more convinced of my own genius. I could see only my own view as reasonable. Well another dozen plus years have past, and now I can see, that I could have constructed any number of non-Newtonian viewpoints. It is the personal risk that creates the non-dogma view.

So let me challenge you to think about Pluralistic Reality Vs Monotheism.

Does reality allow for more than one truth? Is it possible for two people to be in disagreement without one being wrong? Is a physical world object a particle or is it a wave? Is it neither, or is it both? If a man feels an elephant by touching its trunk and comes to a different conclusion than a man who touches the same elephants foot, does one man have to be wrong? I choose to think that both can be right, that reality can be ambiguous, and dependent on the viewpoint taken.

I see the Physical Universe as a personal solution to interpersonal relationships. It’s what I do, to keep you far away, or hold you near. I have more than one physical Universe. I have one with each person I need to manipulate. I glue all these interpersonal physical Universes into one big blob. This big blob swallows me up, and I hide inside it. I assume others also do this, so there are at least one physical universe - a big blob for each person in life. So how many physical universes are there? Suppose we have only 10 people in all of existence. I keep the numbers small, to help get the point across. With 10 people, each person would create 9 physical universes, and therefore we would have 81 Physical Universes. Of course each Universe is infinite, we don't take any half way measures when we deal with others.

Since we already know that the earth alone has 6 billion people - and it is unlikely that we are the only operators in the physical universe - there are a staggering number of physical universes that we might have to deal with. This huge quantity has the effect of creating great inertia. When you have a car wreck at highway speeds - inertia is what kills you.

Can I use logic and convince you that one side is true and the other false? Can I force you with logic to see my point? Do we really choose, or are we just the result of the past and the forces upon us? This is a fundamental dilemma for many people. Thinking is certainly a valid process, at least initially, but doing more may not help us more. It is easy to fall into the trap of becoming one dimensional about thinking and to lose sight of how much we are seduced into using it. I am asking you to think about thinking, and to consider that thinking has limits. This is not a conclusion I come to easily. As an Electrical engineer, I have been taught to analyze, identify problem areas and then to create solutions. In short to trust and use the rational approach to life. Now I admit to you, at least for me, that thinking is often delusional and misleading.

Do we have choice, my position, or are we the result of external forces. First of all, I want to challenge the trust in the belief of thoughts and of thinking in general. I can easily prove - using middle ages Christian Dogma - that thinking is often delusional and misleading. If you wish to grow, at some point, you will have to give up dogmatic thinking. Since you are not sure what is dogma, you have to be willing to give up any trust in thinking in general! Further just reducing your trust in thinking might not be enough, you may consider giving up investment in ‘thinking’ in general. This is not as confusing as it seems. If you stop thinking, you can still go into action, or into being. You can act and be without thought. You can understand this process by learning to play the piano. If you keep thinking about the process of playing the piano, it slows you down, and you're are not brilliant. Thoughts can be limiting.

Now, I know that I have lost many of the readers here. How can we stop thinking? ( The trick is that there is no how, no process of, you just do it, directly. You can’t think about not thinking. It is not a logical process! ) What I am trying to get at is more than just taking semantics, it’s about reality. Still there is so much confusion a good place to start is with semantics. Just what do I mean when I say thought?

Thought: A thought is a mental object created by a person that has persistence and relationships. Thoughts are created by the act of separating.

Now let me explain my statements since they contains five important concepts.

For me this definition is correct. It defines thoughts, and if you contemplate it, you can understand the definition. That will help allow you to ‘separate’ yourself from an existence confused with thinking. An Individual can stop thinking, and still have choice, and still have experience. Now that I have defined my language, lets go back to thinking about thinking.

As was said before, If you wish to grow, at some point you will have to give up thinking, and go into action, or into being. You can act and be without thought. This is a direct experience. You cannot get there by logic alone. It is a transcendent experience, an internal discovery beyond common sense. We can at least start logically by looking at other individuals and closely looking at their thinking process. Thinking in others is faulty yet it is almost always trusted. It is even more faulty when it is most trusted.

I started down the process of coming to this conclusion by watching and listening to other people. I found that most people have faulty thinking, and yet they trust and believe their own faulty thinking. Sometimes I was able to correct their faulty thinking, but most times I was not. When I was able to make corrections it was because I found inconsistencies between thinking and the more fundamental level driving assumptions. Of course I do not know for sure why I was not able to correct most faulty thinking, but I have some idea. It seems to me that many if not most people have fundamental level driving assumptions which are different from mine, and this leaves my logic inconceivable and therefore unacceptable to them.

What I am trying to say, and beating around the bush with, is that your thinking depends on deeper pivotal ideas that are used to leverage the entire thought process itself into something that works. In other words, there are deep concepts which are unsupported by facts, which you believe in, and this belief allows you to think.

Now let's return to the debate. Do we have choice? At least two things determine your position and how you personally come down on this issue. First is your dogmatic trust in thinking, and second is your basic assumptions. If you ’trust’ thinking you become its victim rather than its cause.

We have considered our trust in thinking, now let’s look at assumptions. With thinking, everything is reducible to something else except the basic building blocks called assumptions. If assumptions are taken as a whole they are a ‘belief’ system. The ‘belief’ system is beyond thought, and we all have one, even the atheists. I like to think of assumptions as ‘Bold faced self inflicted lies’ since they are within the realm of our responsibility and represent personal acts of self creation.

