— No Doubt and No Resolve —

But for opposition, thought disintegrates, dissolves!        
No contradictions noticed, no doubt and no resolve.
       
Take away each yes or no, eliminate off and on;        
Neither true nor false decide: discrimination gone!
       
Time and space evaporate. No concepts thus remain.        
Though reality still constant, no knowledge to retain.
       
clj – La Jolla, 2003

We know that much can be accomplished with no more then an orderly series of ones and zeros. Why would we not expect to find a similar mechanism underlying our cognitive capabilities?

Note, I’m not suggesting that we biologically reduce to sophisticated neuronal computational devices. But I think there is an aspect of human intelligence – what we refer to as reason or rationality – that relies on converting analog sensory data into binary form (primarily representing mathematical compression of such data into the form of fractal equations (see Lorentz)), and that the framework of our conceptualizations emanate from the store of our experiences.

These analog representations in our digital cognition allow the deepening of our understanding and knowledge. Like the Grand Master Chess Player, we needn’t analyze every experience or store it – it matches a pattern on file sufficiently, were done.

Watch a child between the ages of one and two. They are sensation scoops, gathering sensory data like crazy, and then sleeping for 12 hours so their brains might perform the necessary encodings. It’s terribly efficient. (And no, I didn’t make up this stuff about fractal equations. There are some startling pattern recognition algorithms that rely on fractal representation for compression, storage and retrieval.)

Whoa! What a leap! Fret not.

The point is, what can you think of that does not have, when extended to whatever pure form you might conceive, an equal and opposite projection bounding it? Consider: infinity and zero; matter and anti-matter. All of our language and mathematics and digitization relies on that simple translation into paired opposites: true/false, off/on, one-zero.

Even our spirituality finds foundation in polarization: good/evil, Heaven/Hell, God and Satan. And that is just the western expression. Who can’t relate to Yin/Yang?

But if we are more then the sum of our linguistical/mathematical/philosophical/ computational cognitions, how do we conceive of some point without expressible knowledge, and still retain a shred of that implicit identity we keep sacred in the pulsing of our explicitly on and off reality?

To start with, we might ask, what is a human being absent of faith?

Easy now: nobody said anything about faith in what, or whom.  Remember, you all know but agreed not to tell me.

On the other hand, if we know what we have faith in, then we are still clinging to our binary interpretive comprehension, and that leave us with a lot of doubt – not exactly the stuff faith is made of. Remember the tree of knowledge? What did you think it meant?

But suppose faith is a feeling, like sad is a feeling, or happy is a feeling. What is the opposite feeling of faith?

Try as I might, faith is like zero and infinity, which are the bounds of our computation capacity. You either have faith, or you have fear (not, Let’s get the hell out here!” fear, but forms of fear. Fear made up of a composite of lingering doubt and unfullfilled expectations and resentments – a kaleidoscope of feelings which never seem to make sense but alway change; but, each fear retains its implicit polarity in hope, no matter whatever description you might apply.

So faith is not what we believe in at all. It is that we believe when something called life is our only call to worship, our call to transcend what we know or might know, to discover our true intentions. Why?

What will be recorded? Can we exceed the sum our intent (don’t get feisty; I know faith without works is dead, and the road to hell is paved with good intentions). We must first acknowledge that intention precedes action, even in a split second moment of heroic act. While we might be fanciful dreamers, with greater intention then accomplishment, somewhere lurking beneath our self-proclaimed call to glory is another intention to do absolutely nothing. It’s still all about intention.

In fact, I will close with this observation. At a cognitive level, we can resolve the moments of our life into no smaller quantum then the moment intent manifests in our awareness or consciousness. That is where now is. That is what being in the zone is. Experiential evidence: the duration of a pure intent has the propensity to alter our perception of time. Incidentally, a torrent of intent mixed with paralyzing fear can lead to the very threshold of mental hell.

Some comment back on this topic would be a great place to begin our journey into the exorcism of reason from faith. How do we go about this. Start here: reason yourself out of reason.