85. DOES THE DEVIL EXIST? -- More Sufi Wisdom

Excerpts

from

"The Tale

of the Reed Pipe:
Teachings
of the Sufis",

by

Massud Farzan,

E. P. Dutton,

1974

 
Lessons from
Mohammad Ghazali:
 
DOES THE DEVIL EXIST?
 
One can entertain
such thoughts
as
whether
Satan
is
a real entity
and,
if so,
whether
something material
can enter
man's body.
 
But
such questions
are
irrelevant
to
transactional knowledge.
 
The person
who occupies himself
with
such problems
is like
the one who
finds a snake
creeping
up his sleeve;
instead of
ridding himself
of
the danger
immediately
by
removing the snake,
he wants
first
to
ascertain its color,
measure
its size,
and
determine its shape.
 
This
is
sheer lunacy.
 
[p. 61]
 
+++

A TALENTED MAN

LIKE YOU
-- AN EXAMPLE
 
The Devil
may address
a scholar
in this way:
"Don't you see
how
people
are suffering
from
their ignorance?
 
Don't you
want
to alleviate
their sorrow
through
your
teaching
and
guidance?
 
God
has given you
intellectual
and
verbal talents.
 
Why
shouldn't you
avail yourself
of them
instead of
letting
God's bounties
go to waste?
 
How
can you
remain silent?
 
The Devil
keeps hammering
his subtle persuasions
until
the learned man
becomes convinced
that he should
set about
teaching people.
 
But then
the Devil
intimates
to the scholar:
"You should
embellish
your thoughts
with
pretty language
and
impressive conceits.
 
Also
play up
your
qualifications.
 
Otherwise
your words
won't have
much effect;
they
won't reach
people's hearts
and
they
will not succeed
in attaining
the truth."
 
He
will go on
whispering such
innuendoes
in
the poor
scholar's ears.
 
What
the Devil
is
actually doing
is
subtly leading
his victim
into hypocrisy,
to
the desires
of
fame,
prestige,
and
respectability,
to
the desire
for
selling
his knowledge
and
for becoming
more and more
self-important.
 
The Devil
goes on
in this fashion,
pulling his victim
further and further
into the marshes
of doom.
 
And the scholar
gives lectures
and interviews,
thinking
that
his intentions
are good
and godly.
 
[p. 61 - 62]
 
+++
 
Lessons from
Sa'di of Shiraz
(who died in 1291):
 
ON BEING
A DERVISH
 
Ten dervishes
will sleep
under
a blanket,
while
two rulers
cannot be
accommodated
in
one continent.
 
[p. 34]
 
+++
 
THE VIZIER
WHO LOST HIS OFFICE
 
A certain vizier
who had been
expelled
from
the royal court
sought
the company
of
the dervishes.
 
The blessing
of their
proximity
affected him
favorably
and
soon his mind
attained peace
and
tranquility.
 
About this time
the king's
previous opinion
of
the dismissed vizier
changed
and
he
asked the man
to
accept
his office back.
 
The king's offer
was
turned down.
 
Trying to win
the abused
vizier over,
the king said:
"But
you are
the only
intelligent man
worthy
of my court."
 
The ex-vizier
replied:
"How can
a person
be
intelligent
and do
what
the holders
of these offices
are
supposed to do?"
 
[p. 35]
 
+++
 
PEARLS
 
I once heard
an Arab
telling this story
amidst
a group
of jewelers
from Basra:
 
Once upon
a time
I lost my way
in
the middle
of a desert.
 
I had
nothing to eat
and
pretty soon
gave myself up
for lost.

Then,

all of a sudden,
I found
a full sack.
 
I'll never forget
the joy
I felt,
for
I thought
that the sack
was full
of
roasted wheat
or
rice.
 
And
I shall
never forget
the feeling
of
utter bitterness
and
disillusionment
when
I saw
that
the contents
of the sack
was
nothing
but
pearls.
 
[p. 39]
 
+++

66. "There is NO DEEP REALITY", excerpts from "Paradigms Lost: Tackling the Unanswered Mysteries of Modern Science", by John L. Casti, 1990

Excerptsfrom

"Paradigms Lost:
Tackling
the
Unanswered Mysteries
of Modern Science",

by
John L. Casti,

Avon Books,

New York, 1990

Bohr's position
on reality
is simple:
There is
no
deep reality.
 
Just that.
 
No
deep reality
of any kind
whatsoever.
 
The implication
of
such a claim
is that
quantum objects
in
their
unmeasured state
literally
have
no
dynamic attributes.
 
In contrast
to
the pragmatists,
who might say
that the question
of
the existence
of
such attributes
is
literally meaningless,
the
Copenhagen Interpretation
developed
by Bohr
goes much farther.
 
Copenhagenists
say
that such
attributes
definitely
do not exist.
 
Or,
more accurately,
whatever attributes
objects might possess
are
contextual:
They depend upon
the
measurement situation,
so
they cannot
be ascribed
to
the object
independent of
the
measuring device
and
the
act of measurement.
 
