LifeBuilder

It makes sense to diverge from looking at immaterial communication universally (including all religions), and instead to specifically focus on Christianity which is the only communication that is full in an embodied sense and thus answers the larger questions of meaning in a world filled with death.

Immaterial beings are the crafters of all that is in our world, so from the way that they made these natural things we can determine what their purposes are.

For extra commentary:

The Gospel in the Stars (Joseph A. Seiss)

Magic Mushrooms: In Religion and Alchemy (Clark Heinrich)

Yes, there's an immaterial forces. We can know that these immaterial forces are actually persons, as we can observe the repetitive natures that they have. And, because they are persons, we can expect to be able to communicate with them. Or, at least, it would make sense to seek out that possiblity. First we will begin by discussing what it even looks like to speak to these spirits, and for this episode, specifically in the form of out of body communication.

For extra commentary:

Biblical Series I: Introduction to the Idea of God (Jordan Peterson) https://youtu.be/f-wWBGo6a2w?t=1170

Exorcism and Deliverance: Multi-Disciplinary Studies (William K. Kay & Robin Parry)

The Interpretation of Dreams (Jordan Peterson) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpDPHXIPq1Q

The Pyschedelic Gospels: The Secret History of Hallucinogens in Christianity (Jerry & Julie Brown)

The next question to ask is... if these invisible rulers are the ones in charge of our material world and order our lives, can we communicate with these personalities? Usually personalities, at least the ones that we interact with, are able to communicate in some form. Though different beings may have different "mouths," there are two different ways to bridge the gap of language and recieve the blueprint that they potentially have to offer. These two ways, logically, are: the foreigner can communicate in the speaker's medium (gestures, languages, etc.), or the hearer can translate the speakers language (or different forms of speach in the immaterial case). The next two episodes with play out each of these two possibilities. The communication we have with the rulers most likely will be our blueprint for life as the personalities giving it are the ones in charge of the material world, and thus, in charge of our future and purpose.

So quick summary here, we’re seeing what kind of meaning we can build in this life based upon our observations of the material world. And basically, because we can observe the movement of objects, we can know that we have both material and immaterial in our world. And then, we’ve been referring to the immaterial or the invisible aspects of our world as the rulers of the material – rulers, in the sense that they are what control and measure how much movement matter will have. This suggests that the invisible rulers are very powerful and are something that have existed for a long time, but we talked last episode about the idea that these rulers also seem to be mindful. I’m Matt Blackledge and you’re listening to LifeBuilder podcast. 

This episode is primarily just going to be a rehash of what we talked about last episode, but I really want to nail this down because the objectors will say that ‘given an infinite number of scenarios (assuming our universe is infinite), eventually you will come up with a world like ours. And, I actually suppose that if the making of our universe was a one-time thing, you could postulate that something like a random explosion created the world we live in (that it now just happens to be the way it is). However, and this is what we’ve been speaking on, our world is full of movement, and so the way our world is, is dependent on the same things happening over and over again – and so, this then gives us an ever-increasing case for a will behind the forces that brought our world together. Basically, because these forces are predictable and act in repeated patterns in our world, we can know that they are willing what they are causing. 

Let’s just go through an example, and we’ll do a little more observation to make sure we’re on the same page here. One thing you’ll notice in observation of our world is that (like many things) trees are very much set on growing. Pretty much without fail they’ll push their way up through the soil and then continue to grow their whole life. Then, at the same time, their constantly spreading seeds at the right moments for them to be able to produce more life. The question is then, what is making these trees grow? We can actually do a few tests to determine this. So, first, you could ask, is it the trees themselves? And the answer to this would seem to be no, since you could uproot the tree or block out the sun and it would stop growing. But actually, the location of the force doesn’t matter too much… What does is that there is some force that is causing this plant to move toward life. And then, since it is moving toward something, it has a target it is
looking to go toward, or you could say it has a will to live, then we would classify
this force as a person. So then, the forces that act on plants aren’t random,
but rather, the plants are caused to grow by these invisible powerful forces that
apparently want it to grow – or they will it to grow.  

So, I’m just reiterating that the repetition is what really makes the case here. While there could be pushback, where one says, “everything just came together randomly,” what we have evidence for now, is that the forces of our world aren’t random, they actually regularly repeat their actions, which would suggest that they’re intentional in what they are doing. 

