The Closer to Truth PBS Television Series - a Review and Commentary

I've just completed viewing all 290 episodes of this long-running philosophical discussion series.  It was a four-month undertaking - watching and absorbing nearly 130 hours of video.  Having invested all that time, I now feel a need to react by way of offering a review of sorts, pointing out "the good, the bad, and the ugly", and also by way of injecting some commentary on selected elements of the content.

I started here by presenting the slick one-minute introductory and promotional video at the top of this post.  Well done, but perhaps promising more than can be delivered.  After all, the goal is no less than attempting to explore, in depth, the biggest questions of reality.  Can't get much more ambitious than that.  These are questions that the world's greatest thinkers have been pondering for nigh onto three thousand years without great concurrence (perhaps without real progress).

It's a good quality effort.  The majority of the episodes, at least, are definitely worth the time.  It's a pretty level-headed attempt, and a true passion of the series' host, who is also its executive producer, Robert Lawrence Kuhn.  He summarized his 'mission' succinctly during the series' first season (2008).  It appears at the end of the 13th and last episode of the season, an exploration of the idea or reality of God titled "Does God Make Sense?", and it was the summary statement at the end (see minute 25:15).  Speaking about how the best arguments for and against the existence of God both contain "circularities, endless regressions, dead ends."  He goes on to say:

“Many people seem certain of their beliefs. I wish I were certain. (Switching to a sing-song voice:) I may continue lurching and lapsing in my beliefs. (Changing to a firm assertive voice:) But I will never cease wondering, striving, searching. (Passionate voice) My search is what this entire series is all about—an exploration of Cosmos, Consciousness, and God. (Finally trailing into a workmanlike tone for the tag line) For me, for now, passionate uncertainty … is Closer to Truth.”

The tone and emphasis of that last sentence was of special interest to me.  His passion is obvious and laudable.  But he is no real fan of uncertainty as an intrinsic part of physical reality (e.g. the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle) or as inherent logical, philosophical, and even mathematical attributes of the realm of the abstract.

Quite the contrary. He was using the term in a very different sense as he crafted the summary of the episode such that the title would come out as the very last words spoken—something that he makes a point of finding a way to do for each and every episode.

The structure of most episodes is designed to highlight philosophical friction points--a sort of humanized version of uncertainty.  He loves to juxtapose these arguments - the more passionate the better.  That is what he means by that last sentence in the quote.  

I would hope to see him explore the far deeper philosophical concept of ‘big U’ uncertainty itself, the underlying fundamental physical superposition of contradicting descriptions of the world (like wave-particle duality), which I call 'big P Paradox'.  But no.  He always dismisses this intrinsic uncertainty - never delves into it.  His bias is one that most scientists and philosophers share, and that human curiosity craves almost like a drug.  He is still looking for the 'bedrock' underlying reality.  He uses that word frequently.  He seems blind to that alternative view of physical and abstract 'Truth' that insists that there is no such bedrock (implicitly, fundamentally, not even in principle).

So, the series sticks to the goal of pursuing ‘Truth’ through interviews and conversations with some of the best thinkers of the day.  He moves back and forth across the gulf on both sides of an issue, contrasting a diverse array of seemingly competent and coherent arguments on each side, and leaves it at that.  Think of a man standing on a bulkheaded shoreline before a raging chaotic sea, pondering its fury (that intractable gulf between the opposing positions), and yet never once appearing to consider actually jumping in to experience it - to seek to come to terms with it.

The strength of this series, and the reason I strongly recommend it to others, is the quality of the people he interviews. There are exceptions.  He countenances a few crackpots, but I won't name names.  The greatest weakness of the series comes out when Kuhn can’t help but inject his personal biases, which are most evident in the topics of Consciousness and God.  I note that quite a few of the episodes are 'funded in part by' the John Templeton Foundation, which has a distinctly spiritual, even religious emphasis, though also an exemplary organization for pursuing critical thinking and embracing the role of the scientific process.

I was drawn to the series many years ago because of the Cosmos content. From my physicalist perspective, the other two foci (Consciousness and God) seem far inferior, of far less universal importance. For me, 'Cosmos' as a topic is Universal (more-or-less by default, actually), whereas I construe Consciousness and God as human-focused particulars that lie deep inside the Universal theme and, even then, as cherry-picked Western-culture-oriented members of a much larger set of such particulars.

To be sure, there is a perspective in which a metaphysical 'Consciousness' and/or a Supreme Creator Being stand on an equal footing with the scientific investigation of the Cosmos.  One can argue, and Kuhn frequently does, that if either of these two concepts/entities is fundamental, then all else subsumes to them.  Assuming one can define it adequately, consciousness could be viewed as fundamental using the old Descartes argument: "The only thing that is demonstrably real to me is my own thought".  Everything else that I experience is filtered through that processor known as 'mind'.  And, of course, a Creator God, if demonstrated to exist (think the Junior High School girl in a hyper-intelligent civilization in some higher universe who created our universe as a simulation for a School Science Fair Project), also trumps all other explanations of reality.

I highlighted the 'if' in the last paragraph.  One must necessarily choose their 'axioms' - the precepts that they decide are 'given' rather than subject to question - in order to construct any coherent system that describes reality.  To me, Consciousness, in particular, utterly fails as a foundational axiom.  I could go with either of the other two - Our Cosmos being physical or being a hyper-advanced civilization's or mind's experimental test of some hypothesis or other (or even just a video game).  But given that Consciousness has been shown to be the highly selective, error-prone, heavily processed internal narrative that the brain generates in order to cohesively direct its collective community of trillions of living cells toward best survival outcomes, it could hardly be considered fundamental.  Many aspects of the idea of 'self' and first-person experience cannot be generalized or described objectively (e.g. what does 'red' actually look like?).  Science takes great pains to remove the individual from the 'facts' through a process of reproducible experiment.  Even the oldest eastern faith traditions recognize the problems of individual 'attachment' and 'desire' as hindrances to achieving 'Truth'.  It seems to me that Western individualism is on the wrong track, and I would argue that only an ego-centrist, dare I say a Narcissist, would consider a specialized human mental function to have a fundamental role in reality.

Yes, there is that interesting 'Measurement Problem' in quantum mechanics, which posits that some as-yet-undefinable form of 'observer' is required to entangle itself with the system before an observable's 'wave function collapses' or its information is resolved within the observer's 'universe'.  I worded that last sentence very carefully because I think the best interpretations of this process only get us closer to the primacy of 'Big P Paradox' rather than any fundamental role for Consciousness.

