A Matter of Scale

Lately I’ve been “wasting” a lot of time thinking about strange things. For example…


DNA has been on Earth for 3.5 Billion years – within the first bacteria.

Human software maybe for 60 (circa 1950 early mainframe computers).

As we know from geneticist Juan Enriquez, among others, speaking at TED, both programs work on the same basis—change the Code and the output changes. Change the code in MS Word, the font changes. Change the code in DNA, the species characteristics change.

If both are based on an intentional idea, perhaps we can put aside for a moment the idea that life began spontaneously in the oceans, and play with the notion that maybe DNA software was “downloaded” from somewhere, someone or something.

I know it begs the question where did it ultimately originate – but we can certainly sense that it’s been running its Evolutionary “program” for a lot longer than we’ve been running Microsoft Word.

When we consider how long we’ve been using technology, that span of time is dwarfed by almost everything even in the most recent era.

When we look at our civilization in comparison to the age of primates, everything human is pretty much flattened into a relative minute of time.

And, if we take a larger perspective than that even the entire span of human history becomes almost insignificant…

Based on longevity alone one might surmise that a much Higher Intelligence has been “at work” on Earth for a span of time that is almost infinite in comparison to our own Science.

One might ask if other cultures have been in closer touch with this intelligence. I would submit that the Egyptians, with their mathematically and astronomically precise pyramids and a philosophy that did not seem to distinguish between philosophy, science and religion, or spirit and matter, might have been so connected. This would be supported by renegade archeologists who claim that the Great Pyramid is an astronomical marker and observatory and that the source of Egyptian wisdom predates the pharaohs by centuries if not millennia.

One of these archeologists puts the actual date of the Sphinx at 5000-8,000 years BC—altering our sense of the span of civilization significantly. The basis for this is the apparent presence of water erosion at the base which would have presumably been caused when the area was still fertile (not a desert).

One might well speculate how a civilization that used a different set of symbols and deities to represent what we consider psychological and metaphysical concepts might have experienced life on earth—in many ways they could be considered to have been running an entirely different “operating system.”

Of course even more “far out” theorists, starting with Erik von Daniken, author of Chariots of the Gods, have speculated that ancient monuments around the globe are evidence of visitations by extraterrestrials that might have altered the course of evolution with scientific wisdom (genetics) that we are only now discovering.

These speculations have been derided by conventional science as unfounded – but if we consider that only 750 years ago everyone in the western world believed the world was flat and now we “know” that the universe is about 14 billion years old, we might wonder what else we don’t know.

Von Daniken himself has been exposed as unscrupulous, making him almost a modern day Trickster, whose methods might be questionable but whose beliefs and theories seem eerily provocative.

For example, if you think about the Bible as a historical account of humans without technology, and consider that perhaps beings with advanced technology were present, then the “chariots in the sky” of Ezekiel would suggest flying craft, while the concept of preserving species from extinction with an “Ark” might similarly suggest a genetic storage facility—like the seed banks that the government is now creating to store the genetic source of the earth’s food supply in case of disaster or war.

Why are these issues so intriguing?

We base so much of our beliefs on left brain science without questioning it.

We take a lot of things for granted—starting with Existence.

Where did a universe with billions of galaxies that is still expanding after 14 billion years come from?

Is it an accident or a matter of chance? What would that even mean?

One might ask if such knowledge is not as far beyond our comprehension as the difference between the span of time of our own species or civilization, and the span of time of life on Earth—or the age of the solar system or our own galaxy, the Milky Way?

It is interesting to consider that our own software development in the computer field often refers to matters of “scale” –which are influenced by physical storage and computing power but also can be a function of programming acumen; in other words, new concepts like an algorithm can exponentially scale the power of a program to perform its task.

In the case of genetic decoding itself, it wasn’t until we reached the capacity of a Supercomputer that storing all of the genetic information for an individual or a species (its Genome) was possible.

So, are “primitive” cultures that “worship”, or relate directly with something Higher really so backward, compared to us, or do they have a relationship with a reality that we have lost, in spite of our magnificent scientific progress?

What would it mean to have such a relationship with reality?

Might it mean changing our own inner programming in some way, as to be able to literally connect with something much Higher and greater than ourselves?

How would that be accomplished. Does meditation begin to open such channels?