I’d like to finish up with one more thought here, and that is that, the idea that there are invisible persons who rule the material world is something you’ll find to be present in every model of reality. So, invisible rulers are obviously present in the very religious models, in the form of spirits and demons, and gods (etc.); but even in the more secular, the supposedly atheistic models of how our world works, you’ll find these invisible forces at work as well. One of the obvious examples of this is in the description of evolution. So, just roughly stated, the idea is that the world was not created, but instead, gradually has progressed from a state of simple elements to some more complex life forms. But in this, there’s sort of an interesting work around here, and that is that, there still is an invisible will involved. You could ask “what is the force that causes these elements to move toward life (or more complex life)?”, and you’ll notice that generally the answer to this question is termed as “natural selection.” Breaking down that idea a little, basically what you have is an invisible force that chooses to move life forward. It’s natural (natural selection), meaning that it is something that just exists alongside with matter, and then (natural selection) it’s also something that selects, or is a will that chooses. So, again, you have that will to live that appears even in this more secular construction of the world. And then, since we’ve defined a person as, essentially, a will (anything that directs force), then even an evolutionary perspective contains within its system invisible, personal rulers.  

Okay, that’s the conclusion of that thought… There actually does seem to
be forces other than the will toward living, for example, we can watch decay consistently happen as well, but the point is that the predictable repetition suggests that there is a selector involved with these forces. 

Also, we haven’t spoke to the origins of these invisible forces, and I
don’t even believe we can rule out the possibility that something random created these rulers of our material world in the beginning, but really the question of their origin proceeds anything that we can actually observe. Basically, these invisible rulers are what brought about life (since they control the material
world), so whatever brought about their life is really a mystery to us since that
proceeds our ability to observe. What’s interesting though, and this is where
we are headed, in our experience of persons (or personality) (that is, anything
with a will), there’s always the ability to communicate that comes along with personage. So, if we’re curious about origins or about the larger purposes of these invisible rulers, the logical next step would be to attempt to communicate with these personal forces. So, till next time! 

Alright, so the two previous videos I’ve starred as essentials, which just means they are the videos mandatory for the progressing argument. The essential videos in the rest of the playlists will also be marked, but each playlist will have videos like this one that expound on the argument or answer the main objections that might be raised. 

 So, before we move on to potential communication with these rulers of the material, we can actually determine more about these invisible forces than we did from our initial observations – namely that the invisible forces are persons.  

Previously we had discussed that, since the invisible determines the movement of what we can observe, they are in that sense the rulers of the material (they are the rulers in the sense that they measure how much movement something will have). However, these rulers (and you’ll notice this in the multiple meanings of the term ‘rulers’) also show themselves to not simply be random forces, but forces that act consistently, which suggest that they are minds behind the matter – or, we could simply say that these forces are persons. 

In order to identify the rulers of material as persons, we need to first define what a person is, and I would submit that a person is a director of force -- what classifies something as a person is their ability to choose. So, you can see this in simple expressions of our langue where we will say that someone has person-ality, meaning that they are unique in how they choose to interact in the world. Or, in the parallel descriptions, “self-control” and “will-power” (power matches with control and self matches with will). The will is, in essence, then, the make-up of the person. An action can then be connected to a person if we see intention in the action. So, if you can imagine that you got smacked in the face with a dodgeball, three times a day, everyday. You would be sure that, upon the second or third time of it happening, you would be getting pretty upset and looking for the person behind it (based on the repetition, it wasn’t just a freak accident). This is the same reason why, if someone does some extremely impressive feat, we’ll often say, “do it again.” Which is a nod to the understanding that if they are able to repeat the act then they didn’t succeed by means of random chance but actually completed whatever they were trying to do, personally, and they were mindful while they did it.  

So, this leads right into an argument for the invisible forces of our world being understood as persons. As we watch various patterns repeat themselves (and again, the repetition is the key), we can be confident that there is a mindful force behind them. As way of examples, the planets, which are controlled by these invisible rulers, follow consistent patterns of orbit, growth repeatedly happens when a seed is placed in the ground, and water again and again falls only to be cyclically evaporated up again. So, because the movement of the material world is consistent and acts in predictable patterns, we can determine that there must be a will behind the movement (The assumption being that the unaltered state of existence is randomness and disorder). You might say, “invisible forces, if you are intentional and mindful of alternating between day and night and of making seeds grow and of having the rain fall, then prove your purposefulness by doing it more than once.” And, of course, we know from our observations that this is exactly the case. Now, this proves the personhood of the invisible force or forces, but this says nothing of the intelligence or the morality of the will. It also doesn’t tell us whether the forces are persons themselves, or simply have been programmed with another person’s intentions – similar to how one might want to label a computer as a person because it aims to carry out a will, however the will is not its own but was ascribed to it. Currently the word ‘person’ tends to be reserved for humans, which I think is misunderstanding of what the word actually means, but using that word doesn’t matter too much, what matters is that we understand that these rulers of the material universe act consistently, and therefore, must have intention and focus in what they are doing. 