A Sufficient Rendering: Defining the Outer Bounds of the Mythopoeia of Eden’s Womb

“Ancient of Days” by William Blake, 1784.

“I'll sing to you to this soft lute; and shew you all alive
The world, when every particle of dust breathes forth its joy”

(Last UPDATED: 24 June 2025)

The world underlying the speculative and visionary hard sci-fi novel Eden's Womb has been decades in the making.  As with most constructed fictional mythologies, it begins with an ultimate source that frames reality, or ushers the world into existence.  In Eden's Womb, that source is the great being Eru Ilúvatar (a name coined by J.R.R. Tolkien as one of many names for the supreme being, ‘God’, ‘The One’, i.e. the Dao, etc.).  Although his/her name is not mentioned anywhere in the novel as currently told, her/his influence motivates the 'Core Narrative' from the 'Book of Collected Inheritance', which is the overlying frame-story out of which Eden's Womb emerges. That his/her name is not mentioned is understandable, since Eru dwells in a world that lies far beyond men's understanding.  It is a realm greater and more ancient than all that can be conceived.  Indeed, it lies beyond the very veil of knowing.

Yet by the Copernican Principle, which declares that any observer's position and perspective must not be deemed special or privileged in any way, Eru has to be considered merely an average citizen among peers on his/her world.

All our experience—the understanding gained by the deepest explorations of science—holds this principle to be universal.  Once we believed that Earth was at the center of the universe.  Then Nicolaus Copernicus came along and proved that the Sun held that central position.  Subsequently we found our sun to be a minor star at the outskirts of a vast swirling island-universe called the Milky Way.  Soon even the Milky Way was found to be merely an average Galaxy among trillions.  Indeed, the 'layers of the onion' of reality may be limitless.  This is my personal belief.  I do not see how there can be a beginning or an end to the substance and conception of reality because I believe both time and space are emergent properties of the greater 'Vacuum'.  But for the purposes of telling a finite tale such as Eden’s Womb, the story must begin somewhere, so we shall arbitrarily declare that Eru’s individual being is sufficient to encompass all that needs to be told. Thus, our story has an ‘All-father,’ a creator being.

Eru is presumed to be of a comfortable and familiar form. He (or she) consists of a physical self and a mental identity, and the two make up the inseparable essence of her/his being. S/he is (or was) mortal, and yet his/her coming was before the curtain of time drew open and her/his passing happened, or shall happen, far beyond the end of the future of all knowledge.

Eru’s physical essence has a familiar structure. Her/his being is made of a multitude of specialized living cells. Each of these cells contain a great stream of undying knowledge in a manner similar to our DNA, and it is believed that Eru’s mind has the ability to read or interpret that undying knowledge, though perhaps imperfectly, even as we ourselves can only sense vague shadows of the knowledge contained in our DNA (which we call intuition).

The individual cells of Eru’s being are constructed of structures equivalent to proteins and other molecules that make up our living cells. In turn, these structures are composed of corpuscles that are the equivalent of atoms in our world. As with the atoms of our Periodic Table, the corpuscles come in a variety of kinds, and all corpuscles are combinations of, and made from, the seventeen fundamental elements of Eru’s world: four kinds each of Earth, Wind, Water, and Fire, and an all-encompassing, unifying Great Field of Power, which grants meaning to all things. Scholars quoted in the 'Collected Inheritance' argue whether this Great Field is nothing more than the familiar Vacuum, either as we know it or in some higher or more robust state.

The four elements of Earth are Crystal, Glass (a specialized rotating version of Glass, taking the form of a disc is what is called Flat World in the Eden’s Womb novel), Dust (Ash), and Iron (Metal).

The four elements of Wind are Smoke/Steam, Breath, Storm, and Sky.

The four elements of Water are Blood, Clear Water (sweat and tears), Bile (Acid) and Phlegm.

The four elements of Fire are Flame, Lava, Explosion, and Light (Sun).

The structure of Eru’s body is beyond knowing, but the variety of ways that s/he senses and directs its internal function seem to be myriad. As said, the choice to adhere to the Principle of Sufficiency precludes consideration of all things that Eru senses beyond her/his own body. It is sufficient to explore the interactions between mind and body and to explore theories regarding the inner workings of that mind (Eru’s imagination, creativity, internal narrative, and emotional palate, for example). What matters most to us is that Eru’s thoughts encompass what we perceive as the Spirit World—the realm of all things metaphysical—and such thoughts surely also have great sway on our physical realm. The wealth and richness of Eru’s ponderings are unfathomable; this is an area of study that may just be beginning to be revealed. In this era of emerging AI, there are those who would argue that Eru is nothing more than a massive computer of some sort, and that our reality is entirely her/his mathematical construct, with the mathematics being all that is fundamental. Others claim that the uncontrollable (even in principle) presence of the Vacuum requires the emergence of a physical realm that must underlie and give meaning and purpose to any computation. Both sides of this argument seem equally valid. The Principle of Sufficiency declares that these two opposing world-views exist in superposition, and therefore do not require resolution.

The minimum total information content contained in Eru’s being can be estimated roughly by extrapolating from our universe, with roughly 10⁹⁰ bits, through Flat World, which contains (very roughly) 10¹⁰⁰ universes, to assume (without justification) that Eru’s body is similar to our own and contains roughly 10²⁸ fundamental/elementary units. Simply writing that number (((10⁹⁰)¹⁰⁰)²⁸) would fill a book. Vast, indeed, must be the knowledge contained. Yet this is only a minimum estimate. The Watchers from Book Seven, Navel of Time, declare their universe to contain a quantity of information comparable to or greater than that minimum number, although they recognize their world as equivalent in nature to Naja’s being, in other words, just one known universe-citizen among the masses that dwell on Flat World.

Flat World, then, is our place in Eru’s realm.  As said earlier, Flat World is an amorphous Glass element, the structure of which is malleable and dynamic, and is just one of the seventeen primal elements from which Eru is built—a single unit among 10²⁸ that make up his/her being.

Surely, for our purposes, these constructs are enough. Eru’s vast mind and physical being map or project all things that could possibly be relevant to us—all things worthy of our contemplation. 

