Personal Cosmology

In some measure or other, progress is always a transcendence of what is obvious. (Alfred North Whitehead, Process & Reality)

Science tells us that there are Four Fundamental Forces: Electromagnetic, Strong Nuclear, Weak Nuclear, and Gravity.  The Reality that Science helps us perceive consists of Time, Space, Matter and Energy.  If we accept TSME as the basis for Reality, then we can do Science.  Without these things as Fundamentals, the activity of Science makes no sense.  You are doing something, metaphysics or philosophy perhaps, but not Science.

What if we played a game though and I asked you to come up with an alternate cosmology, a way to make sense of the world around you that is completely personal, which you don’t have to justify to anyone, but it makes total and complete sense to you. You can speak in this private language to yourself, it feels right, and when you are perceiving the world through this lens it’s all very clear.  Before you identified it, you couldn’t see it, but now you see it everywhere, in everything.  It totally explains all the hard questions, puts you in harmony with others around you.  It’s like being in love.  And when you stop and think about it, you realize it’s been there all along, you just didn’t know it!

You begin to laugh because it’s so simple, so easy!  And all along you thought it was really complicated and that you’d have to work really hard to find it, if you ever would.  You also laugh because it’s this giant cosmic joke that you are now privy to.  And you laugh again because when you try to tell the joke to other people, they look at you like your are an alien.  That’s when you remember that this is YOUR joke, not theirs.  And how can it be a joke if it can’t be told?  Isn’t a joke DEFINED as that which can be told?  And yet, there it is, the joke that cannot be told.  Now THAT’s funny!!!

Ok, got it?  Don’t worry, there are no words you can use to describe your Personal Cosmology, because as we just remembered, it’s beyond words.  But what I’m going to ask you to do right now as part of our game is to come up with the word or words that most closely pin it down.  The way you win the game is if you can find the words that totally nail it for you.  Don’t worry if the words mean the same thing to anyone else.  Don’t think so much about the words, feel them.  There are no rules to this game, so you can use as many words as you want.  But if you want a real challenge, here are some rules you can play by, if you choose:

Rule #1: Pick a role to play for this game:

A) Scientist (4)

B) Artist (2)

C) Seeker (1)

D) None of the Above (3)

Rule #2: The number of Fundamental Words for your role is exactly the number indicated (in parentheses) above.

Rule #3: Construct, create, discover or remind yourself — whatever you need to do — such that your Fundamental Words feel like your Personal Cosmology (which is beyond words).  Check your work by reviewing to yourself how they explain everything, and by making sure they feel really right (individually and together).  A test that is necessary (but not sufficient) for your Personal Cosmology is that it either explains how TSME came to be, or at least it’s totally in harmony with TSME (i.e. you don’t feel any discord between the two).  Can you flow back and forth easily between your Personal Cosmology and TSME?

Rule #4: Remember, nobody can judge your Words because they are how you feel, it’s totally personal.  So please share your Fundamental Words with us.  Now.

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