Our Rationally Intelligible Universe

The human mind has the capacity to think symbolically. Great stores of meaning and hence communicative potential can be packed into a symbol. Let’s look at a few: 7, ¶, ℑ, ¢, ⊃, ∃, θ. What do these symbols mean? They can mean anything the author wants them to mean, but following convention we have: the numeral seven, the paragraph, imaginary part of a complex number, the cent, the superset, there exists, and theta. These symbols, as all symbols, stand independent of the objects they could represent, and therein lies their power and utility. A question immediately arises: whence this capacity to think symbolically?  Evolution guided by natural selection unto the survival of the species? Hardly, no. In order for natural selection to guide this process, indeed any species-wide, energetically uphill process such as this one, means that it must operate as a positive feedback loop with sufficient energy-currency to sustain the feedback over the vast span of time posited by evolution, and certainly not least, it must be driven by appropriate rules that favor survival. But, in the algorithm, and of themselves, rules are just rules, there is an equal probability that they will favor survival, or not. Favorable rules that lend themselves to survival must be searched for (computed) and appropriated by the species, if they are not inherent (imparted) to it to begin with, and our own feedback studies in other settings have shown that finding (simple) rules to fit a computational need can be a daunting, near impossible undertaking in even the simplest of inanimate systems. Finding the right rules to precisely generate a desired pattern of complexity is off-the-charts difficult and falls into the domain of quantum computing where such pattern generation will be the first step toward a greater understanding of our rational albeit complex universe—rational, precisely because the computation (nay, the universe per se) is rule-based. As an aside please notice that faith in universal rules, and an attendant Rule Giver, is what motivated F. Bacon, and G. Galilei, and J. Kepler, and R. Boyle, and I. Newton, and M. Faraday, and J. Maxwell, and most of the other founders of modern science (sixteenth-century forward) to proceed with their science in the first place, and not much has changed in this modern world of quantum computing.

We hold that the language rules here inferred are imparted, by Jehovah God of course, they are not derived by the species in its mad fight for survival, because of itself it has not sufficient motive force to overcome the significant computational exigencies required for it to derive these rules. Moreover, the species does not have the energy-currency to drive and sustain the positive feedback necessary for an energetically uphill push toward greater abstraction of the kind apparent in symbolic thinking. So what is plausible then as an explanation for abstract, human symbolic thinking? Jehovah God by way of His Word, the LogoS, tells us specifically that He created humankind in His own image, for relational purposes. And our capacity to think symbolically betrays the associative skills we possess to so think, and only thus relate with Him. Our capacity to understand our universe mathematically is a summary-statement of human symbolic thinking, and since the dawn of humankind in Eden all peoples have shown this capacity to think symbolically; the ability to so think is not endemic to any one part of the world or to a peculiar peoples, all human beings have this ability, in keeping with the Creator’s keen desire to fellowship with all peoples. And it follows that in order to do so humankind must come to know God, who revealed Himself through His handiwork, by which we appreciate Him abstractly, and through His Word, the LogoS, even Jesus Christ, the concrete, manifest revelation of Jehovah God and the ultimate knowing of God, unto eternal Fellowship with Him. This is Salvation, His Salvation, the big picture of Scripture, and the Why behind everything that even remotely concerns humankind.

A rationally intelligible universe betrays itself as such when it can be understood by means of rational languages, which on the human plane are the languages of computing, mathematics, and the sciences, which employ the former. Jehovah God is the Intelligence and Power behind the Creation, and He has endowed humankind with the capacity to appreciate His handiwork both aesthetically and rationally because He created humankind in His image, as related by His eternal Word. In this way, via said image imparted, He has endowed humankind with quite a capacity (an understatement) to appreciate Himself, both aesthetically and rationally, unto Relationship with Himself. This seems quite rational, does it not?