ELECTRON LOVE
 
                                ACT - 29
                            28 November 1993
 
                 Copyright (C) 1993 Homer Wilson Smith
       Redistribution rights granted for non commercial purposes.
 
>I'd still really like to know how thetans influence the particles >they
are attached too.
 
     OK.  It's a fair question.
 
     To start with we have to ask 'What is a thetan?'  In other words
what properties do thetans (elemental souls) have that might manifest
themselves in an electron which would support the idea that a thetan is
causally connected to the behavior of the electron?
 
     First let's get two things out of the way.
 
     As unpleasant as it might seem, it is not a priori necessary for
something to effect a particle just because it is attached to it.  In
such a case though, it may be impossible to demonstrate the existence of
such an attachment, especially if you are dependent upon looking at
effects to support the existence of cause.  If there are no effects to
observe, there is no support for a cause.  So why claim such a cause
exists?
 
     One might assume that existence is not wasteful of its connections,
so that if a thetan is connected to an electron at any level, then
somewhere that connection should manifest or be made to manifest even if
it is not in the normal every day operations of the electron.
 
     It would be more reasonable to assume however that if a thetan is
connected to an electron, such a connection would manifest in every warp
and woof of the electron's interaction with the world and it is merely
up to us to find it.
 
     Secondly if we ASSUME that a thetan IS merely a composite of
electrons and other 'particles', then asking what evidence is there to
support that a thetan is attached to an electron is meaningless because
that assumes inherently that a thetan is its own thing, not itself made
of electrons.
 
     So those of us who claim that thetans exist and are part and parcel
of many mechanical organizations, such as particles, atoms, molecules,
biological subsystems, and systems, are then presented with the task of
clearly delineating what a thetan IS that is not merely an electron or
an involved composite of electrons.
 
     This not only forces us to say what a thetan IS, but also what an
electron and its composites are NOT.
 
     Once we have done this, then perhaps we can show that models of
organisms and smaller units show behavior that can not be reduced to
things that an electron is, and must per force take into account what a
thetan is too, thus implying that thetan's AND electrons are involved in
the structure of the item in question.
 
     If one assumes that everything in existence can be explained by
already existing fundamental concepts and particles, then such a
division between electron and thetan is impossible.  You offer 'Well
beings have such and such a property' and they say 'No problem,
electrons can do it.'
 
     Fine, all kinds of properties exist, and electrons exist, why not
just say it's a closed system and all properties can be explained by
electrons.
 
     (Please remember that by 'electron' I really mean the entire class
of fundamental particles known to present physics from which all known
complexities are believed to arise.)
 
     The only way that one would have any justification for introducing
a new fundamental particle into the system is if a contradiction would
arise by assigning all observed phenomena to the present class of
fundamental particles.
 
     For example, it is easy enough to prove that there are two kinds of
electric charge, positive and negative.  Simple experiments with Glass
and Silk, Amber and Wool show clearly the need for two different kinds
of charge.
 
     For those of you who are not familiar with the experiment involved
I present it here for your edification.  The rest of you can skip this
section.
 
     Early electrical scientists knew that when glass was rubbed with
silk and amber was rubbed with wool that both took on some sort of
electrical charge, similar to what you get when you walk across a dry
carpet in winter and spark yourself when you touch a door knob.
 
     Or perhaps if you are like me you use acrylic blankets which
develop a veritable lightning storm in the dead of night as you pull
them apart and play around in them.  After doing this for a while you
can give yourself quite a shock if you then touch the air conditioner.
 
     One early way of measuring this charge was with a crude device
called an electroscope which was a closed container with a glass plate
that allowed you to inside it.  There were various forms of this device
but the one of interest here had 3 metal terminals on the top which led
through the top of the device to inside the device where three pith
balls were hung from the three terminals by wire equally spaced from
each other.
 
     Pith is a sticky biological substance found in the center of plant
stalks, and in these experiments it was often coated with a thin film of
aluminum so that each ball could hold some electrical charge.  They were
very light and allowed people to measure deflection forces on the balls
which would have been impossible had the balls been made of solid metal.
 