That’s what I sometimes meditate on when I have twenty minutes to spare.

How is Computer Programming the Same as the Genome—And What Does It Mean?

From my first blog on the topic of genetics, based on an amazing video on TED by Juan Enriquez, I speculated that the presence of programming as an underlying feature of Life means that an intelligence is ultimately the source of all being.

In the video, Enriquez uses the analogy of an apple, which executes code (DNA) when it receives enough energy from the sun, and drops from the tree. He adds that by modifying the code we can change the nature of the apple, or any organic life form.

The genetic code itself is being sequenced (decoded) according to the patterns of four letters, AGTC—which represent the names of the nucleotide bases, adenine, guanine, cytosine, and thymine, in a molecule of DNA. (Wikipedia).

As Gina Smith explains in her book, The Genomic Age, “Scientists figured out, in 1967, how DNA specifies the building of protein... Recall that in every life-form, the letters A, C, T, and G (i.e., the bases) perform the same function. They build proteins by instructing another chemical, called RNA, to put the proteins together one building block after another… The building blocks are called amino acids, and there are precisely twenty of them.”

So there is a code that gets executed that can be represented symbolically that underlies all of our life functions—physiologically and presumably also psychologically.

More recently there have been advances in the field of epigenetics, which is the study of the chemical reactions that turn the genes on and off, and do so apparently on the basis of complex interactions with the environment.

Now bear in mind that Enriquez merely doesn’t use the apple as an analogy—he states literally that the code in the apple is the same as in files or programs you can move on a flash drive.

But even if you are viewing this blog in a web browser, you may not be aware of what code or programming really represent.


For example, if you click on the setting in your browser that lets you “View Source”, under Page in Internet Explorer, you see a symbolic representation of this blog page that informs the browser on how to display it.

It’s pretty obvious that a conscious mind had to create the program that does this, at least to me.



A billion monkeys, even if they had a Windows PC each, would not produce the code or the program that could enable this to happen in a trillion years.

Let’s look at one more example—a macro in Microsoft Word. This macro runs the commands upon the click of a mouse that creates a red rectangle in a document.

Notice in this macro that if you change the language by changing the numbers representing the RGB (color) values, you change the nature of the rectangle—it changes color.

This is precisely like the Enriquez example—if you change the genetic structure (code) of its DNA, its nature is changed.

In programming this is called the object’s properties. In life it might be called the qualities of the life-form. What it is capable of doing is called its method in programming; again in life it may be called its being or nature.

So what does this mean?

Well for one thing, it means that we created computer software "in our own image"—consciously writing its code according to various intentions we had predetermined as meaningful and significant (displaying a web page, writing and editing a document, running a macro).

The internal logic of both the genetic code and our computer code is precise; if I change the code of the macro I change the rectangle, or if I screw up, I put a bug in the program and the result is an aborted macro and an error message.

In life, this might be deemed a mutation, or in the case of cells that don’t know what they should be doing, or do the wrong thing, cancer.

But we know how the computer and software “evolved”—it was no accident. No lightning bolt hit a bog or pile of primordial sludge and shot it awake like Frankenstein. Many brilliant scientists created increasingly sophisticated ways of switching on and off (zeroes and ones) various devices to make calculations and run programs, and increasingly sophisticated programs (instructions) were consciously created to run on these hardware devices, after being translated (compiled) from symbolic (English) language into machine language.

So based on the evidence, how and why do any of us presume that life is any different?
Increasingly all branches of science are coming up against the barrier that what is knowable must account for the presence of us—that the observer or consciousness is intimately involved in not only our perceptions of reality, but literally in what reality is. From quantum physics, to bio-physics, to particle physics, there is nothing (literally) that does not ultimately come up against the reality of consciousness.

But what is consciousness? We know it as we experience it—it courses through our brains or more likely through our entire mind/bodies—and informs our perceptions and as biology has recently found, our thoughts and our health.

But suppose that the meaning of our science (and computers are our signpost or living metaphor) is that our deeper consciousness may literally connect us to whatever may be our programmer.

If we call the programmer God, it doesn’t explain anything—in the parlance of computer programming God is simply a variable for an unknown value—a mystery or a container for a value that is manifest through our existence.

But if we put aside our theories about God, or the programmer, what we can still say is that there are two ways for our program to run—programmed externally according to principles we barely understand, or possibly programmed by our “Self”.

