Imagine a vertical line of LEDs in front of you. They seem to be partially lit, flickering slightly. To the left and right of the line are individual LEDs, periodically flashing back and forth. As you look over the scene, images appear for a moment. However, the more you look for them, the more you concentrate on seeing them, the less they appear. Continue reading
Tag Archives: christianity
Seeing Through Concrete
I recently took a virtual reality picture of a local bookstore (click on the picture to see it). It was for a worldwide virtual reality photo project with the theme “concrete”. I used the picture of the bookstore to highlight the concrete nature of physical books against the ephemeral nature of ebooks. This comparison also made me think of the concrete nature of the material world relative to the spiritual, so that this picture makes a good illustration. Continue reading
Zombies and the Spiritual Life
In the continuing comparison of natural and supernatural views of reality, we’ve considered some fairly philosophical perspectives. However, for these things to be real, we would expect clear manifestations, some evidence in the natural world. It may or may not be strictly testable, but there should be some ramification. In this essay, we’ll consider an example of what we might expect, drawn from a movie.
The movie of interest, I Am Legend, is not a Christian movie. In fact, it is a secular mass market zombie movie made by mainstream Hollywood. Surprisingly, however, they use several Christian themes as plot elements and we can draw on those to illustrate the point a hand. (Warning: This post contains SPOILERS.). Continue reading
Fossils and the End of Mortality
Fossils remind us that mortality has been around for as long as life itself, yet fossils also illustrate immortality. In a sense, these animals continue to exist, almost as humans persist as statues. But there is a big difference: fossils are not just representations of animals — they are the animals themselves, only now with slower and simpler chemistry. For what has really changed about them? Is there any real difference between chemical reactions that are fast and complex, and those that are slow and simple? Is there any real difference between life and death?
Of course! There is far more to life than fancy chemistry, and even more to humanity than natural life. This truth is the beginning of the end of mortality, for mortality itself has an end. The spark that makes us uniquely human exists beyond mortality, although flickering because of this world’s darkness. But what we physically sense is not all of reality, and with open eyes we can see a path beyond. There is one who defeated death, and because of that he is a door onto this path of light, and is himself a pure light into eternity. Christ is the end of mortality.
Of Causality and Love, Faith and Eternity
The world is a mysterious place, and part of human nature is to try to understand it. This is the role of science and rationality; we look to them to help us make sense of things. To an large extent they are very successful, and have improved our ability to manipulate the world more and more. And yet, there are things about the deeper underpinnings of reality that give us pause. Continue reading
Crystal Perfection
Recently, I was thinking about crystals as illustrations. Not an uncommon thought; our imaginations are captured by their unique properties, and these properties make them interesting comparisons. A crystal’s beauty and unique properties stem from special construction on the atomic scale. Its smallest parts are arranged in a repeating, orderly manner that forms a lattice. Although some crystals gain value from impurities, the finest have none at all. In fact, their lattice structures are perfect, with neither foreign materials, nor missing elements. It is this particular example of perfection that is interesting.
Where’s the Wave Collapser?
This little video illustrates one of the big confounding questions in physics. The question is how to understand the role of conscious observation in resolving a quantum state. The problem has been around for a long time, and Erwin Schrödinger came up with this famous illustration to highlight the question. Towards the end, the video describes a higher-level perspective about the question. Continue reading
Sudden Phase Change
Imagine a basin of calm, liquid water. Perfectly still and pure. All of a sudden it is jostled, or a speck of dust falls in, and it freezes in a moment. The water must have started below freezing, yet it was liquid. This seeming contradiction can occur when very pure water is carefully lowered below freezing, so ice crystals never have a chance to form. The result is “supercooled” water. Supercooled water may remain liquid while cooled quite far below freezing. It’s easy to make in the lab or at home, and sometimes occurs in nature.
While the water is still liquid, it seems contradictory: below freezing, yet not frozen. If water below freezing is supposed to be frozen, why is this so easy to demonstrate? It just seems wrong. Continue reading
Kelvin's Clouds 