     The experiment went as follows.  First you rub the glass rod with
silk until it was fully charged and then you touch the rod to the left
and middle terminal of the electroscope.  The charge on the silk would
'run down' the two terminals and charge up the pith balls which would
then swing away from each other in repulsion.
 
     This observation gave support to the idea that electricity was some
kind of substance that could run off of one object onto another, and it
'didn't like being with itself.'
 
     Then you discharge the electroscope back to a neutral condition by
touching the two charged terminals to the nearest radiator or ground and
you do the same experiment with the amber rod.  Again as the two
terminals are touched with the fully charged amber rod the two pith
balls swing away from each other due to the charge that comes down from
the amber rod onto the pith balls.
 
     Well at first these experimenters were not too bright about what
they observed.  They correctly concluded that electricity was a
substance that could flow from one object to another, and further they
concluded that this substance sort of didn't like being with itself and
so it caused a repulsive force on two charged objects.
 
     This idea of repulsiveness also accounted for why the electricity
so readily flowed from the glass or amber rods onto the pith balls,
because the stuff was trying to escape itself on the rods and so would
flow anywhere it could that gave it some solid ground to flow on.  This
also explained why touching the rods to the radiator at the end of the
experiment or something else connected to the earth would discharge the
pith balls, because again the electricity wanted to go anywhere but
where it was.
 
     Believe it or not they left it this way for a long time until
someone a little brighter than the rest decided that the third terminal
on the electroscope should be used for something too!  So he charged up
both the glass and the amber rods, one with silk and the other with
wool, and applied them both to the electroscope.
 
     The glass rod was applied to the left and middle terminals
producing repelling pith balls, and WHILE the left and middle terminals
remained charged from the glass, the amber rod was applied to the right
hand terminal with full expectations that its pith ball would repel too.
But much to his amazement the right hand pith ball was ATTRACTED to the
middle pith ball that had been charged by the glass.
 
     Now no matter how they did this experiment the results always came
out the same.  If they touched the glass rod to all three terminals, all
3 pith balls would repel.  If they touched the amber rod to all three
terminals, all 3 pith balls would repel.  But any time they touched the
glass rod to one pith ball and the amber rod to the other they would
ATTRACT!
 
     So they had a problem.  Their present theory was that electricity
consisted of some fundamental particle that didn't like to be in its own
presence.  As long as they did the glass and amber experiments
independently this theory was not invalidated.  Glass electricity and
Amber electricity both cause repulsive forces, BUT ONLY ON THEIR OWN
KIND, and that was what was missed.
 
     When they did the glass and amber experiments in tandem they saw
attractive forces too and it became very clear that the particle of
electricity couldn't both attract and repel at the same time, because
that would be a contradiction, so there had to be two fundamental
particles of electricity, which we now know to be the electron and the
proton.
 
     The new theory said that both electrons and protons repel their own
kind, but attract each other.  Therefore clearly if protons were on the
glass rod, then electrons had to be on the amber rod.
 
     We now know that all matter contains equal measures of electrons
and protons, but the protons are held tightly in the nucleus of the atom
and can not indeed flow anywhere, while the electrons are held in loose
orbits around the protons and can quite easily flow everywhere.
 
     The ACTUAL difference between the glass and the amber is that the
silk steals electrons from the glass and so the glass becomes positively
charged due to a deficit of electrons.  The amber steals electrons from
the wool so the amber becomes negatively charged due to an excess of
electrons.
 
     Thus if there were only ONE fundamental particle, the electron say,
then assigning all these observed phenomena to the sole electron would
give rise to the contradiction that the electron had both positive and
negative charge.  It becomes necessary to introduce another fundamental,
the proton, to account for all observable phenomena without creating
contradictions in the qualities assigned to the presently extant
fundamental particles.
 
     So the only justification for creating a new fundamental, such as a
'thetan', is if some of the properties in the world that we observe
would create a contradiction if they were assigned to the presently
extant fundamentals that every one is familiar with, such as the
fundamental particles of nuclear physics.
 