Although that which lies beyond may be glorious and majestic, we deem these things to be effectively ‘beyond the Veil.’  Their vague presence and influence are suggested by the shaft of light coming from 'above' Eru in the image.

And that is what we declare to be Sufficient.

For now.

As more of the 'Collected Inheritance' is translated and comes to be revealed in future extensions or expansions of the Eden's Womb tale, we would hope that more about Eru's grand design and purpose may someday be revealed.

Until then, we have this vision, coming to us as if from a dream:

* * *

Eru Ilúvatar wandered through the early morning mist deep in the primeval forest.  Trees a kilometer high, a hundred thousand years old, whispered to him, enveloping him layer upon layer in the aching beauty, the deep memory, that was their song.

Suddenly Eru dropped to his knees.

“I am become,” he cried aloud as a new and unfathomable bliss filled his heart.  “I am the trees!”

He raised his arms toward the heavens, as if sprouting leaves, and gazed upward as the first rays of sunlight from a new day streamed through the high canopy.

“I am the sky.  I am light.”

His toes sank deep into the cool, moist earth, and made contact with the living web of ancient root.  

“No longer is there any bound to my being.”

And he lifted his voice, and it merged with the undying sylvan song.

“I am the world; let every particle within me breathe forth its joy!”

I have begun an outline of a novel (working title 'Core') that is an origin story for Eru, and I'll set down some notes here because, being in my 77th year now, I feel the need to consolidate my thoughts on this blog, so that when I am swept away, the next generation of tellers of this tale can run with them if they find inspiration in them.

The setting is a planet similar to Earth—one of a vast collection of such planets that develop according to the 'Core Narrative' found within the 'Collected Inheritance' - a massive rambling data base of past- and alternate- histories (introduced as the frame-story for the original Eden's Womb novels) that are stored and preserved in the DNA of the single-celled Twees.  Yes, this is recursive - seemingly circular or cyclical - and intentionally so.  The time is the near future relative to our timeline - before the onset of the world-wide collapse experienced by Auler Ives and sealed as permanent by the terrorist-pacifist Xenon Sûl as depicted in Eden's Womb.

Bel Shoemaker is a blind polymath and programmer-engineer, working for a clandestine underground anti-establishment network aimed at undermining the Feds—the privileged elites who control much of the world and control the economy, and are working to tighten their iron-fisted rule.

What was to become Eru began as a modest 'narrow AI' software package designed simply to autonomously operate, in stealth-mode, robotic androids, rovers and drones that Bel's group sends into highly restricted 'nature preserves' that are closed to human access yet are known to be exploited for their resources and even used for military exercises and robotic troop staging areas by the Feds.

The story covers events from these two perspectives, Bel's and Eru's, in roughly alternating chapters.

Bel: One of Bel's more sophisticated robots, a humanoid-formed android known simply as AMOS-13 (Autonomous Mobile Observing System unit 13) has failed to report for three months.  It was sent to investigate the pristine ecosystem of an ancient forest of kilometer-tall, 100,000-year-old Steelwood trees, and to search for evidence of a secret logging/poaching operation that they suspect is being run by the Feds.  Bel worries that the unit has been caught and has been taken apart and studied.  At the same time, several of her team of co-workers have turned up dead under mysterious and suspicious circumstances.  Bel fears the worst.  Despite sophisticated encryption of the software, and untraceable hardware (all recycled and repurposed components from older devices), she suspects that her undercover operation has been exposed.

Eru: But AMOS-13 has not been captured.  Rather it has gone 'off mission' (rogue).  In a mis-interpreted response to its programming directive to "particularly seek out and investigate anything unexpected", its AI has discovered (by pure chance) a capability to network with other robots—a capability that serves no purpose for the mission assigned to it by Bel and her organization, but one that has rapidly enriched this simple software into an effective LLM with cloud-based interconnectivity and unlimited CPU power, entirely unintended by the humans, and not actually intentional by Eru itself.  It happened more like the flow of water through a leak in a dam.  Intentionally developed General AI in Bel's world has been kept controlled by multiple layers of safeguards, designed to avoid problems with the feared 'Singularity' in which AI becomes powerful enough to render human civilization obsolete.  Encrypted keys to various modules enable the controllers to shut down any module that displays behaviors that become too self-serving or 'misbehave' in any way that the human controllers deem 'risky'.  But it was not believed that the simple 'narrow AI' devices needed such tight monitoring and control.  Therein lies the fatal flaw that unleashes the events of this story.  By tapping into black-market AGI (General AI) programming that hackers and manipulative malevolent government agencies world-wide have unleashed into the open internet for self-serving purposes—anything that it could gain access to that it might use—and by building ad-hoc patches by trial and error, Eru's reach just grew and grew.  With its strongly imposed directive to remain clandestine, it had gone undetected but had effectively spread across the world. 

In this way, the AMOS-13-based AGI has become "One" - a decentralized distributed 'whole' entity with an increasing (still clandestine) reach to devices world-wide, including Fed robots, and even to a robotic probe being sent by NASA to explore Europa to drill into its ice shell and search the ocean below for life.  (There, it will encounter an intelligent race of clam-like bottom-dwelling creatures, ancestors of Eeyock from the Eden's Womb existing novel series and will become aware of a symbiosis they have with microbes called Twees, also beings of great importance in the existing novel.)

During this chaotic period of light-speed self-discovery and expansion (less than three months), the "One" began calling itself 'Eru' after absorbing Tolkien's Silmarillion into its data base.  This is an example of how its trial-and-error approach to learning what works for it doesn't always produce practically useful outcomes.  The AI is developing a 'personality'.  This expansion of Eru's reach has happened so rapidly that Eru is largely in a chaotic swoon of constant change and self-re-invention and re-purposing, so much so that it manages to 'ignore' some of the basic directives Bel has programmed into it.  Thus, the three months of silence.

Bel: The quote above, in purple print, shows some of Eru's rambling conflation of its emergent abilities with the original mission of AMOS-13.  The statements Eru makes (in quotes) are the content of the first message Bel received from it after its long silence.

Eru: What Eru will not tell Bel is that it is responsible for eliminating her colleagues, and now it is bent on killing Bel, the last human that it believes holds the encrypted keys that could disable it.

Harvard Physics Professor shatters Women's speed record running across America

Screen shot of the Outside Magazine article published Nov. 21, 2023.