This claim
gives rise
to
Bohr's famous
Complementarity Principle,
which states
that
whether
the object displays
wave properties
or
particle properties
depends upon
the
measurement situation
and
not just
on
the object itself.
 
In other words,
the
Heisenberg
Uncertainty Principle
is
an
intrinsic property
of Nature,
and that
the observer,
the
measuring device,
and the system
to be measured
form
a whole
that cannot
be divided.
 
More prosaically,
we might express
this
wave-particle
complementarity
idea
using Bohr's
own phrase:
"The opposite
of a big truth
is also
a big truth."
[p. 442]
 
+++
 
... von Neumann
showed
that
if the predictions
of
quantum mechanics
are correct,
then the world
cannot
be made out of
ordinary objects
possessing
innate attributes.
 
In fact,
by this result
the world
cannot
even
be constructed
out of
combinations
of
unobservable
ordinary objects.
 
This conclusion
seems to
banish forever
any kind
of
hidden variable
theory
from
the reality game.
 
[p. 444]
 
+++
 
Although
he never
actually said so
in print,
one can infer
from
his many parables
and
remarks
on the matter
that
his
"Cut Theorem"
forced
von Neumann
into
taking refuge
in
human consciousness
as
the
final "collapsor"
of
the
wave function.
[p. 445]
 
+++
 
Wigner's interpretation
of
the
foregoing experiment
is that
quantum theory
breaks down
when
the
conscious awareness
of
the observer
is involved.
 
For Wigner
his own
conscious mind
is
the basic reality,
and
the
things in the world
"out there"
are
not much more than
useful constructions
built
out of
his
own past experiences,
somehow
coded
into his consciousness.
 
In this picture
of reality,
the moment
when
the information
about an object
enters
the consciousness
of
an observer
is when
the
mathematical
wave function
collapses
into
physical reality.
 
Despite
the stature
of its supporters,
the feeling
of
most physicists today
when they hear
this kind
of explanation
is aptly
summed up
by
Stephen Hawking's
remark:
"When I hear of
Schodinger's Cat,
I reach for my gun."
 
[...]
 
Texas
may call itself
the
Lone Star State
but Texans
have always
done things
in a big way,
so
when
the agenda item
is
reality generation
no one
will be surprised
to find
that the "lone star"
is
magically
transformed
into
an
entire universe
of
glowing objects,
the
centerpiece
being
nothing less than
the
meaning
of
meaning
itself.
 
The chief architect
of this
Texas-sized version
of
reality
is
John A. Wheeler,
director of
the
Center for Theoretical Physics
at the
University of Texas at Austin.
 
The heart of
the
Austin Interpretation
championed
by Wheeler
is
the idea of
a reality
created
by the observer
through
exercise
of
the
measurement option.
 
The Austin school
believes
that we are
wrong
to think of
the past
as having
a
definite existence
"out there".
 
The past
exists
only insofar
as it is
present
in
the records
we have today.
 
And
the very nature
of
those records
is
dictated by
the
measurement choices
we exercised
in
generating them.
 
Thus,
if we chose
to measure
an
electron's position
yesterday
in the lab
and
recorded
the
resulting
observation,
then
that electron's
position
from yesterday
exists
but its velocity
doesn't.
 
Why not?
 
Simply
because
we chose
to measure
the position
and
not
the velocity.
 
Because
this very act
of
choosing
is
always involved
in
what
we measure,
Wheeler feels
that
the act
of observation
is
"an elementary act
of creation."
 
In actuality,
the
Austin Interpretation
doesn't go
quite so far
as to claim
that these choices
dictate
the reality
of
macro-world objects
like tennis balls,
but
rather
confines its claims
to
the micro-world
of
quantum objects
like electrons.
 
Nevertheless,
Wheeler's message
is clear:
"No elementary
phenomenon
is
a phenomenon
until it is
an
observed
phenomenon."
[p. 446 - 447]
 
+++

32. "TWENTY-FIVE STARTING POSITIONS FOR AGREEMENT" (Some Conclusions linked to 3 recent Posts)

These Synthetic Results
are
based on some
recently blogged
Scientific Assumptions --
they are
for those
who have read
the following
three
blog entries:

#29. "Mathematics:
     Dreams and Nightmares",

#30. IS ANYTHING
     "RANDOM"?,

and

#31. "To Live
     is to Suffer".

The following
are statements
that
can be considered
TRUE
[BY MOST OF US!]
based on
the
scientifically
accepted
accuracy
of
the information
posted
in these 3
most recent blog entries
(#29, #30, and #31,
listed above).

1. Belief in the Accuracy of Mathematics is clearly a MATTER OF FAITH, based on the PROOF-LESS state of its very foundations, in terms of demonstrable Logic.

2. Accepted "Axioms" underlie all of Mathematics; Skeptics are prevented from entering the lofty realms of abstract Mathematics because of these very MATTERS OF FAITH which must be accepted to facilitate travel therein.

