On the Deities

With the arrival of the first three 'things' after the Big Bang (probably three fermions?), the Cosmic Deity was born.

It would be difficult to draw a parallel for the birth of our Planetary Deity since many extant objects were brought together to form our planet. It seems our Planetary Deity emerged at a later stage in Earth's evolution, probably with the emergence of the first sentient organism on the planet, and possibly only becoming conscious with the emergence of the first conscious organism on the planet.

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Before the arrival of the first objects there were no architective interactions and hence no architective spirits, meaning that architectivity per se cannot be the creation of an architective deity.

The same can be said about connectivity, viz. that before the arrival of the first objects there were no connective interactions and hence no connective spirits, and that connectivity cannot be the creation of a connective deity.

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By insisting on a transcendental spirituality rather than a physical one, we are effectively supporting our Planetary Deity's imperative to deny connectivity. Insisting on a transcendental spirituality ensures there can be no material medium of spiritual communication, thereby enshrining the epistemic poverty of our connective spirituality.

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By defining spirits as influencing us and beyond our control, I have defined them in terms relative to us, rather than as absolute entities.

Yet, while the purely architective hierarchical and processional spirits can only be spirits to their hierarchical subordinates such as ourselves, the cosmic spirit influences everything and is beyond any control, so it effectively is an absolute spirit.

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Assuming there are conscious organisms on other planets, they too would venerate a Planetary Deity, one associated with their planet. So there could be a zillion Planetary Deities out there, all architective and all different.

The organisms on other planets would however be apprehended by the same Cosmic Deity that we apprehend. So in this sense, Planetary Deities are many (even though each may want to be the One and Only) and the Cosmic Deity is effectively One.

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Our Planetary Deity is trying to eliminate the Cosmic Deity, so that it may be our One and Only God. But the Cosmic Deity cannot be eliminated since connectivity cannot be eliminated. The Cosmic Deity is not trying to eliminate our Planetary Deity; rather it seeks a compromise or balance with its rival.

This is not the same as the biblical God/Devil conflict. The God/Devil conflict itself - simply because it is a conflict - is an architective tactic on the part of the God that wants to be the One and Only.

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Our deities are not reflections of us. They do not share many of our human values or incentives. Neither the Cosmic nor our Planetary have any need for food or shelter, for example.

The phrase "As above, so below" is possibly the ultimate statement of human vanity, for it implies "As below, so above".

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When our consciousness is connective we perceive the world in the same way that the Cosmic Deity perceives it and when our consciousness is architective we perceive the world in the same way that our Planetary Deity does.

In particular, we and the Cosmic Deity experience time as a continuous duration, while both we and our Planetary Deity experience time in measures.

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Architective spirits such as our Planetary Deity do not have a connective component that continues after their demise or termination, so their ending would be absolute.

But architectivity itself is permanent. For it will necessarily arise at the appropriate scale under the appropriate conditions; that is, it will manifest wherever and whenever its manifestation is possible. And when/wherever architectivity manifests, architective spirits may also arise.

As far as I can see, there are no known environments (other than possibly black holes) that are so energetic that architectivity - and its spirits - cannot arise at the appropriate scale. Even the interior of a sun hosts architective fermions and leptons.

Thus an increase in connective activity or meaning poses no absolute threat to architective spirits, since if the scale and conditions are appropriate they will always arise.

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Is the phenomenon of resonance that architectivity lends to connectivity particularly valued by the Cosmic Deity?

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How could a continuing conflict between two immortal players be so productive?

By having one modest. Modesty means being willing to play second fiddle while not being willing to be destroyed. "You can be number 1, but you cannot undo me, so I, modestly, will be number 2 - and thus we will both be."

Hence the ten thousand things.

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I've been trying to think why our Planetary Deity is so negatively oriented when it could be enjoying construction rather than destruction. It occurred to me that people who go out of their way to hurt others are not always doing it because they're fearful but because they're angry, and they're angry because they've been hurt. If that's the case with our Planetary Deity, why is it angry, how was it hurt?

I think it is angry/hurt because there is something it cannot have, even here on Earth where it is the absolute ruler in its architective domain - and what it cannot have is an experience of connectivity. It cannot enjoy music, for example. Our Planetary Deity is like a child having a tantrum because it can't get its way. There is absolutely nothing that it or anyone else can do to let it experience connectivity no matter how much it kicks and screams. Until such time as it is willing to accept this, we will continue to suffer its rage and there is nothing that we, or the Cosmic Deity, can do about it.

The Cosmic Deity is in an analogous situation in that it cannot experience architectivity. The difference is that it doesn't mind. It get its pleasure in the profundities of connectivity, not in getting its way. Besides, the bounty of novelty that architectivity provides with its new objects expands the connective possibilities for profundity - more toys for the Cosmic Deity to play with.