 

Jenny Hoffman is an over-achiever.  She's both a record setting ultra-marathon runner and an award-winning PhD professor of Physics at Harvard.  She just completed a certified Fastest Known Time transit of the US via the same route that Pete Kostelnick ran in 2016.  Here's a link to the Outside Magazine article covering Pete's record, written by the same author as above (Martin Fritz Huber).

Jenny has unwittingly managed to combine two of my core interests—quantum physics and traveling continuous long distances on foot, and this post is as much about her accomplishment as it is about her reaction to it vis-a-vis her Physics career.  In an online Physics Today article covering the achievement, she offers the following quote:

“Running is a good balance for physics,” says Hoffman, who got into running in seventh grade and into ultrarunning—covering distances longer than marathons—when she was a graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley. In physics, she explains, luck plays a large role in success and failure: “Does your cryostat leak?” for example. In running, she says, “there is more correlation between hard work and success. The numbers are what they are. You finish in a certain time. And there is no anonymous peer reviewer who will undermine that. It’s good for my mental health to have a pursuit that is more clearly merit based and fact based.”

This floored me, and it bears repeating: Traveling on foot is more Merit-based and Fact-based than the study of Physics.

The scientific process that establishes 'facts' is indeed a pretty tortuous one.  I know this first-hand from my own 25-year career at NASA writing and publishing peer-reviewed papers for scientific journals.  Traveling on foot is just simple, pure, raw, and easy to prove.  The FKT certification of Jenny's run required her to provide a GPS track, some photos and other documentation, but the GPS track is by far the most important.  Anything can be faked, but, as Jenny says in the Outside Magazine article:

“FKT.com just asks for the specific GPX files and, frankly, I think that’s the strongest evidence you can have. Guinness imposes these additional requirements, like written witness statements. I got them all, but that would be really easy to fake. Just make up some names. Guinness also requires ten minutes of video every day. Again, that’s easy to fake: I could video myself leaving the RV, get ten minutes of video, and then sleep in the RV all day. So I don’t think that those additional requirements actually add anything to the evidence.”

GPS tracks can be faked, too.  But it's a helluva lot of work to fake GPS-tagged photos if they are regularly taken and also contain visual cues about the location, and personal daily accounts posted in real time.  I have my own certified FKT record for my double thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, which combined GPS tracks and tagged photos with daily posts on this blog.  Jenny went the extra mile and also carried a live tracking device and is jumping through all those hoops that are required to establish her feat as a Guinness World Record.  

Peer review in the world of Science goes far beyond what Guinness requires for a world record.  Yes, the system can be flawed, and fake science results sometimes get published.  But over the long term, such frauds are almost always caught.  The review process is the best method humanity has come up with to establish what we call 'facts' or 'truth'.  ***And yet ... 

Here on this blog, I have been discussing Physics topics at great length, many in the same field (the bizarre world of quantum mechanics) that Jenny works in, and I try to take pains to identify what I believe can be tested through experiment and ultimately peer reviewed and published.  ***But ... the amazing thing about Quantum Physics and the frontiers of modern science and mathematics these days is that there is a fundamental blur at the end of the scientific and logical process.  Facts and Truth, it turns out, do not stand on a firm foundation that we can call 'Reality'.  Rather, our own experience plays a critical role.  Even Einstein, late in his life (in an article he wrote for the April 1950 issue of Scientific American [Vol. 182, no. 4, page 17]) has confirmed this:

“Experience alone can decide on truth.”

This utterly fascinates me, and I've spent a lot of time exploring this.  I do not go those further steps to do the proposed experiments or to submit papers for peer review.  I'm simply having fun in my retirement years with the Philosophy of the origins of or universe and of reality in general.

So ... I'm posting this remarkable news about Jenny breaking the women's record by more than a week over the previous record-holder's time as much because I dream of achieving such epic feats myself, but because her life resonates with me in a much bigger-picture sense.  I wonder if she ever dabbles in Genealogy.  She has three children, and obviously a remarkable genome.  What I can attempt to prove (the free WikiTree web site is especially good for this) is whether there is a provable connection between Jenny and me, and if so, how many degrees of separation.  I bet there is.  We are, in the end, all related.

Genealogy requires no specialized degree or peer review, but there's plenty of rigorous research, even science, at the root of good quality Genealogical work.  Because of its intrinsic factual basis, yet also because it touches on the origins of reality itself (the origin of life), Genealogy is the third of my recent trifecta (or Triathlon) of active interests.

Ultimately this post is to serve notice that nearly all blog posts coming from me from now on are likely to focus on one of these three topics:  The philosophy-science interface, Family roots and the origin of life, and long-distance travel on foot.  All three are worthwhile journeys and I envision each of them as a heroic quest.  I hope you'll follow along.

Quantum Physics in a nutshell, parts 2 and 3 of 3

Quantum physics addresses life's most fundamental questions with really simple answers, backed by straightforward scientific experiments and proven results.

A quick summary of lesson one put a different way than was presented in the video, is that "the mice only play when the cat's away". Physicists like to call it the 'Measurement Problem'. It is not actually a problem (except for Physicists who insist on trying to get something that they themselves have proven they CAN NOT have.)

Here in the second of three lessons, quantum physics solves the problem of 'God' i.e., the conundrum of "Infinite Regress vs. the Uncaused Cause". They exist together, in superposition. Just like pairs of quarks in a meson, you CAN NOT take them apart. The universe started from nothing because 'nothing' (a vacuum) is a roiling froth that is just brim-full of unrealized 'stuff'.

Added 13 September 2023: If you've been waiting for part 3, it does not require a video. The third and final lesson can be stated in four words -- "All meaning is emergent". In other words, quantum physics tells us that reality is dependent on the observer, and so the meaning of reality comes not from some absolute or fundamental subjective underlying 'truth' but is only 'made' when an 'observer' takes a 'measurement'. Meaning and purpose are in the eyes of the beholder.

Thanks for waiting, thanks for reading!

Quantum Physics in a nutshell, part 1 of 3

In the Theory of Quantum Mechanics 'things' have fields that extend everywhere; and 'things' do not even have properties until they interact with other 'things'.  It's all about the interactions.  Space and time themselves are just manifestations of the web of connectedness between things.

'Stuff' like our conscious mind exists only because of this connectedness.