But what is our Self?

If we meditate or self observe, we might reach the conclusion that it is not the bundle of thoughts that comprise our ego.

Rather, our true Self, at least in my humble opinion, is that part of us which is increasingly conscious of our connection to whatever (or whoever) is our programmer. While that connection is difficult if not impossible to define in words we can and do try (remember what there was “In the beginning”--the Word), but to the extent that we recognize that we are not in charge (our own programmer) and align ourselves with Life, Being, God, Higher Intelligence, Energy or whatever we might call it, we can manifest Its intentional higher consciousness through us.

This then would point to a split in what we do. If we act in alignment with what our higher intelligence suggests is true, we do good. If we remain oblivious to and disconnected from higher intelligence, and act unconsciously, that may be a pretty decent definition of evil.

And when we try to judge one or the other logically, with our left brain, we are caught up in paradoxical loops. The only way to truly know is through a higher center, probably in the right brain, that connects us with a higher logic—to our essential program and its Creator.

(In that sense, prayer or meditation might literally be "logging in...")

I remember when I first came to L.A. and needed a job, I worked at night at a law firm where an IBM word processing machine literally “trained me” in its internal logic, by going through a series of disks. Not surprisingly there was a bug in the program, and I needed to supersede it in order to get from disk 5 to disk 6. I got angry at the fallibility of the programmer, and yet I was in awe of the “mind in the machine.”

A similar insight can happen when you get pissed off at Windows. You can’t figure out why it’s doing what it’s doing—or what you’re doing “wrong.” Then through tech support, a friend, or by a miracle, you see the answer—and what’s clear is that by its internal logic—its “meaning”—the program is doing exactly the right thing. Now that you “get it”—you recognize the logic. But the intelligence behind it, until you got it, was literally “alien.”

We as a species are clearly at a crossroads. We can stay disconnected to the apparent higher source of our consciousness (unconscious) and become increasingly automated and mechanistic. As a recently heard, when Treasury Secretary Paulsen asked for the first TARP appropriation, and he was asked how he knew it was necessary, he replied, “the computers said so” [that without the funds the economy would collapse.]

Or through our science, technology and realization of the link between our creation (computers) and ultimate creation there is a higher intelligence (true consciousness) which we can connect with through our entire being (mind-body), and that by aligning ourselves with its truths (instead of our own imagined inferior (logical/ego) truths, we can not only survive, but truly evolve.

Now that's a program I'd like to download.

Do the Math - the Meaning of Technology

Technology is often considered an indicator of the evolution of humanity, freeing it of many physical struggles and evidencing the progress of the species.

But if we grant that the essential nature of man (and woman) has not changed much in thousands of years, could the meaning implicit in technology not also be a catalyst for more profound level of evolution?

What if technology is a teaching?

Jacob Needleman, in his book “A Sense of the Cosmos”, suggests that the outer world (the physical world and the universe) is considered within many ancient religions to be the lever for the transformation of human beings from unconscious to conscious.

How might technology, as 21st century humans experience it, be instrumental in that process?

From personal experience I resisted technology early in life. As an English major I had disdain for the engineers on my college campus who had multiple pens in their breast pockets and merely tabulated, calculated and later collected sizable salaries.

Later in life I had occasion to have a number of significant experiences.

First in my reading I became fascinated by theories that the ancient Egyptians (or perhaps others who had visited Egypt) had encoded mathematical principles of the highest order in the pyramids and other ancient structures.

These structures were also speculated to have been temples (not in the modern sense) of initiation, where human consciousness might have been transformed to a higher level.

I intuitively appreciated how mathematics – the simple perfection of absolute Law (2+2=4 must be true everywhere and anywhere) might somehow be connected to such higher consciousness. On the physical plane such perfection is barely possible – exact measurement is rarely achieved – although the architects of the pyramids certainly came closer than many modern builders.
Then later in life I became fascinated by computers. My first experience was with a series of disks programmed into an IBM work processor that “taught” me how to use it.

Later I loved the process of teaching myself new “programs” – essentially active verbs or possibly even virtual life forms within the silicon that could do things and accomplish amazing feats of calculation and even graphics.

