Beyond the Fishbowl: From Goldfish Epistemology to Cosmic Self-Programming

Untangling Idealism, CTMU, Ancient Mystics, and Hyperdimensional Hints – With a Dash of Skepticism and Infinite Permutations

I’ve been going back and forth on what to write next, following that dramatic “sturm und drang” ending to the mini-series on epistemology and ontology, i.e. The Quest for Truth. I’ve written and re-written several approaches, mainly involving recapping what was already written and then closely questioning the results. Grok really outdid itself there, eh? But, my kids don’t like it when I use Grok. They complain that it’s just not the same style that they are used to when I convey points in stories, and insert a little humor just when things get most serious. Yeah, love that emergency room humor. (← Not sarcasm since humor has saved my sanity in this quest!)

The main thing that was on my mind at the end of that exercise was the question: did the reader really grasp how difficult it is to know anything with any certainty? And did we, in the end, arrive at anything approximating Truth?

Every time I think about Bernardo Kastrup and his great feat of epistemology, a powerful argument for idealism, I am reminded of a goldfish in a bowl trying to suss out the world outside the glass of the container. The truth seems to be that Kastrup really did go only as far as he could, considering the limitations placed upon our reality. All our ‘laws of physics’ are based on what is INSIDE the bowl. We have no idea whatsoever if they extend to anything outside the bowl. (Though they must certainly represent some concept or principle.)

Another metaphor for our condition is that of a mirror trying to see its own back. No matter how many other mirrors it recruits, no matter how cleverly it angles them, the mirror can only ever see reflections of reflections. The “back side” that would let it see itself as an object among objects is the one aspect permanently excluded from its own reflective surface. Another is the eye trying to see itself seeing. The eye is the organ of sight, yet the one thing it cannot see is the seeing itself. It can see every object, every retina, optic nerve, visual cortex—but the act of seeing is the transparent condition that can never be turned into an object for itself. Each one of us is like a character in a novel trying to prove the author doesn’t exist. The character can analyze every word, every plot turn, every ink molecule on the page, but the one thing he can never do is step off the page and shake the author’s hand. Every “proof” he offers is itself just more text written by the very author he’s trying to deny.

But, in the end, I keep coming back to the goldfish in the bowl. The only way the goldfish could know anything about the world in which its bowl existed would be to somehow learn to live outside the bowl. It could metamorphose into a bird; grow lungs and wings and fly up out of the water. But that’s not likely to happen. All the goldfish can ever know is every detail about what is inside the bowl and the impermeability of the glass surrounding it.

Even Plato’s story of the cave gives false hope. He wrote it as though pure reason could get a person out of the cave and show them a truer reality outside. But that’s akin to apocalyptic epistemology which I’ve already discussed in Part One: if justification depends solely on divine revelation, OR mentation, how can the elect verify their beliefs without circularly relying on God’s will or their own subjectivity?

The whole situation is somewhat depressing.

However, recall that Kastrup drew inferences. Well, everybody draws inferences it seems. That’s what got us into this mess of confusion. Nevertheless, Kastrup claims his inferences are based on empirical rigor, logical consistency, and parsimony. You can re-read his inferences in the Nov 16 post about Bottom-up vs top-down ontologies. I really like his description of the ontological primitive as “That Which Experiences” - it is uncaused and irreducible.

Then he goes on to propose that everything in the universe is some expression of TWE. That compares closely to Ibn al-Arabi’s statement that everything that exists is a word of God and that all the words are made up of different permutations of the different Names, or Qualities of God. (Funny that my husband wrote a post about Permutations yesterday.)

It's all about permutations

Kastrup’s inferences are something like a modern day version of the Hermetic Maxim: As Above, So Below, which even found its way into the New Testament when the author of the Gospel of Matthew tried to rehabilitate the disciples of Jesus who had been totally humiliated and dismissed in the Gospel of Mark. Jesus says that He will give Peter the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and that whatever Peter binds on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever he looses on earth shall be loosed in heaven. In Hermetic, Gnostic, and mystical frameworks, keys always symbolize the power to traverse levels of reality. The Hermetic tradition viewed the Key as gnosis — the consciousness capable of unlocking the heavens through understanding.