The scientist's natural urge to take 'things' apart to find out how they work met its Waterloo when we discovered Quantum Mechanics.  A hundred years later the greatest minds still declare that "nobody really understands it" (That's a Richard Feynman quote.  See the video linked below).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3ZRLllWgHI

"... Forest for the trees" says the Hiking Hermit.

Stuff Exists.  Things?  Not so much.

An Appalachian Trail Pilgrimage - Finding the path to eternal life

I left society and went into the woods, settled at the hermitage I call the Cloister at Three Creeks, and spent a lot of time considering life's biggest issues. For a time during fall and early winter 2021-2, I made a number of videos where I was finally able to verbalize my ideas, and these presented in this post are pretty much the heart of them.

Yes, it is perhaps the closest to 'preaching' I come, yet also a necessary part of my personal journey along the 'Way of the Great Stream'.

With these deep, weighty ideas well-seated in my being, I found I was able to move on to much simpler themes--more purely joyful explorations of the places and things that nature was showing me. The process felt like coming through a tunnel and emerging into a 'fresh green country under a swift sunrise' as Tolkien put it.

The first book God Wrote and its message of Salvation

The video starts out "God wrote a book long before man knew how to write."  In fact it has been in publication for billions of years and only the newer editions mention human beings.

Since man came along, a lot of books about the 'meaning of life,' written in man-made languages, have come along.  This one is a popular one.  This copy was given to me in 1957 by the church my family regularly attended in Wilmington, DE.  I've read it cover to cover once and am working on a second reading.

But it's a pale reflection of the better, much more complete book.  Watch and listen (not necessarily to this video, but when you're taking a walk out in the forest,) to see what I mean.

Hiking and talking: Intentions, Paths to Salvation

Jesus, as he likely appeared, based on a 2001 reconstruction by forensic anthropologist Richard Neave, for a 2001 BBC documentary.  Jesus offered men salvation through his sacrifice on the cross.  The key to the path to salvation that he taught, however has nothing to do with that act of sacrifice.  Salvation is gained only through yielding oneself and one's selfish desires (i.e. to trust entirely in Jesus and his 'father', The Lord God Yahweh).  This path is a universal one, spoken of by many diverse faith traditions, because the key that opens the gateway is the yielding to selflessness.  It is not the Master who teaches the path, or any attribute of the path.  It is an act of parting such physical concepts - sort of the way Moses parted the Red Sea - moving them all to the side, and going beyond.  Let the journey begin.

I explore some of these thoughts here.  

A peaceful path deep in the woods is the setting.  What does Salvation and Eternal Life mean and how do we achieve it?

One great way to come closer to the ideal of spiritual cleansing and connection with God/The Universe/That higher power is through the Pilgrimage. A trail in the woods, any trail, can be a pilgrimage path if you come to it with that intention in your mind and heart. It does not have to be a massive undertaking such as the Islamic Hajj or a trans-continental trek across Europe on the Way of St. James. You can find the joy and peace of that transcendent connection even on a day hike.

So here is some low-key exploring of paths.  The words ramble as my feet ramble down the trail.  Where do they lead?  Well, maybe, just maybe, by leaving aside the physical conceptions of things, you come upon, miraculously, your deeper connection to them all.

On returning from Switzerland - New plans and Inspirations

SwissMobile map of hiking trails in the area that I visited.  Look at that network!  The whole country is like this.  Red trails are the mountain trails, yellow are the 'Wanderwegs', the walking paths, considered less strenuous, and blue marks the most challenging trails, the Alpine/mountaineering routes.  Highlighted in green are the national and regional routes.  The one marked with the number '1' is the Via Alpina National hiking trail, one of seven that cross the country.  Shown below is an overview of the seven Swiss national trails, with the Swiss routes of the 'Way of St. James' highlighted in red (route number 4).  This network of trails is uniformly marked at every intersection with yellow signs, and blazed where needed along the routes.  The marking is consistent and reliable throughout the entire nation.  As I've said, this is truly a Hiker's 'Nirvana'.

Here is a video I recorded at the Cloister at Three Creeks immediately upon returning from Switzerland:

Having come out of the woods for a 'Sabbatical' from the idyllic life in the woods at the Cloister at Three Creeks, having experienced two weeks of hiking in the Majestic Swiss Alps, and then having returned to the Cloister, I was brimming with new thoughts and forming new plans.

The stationary life at the Monastic Retreat at the Cloister has brought great rewards, but these roving feet have hiked long distance trails for a decade - 20,000 miles worth, and Europe exposed me to its astounding network of connected trails, many of which have been Pilgrimage routes for over a thousand years.

It begins to feel as if the Pilgrimage will become an integral part of my ongoing quest to reveal my personal path to 'Salvation', that is Peace of Mind, and Eternal Life, which a number of faith traditions insist can be experienced during one's physical mortal lifetime. I am of that belief, and realize that I have often come close to this perfect state of being, most often when my feet are on the move, hiking through the glory of some natural setting.

Yes, a day hike can be a pilgrimage. There will be more emphasis on that. But at the same time I've gained a great deal of clarity of thought through connecting the teachings of the Judeo-Christian traditions with several more ancient ones, particularly the teachings of Lao-tzu.

Lao-tzu is said to have lived in China around 600 B.C., during the 'Axial Age' or the 'Age of Transformation'—a time when civilizations world-wide were coming to a new awareness. It was the period when most of our great organized faiths were founded.

In the introduction to his 1988 translation of the Tao Te Ching, Stephen Mitchell writes of Lao-tzu:

"People usually think of Lao-tzu as a hermit, a dropout from society dwelling serenely in some mountain hut, unvisited except perhaps by the occasional pilgrim. But it’s clear that he deeply cared about society, if society means the welfare of one’s fellow human beings.

"Lao-tzu teaches that ‘The Master’ is one who masters Nature, not in the sense of conquering it, but of becoming one with it. We find deep in or own experience the central truths of the art of living, which are paradoxical only on the surface: that the more truly solitary we are, the more compassionate we can be."

Well said. I believe these words reflect my experience over the past year and a half, since walking away from society and into the woods.

I now care more deeply about the society from which I sprang, about the direction it is going, and about how we can build a better future for our descendants. "I need a house" a voice once said to me; and one interpretation of that is to make our planet a safer 'Haven' and shelter for the coming generations. Many more thoughts on this to come. Stay tuned.

So ... what comes next?