Occasionally I would hit a glitch and something “would not work.” When I was able to solve the problem it often happened that the computer had been “right” – whoever had designed the program had programmed according to a logic or math that I had not grasped – with which I was out of tune.

This alerted me to the possibility of higher impersonal intelligence. What was right was not morally right in the normal sense of the term, but rather correct in its alignment with principles of which I was yet unaware.

Becoming aware was literally enlightenment.

Now as I struggle with the meaning of my own waning physical existence I have become exposed to teachings that take a similar view of the cosmos.

They interpret the teachings of sages like Jesus, Buddha and others as not teaching insights in line with a higher personal Creator or God, but rather being in line with Nature or Life’s innate higher intelligence, as Eckart Tolle writes so eloquently in "A New Earth."

As “modern” beings we are not likely to understand the notion of physical objects as intelligent.

But what about energy?

What do we truly understand about the nature of energy?

We know that electricity is in our brains as impulses of our own thought. And we have now programmed similar electrical impulses

We know that unimaginable bursts of energy emanate through the universe and from stars like our sun.

Astronomers have speculated that remnants of the Big Bang (perhaps the first real conscious event that initiated all evolution of consciousness) still resonate throughout the universe.

If one broaches the subject of higher intelligence today the label one is given is a proponent of Intelligent Design, which is usually a front for institutional or evangelical Christianity as proof of a personal and angry or beneficent deity.

But there is a reasonable alternative – one that is being approached in science at the molecular and interstellar level.

I have written that my problems with religion began with the horrific experiences of my parents in the holocaust. My mother lost her faith while my father attributed his survival to his beliefs.

I can now take a new perspective on my father’s point of view. One winter we went to services for Yom Kippur at a congregation where we were not members. We were sent to the basement and all during the service, piped into a cramped room on speakers, we were solicited for cash.

My father left very angry, and later in life when he retired he avoided synagogues saying instead that he can commune with God just as well at sunset by the ocean.

While he never lost his belief in an anthropomorphic deity, I believe that he sensed a connection to nature and Life, based on his experiences, and of an intelligence and power of a much higher order and sought solace by connecting to it intuitively.

Technology shows us that logic and mathematics are of that higher order – they approach perfection in their certitude and also point to the inevitable fallibility of human nature.

Technology shows the potential presence of increasingly complex systems which our own ego driven and emotional natures can only dimly comprehend.

If you don’t believe this, watch the video of geneticist Juan Enriquez on the TED web site that explains how life behaves like a computer application, executing its genetic code with exquisite perfection and according to predictable mathematical principles. Of course, the ultimate complexity and level of these principles is still a mystery and withheld from our knowledge, and the subject of continued scientific inquiry.

It goes back to the experience of not understanding something about a computer but when the mystery is solved, realizing that the solution points to a system of logic that makes complete sense when understood from a perspective different, and perhaps far more advanced, than our own limited intelligence.

Ultimately technology, logic and mathematics point the way to the inevitability that life has meaning on a scale well beyond our own level of existence - where things may make sense in ways that humans cannot understand without evolving from their present state of inhumanity.

Hijacking Intelligent Design

Since 9-11 it is commonly asserted that fundamentalist Muslims have “hijacked” their religion from presumably more reasonable and mainstream believers in their faith.

Anyone who has followed the news in science recently might say exactly the same thing about the concept of Intelligent Design, and once again the culprits are fundamentalists who have co-opted a set of beliefs, in this case scientific findings, to virulently promote their own narrow interpretation.

Particularly in the fields of quantum physics and genetics, there is an increasing awareness on the part of scientists that natural phenomena cannot be explained or predicted without taking into account the presence of an underlying mental component. Heisenberg and even Einstein first introduced these concepts in physics; in genetics the implications are more subtle.

We are increasingly told about the genetic code; the genome (which is the code underlying an individual or species) has been sequenced (interpreted as a series of alphabetic letters) and at the TED conference in Monterey last year, geneticist Juan Enriquez described the apple as “an application.” When it receives enough energy from the sun the apple “executes” its code (just like a computer program) and falls from a tree.

If you’ve ever worked with computers you’ve had an experience that points to what this means (and I acknowledge that scientists are uncomfortable with the notion of meaning). You’re working on a new computer program or application, or even installing a peripheral, and it doesn’t work. You reread the manual or maybe even call a help desk, and the problem gets solved – and here’s what happens: You realize that the computer was right.