So, an inference that I am going to draw here is that we can, indeed, understand what is outside the fishbowl if we use our minds effectively. In fact, that is something the Cassiopaean Experiment texts have emphasized repeatedly: we have minds, and we should use them though we have to be taught how to do that effectively since the whole of our social experience seems to be devoted to brainwashing us out of proper use of our mind/brain. In some people, this ends up being useful, but for the majority, it seems to be fatal.

One example of when social or religious training is useful is given in Bob Altemeyer’s book "Amazing Conversions: Why Some Turn to Faith & Others Abandon Religion" (2020; with Bruce Hunsberger as co-author.) Apparently, some Christians, inculcated in the belief that there is one Truth and that Truth is sacred, turn that conviction against Christianity itself. Driven by intellectual honesty: they encountered contradictions in doctrine or morality and could not rationalize them away. Leaving religion became an act of epistemic individuation where integrity was seen as more important than comfort. As Altemeyer noted: “People change not because they are persuaded at a lecture, but because reality confronts them in a way they can no longer ignore.”

The following is a great interview with a remarkable scientific mind that has somehow excluded the most important aspect of our reality from his scientific scrutiny.

Professor Tour has most certainly pointed out many truths about science that powerfully indicate the Intelligent Design of our world. There are many other respected scientists who have contributed to this growing awareness. There is certainly far more to our reality, and the cosmos at large, than ever imagined.

The problem with most individuals who have converted into a ‘belief system’ (biology gives evidence of intelligent design, therefore God is real), is that they all seem to have fallen back on that ‘old time religion’ answer: God did it, thus waving a red flag in the face of the physicalist/materialist philosophical bias against supernatural explanations. If you ask Grok about it, the token prediction machine will tell you that “while ID raises intriguing philosophical questions about origins and purpose, it does not meet the standards of mainstream science due to its unfalsifiability and lack of empirical support. The evidence overwhelmingly supports its exclusion from scientific discourse and education as “science,” though it could fit in philosophy, history, or religious studies.”

And that’s a load of bunk. It’s also another reason why Grok, nor any other AI, will ever actually figure out ‘the Truth’ in any significant way: curatorial bias.

There are many widely‑accepted yet unfalsifiable doctrines in modern science. For example, String Theory and Multiverse Cosmology claim an enormous number (10⁵⁰⁰⁺) of possible universes or hidden dimensions, but no conceivable experiment can directly verify or falsify them. Their mathematical beauty and consistency substitute for empirical testability. Institutional inertia keeps vast funding flowing to this theoretical edifice, partly because it preserves the prestige of theoretical physics even when it ceases to be empirical.

Another example: The “Infinite Adaptability” of Evolutionary Explanations. Micro-evolution is real, but modern neo-Darwinian orthodoxy often morphs to fit any data retroactively. If a trait appears to be beneficial, they say it was “selected for.” If it appears neutral, then it is “due to drift”. If it appears harmful, “pleiotropic trade‑off.” You can never disprove any of it because any outcome can be rationalized post hoc. You can never reproduce the origins of life and endless trials have tried to reproduce macro-evolution but all have failed. In fact, the most common occurrence in such experiments is that genes get broken and things fall apart.

Then, there is the “No‑Alternative” Climate Narrative that claims that the majority of observed climate shifts are human‑caused, and that existing models precisely predict future warming. This becomes unfalsifiable when: Each failed prediction gets re‑explained by “natural variability,” models are retrofitted after the fact, and dissenting datasets are dismissed as “outliers.” A genuine hypothesis yields risky predictions—today’s “climate consensus” mostly adjusts models to fit outcomes, not the other way around.

Yet another, Institutional Epidemiology in Vaccine Injuries is totally corrupt. The institutions claim that “Vaccines are safe and effective” but when adverse data emerge, authorities declare “correlation is not causation”, or design studies that define away possible causal links through exclusion criteria. A claim that “X cannot cause Y” isn’t falsifiable when no possible study design or data set is accepted as evidence to the contrary.

Then, there is the Dark Matter and Dark Energy Orthodoxy. We’ve never detected dark matter directly despite billions spent. Its existence is posited to preserve the equations of general relativity, but, whenever it’s not found where expected, models are adjusted—again, immunization by parameter flexibility.