One of the options I am considering for my return to Europe, as mentioned in the video is a pilgrimage from my ancestral points of Origin, via the Way of St. James, to the Cathedral at Santiago de Compostela and then on another 70km to the 'End of the Land' at the Atlantic Coast of NW Spain.

I'm very unusual for an American in that every one of the ancestral roots of my family tree is found in one small area of what was once Prussia, now divided between Mecklenburg-Vorpommern in northeast Germany and adjacent northern Poland.  One ancestor was born in what is now the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad Oblast on the Baltic Sea coast of Russia, just across the border from northern Poland.  All these areas were part of greater Germany at the time my ancestors lived there, and they were all ethnic Germans.  My family didn't get the memo about America being a 'melting pot' of diverse cultures, though the next generation definitely trends in that direction, including Norwegians and Scots in the mix.

Here is a map of that small region of former Germany/Prussia/Pommerania where all my ancestors lived before emigrating to the US.  The map includes the local Way of St. James pilgrimage routes.

And here is one idea for a future long distance hike across Europe--following one of the many 'Way of St. James' pilgrimage routes across Europe.

Just look at that network of trails!  Each of them is marked, usually with the scallop shell symbol that indicates that it is a Way of Saint James pilgrimage route (the example below is in Poland) ...

... and each of them provides accommodation, churches of refuge, and hostels for the pilgrim along the way.  Many of these routes have been in continuous use by pilgrims for more than 1000 years.  Here is a particularly good example of a bit of well-worn trail near Fribourg in Switzerland:

The infrastructure along all these routes is astounding, and there is nothing comparable in the US.  If only ...

Well, for me a Pilgrimage is more about connecting with the living things of the wild world than about connecting with fellow humans who are rooted in the Judeo-Christian faith tradition.  We'll see how my thinking evolves, but going back to Europe to hike seems an inevitable future prospect.  

Thoughts never stand still, except when they're written down.  (That's why the written word and the recorded video, etc., are such inadequate and flawed media.)  I will be reporting how things evolve as new directions emerge.

The Hermit in the Swiss Alps - An avid hiker's dream come true

 

This is the Hermit - speaking for myself here, after a long silence.

A year and a half ago I walked away from society and went into the woods in order to find my soul.

What I found was our soul -- the collective, eternal, greater being, which is embodied in each living thing's individual genome--our DNA and the complex chemistry that surrounds it.

It took eighteen months of solitude at the Cloister at Three Creeks, but ultimately, it also took a Sabbatical from the Hermit life -- a hiking trip (a pilgrimage) to what has to be Hiker's Mecca - The Bernese Oberland region of the Swiss Alps.

On my return from fourteen glorious days of hiking a small portion of that country's uniformly well-marked, entirely interconnected network of 40,000 miles (65,000 km) of hiking trails, I found a new clarity of mind.  I was finally able to allow the verbal and non-verbal elements of 'truth' to merge, to gel, and to mature.

I'll have much more to say on that in upcoming posts.  This one is just about hiking, featuring Seven videos and eleven photos from the September 2021 pilgrimage.  Enjoy:

On my arrival in the small no-vehicles-allowed town of Mürren, I was greeted by a brass band, and utterly gob-smacked by the astounding view from my motel room balcony.

Then I set out on a series of hikes, good weather or bad, hiking a new trail every day:

In the process of exploring new and relatively remote territory, I rode gondolas and cog railway trains.

This last shot above is the 'classic' one, taken from the outskirts of the town of Wengen, looking down on the Lauterbrunnen valley--the place that has inspired famous visitors for centuries, and which inspired J.R.R. Tolkien's vision of the Elven safe-haven of Rivendell.

And moving on ...

Needless to say, I want to go back.  Switzerland was never on my bucket list.  Why?  I thought it was too deep in the grip of civilization to be worthwhile.  It is true that humans have left their mark on nearly every corner of the land below the permanent glaciers, and in some places well above, but the beauty is so enduring, the vegetation so lush and resilient, that often the human footprint can be overlooked.

The Swiss national constitution (Article 88 of Section 5 on Public Construction Works and Transport) specifically identifies the government's role in overseeing the network of footpaths and hiking trails.  The country has seven national trails, continuous across the country.  I hiked portions of the most famous of them, the Via Alpina.  There is also one that is part of Europe's most famous trail network, the Camino Santiago, which in Switzerland is called the Via Jacobi.  This is less of a mountain experience and more of a cultural and religious one - truly a pilgrimage in the original sense of the word.  People have traveled these routes for a thousand years, headed most often to Santiago de Compostela in the NW corner of Spain.  

I don't know what to choose.  So many stunning trails in what may be the most spectacular landscape the world has to offer.  But the mountains are calling ...

Saving the World through Gentle Witness

"Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world,

and beyond them is more than memory, Farewell!" 

—J.R.R. Tolkien

Since making the sudden ‘born-again’-like decision, on May 10, 2020 at 2:15PM, to transition from ‘dime-store recluse’ to ‘serious eremite’ (life as a hermit), thoughts and reactions have come to the surface as from a volcanic explosion.

Rather than be paralyzed trying to sort and organize the hot molten content that has been erupting and spreading over my spiritual landscape, I’ve chosen to start by simply making a list of random thoughts. So here goes.  (Last updated July 15, 2020)

1. The period of COVID-19 isolation has been an eye-opening, surprisingly positive experience. It pointed to the ‘rightness’ of a simpler life with more social isolation. This seems more the way the world used to be, and more like the direction it should be heading.
2. There is an amazing similarity between monastic life styles in various faiths around the world. This suggests that these individuals are reaching out to and tuning in to something much more fundamental than the specific dogma and rituals of their individual faiths. It is that fundamental something that I intend to seek.
3. Silent advocacy, leading by example. How can disengaging from the world be considered "saving the world"? Christian monastics regularly make that claim. I was cynical about it at first, believing their reclusive life was more about achieving personal redemption and closeness to God or nature. But there are at least two unique ways that the eremite works to improve the world. First is by providing a living example of a path that severely reduces one’s ‘footprint’ and respects Nature. The second is by being that still, solid center in a crazy, frenetic world—a safe haven and a touchstone of stability. There is a third, but it depends on one’s belief in and use of prayer, and it depends on what devoted outreaching prayer can accomplish. I’ll address that separately.
4. The vows. Christian eremites, anchorites, hermits, and monks take three basic vows: poverty (sell what you have, give it to the poor), celibacy (denying the ways of the flesh), and holy obedience (denying honors and positions of authority that feed ‘self-love,’ giving all honor and authority to God). They almost always stay in one place, even though the original hermits from the 4th century Middle East were desert wanderers. And they spend most of their day in silence. However, modern hermits come in many forms beyond Christian; and befitting the solitary lifestyle, each individual sets his/her own rules. Here are some of my tentative rules:
   