I do not know, but I would guess most atheists have the following assumptions.

Now let me give you my personal unspoken and normally private assumptions.

I place these assumptions for you to easily see, embrace, or reject as you see fit. These are my assumptions, my belief system, the ones I personally live with on a day to day basis. I see every action and thought I have, as built on these assumptions, and I think these assumptions are internally consistent with all logic and reason. I find much joy, beauty, and satisfaction in these Assumptions. These Assumptions force me to view interpersonal communication as the only real road to progress. I also view thinking as a simulation of interacting with others, and therefore rather limited. These assumptions in my opinion help me to not accept failure, and be more creative. Of course, if it made so much sense, everyone would have the same assumptions that I do, and they don’t, so what more can I say. You are ,of course, a stranger, and that is the way strangers act.

Considering these ‘Bold faced self inflicted lies,' the atheist would gain much from the given atheist assumptions. First the "ends justify the means," and the atheist does not need to anguish over the ‘Truth." He does not second guess his ‘choice’ since he is not responsible for it. He also ‘knows’ that responsibility is just a social illusion. Like me, he has no need for an external monotheistic God, and that would help him to be free of automatic associations with religious wars. The atheist would be free to do what ever he wishes to do, since there is no larger meaning to life. These atheist assumptions have two weaknesses; 1) They ignore any non-logical creativity. They would see no problems in the limitations of thought. They would not even consider it to be important. By non-logical creativity, I mean things like telepathy, telekinesis, or past life experiences. They would dismiss these activities as a waste of time. They may in fact be right, but in my opinion they will never be truly brilliant. Brilliancy comes from going beyond logic and reductive thinking. 2) They would have low self esteem, low levels of responsibility, lower levels of anguish, and lower levels of satisfaction. Life would be less intense.

These ’Bold faced self inflicted lies’ are always defended as self evident. You choose to create assumptions, and then you may choose not to know what they are. Responsibility starts with the nature of choice, and with it comes your level of satisfaction. I hope this paper helps you to understand ‘choice’ and to consider it as an indicator to the larger undocumented ‘belief’ systems that each of us holds as ‘The Truth."

Christians hide behind God, where Atheists hide behind thoughts. Is there no one who wants responsibly? My atheist friend says "There is no such thing as the un-caused event." In such a world there can be no choice, no responsibility, no pride, and no real satisfaction.

Regardless of our assumptions - Monotheism, Atheism, or Polytheism, the pursuit of truth is the only really legitimate activity that we can be engaged in. There is no point in our deceiving ourselves. I have been thinking about ‘self evident’ assumptions, responsibility, the desire to stay hidden, and the search for truth. Just what is the search for truth?

The search for the truth, is a search for corroborating evidence, and for consensus when no corroborating evidence exists. If the object of truth comes from others, then the search for truth is an act of listening. If the object of truth comes from yourself, then it is an act of cowardliness. If you are a coward, you will never find internal self truth. Your efforts will only lead you into the land of flatlanders, a two dimensional view of a three dimensional world. It is not possible to remember an act you have done, without also remembering your state of responsibility.

If it is your truth, coming only from you, then you will not find any outside corroborating evidence. The best you will ‘feel’ is the same as you feel when you tell a bold face lie, but you know the difference. You separate from your body when you tell the real truth. If you are really telling the truth, your brain tells you its a lie. That is because, you will know that what you are presenting is unsupported, it is you in the act of self-creation. Presenting your truth feels unsupported, because it is. There is no warm fuzzy place to stand while doing the process of self-creation.

Many people find this level of exposure embarrassing, I sure do. In comparison I personally find it less embarrassing to stand naked in public. Everyone knows how difficult it is to show skin, but that is not as difficult as showing the inner self. When I let people know about me, and it is the truth, I go through the cold shakes, especially if the conversation goes on for more than 15 minutes.

You look at all of what I have written, and you are still unconvinced. Not only that, but you have no idea of what I am talking about. You trust your logic, and you know this stuff sounds absolutely crazy. Don’t be concerned, you are like most people, I call them un-enlightened, or sleeping. You can sleep for another 1,000 years, when it may be safer to come out. No one can ever make you change. Some day you will decide to act on your own, and you will get this strange feeling. When that happens, you can remember this paper, and know this is just part of you taking responsibility for your own life. Otherwise you take no risks, life is just a flat experience, and you have no real satisfaction.

The alternative to the search for ‘Truth’ in your own inner space, is to blame others. Generally Blame is unproductive, in my opinion, since other people don’t want to hear it. There is little point to your whining around complaining about others, they are god but you are not. You are the victim, others are in control. Being powerless is just boring, and I choose not to engage in helpless activity.

For me, living life choosing to be God is much like riding a motorcycle, it is fast, unsupported, dangerous and fun. To review what I have just given here. First find your assumptions. They are the underlying supports of your thought. Next recognize that these supports are not ‘self evident’ or ‘obvious’ they are ‘bold faced lies’. Now experience yourself in the process of creating yourself, unsupported and bold.

Wake up and experience life directly, no vale of thoughts, no lack of responsibility, and no blaming others. Just you, life, and satisfaction for all of it.

Continue: With part four of To Worship You.