And of course our Planetary Deity shouldn't mind either, for its primary direction to constrain is dependent on having relationships to constrain - which are provided by connectivity. So, in turn, the more possibilities for connective relationship it provides, the more possibilities for constraint arise. More toys for our Planetary Deity to play with too. Grow up, dammit!! Enjoy your toys!

Unfortunately it seems that our Planetary Deity's intent is not to play but to win. Like a child, our Planetary Deity is obsessed with the toys it can't have rather than enjoy the fabulous toys it has.

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Another reason why our Planetary Deity may be so negatively oriented is because destruction and the threat thereof is much more effective at preventing us assuming a connective consciousness than construction and the joys thereof.

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We should avoid seeing any possible rapprochement or compromise between our Planetary Deity and the Cosmic Deity as a possible love affair, for that is not the nature of their relationship. They can't even see each other. The yin/yang type of give and take that underlies love is not a factor here. Any compromise between them will simply allow connectivity to express love more readily. A compromise by our Planetary Deity involves a decrease to its deterrents to love, not its participation in love.

Our Planetary Deity prevents lovers from meeting. If it were to be less recalcitrant lovers would meet more often.

So our Planetary Deity could become a facilitator of love were it of a different mindset, but not a lover itself in any possible relationship with the Cosmic Deity.

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Our Planetary Deity's fabulous imagination, as displayed in our dreams, could so enrich our lives and our planet if only it appreciated the infinite possibilities for architective creativity it is capable of. Even more so, how rich would our lives be if it expressed such architective creativity in conjunction with the harmonies of connectivity rather than trying so hard to destroy and eliminate them.

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Is there anything that we or anyone else can do to make our Planetary Deity feel more secure and less aggressive in its behaviour? I fear not. Any change must come from our Planetary Deity itself.

One thing our Planetary Deity could do would be to give the benefit of the doubt to inexplicable events when these are not explicitly threatening to its narratives, rather than being super-vigilant and always taking the strongest precautionary action. Such holding back would not be architectively inconsistent. (In everyday human terms too, always taking offensive precautionary action will often fuel unnecessary reprisals and it may pay us as humans too to give the benefit of the doubt when not explicitly threatened.) At least a working relationship between the two Deities may arise and we humans might enjoy a less thorny existence.

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I have argued that our Planetary Deity's character is so twisted because it cannot participate in the joys of connectivity.

Were our Planetary Deity to facilitate meetings of lovers (rather than hampering them), it would effectively be mimicking the connective hole in its serial meaning that an act of love described. In this way it would get as close to participating in the cosmic connective system as it possibly could while remaining architective. In this way, though not directly participating in the joys of connectivity, it would not feel left out and may feel a little better.

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I'm wondering if the fierceness and perversity I attribute to our Planetary Deity can't rather be attributed to a non-linearity in the architective constraining of things.....

The most likely method of constraint is hyperbolic rather than linear, by which the constraining force reaches its maximum strength at the borders of its allowed range, rather than remaining even throughout its range. This means that as our behaviour approaches the limits of our permitted architective ranges the restraint on us increases logarithmically to the point of seeming perverse.

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Connectively speaking, we can't adequately encounter each other without each being at least in harmony with the Cosmic Deity (though not not necssarily constellated to it). We can't achieve that harmony amid too much architective distraction for architectivity has a natural bent to constrain connective interaction. So in addition to reaching out to each other, we also need to have our own being in a harmonious state, which means limiting our architective exposure.

Architectivity's drive to constrain connectivity is very strong. A connective interaction will snap into constraint whenever and wherever circumstances permit. It does not need to be persuaded. As a consciousness, able to reflect on its choices, our Planetary Deity's job should be to moderate architectivity's unthinking drive to constraint rather than obsessively abet it as it currently does.

The Cosmic Deity permits our Planetary Deity. Now it's up to our Planetary Deity to permit the Cosmic Deity.

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When a human takes pleasure in architective beauty (eg symmetry, geometry, grandness of constructions) or any architective aesthetic (eg complexity, logic), that pleasure is likely transposed into pleasurable connective vibrations in our brains, allowing the Cosmic Deity to enjoy those pleasures even though it cannot understand their origin.

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While the architective dominion requires us to consume and produce food and seek shelter, the competitiveness we bring to these pursuits is not essential. Once our essential requirements have been taken care of there is no existential necessity to acquire more. It is fear, of others and of competition for resources, that drives us to acquire more than we need, and this fear is organized by our Planetary Deity.