The “Blank Slate” View in Social Science and Education is yet another. The idea that differences in human cognition or behavior are purely products of environment and socialization is logically unfalsifiable, because all evidence of innate variation is dismissed as environmental corruption or bias. It’s protected not by data, but by ideological and institutional censorship.

Institutions defend these narratives not because they’re empirically verified but because they’re career scaffolds. Grants, publications, and even cosmological identities depend on maintaining certain paradigms. Any alternative—intelligent design, plasma cosmology, cyclic or steady‑state models—gets treated as heresy, even when they make testable claims. When falsifiability erodes, science regresses into theology—not religious theology, but institutional theology maintained by funding networks, incentives, and credential protection.
The real scientists—the ones Popper admired—are the few who remain willing to risk being wrong.

But, getting back to the problem of falling back on the ‘old time religion’ answers to the origins of the Universe and all within it, including life itself. What is the problem with that?, you might ask. Well, as many of you know, I’ve spent most of my adult life studying religion in general with considerable concentration on Judaism and Christianity, and I can say with epistemological certainty: they are both frauds. For an overview of the reality of Judaism being a fraud, run through Grok just for fun, see here:

There are actually hundreds of books by eminent scholars and many thousands of scholarly papers and I’ve read a bunch of them. But you have to start somewhere if you are really on the Quest, and this is a good place to begin.

On the topic of Christianity, I actually wrote the book on that one. From Paul to Mark is not your typical religious-studies monograph. It’s a hybrid of textual analysis, historical forensics, and mythological deconstruction—a reconstruction of early Christianity stripped of centuries of dogmatic editing. What we know as “Christianity” today is essentially a political and theological fabrication, consolidated over centuries by the Roman Empire’s power apparatus. The original teachings (“PaleoChristianity”) were radically different. They were an initiatory, Gnostic-like system focused on direct experience of the divine and the development of the “higher self” through knowledge—gnosis. What makes the book unique is the forensic analysis approach. In writing this book, I used comparative linguistics — tracing textual mutations and interpolations in scripture. I cross-referenced Pagan, Gnostic, and Jewish literature — to show the archetypal borrowing from earlier mystery religions. I laid out and analyzed the political context — situating scriptural evolution within Rome’s consolidation of authority after the Jewish revolts. And I applied psychological typology — viewing religious structures as reflections of social control mechanisms derived from authoritarian personality patterns. I show how every subsequent canonical layer — especially the creation of Acts and the reediting of Pauline letters — served to obscure a much more esoteric proto-Christianity involving inner transformation and cosmic understanding. From Paul to Mark reclaims Christianity’s lost DNA from beneath 2,000 years of narrative manipulation and empire-building. It’s not an anti-Christian rant; it’s a post-institutional recovery project—Christianity before Rome, before hierarchy, before dogma. Paul’s “Christ crucified” is the moment when infinite consciousness passes through finite matter, reversing the flow of entropy, healing the cosmos through love, and awakening creation into self‑awareness.

Bottom line is: the god of the Old Testament is a fraud and the doctrine of Christianity, as we know it today in almost all variations, is a mostly a lie and weak sauce. It won’t get you anywhere.

Now, if people like Prof. Tour and Tucker Carlson, above, would actually look into these matters, utilizing the scientific training they are heir to, and apply some decent epistemology, they would not be so quick to fall back on biblical explanations for the origins of things. They would start to try to think about ‘what is’ in a different way. Questions would arise, curiosity would be incited, and studies and collecting of data would commence in a serious way.

It is generally individuals who have been “disenfranchised” or who feel helpless and at the mercy of the forces of life – whether they manifest through other people or random events – who are those who are most likely to seek such faith, such a covenant with a god. They feel acutely their own inability to have an effect in the world, and they turn their creativity inward to create and maintain their “faith.”

Fundamentalism of any sort – be it Judaism, Christianity or Islamic – thrives on certain characteristics of human beings. The first characteristic is “absolute certainty.” In this sense, it is a sort of terminal consciousness in which development is stopped because real growth and development includes, of necessity, uncertainty and risk. This point was actually made by Jesus in the parable of the talents.