What you then realize is the device or the program functioned exactly as it was supposed to, but you misunderstood something in the instructions. The malfunction was not some random event – when you understand it from a higher perspective it makes total sense from the vantage point of your new understanding. When you can align yourself with the system that conceived the program or device, suddenly everything about the incident becomes clear – it is no longer seemingly random – it is the obvious result of comprehensible intelligence.

This is precisely the current predicament of science. As it tries to decipher nature its findings are incomplete, but in every nook and cranny they point to something unmistakable – previously the province of mystics and pantheistic religions – there is an unmistakable order, a plan and symmetry at work in nature.

But when they venture forth with these findings the results are not pretty.

Ben Stein is addressing this issue in an upcoming film, “Expelled the Movie”, in which he asserts that scientists who question some of the theories of Darwin are being expelled from universities and ostracized by their peers for being religious kooks. This is of course a frightening prospect; if findings can be empirically verified they should be allowed into science and if alternatives to Darwin’s theories are rational they should be taught.

But it’s a false conundrum. The problem isn’t Darwinism or even Evolution – it’s the issue of what originally started the ball rolling. Strict scientists believe that random acts like lightening could have triggered evolution and hence life is a random event with no meaning or mental component at work. Mystery solved.

But is it? Some geneticists claim they are years away from creating life in a test tube – but have they? It seems so far they have only created one life form from another.

If their scientific colleagues who are brushing up against the evidence of paradox in the form of a mental or intelligent component at work in nature are being unfairly banished from their positions as scientists, that is an absurdity that results from only one thing – the fact that this concept which is entirely legitimate for scientific exploration has been hijacked by fundamentalists in this country.

They want Intelligent Design taught in schools as a theory of the existence of God – essentially an anthropomorphic construct with obvious problems. We do not know anything about the existence of a God, much less which God is the right one, or what His or Her motives may be.

But we cannot allow earnest scientific investigation into a mental component of nature to be torpedoed by such a fundamentalist interpretation when it may yield immense breakthroughs in the area of medicine, space exploration and fields as yet unforeseen.

The finite human mind seems incapable of accepting an effect without a cause, and yet science is coming up against that paradox inside the atom and at the edge of the known universe. Scientists like Mani Bhaumik, inventor of Lasik and author of “Code Name God” have already begun to compare and even reconcile findings in their fields with ancient religious theories – but totally within the context of accepted scientific discovery. But such scientists do not necessarily contend, and in fact Bhaumik would surely not believe, that locating the presence of intelligence in nature proves that the earth was created in less than a week, or that a puppet master was pulling the strings in the universe or directing the lives of individuals on this planet.

Freeing ourselves from the constraints of this dichotomy, between limiting the scope of scientific inquiry or accepting beliefs based only on faith, is very likely a key to the next great quantum (pardon the pun) leaps in both science and health and we must grant our greatest minds the freedom to explore nature in its fullness, even if it leads to the conclusion that far greater minds exist.

Thoughts on the Holocaust

The central issue of my life has been how - if God exists - two people as incredibly loving and wonderful as my parents could have been subjected to the horrors they experienced.

Jewish thinkers like Dennis Prager have addressed this point - Prager --- argues that Jews that use the Holocaust as a reason not to believe in God are intellectually dishonest because other similar atrocities have happened throughout history . So what? I don't see that as an explanation - that nonJewish-related evil also existed so the Holocaust is what, nothing special? Hardly an explanation likely to make me embrace an angry anthropomorphic God.

And besides, as my mother told me many times, Jews were not the only victims of the Holocaust - generally free thinkers - homosexuals, communists, gypsies, Catholics - anyone who resisted "the program" were subject to extermination.

Interestingly my father still attributed his survival to his Jewish faith, while my mother completely lost her belief in any human-like higher being or power.

I have struggled with this for decades and have come to the point, like many of my contemporaries, of abandoning organized "religion" entirely.

Recently I have become exposed to a new set of ideas which have led me to the certainty that higher levels of intelligence and Life exist, and that we are subject to these forces.

I believe that technology has given us both the tools to understand, and serves as a metaphor for the existence of such higher forces - as we decode the genome we get a sense of the level of powerful intelligence required for the forces of evolution to work as they have over eons of time.