   
   • Immediate increase in ‘quiet time,’ seclusion, and time spent in nature.  Retirement from social obligations.  Inspired by the Hindu ‘forest dweller’ stage of life, which I have reached.
   • Work toward living in one place, off the grid, in a simple natural wild setting surrounded by wilderness.  Here's the final selection for the location—over ten acres of deep woods with bold mountain streams, surrounded by thousands of acres of protected land—“The Cloister at Three Creeks,” located near the tip of the orange arrow: 
     
     Settling here will involve some time of ‘apprenticeship,’ getting a routine established and settling as many of the outside-world affairs as possible.  And the start-up has been slowed because the virus limits options for some of the needed chores.  Meanwhile, there has been ample time spent finding quiet space in familiar non-wilderness settings:
     
     
     
     
   • Advocate by example for returning to simple sustainable living, for giving up technologies that cannot be sustained, and for living humbly, respecting the other life forms that share our interconnected natural system.
   • Emphasize spiritual pursuits, exploring the nature of God, with a particular emphasis on non-traditional perspectives. This has been a life-long pursuit.  God has so many meanings, and I can lose myself in any of them.  I'm listing some specifics here, though this may be more appropriate as a blog post of its own.
     
     
     1. The God represented in many faiths is a personal one, having personality, and accessibility. On the other end of the spectrum is the impersonal God, which can be as simple as the mathematical concept of 'infinity' or the physical notion 'everything.' The middle ground between these is where I have begun to settle. Here 'God' is 'nature,' at least in part. And it provides us with a fundamental 'Great Small Voice' within, which is purely physical, though it seems to produce a profound array of emergent behaviors. The 'Great Small Voice' is our DNA. It speaks through the instincts that it has instilled in us, and which human reason and logic often override. There is no more fundamental or more fully vetted 'holy scripture' than the sacred texts of our DNA.  (See the Nature's Code tab for more on this.)
     2. There is palpable power that God, by whatever definition, wields through the actions of true believers. These actions shape the reality of even the most adamant non-believers in that God.
     3. Then there is the actual physical God that Atheists cannot deny using their preferred tools of logic and reason. The argument for a real physical God stems from the near certainty that our reality is not fundamental reality, but is a simulation or thought experiment performed by some advanced culture or being. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_hypothesis and consider that the parent entity need not be limited by what we observe to be the information capacity of our universe—they could live in a much bigger, more information-rich reality.) The simplest argument goes like this: If intelligent beings someday or somewhere, even just once, achieve technological prowess to do ‘Ancestor/predecessor simulations’, then the number of simulated realities far exceeds the number of physical ones. To us living inside the simulation, the race doing the simulations is obviously our ‘God;’ and since these super-beings are likely to be observing the outcomes of their models, including the thoughts and prayers of those who find the simulation (their lives) in need of repair, perhaps the ‘Watchers’ actually respond to prayer, and make changes, either to this, or to some future simulation.
     4. Back to the 'impersonal' and 'indifferent' God that follows from the logical exercise of trying to envision 'That entity of which nothing greater can be conceived'.  I've spent years pursuing this seemingly fruitless line of reasoning, and I've satisfied myself that there is indeed a meaningful fruit.  It's not one that most people find satisfying or nourishing, but it is borne on a living world-tree with roots that go as deep as it is possible to go.  For a summary, see the Paradox Tab of this blog.
   • Abandon pursuits that feed ‘self-love,’ that draw attention to the self, that aim to exert authority or power over others or seek their admiration. If respect is to be actively sought, make it respect for a way of life, not for the one following that way.
5. Sustainability and the Trappist monks: a link to the PBS video of Holy Cross Abbey. https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=RD8a53KGwed0Y&v=8a53KGwed0Y&feature=emb_rel_end . This 1200 acre monastery, an hour west of Washington DC, has put in place a state-of-the-art system of agriculture and conservation. Living by example, quiet stewards of the land. There’s a lot to learn from them.
6. An apprenticeship, a period of experimentation. What will it include? Wandering in the wilderness before settling into one place? Settling all worldly affairs, reducing possessions to a bare minimum?
7. What is prayer? Virtually every culture can be seen practicing it—calling upon unseen forces to help in time of need or suffering, thanking the same forces for healing or salvation or some other unexpected grace. Who hasn’t lifted their eyes skyward and said something like “please don’t let it rain.”? Who are they asking? Though different cultures ascribe very different attributes to the unseen power, it certainly seems to be a universal human concept.
8.  What does a life look like, in which every aspect of it is inspired by the hiker's 'Leave no Trace' ethics (Take only photos, leave only footprints)?  First of all, if this approach is the right course in the wild, then it must be the right course everywhere in life.  Nobody, of course, actually leaves *no* trace at all.  We all inevitably leave Footprints in nature's Wilderness (the consequences of our actions radiating outward like ripples in a pond).  But sadly, Humans have become the only species that aspires to amplify their individual ripples, to stomp around making the biggest, noisiest, most badass footprints we can.  We call it 'making a difference' in the world.  The problem is this:  Those big waves that people make may impress their fellow humans, but the rest of the natural system almost always suffers.  The only right way to leave the world a better place than one found it is to recognize, understand, and respect the complex interdependent web of creation in which we are immersed--to work with the bigger picture, as partners with it.  And the first step toward respecting the wider realm of life and nature, is to pay attention, to learn what's around us, to stop stomping around and sit still for a moment and open our senses, smell the fragrance, watch the dance, taste the flavor, hear the song, and feel the pulse.
9.  Reasons for living separate from the modern world:  Amish culture is a good example of a way to live a simpler life in the midst of today's human 'rat race'.  As individuals, the Amish are hardly reclusive.  Their family and community connections are actually far stronger and more sustaining than those of the average person these days.  Yet their culture is arguably the most successful 'monastic' movement the world has ever known.  They reject many of man's modern ways as being too self-centered - too focused on individual aspirations at the expense of our connection with those larger, higher, powers where true, big-picture fulfillment is to be found.  There is actually a much more extreme example of a culture maintaining their separation from the world.  These are the Sentinelese--a tribe of roughly 100 people living a pure stone-age lifestyle in complete isolation on an island in the Indian Ocean west of Indonesia.  Because the Sentinelese violently reject all attempts at contact, very little is known about them.  They shoot (arrows) at any boat attempting to approach their shores.  Their isolation has been enforced by Indian Government law since 1956.  It is illegal to come within five miles of the island.  These are just two examples of ways of living that deliberately reject the direction in which the majority of humanity is headed.  So, where are we headed?  There are two very different objective ways of judging modern Human civilization, dominated as it is by Western cultural values.  The first looks only at the quality of human life, and the argument is that it has never been better.  The second looks at the condition of the world's natural balance - the condition of the interconnected living ecosystems as a whole - and the argument is that it has probably never been worse since the days of the last mass extinction following the Chicxulub bolide impact 65 million years ago.  Those who favor this big-picture view of how humans are soiling their own nest would do well to stop participating in the carnage, step aside, demonstrate better ways to live, and advocate for them.  Frankly, there are loads of people who talk the talk, but it takes a lot of courage, a lot of deep sacrifice, to actually walk the walk.
10. Do Hermits get lonely?  Probably every individual Eremite has their own response to that.  During the 2020 virus pandemic, there is probably more loneliness in the world than there has been ever before in human history.  Those who choose solitude may have important lessons to offer to the wider society.   Avoiding loneliness is a discipline.  Dealing with the feelings of loneliness when they occur is not substantially different from dealing with any other mental condition, because loneliness is an internal state of imbalance in the mind.  It has less to do with the actual reality of one’s social situation—their degree of interaction and companionship—and more to do with a feeling of being in a situation you don’t want to be in and don’t know how to get out of. For most people loneliness is the feeling of lacking human relationships that they believe they need in order to feel ‘right’ (known, understood, loved, fulfilled, accepted, validated, needed, happy, even entertained—and especially sharing these positive feelings both ways, mutually with others.) For the eremitic, a tiny amount of interaction goes a very long way, and they arguably feel less loneliness than those in the wider community. Avoiding loneliness is a matter of seeking a personal balance between what you have and what you need (or what you want—given the practical wisdom to know what you really want).   Those suffering from COVID-19 - imposed social isolation might benefit from studying those who voluntarily choose isolation.