     So here is where we begin to walk on hot water, because people are
very adamant about not creating new fundamental particles, they like
their theories the way they are and they don't want to change them.  It
takes TREMENDOUS pressure and argument to get these people to even look
at the possibility that their theories are incomplete that they are
missing a fundamental particle or thetan or two.
 
     But such toppling of entrenched theories starts with observations
that can not be explained by the fundamental particle set that already
exists.  Of course such observations may be discounted by the theorists
in power whose theories and world views would fall if something new had
to be added, or god forbid, something new erected in its place.
 
     For example if someone COULD get out of their bodies, or even just
perceive things far away in closed rooms, that single datum alone would
destroy the foundation of modern understanding.  Nothing would be left.
There would not even be ashes left with which to pick up the pieces.
Physicists would be completely out of a job the next day, except maybe
those good at denial and spin control.
 
     A few perhaps would have the wherewithal to start from scratch and
perhaps build a new theory completely alien to what had gone before, but
which hopefully would reduce to the old theories and the old ideas when
limited to smaller arenas of observation, such as how Special Relativity
reduces to Newtonian Mechanics when observations are limited to the
smaller arena of low velocities.
 
     But as it is, most damning observations you come up with are going
to be met with the same old same old.
 
     'Love?  Electrons can do it, electron love!'
 
     'Free Will?  No problem, Heisenberg said it fine with his
uncertainty principle.'
 
     'Ethics?  No problem, pure calculation of best return for your
money.'
 
     'Beauty?  Well I am sure we will understand it a few years down the
road, besides electrons have charm, that's close.'
 
     You see it's on and on.  So you have to start somewhere.  First you
have to take a good look at what people have already defined electrons
to be.  Once you understand THAT thoroughly then you won't be able to be
fooled so easily once you start to come up with damning observations
that can't be explained in terms of the present model.
 
     For example.  There is something called State Determinism.  That
means that the evolution of the system is a function of its present
state and the laws that govern what happens next from any given present
state.
 
     I don't know what the present opinion on State Determinism is, but
if people define electrons in a state determined way, such as Maxwell
did with his theory of light, and you manage to show that some things
are not state determined, in other words, what they do next is NOT a
function of their present or their past, well then the reigning theory
which says that the electron is state determine must either go out the
window or else you must introduce ANOTHER fundamental particle (a thetan
perhaps) which is not state determined but which can work in conjunction
with the electron.
 
     Further its pretty obvious that if something which is not state
determined, such as a thetan, is effecting something which is, such as
an electron, then you will be able to measure the UNstate determinedness
of the thetan by looking at the behavior of the electron.  In other
words once you introduce any un state determined entity into a system,
the whole system will start to manifest un state determinedness.
 
     Now this whole argument about free will centers around people's
ideas that we are not state determined beings, that we can do things
that are not a function of our past or present, that we are not bound by
mathematical law to do or choose in any one given way according to our
present state.
 
     A lot of people want there to be a free will only because they
enjoy punishing people for their transgressions which wouldn't make a
hell of a lot of sense if people couldn't help themselves.
 
     That is called having a religious bone to grind.  'We went to all
this trouble to build a Hell Forever which serves no purpose except to
make us feel better by giving bad people what's coming to them, and now
you tell me they don't deserve it.  Sheesh what a waste of tax payer's
dollars, maybe we ought to just squelch the evidence that everything is
state determined and go ahead an burn the heathen bastards.' This
actually happened between the Church and Galileo, sort of.
 
     So you start to ask some probing and embarrassing questions, which
begin to bother everyone except those who already have everything
figured out.  (Their theses are already written, they can't afford to
have it all proven bunk.)
 
     The primary questions would be on the subject of machines, trying
to figure out what present theory says they are capable of, and
comparing that to what you can observe YOU are capable of.  That way you
can come to a better understanding of whether you are just a machine or
not.
 
     For example,
 
     Can a machine hurt?  Do machines NEED anesthetics on humane
grounds?
 