In this story, Jesus describes “Knowledge” as “money” given to three servants. Two of the servants utilize their talents/gold to obtain even more. In fact, the exact description is that they “invest,” or take a risk by giving up what they have been given – what they know (knowledge of the kingdom) – in order to multiply it. And the servant who clings desperately to his little bit of knowledge/money, burying it in the ground from fear that his Master is hard and demanding, loses even the little that he has. He closed his mind to more knowledge. He assumed that what he had was sufficient and stopped seeking. He denied himself by denying knowledge and the risks entailed in gaining it.

What is crucial to understand is that Fundamentalists are basically “giving their will” away in exchange for promised benefits. This free will is their own power of creativity – their own possibility for growth and development that can only commutate and expand in the process of uncertainty, taking risks, and making free and willing exchanges with others that do NOT include dominance and manipulation.

The “absolute certainty” of the Fundamentalist locks them into Entropy and their creative energy goes to feed a vast system of illusion. These systems are the creation and maintenance of the Idols they worship. Like the paranoid schizophrenic, they devise baroque and ingenious systems of perception and define them as “given by god.” They then spend an enormous amount of energy editing out all impressions that are contrary to their system of illusion.

Of course, this system of being able to find a text for everything in the Bible, and explaining contradictions and errors as just “different points of view” on the same event, ultimately amounts to being able to do exactly as one likes. Many fundamentalists throughout history have excused the most horrific crimes imaginable by quoting the appropriate text from the Bible. The name of Yahweh, Jesus and Allah has been invoked to cover every horror that might satisfy the most degraded of criminals.

What is needed is Scientific Spirituality. I’ve spent the past 30 years effectively standing on a cyber-street corner wearing a sign “Repent! The End is Nigh!” Well, something like that anyway. The main result has been a bunch of endless attacks. The ferocity of the multi‑front attack on myself, my husband, our work, reveals more about the defenders of paradigms than about the validity of the Cassiopaean material itself. When independent thinkers expose the overlap between metaphysical inquiry, psychological manipulation, and scientific control systems, every vested interest reacts as though its survival were at stake—because it is. Our experience is therefore both cautionary and instructive: genuine transparency and cross‑domain thinking are the most subversive acts in a world built on compartmentalized authority.

Which brings me to what is actually the main objective of this post: Chris Langan’s CTMU. My readers know that one of my signature traits is that I read complex texts and then write about them in simple ways because I am interested in the highest number of people reading my work being able to understand everything I am saying, and maybe even enjoying it a bit as they read. But, I have to admit that Langan’s CTMU almost defeats me with endless jargon and acronyms and baroque, insular verbiage. I understand that he is working at a level designed to out-expert the experts, like Kastrup, but that doesn’t help the ordinary person much. Nevertheless, I’m going to have a go at it because Langan is another who has been subjected to the attacks by the defenders of the current corrupt paradigms so it seems to me that what he has to say is worth knowing by the largest number of people and we shouldn’t all have to have Ph.D.s to do so.

Langan built his CTMU to explain reality itself — not just how parts of it work (like physics or biology do), but what reality actually is, and how a universe can exist in the first place. Langan says reality isn’t made of separate “stuff” and “laws.” Instead, Reality is one self-processing system. It contains both the rules and the things that follow those rules. It’s like a computer program that is also programming itself while it runs. You and I, atoms, galaxies, thoughts — all are expressions of the same underlying self-configuring language of reality. He calls this kind of system a self-configuring self-processing language (SCSPL). This is a language that writes itself, describes itself, and becomes the reality it describes.

Sounds a lot like Ibn al-Arabi, eh?

Why does Langan call it “Cognitive-Theoretic”? Because he says the universe functions like a mind, and a mind has 1) syntax (structure / logical rules), 2) semantics (meaning / reality content), 3) pragmatics (interaction / causality). It is said that when you think, your mind uses language-like structures to represent reality. Langan reverses this: reality itself is that kind of language — and you’re a local processor inside the universal mind.

Sounds pretty close to Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism and his DID alters, though Langan has done a lot more than draw a few parsimonious inferences!

I also wonder here about a lot of thinking that goes on (in my head at least) completely without recourse to language? And what about the felt quality of experience? Qualia?