But how do we reconcile the existence of higher powers of Intelligence and Life with human barbarity? I think the answer may lie in animals as another metaphor.

When I think of the horrific world of the Nazis and the experience of my parents, I am taken by the image of ANTS. When I see nature programs of the ravages of army ants and similar insect populations slaughtering and enslaving others, I cannot see EVIL.

But is the ant barbarism genocide? Perhaps, but I see an automatic (programmed) lower form of life doing what it does.

As a child I watched with horror Disney's Living Desert where a wasp stings a spider, renders it paralyzed, and lets its babies devour the helpless spider alive.

Is this evil? No this is what Life has programmed it to do with incredible levels of intelligence beyond human comprehension.

Man, however, is the animal that can choose, can love or hate, or can revert to an automatic barbaric subhuman level of animalistic inhumanity.

Man is more and more responsible (with the growth of technology) for the environment in which animals and humans coexist.

Man may develop a conscience and act lovingly if he raises his or her level of being and influence life around him to evolve and thrive, or revert and die.

For example, man has allowed certain animals to live in his environment. In their native state, cats and dogs might be tigers or wolves. In a nurturing human environment they respond to the conscious and conscience in humans and act lovingly, manifesting in many ways the higher aspects of human beings.

But in the wild, they simply do what they were programmed to do, survive, unable by their lower nature to be receptacles and purveyors of Life energy or love. That is why killing a cougar that has ventured into "civilization" in order to survive, is appalling to many of us. We recognize that it is doing simply what Life has programmed it to do.

But humans have the ability to go either way. Their nature is determined elsewhere - be it will, conscience, heart, heredity, environment, genetics - the complexity of possibilities is endless.
Experiments in which subjects have applied torture to others simply because they were told to do so by an "expert" or "authority" show that man can either embrace a higher level of being - perhaps it takes a level of discipline or intellect and love - or be an animal - refuse responsibility, deny a conscience, and simply perform automatically - be an ANT.

Nazis learned how to program their people in this way. On a certain level they were responsible for their horrific actions but in their low level of being they were simply insect life forms inhabiting human bodies.

So how do we change ourselves to become higher life forms, incapable of genocide?

The answer to me may be in the concept of evolution. We must use technology as a lesson for how programming can lead to de-evolution (loss of responsiblity or conscience) while at the same time using the connections and immense power of technology to continue to evolve, and share the higher levels of being within us with others of our species.

The survival of our species is by no means guaranteed.

My reading has convinced me that the secret, if there is one, to such evolution is in a recognition of levels of consciousness that literally affect a reality we create through our lives and exchanges of energy with our environment and other beings.

Perhaps our task on earth is to be the intermediary of evolution so that wolf energy becomes dog energy (loving), and similarly cougar energy may evolve into cat energy - metaphorically or literally - alternatively leading to the absence of life - extinction - darkness and lack of light (evil, hate, or whatever human terminology or language may apply).

If you are interested in these ideas I highly recommend Mani Bhaumik's book Code Name God. Dr. Bhaumik is a man who went from the lowest caste in India, met Ghandi, and became a co-inventor of the Lasik laser technology, among other things. Acquiring immense wealth, he realized the shortcomings or a materially based life and investigated eastern thought from the perspective of a brilliant scientific mind. I find his analysis and suggestion that a unified field theory which may have existed at or prior to the beginning of Time (Big Bang) is analogous to the monotheistic concept of One source of Creation, and the scientific evidence that its vibration is still audible and present throughout the universe, quite an impressive synthesis of scientific and religious thought.

Another book that I have found immensely powerful is Jacob Needleman's "Why Can't We Be Good?". Needleman is a subtle proponent of some powerful ancient ideas and in this book he uses a classroom environment and his own impressive scholarship to make them accessible to readers and students.

These books and others have led me to the threshold of reconciling the paradox of a conscious and loving universal law with the reality of human cruelty. The task of man is to mediate between the animal and higher levels by living in harmony with higher levels of being, and not reverting to the programming of his physical and mental components. The higher center in man does exist, but it must be nurtured and fed with the right types of energy, and only in this way can humanity truly become human, and not live according to its insect nature.

The important thing to realize is that these are not metaphorical or figurative concepts - they are actually what is taking place on this planet through us at this moment in Time.