     Can a Conscious Unit hurt?  Do CU's NEED anesthetics on humane
grounds?
 
     Would it ever be immoral to torture a machine in the sense that it
would be immoral to torture a CU?
 
     There is something people keep forgetting about machines, they have
FUNCTION and STRUCTURE.  They are very much like a program and a
computer.  The function of the program, what it does, is completely
independent of the kind of computer you run it on or the programming
language you wrote it in, which together form the underlying structure
which implements the function.
 
     The same is true of machines.  What they do, like tell time say,
their FUNCTION, is completely independent of what MEDIUM you build the
machine in.  You can build a clock with wheels and springs, or with
electronics, or with atomic molecules or with biological systems, or
even with planetary systems.
 
     The FUNCTION of a machine is independent of the MEDIUM.
 
     All clocks have an energy storage unit which needs to be refilled
periodically.  They all have some escapement mechanism that allows the
stored energy to escape over time in a highly accurate way, and they all
have some measure of recording to show the time or a count of how much
energy has escaped.
 
     You can build this with ball bearings, you can build this with
circuits, you can build this with candles, you can build this with water
wheels, you can build this with ANYTHING.
 
     We call this the Machine Medium Theorem, which states that a
machine's function is independent of the medium it is built in.
 
     Thus if the brain is a machine, then it can be built out of ball
bearings, wheels, springs, electric circuits with wire and solder, and
even solid state.
 
     So here is where you get to ask yourself a really deep
philosophical question.  Could a brain built out of wheels and gears and
levers and springs, no matter how big it was or how small the parts
were, ever HURT?  Or could it merely RESPOND.
 
     If you conclude that such a mechanical brain, wired function for
function like the real brain, could not hurt, then you must conclude
that the real brain can not hurt either.  You would also have to
conclude that since we do hurt, the 'we' that hurts is not the brain.
 
     If on the other hand you conclude that a mechanical brain could
hurt, then it's fine if you also conclude that the actual brain hurts,
in which case there is no need for further fundamental particles to
'explain' hurt, such as a conscious unit or a thetan.
 
     Similarly you must ask yourselves about other things that humans
can do which machines might not be able to do.
 
     Can a machine learn anything with perfect certainty?  The Machine
Certainty Theorem says no (to follow someday.)
 
     Can a machine be self aware or is it limited to having one set of
circuits study another set of circuits which study the first set of
circuits?  If both circuits are wrong or malfunction what circuit would
know?
 
     Can a circuit study itself?  Is there a limit to how much of itself
a circuit can study?  Does a conscious unit have the same limitation?
 
     Can a machine ever feel injustice?  Can a machine be moved to anger
and hatred and revenge, or would it be cold and calculating because
really it was only programmed to survive and in fact it couldn't give a
damn if it wanted to?
 
     What survival value is there to anger and real feelings and caring
and desire?  Why not just compute, do and survive?  Is it possible that
such things as real feelings actually serve no useful survival
potential, they are merely there because they have to be there, because
the thing which is surviving is a conscious unit which happens to be
stuck with CARING about its own survival by virtue of its own nature?
 
     Even the Extropians, the 'Up Loaders' will tell you that pain
serves no useful function.  All you really need is a red light going off
in your mind to tell you you are in danger.  Of course what would make a
being avoid damage or death if it didn't hurt?  Well he would be
programmed to avoid such.  Why torture someone with pain to MOTIVATE
them to do something when you can just program them to do it BY FORCE.
 
     And here we come to the real thing that needs the most study, the
difference between FORCE and MOTIVATION.
 
     You can be FORCED to move and you can be MOTIVATED (by pain) to
move.  BOTH cause motion, and because of this, some people confuse them
as being the same thing, or they think pain can be reduced to force.
 
     Christians place a big deal on the free will.  Certainly if
everything we did was FORCED by programming, then that could hardly be
called free will.  So a prerequisite for a free will is to have at least
something that operates on MOTIVATION.
 