In Langan’s CTMU, the universe is self-contained. There’s nothing “outside” of reality for it to rely on. So reality must create its own rules, boundaries, and even its own “space” and “time.” It bootstraps itself into existence through a kind of logical closure. This is called SCSPL closure — reality creates itself by describing itself.

This SCSPL thing is at the heart of the CTMU. SCSPL, stands for: Self-Configuring Self-Processing Language. This phrase fuses three functions together:

1. Self-configuring: The universe “writes” itself into being (it is autogenic).

2. Self-processing: It evolves and processes its own internal state without an external engine.

3. Language: Its structure is linguistic; reality is described as syntax that maps to its own semantics.

So, CTMU says that the universe is not in a mathematical or logical framework — it is one.

When Langan talks about “SCSPL closure,” he’s referring to a fundamental self-containment property of this system. “Closure” in mathematics or logic means that a system’s operations don’t take you outside the system. For the universe-as-SCSPL, closure means that every configuration, operation, and interpretation within reality (no matter how abstract) arises within the universe’s own self-processing syntax. Nothing lies “outside” it that can act upon it, define it, or serve as its model. Reality is both the syntax and the semantics of itself, and no external language or meta-system is required to describe it. Everything describable — even “descriptions” of SCSPL itself — reside within it.

SCSPL closure means reality is ontologically closed — there’s no domain of being external to it acting on it. It is logically closed — truths are internally definable; the logic that operates in the universe is itself a product of the universe’s self-definition. It is causally closed — cause and effect emerge from the same globally self-consistent syntax. It is teleologically closed — it has its own internal purpose or consistency principle (Langan calls this the “Telic Principle”), not one imposed from outside.

Thus, SCSPL closure is the key mechanism making the universe self-contained cognition — a self-reading, self-writing, self-sustaining structure.

Langan sometimes equates this self-reflexive universal intelligence with God — but not in a traditional religious sense. God, in CTMU terms, is the “self-configuring, self-knowing whole of reality”. Every conscious being is a fragment (or “syntax”) of that overarching Mind, experiencing from within the system it is helping to create kind of like Kastrup’s DID alters.

Again, it really sounds a lot like Ibn al-Arabi and Kastrup’s Analytic Idealism, up to a point. But Langan is ambitious. He wants to cover everything. The CTMU tries to unite physics, philosophy, mathematics, and theology into one meta-theory by arguing that: 1) Reality and logic are one and the same thing. 2) The universe is both mental and physical, but those are just two aspects of the same informational substrate. 3) Consciousness isn’t something that “happens” inside the universe — it’s fundamental to the structure of reality itself.

Bottom line is: The CTMU says the universe is a self-thinking, self-creating language, where reality is both the mind that observes and the matter that is observed — two sides of the same logical coin.

But notice, there are already two sides at the language level. There is something actually before that: Unbound Telesis underlies SCSPL, and it functions as the primitive “potential” out of which all actual structure self-configures. Unbound telesis = undifferentiated potential for syntax and state — the "pre-reality" from which structured reality (SCSPL) self-differentiates.

In short, Langan’s “Unbound Telesis” is pretty much “That Which Experiences” of Kastrup and others, and my own “Infinite Potential”.

However, by using the term “Telesis”, Langan gives his ontological primitive something like purposeful configuration or goal-directed causation. Langan uses the word to refer to the informational potential that underwrites teleological structure — processes imbued with inner purpose or self-direction. “Unbound” means it’s not yet committed to any particular structure, law, or distinction. It’s free, non-confining, prior to all logical separation (before “this” and “that,” before even being vs. non-being). So unbound telesis is pure, underlying potential for form and order, without being any specific thing yet.

To get from undifferentiated potential to an actual structured universe, Langan introduces the Telic Principle, which says:

Reality evolves purposively to maximize coherent self-definition.

This “optimization” isn’t a physical event but a logical one: the spontaneous organization of telesis (potential) into informational-cognitive structure (SCSPL). It’s reality’s version of divine self-realization without invoking an external “God.”

UBT underwrites this process—it’s the reservoir of teleological freedom that allows evolution, creativity, and novelty to exist within an otherwise closed logical system.