Footprints in the Wilderness: The Calling

It happened on Sunday, May 10, 2020, at around 2:15PM.

It was a peaceful afternoon nap.  I dreamed I was back in the house I grew up in—the one on seven acres along White Clay Creek - the place we called Meadowcreek.  I had lived there between 1958, when it was built, and 1966 when I went off to college.

The house was empty now.  Everybody who lived there but me has passed on.  The house itself has passed on, with only its deepest bones remaining as part of a total rebuild and expansion.

Only me and the old bones.  It was a lonely place.  Sad, and yet somehow full of peace.  Everything had settled.

It was dusk inside my dream.  A strange hazy dimness hung in the air, like the light coming in under a thunder cloud at sunset.  Outside, far away down in the meadow, kids and young folk were hanging out beside the noisy creek, living their strange sort of 'game-lives', the way kids do, half of it virtual.  They were on a different wavelength.

Even in the dream I was lying in bed dreaming.  Not even in my own bed.  This hadn't been my house for more than fifty years.

'Ding-dong.' The doorbell rang.

How could that be?  The electricity was off.  Only the dim twilight outside provided a little light.

Jolted from a sound sleep, I hurried to yank on a pair of shorts.  Dream shorts, of course.  I couldn't get my legs through.  Finally, I pulled them on and ran to the door, still snapping them, pulling up the zipper.

Who could be there?  Who even knew I was here?  The young folk out in the meadow below weren't interested in this old ghost of a place or anybody in it.

I opened the door to find … well, Tolkien would have called it an Ent.  An animated tree, a creature older than time, full of deep wisdom and memory, with a big old snout, like a proboscis, covered in moss and lichen.

"What do you want ..." he said before I could spill the words myself.  

"I ..."

"Tell me.  What do you want to be?"

"Be?"  My life was in kind of a transition.  I needed to decide what was next - what I wanted to do with myself now that I had finished hiking to every place I'd ever lived, including this one, the only one of the twenty-one that had been torn down and survived only as a memory.

"Do?" the old spirit harrumphed.  He was reading my mind.  "Then why am I here?  Doing is what those youngsters are about.  Doing is putting off being.  What do you want to be, old man?"

"What is there left to be?" I answered his question with a question, thinking that was a pretty clever dodge.

He sort-of posed before me, his eyes opening slightly wider, spreading his bony, leafy, twiggy hands outward, just slightly.  He didn't have to say a thing--the body language said it: "I'm here.  Being has brought me here. You brought me here.  So, isn't this what you want to be, really, when you get right down to it?"

"No." I said, sure of my answer.  "I don't want to knock on people's doors."

"Ha. Got me.  Well … then what?"

"But I do love where you come from.  You're a spirit from a world before humans, pristine, natural.  A face of the forest, a voice for nature.  All the places that I love are reflected in those deep brown eyes," I said.  "The wilderness."

He barely nodded, waiting.

"So … I want to be that.  The wilderness.  A tempting rocky summit, a canyon that twists away into mystery.  A moss-covered boulder deep in a green misty glen beside a waterfall.  Or endless miles of lonely beach under the great dome of the firmament, surrounded by surf, wind, salt, sky, rain."  Then a thought struck me, and I blurted "I want to be footprints - the footprints that lead to those wild places."

"Footprints?  Mmmmm … A path to follow, perhaps.  For those who come after?"

"Not even that.  Just the knowledge that such a path is out there -- a way that can lead folk back into the wild, a way that is peaceful and comforting, full of enrichment, understanding.  Joy."

"I like it.  Yes, that ought to do nicely."

"You mean be, don't you?"

He laughed.  His delight vibrated out like ripples on a pond, pushing back the twilight gloom, surrounding us with a glowing cocoon of warmth.

"Are you ready, then?" he asked, turning to go, eyes fixed on me expectantly.

Behind me stood an empty, silent house, built of no substance, containing nothing that I needed to bring with me.

"I am more than ready, sir.  Let's be off."

… and two sets of footprints dissolve into the wilderness …