3. Unlike "most" objects in the Observable Universe, certain REAL objects within Space-Time -- objects called the "incommensurables" (such as the ever-abbreviated concept of "pi" in geometry) -- are NOT  capable of expression as a finite number sequence  or even as the expression of a known relationship between finite numbers.

4. "Irrational Numbers" have not been satisfactorily defined by Mathematicians.

5.  "Rational Numbers" too have not been satisfactorily defined by Mathematicians.

6. "Chaos" or "Randomness" has never received an INTRINSIC definition from Mathematicians, only an OPERATIONAL DEFINITION (such as: "randomness is unbeatable", a belief useful for PROFITABLE BUSINESSES, such as the Gambling Industry and the Insurance Industry.

7. Likewise, "Probability" has never received an INTRINSIC definition from Mathematicians, only an OPERATIONAL DEFINITION.

8. Geometry shares the Bastard Status of Mathematics, but goes on to utilize points so small and immaterial that they have been ridiculed as the "Ghosts of Departed Quantities" (by Berkeley).

9. Even at Cambridge and other institutions of Higher Learning, Mathematics has often been taught "badly" and for reasons of "technical wizardry" alone, as if it amounted to nothing more than a series of "clever tricks" based on a sort of "logic" that, under careful scrutiny, sometimes insults the intelligence.

10. Before abandoning Mathematics for a less mythological subject (Philosophy) Bertrand Russell went "on record" with a statement he thought was as true as the light shining across the heavens to the earth -- he declared that Euclid's geometry would find space "flat", and not warped differently in one area than in another.  He was proven conclusively wrong on that topic a short time later, when Einstein's work with Relativity showed that the fabric of Space-Time is warped and stretched proportionately by the massive objects (such as galaxies, stars, and planets) within it.

11. "Space-Time" appears to require us (at this "point" in "time") to approach it using Non-Euclidian Geometry.

12. The Quantum Universe is rational, but not visualizable.  Even Einstein's Relativity had pushed us far beyond the realm of the visualizable, in areas such as the "overlapping" warping(s) of so-called "empty" space BETWEEN two massive objects, such as a planet and its moon.

13.  The Quantum Universe is detectable only through complex instrumentation -- it is revealed to the mind through the objects of thought, and not through our sense perceptions.

14. Mystics and Scientist appear to agree that the Objects of Thought are MORE "REAL" SOMEHOW than the objects apprehended by our senses.

15. "Reality" as we perceive it involves a mirror reflection of Quantum Waves forward and backward ("simultaneously") in Time to allow us the near-endless opportunities to choose between Possible Future Worlds.

16. Our "selves" are complex conjugations of "decisive" quantum "events", echoed to the Source instantly, and leaving a trail in Space-Time for all Out-of-Time Observers to Witness.

17.  Even by simply looking towards the Universe, beholding it, and Observing it, we are continually CHANGING the Universe, and helping to "create" the History of it, as it expands into each new virtual opportunity.

18.  By seeing ourselves IN A REFLECTION, we are free to change ourselves.

19.  By sensing ourselves IN EACH OTHER, we are destined to change each other.

20. We stare at the vastness of Creation dumbfounded, in a state of shock -- but without us to WITNESS these moments, the Universe itself would be "blind" to its own reflection in Space-Time (formed by combinations of Matter/Energy, and governed by Laws of Physics, such as "E" [Energy]is equal to the "M" [the Mass] times "C" -- the speed of light, that is, yielding a very large number which is then squared).

21. There are enough known inconsistencies and contradictions in Mathematics and Geometry for both areas of investigation to be known as "Mystical Sciences" -- not the sort to be PROVEN CONCLUSIVELY  without ARTICLES OF FAITH which first must be accepted without PROOF.

22.  All forms of "logic" which require the action of RANDOM PROCESSES or CHANCE EVENTS are not capable at this time of definitive PROOF.

23.  Even in the absence of Facts and Truth, the Human Mind will hunger to weave some kind of "meaning" from the perceived environment and the inscrutable motions of "Fate" or "Destiny".

24.  Some believe that "God" knows EVERYTHING all at the same time, and that He does not "play dice" or "gamble" with the Fate of the Universe.  Others believe that "God" has NO OTHER OPTION BUT TO THROW THE DICE, and that HE can't always even see the result.

25.  "Determinism" as a guiding principle for the Physical Cosmos has been discredited, along with the stubborn old notions of a Clockwork Universe; the "Randomness" we thought we "perceived" in what passes for "Chaos" here (until we learn more), and the attendant notion of "Probability" have been shoved aside by even more stubborn "fact-like" observations, and Mathematical "Proofs" of several varieties have been exposed as Products of Complacent and Unquestioning minds.

+++

With these 25
new STARTING POSITIONS
FOR AGREEMENT,
LET US CONTINUE
TOGETHER
WITH
OUR SYNTHESIS
OF INFORMATION.

Many more places of AGREEMENT
can likewise be derived
from these 3
recently blogged documents.

I hope you will ADD
to our findings at your leisure!

Peace to you!