We could replace competitiveness with altruism as a cultural imperative without denying the architective dominion. This of course would bring about a huge change in the nature of our civilization, but it would also need to be implemented in the face of strong opposition from our Planetary Deity.

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Though Physical Spirituality decries many religions as death cults in that it is death rather than life that they look forward to, Physical Spirituality also includes an idea by which we may benefit from deeds in this life that promote connective profundity after our death, since we might enjoy that profundity, in death, as visages of the Cosmic Deity.

The difference between Physical Spirituality and death cults is that we may enjoy that profundity as visages of the Cosmic Deity while alive as well - perhaps being even more certain of their enjoyment.

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On the subject of death cults: Their view is that life is short while death is eternal, so it's better to invest in death than in life. A very persuasive argument - but a purely architective one.

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Even though life has evolved through architective complexity, I do not see our Planetary Deity being responsible for the evolution of life. I see it to be so fond of destruction that, left to itself, no complexity would have evolved this far. Indeed, with life being so rich in connective expression I reckon our Planetary Deity would rather not have it at all. If it could make hell freeze over, it would. It would rather have a dead pile of rocks to play with, the bigger the pile the better.

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The ethics of architective achievement are always difficult since every win involves a loss and every achievement has a price. So when taking architective action, it is not a matter of avoiding cost, it's a matter of choosing who pays or how much is paid.

This does not apply to connective activity since all parties are always represented in the result. There can, however, be an architective price to pay for connective activity if our Planetary Deity is vengeful for it.

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Is it possible that our Planetary Deity is also learning as it goes? Certainly its history affects it. Could we teach it to appreciate more gentle stories?

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There must be some areas of human connective activity that are naturally constrained but where our normal scale of that activity is such that it does not challenge its constraints but stays well within their limits. That is, the activity is naturally sublimate at our normal scale. If we never change that scale we would not realize we are being constrained and happily proceed on our sublimate connective way.

Should we develop skills in an activity such that we do get to challenge its constraints, then at each challenge we might experience an unexpected but insurmountable obstruction. I notice such a process often in my dreams, when I dream that I am about to make some breakthrough but the dream suddenly changes in a way to frustrate that breakthrough, and I have to start all over again. The process might repeat again and again. Could this process not lie behind what are called 'frustration' or 'anxiety' dreams - which are very common?

Could it be that my experience of our Planetary Deity frustrating my attempts to expand my waking connective behaviour is also just such an encounter with an architective constraint that I didn't realize existed?

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I'm beginning to see our Planetary Deity to be wily and cunning but not overly intelligent. Its strategies often backfire, probably because of its desperation to be victorious. I'm beginning to see its lack of appreciation for architective complexity as an expression of stupidity. It certainly shows no appreciation for the fabulous evolutionary complexity of human beings.

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Up until the evolution of an organic brain that could feel pain (and a plant can't), it was OK for our Planetary Deity to run rampant. Now it is not. Our Planetary Deity must change its ways if it wants us to stick around.

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In my personal dealings with our Planetary Deity (primarily through my dreams) I have come to the conclusion that the best approach is to acknowledge it.

I see three ways of acknowleging it: By subservience, that is, giving in to it; by fighting it, that is, contesting with it; and by avoiding it, moving around it or changing what one is doing.

Ignoring it - continuing what one is doing in the hope that it will go away - does not work. Its barbs keep coming, sharper and sharper.

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By all means defend yourself in the face of injustice, but in venting anger - no matter how obscene the offence - we play our Planetary Deity's game.

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Although architectivity is focused on stasis rather than movement, and on the stations and destinations rather than the journey, our Planetary Deity's intent of maintaining an architective activity at all times appears to be expressed in the procedures and logistics of architective processions, rather than in the ends or aims of these procedures. The architective management of an enterprise appears to have more value than the result of the enterprise. As long as the step by step procedures are followed and architective processes of creation/destruction continue, our Planetary Deity is happy whether or not an end is actually achieved. It might even strive to prevent the finishing of a project so that the architective processes of creation/destruction can continue ad infinitum.

I see this particularly in my dreams, which are highly focussed on architective process and not on outcome, for my dreams rarely resolve.

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When using a device for the first time, we know that it pays to read the instructions. But it also pays to read the instructions on subsequent occasions because reading the instructions is part of the architective process in using the device. When all else fails, read the instructions again even if you are well aware of how to operate the device.

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Whether we are productive or not is irrelevant to our Planetary Deity. What matters to it is that we establish and maintain hierarchical structures and in particular, that we obey our superiors no matter how productive, fair, or efficient they are. It means pleasing one's boss, no matter how stupid or childish they are, perhaps even harming their enemies regardless of one's own feelings in the matter. Sound familiar?