I like the term “That Which Experiences” that Kastrup uses, but I think I like my own term “Infinite Potential” better; it is more satisfying to me. I really like what Langan is trying to do, even if I would avoid making it so complicated if I were smart enough to do all that. But, I have a problem with Langan’s ‘Unbound Telesis’ mostly because of the word ‘Telesis’. It suggests that there is a purpose and end and that everything works toward that end and that the end is ‘good’ from our perspective. I think that Infinite Potential is open and that if there is a ‘purpose’, it is simply to experience first one way and then another, always falling back into balance and then doing it all over again in another permutation.

‘That Which Experiences’ “wants” to experience being a universe, so it happens. It wants to experience being a rock, so it happens. It wants to experience good, bad, indifferent, literally every concept that is contained in Infinite Potential to Be. And it all happens. What does “want” mean? Ibn al-Arabi says it is relief from constriction. The Cs say it is unstable gravity waves. Langan calls it the Telic Principle.

I agree with Ibn al-Arabi’s take that it is all about ‘love’ even when the actions might seem horrendous from our perspective. It’s like Ra saying that the All blinks neither at the darkness nor at the light. I wrote about this problem over 25 years ago as follows:’

Without duality, there would be no existence to discuss.

From the One there is bilateral emergence.

Exactly one half joyfully seeks life and creation and play and exploration… a sort of “love of adventure.”

The other half expresses a fundamental fear of “losing self” in this play and exploration. This causes it to recoil upon itself and this establishes the “tension” of polarization which is the stuff of which the cosmos is constructed..

This can be more easily understood as “Love of God through others,” i.e. by loving others unconditionally, as God, since all are one, even though differentiated; as opposed to “Love of God through self” i.e. believing that love of himself IS love of God, therefore others must love him too!

The one view sees all others AS SELF, and loves All and seeks to serve others.

The other sees only SELF and seeks to appropriate all others to Self to restore equilibrium… to “go back to the Cosmic Sleep of Oneness,” so to speak.

One analogy would be the difference between a free and adventurous child that is full of the sense of adventure as opposed to a child that wishes to “own the mother” and cling to her and incorporate her to himself; i.e. Jealousy.

The “Darkness” is, in fact,a State of Consciousness that has existed from the very beginning of individuation and which COVETS ATTENTION FOR ITSELF ALONE.

This consciousness hates, fears and deeply distrusts Creation, and just wants to effectively “roll over and go back to sleep” in eternal union with the “mother/father.”

An important point here is: this Negative consciousness arises from the “self viewing self” at the instant of creation and is, therefore, an integral part of creation. It cannot be separated from it because it exists only because of Positive creative inception. Neither can exist without the other. It’s that simple.

Negative consciousness is the SELFness of creation – the gravity that draws all that exists back to itself. It is the aspect of the ONE involved in contemplation and rejection of creativity in its own heart, frozen in that moment of “vertigo” experienced at the outrush of creative energy.

And, because this “state of consciousness” occurs in conjunction with, and precisely because of, Creative potential, or OTHERness, and is, in fact, identified through that factor, it cannot be “done away with” without ALL returning to The ONE and just “going back to sleep.” Thus we see that the efforts to “save the world” via “punishment of the wicked,” or “conversion to the light” or “spiritualizing matter with love,” are all expressions of the fundamental desire to UNDO CREATION; to KILL GOD! Through the idea that “evil/darkness” is a rebellion, a fault, a thing to be done away with, the “twist” is introduced that lays the groundwork for domination and absorption. This is why, even though promulgated “Christian principles” seem to be good and uplifting, and, in fact, CAN be, the fundamental raison is flawed and also expresses itself in Christian history in such ways as the many slaughters that have been instituted in the name of Christianity.

So, the bottom line is: this other “half” of the All, born along with the Creative upsurge, becomes focused on actualizing its own impulse – to undo creation – for it realizes that only then can it be at “peace.”

The only way it can achieve that ideal narcissistic withdrawal into itself in infinite Self-contemplation is through reclaiming all Attentiion and consciousness that is, in effect, “borrowed against” the inconceivable magnitude of Consciousness in Cosmic Sleep.

Darkness becomes, in effect, an incurable insomniac!!!

The consciousness of STS/Darkness feels that it must tear apart the creative fabric of existence thereby liberating those units of energy involved in the creative functions, and “swallow” them back into itself, erasing their differential properties and powers so as to restore the One AS ONE.