“So, we’re looking to build an understanding
of how life works from the observations we can make of the material world. One
of the first things you’ll notice when observing, something that’s actually
embedded in your ability to observe, is the presence of movement.
So, you might look out over a field of grass and watch it sway back and forth,
or maybe watch that same grass push its way up out of the soil, and, upon close
examination, you’ll notice that the source of the movement is not the grass
itself, but instead, that something is acting upon it. Actually, you could
perform some simple tests to determine this. For instance, you might notice
that if you place a container completely around the grass it will stop swaying,
or if you uprooted the grass or, again, placed a container that blocked all the
sun’s light, you would find that the movement or growth would stop. This introduces
us to the visible and the invisible.  

There is our physical world, made of all material things, but
there are also forces or rulers of the material world (rulers because they
determine what happen (as well as how much happens). There are invisible forces at play in every aspect of our
world – anywhere there is movement or action or energy a force had to have its
hand in it. This in essence, is just a logical, naturalistic or even a
scientific view of the world. That there are both cause and effects.
And so, just as a good carpenter knows basic physics, we should get to know the
invisible and powerful forces of our world.  

These forces don’t only act upon the obvious material world, but
upon every level of interaction between objects. No matter where you look,
you’ll find these forces at work (whether it’s when observing the astrological,
natural, national, social, personal, and even the quantum level, we are aware
of invisible forces because of the movement we can observe), So, as good
builders we need to understand the measuring rulers of our world. If they are
the guiding forces of the material, then understanding what direction they are
taking us, as well as examining their set rules, is the blueprint for our
worldview." 

Alright, so we made it through the introduction and hopefully I made it clear that this channel was really created because often people wonder if our world has a
larger structure to it. Before we start, I want to notice that the building of
a structure for one’s life is often mapped onto another metaphor, and that is
the idea of a quest. So, you’ve probably heard of the ‘search for meaning.’ And
so here we have both the building of a worldview and the search for meaning as
a way to talk about this question. The overlap would then be that really our
building project is a search to see if it can be done – can we construct a
coherent picture of life with the materials we’ve been given, or do we just not
have enough solid evidence to go by? 

Since we’re going to try and build, we have
to understand our limitations are the materials that we have. In terms of
building a worldview, our sense are what we have to work with. 

(I have a water bottle here... you can toor take my word for it if... It’s not an elephant). This, in essence, is
the major premise of ‘science’ – and repeatable. 

If this sounds too obvious, then you’re right
on track, but it’s something that we have to mention because of the prevalence
of relativistic thought. There are some who say, ‘there is no absolute truth.’
Firstly, we should remember that the claim ‘truth is relative’ is, in fact, an
objective claim. But, secondly, without objective reasoning or our ability to
observe our world and draw solid conclusions from it, there would be no order.
If you couldn’t trust your senses, you wouldn’t have any success in even the
simplest of tasks you can undertake. I believe what is really meant in their
statement is that on more abstract levels of experience (like morality)
there is not absolute reality, but this statement shouldn’t be made until the
evidence is thoroughly examined. We have objective truth, does it lead to… 

I want to recognize that many of you, at the
very least, are living in established concept houses (you’re already living in
your worldview – maybe it’s still getting remodeled and maybe you’ve got some
rooms you just never visit, but nonetheless you do have something). But, I would
like to work with you here from the ground up, so we may need to reevaluate the
materials we’ve used to build our worldviews.  

We shouldn’t look for meaning in wishful thinking
or cynical thinking or in a hunch of why we are here or even in someone telling
you why (if they aren’t a proven to be a reliable witness on the subject)– meaning must be found in observation of the world we
live in. 

 LifeBuilder 

An idea is the first place to start if one wants to build something. That is, in
order to build well, one must first be inspired. So, at its foundation, the
grounding or search for truth begins with the thought: what is the meaning of
life? This perhaps is the greatest philosophical question of all time, but I
think it’s helpful to frame this question as a claim. So, you’ve probably heard
the claim ‘there is a purpose for your life’ – maybe this was from a friend or
a pastor or from your own intuitions, but I’m guessing the reason you are still
listening now is because you’re` wondering if this claim has any solid basis in
reality. I actually think this question is fairly self-answering, so I don’t
find this channel to be a very novel idea… But, because it is often
overcomplicated, I hope the videos I’ve fitted together here will help in
constructing a meaningful life as well as help in building a worldview that
really corresponds to the reality we live in. I’ve organized the building
project into seven playlists that taken in order should set you up with a hope
for the future, a framework to properly align yourself on many practical
matters, and then, really solid reasoning for making these modifications. So,
patience and steady hands, the mental work you put in will pay off.