Itself.

However, this is not clearly seen at the lower densities until the masks are stripped away. The deepest implications of this are hidden by many veils… And even the 4th and 5th density participants do not necessarily comprehend this ultimate dissolution.

Sort of the “Ultimate Light Eater” preaching the gospel of Devolution as “Salvation.”

Comparing Kastrup to Ibn al-Arabi to Pauline ideas to the Cs, they all appear to have slightly/somewhat different angles or views of things. Kastrup’s is more like a wide-angle, empirical lens: low magnification, broad and securely grounded. Ibn al-Arabi’s mysticism zooms in on 7th density unity. Everything is beauty, holistic and ecstatic. Paul’s view is a close-up in the “trenches” of human struggle. He has both his high Christology, but also his practical boundedness. The Cassiopaeans give a high-resolution, multi-faceted scan that is ultra-high, beyond Paul, but also focused on practical details that are esoteric AND requiring verification.

Though the analogy is not exact step-wise, it seems that these “settings” reflect methodological priorities: Kastrup prioritizes scientific parsimony, avoiding speculation; Ibn al-Arabi emphasizes devotional wonder, seeing all as merciful; Paul focuses on immediate, visionary application amid conflict; Cassiopaeans demand rigorous cross-checking, extending into hyperdimensional mechanics with the “as above, so below” idea running through it all. It’s not exactly a progression—from basic to detailed— but it does seem to represent each “magnifying” aspects the others underplay.

One commonality is that all of them attribute everything to God/Cosmic Mind, even what we call evil. Witness Paul’s 2 Thess. 2:11: God sends delusion to those rejecting truth, and the couple of stories in the OT where God sends delusions: 1 Kings 22:19-23: God authorizes a lying spirit to deceive Ahab’s prophets; Job 1-2: God permits Satan to inflict suffering as a test.

According to Ibn al-Arabi, there is no true evil: all is merciful theophany. According to Paul, there is the ‘necessary sin’ so that humanity can learn and grow up. According to the Cs, there is the STS/STO polarity that exists as a consequence of Infinite Potential - it exists at the higher levels for balance, but at the lower densities, it manifests for learning, not too far off from both Paul and Ibn al-Arabi. That is, evil is not ontological except in the sense that it is part of ‘Infinite Potential’, so to say.

Low magnification of this cosmic viewing device (Kastrup) sees everything as neutral processes of the DID/Alters tendency. More magnification sees ‘merciful lessons’ in what we call evil. The highest magnification sees unmasking and experiential reintegration via awareness and balance. Evil is turned into a device for achieving growth. Death - evil’s ‘sting’ for Paul - is swallowed up by knowledge.

Is that teleological? The problem with that is that I don’t think it ever ends it just goes around and around, infinite permutations. What else does ‘God’ have to do but dream a never-ending dream having never-ending experiences?

If we’re all just characters of this infinite novel, maybe the real job before us is to keep turning the pages, laughing at the plot twists, and occasionally yelling at the author – whoever or whatever that is. After all, as the Cs would say, it’s all lessons in this grand cosmic school. And if Langan’s self-configuring language is the code running the show, perhaps our job is to hack it from the inside, one mindful inference at a time, without getting too hung up on whether the program’s got an endgame. (See my chapter from the wave: The Nonlinear Dynamics of Love and Complex Systems: Debugging the Universe .)

In the end, whether you prefer Kastrup’s tidy parsimony, al-Arabi’s ecstatic love-fest and the violent kiss of al-Qahhār the Crusher, Paul’s gritty redemption arc, the Cassiopaeans’ no-nonsense hyperdimensional blueprint, or Langan’s techno-computational Global Operator-Descriptor (G.O.D.), remember – we are all still that goldfish, peering through the glass. We may have metaphors, minds, and a bit of dark humor to keep the water from getting too stagnant, but we are still confined to the water. Maybe one day we’ll sprout those wings, fly out, and see if the view outside matches the inferences we’ve drawn. Until then, we must keep questioning, keep connecting the dots, and hopefully, we can enjoy the swim. After all, in this never-ending dream of Infinite Potential, the only real sin is boredom.

P.S. I hope the kids are happy. I managed to wander all over the place without Grok to keep me on the straight and narrow!