     But really, even a person who is pushed and pulled around the
universe by various motivations can hardly be considered to be free or
have a free will.  He is still a puppet of his desires.
 
     So then you need some ability to CHOOSE your motivations and to
suppress others.  You say to yourself, I won't be motivated by greed and
lust for tender loins, and I will be motivated by the desire to learn
and make better of myself and do the world some good.
 
     It must be noticed however that even these CHOICES to be motivated
by some things and not by others, come from some motivation to make such
a choice.
 
     You can't change a desire or squash a desire or choose a desire
unless you have a desire to do so.  Where did THAT desire come from?
You can't even chose to have THAT desire unless you desire to have it.
 
     So ultimately all choices come from desires that exist before the
choices.  Some choices can change, add or delete other desires, but
always there is at least one desire that is pre existing to any choice,
and that desire is sovereign in the ruling sense, and guides what that
being will do.
 
     Perhaps that is what the Christians are talking about when they
talk about the choice between good and evil, or between selfishness and
self sacrifice for the greater good.  Perhaps they are trying to sort
out those who have the motivation to cooperate with others and enjoy
other's well being, from those who are not motivated by the well being
of others and who see using and abusing others as a fast route to
happiness, wealth and success.
 
     It is not a matter of free will, it's a matter of motivation and
sensitivity to other's pain.  People are the most compassionate when
other's pain is their pain.  That's not free will, that's an open door
of perception.  Perhaps people can choose to open that door, but what
would motivate them to?
 
     More likely they are born with an open door of sensitivity to
other's pain and they shut it closed for one reason or another as they
grow up.  Understanding this would go far to understanding man's
humanity towards man.
 
     Ultimately choice is always ruled by desire, fundamental desire is
never ruled by choice, unless that choice is itself unruled by desire or
motivation of any kind.  If a choice is unruled by any desire, then it
is also unruled by the desire to do good, so it can hardly be said that
the choice to be good comes from being good, because you would already
BE good, so your choice to be good would be redundant.
 
     What the choice to be good, cooperative and sensitive comes from
then becomes a good question at best.
 
     LRH by the way says that being good is fundamental to a being and
that any decision to be bad comes from a crazy effort to be good.
 
     The Christians say that being bad is fundamental, that
FUNDAMENTALLY we are all in need of forgiveness, but rarely do they
discuss WHY people do bad things.  They say we make this choice between
good and evil and that's the end of it.  If we choose to do evil, we
know we are doing wrong, so we DESERVE to go to Hell Forever.
 
     I don't believe it is meaningful to say that 'evil' people know
they are doing 'WRONG'.  It might be meaningful to say that they know
they are hurting others and don't care because they are not sensitive to
other's pain and do not take joy in other's well being.
 
     Such evil people might know that other's think what they are doing
is 'wrong' but why would they consider it wrong themselves?
 
     If they don't think it is wrong, why do they deserve punishment
FOREVER for what they do?  Punishment for a while might be corrective,
at least it might teach them that OTHER's think what they are doing is
wrong and that they had better stop if they want to be left alone.  But
punishment forever?  What does it serve except to make the good feel
better about the abuse they received at the hands of the bad?  In which
case how just good are these good?
 
     One doesn't usually picture vengeful bitterness as the embodiment
of 'good'.
 
     More likely the 'good' wish the bad to go to hell forever to make
up to the good for all the pain the good had to suffer being good
obeying God's rules, all the while the 'evil' where having a ball of it.
What good is being good, if the evil get off scott free.  This implies
that there is much suffering to being good, almost an unnatural form of
self restraint, and the good damn well want some payment in return for
their efforts.
 
     Is a being who forces himself to be 'good' and follow God's laws
only because he fears Eternal Punishment, really all that good?  Is it
possible that some beings who believe in God behave themselves better
because of this fear of reprisal than other beings who are just
naturally good but think that this God and Hell thing is a lot of bunk?
 
     Would a being who obeyed God perfectly only because of his fear of
punishment hold a higher place in Heaven than a being who was just good
naturally but may have broken a few rules in some areas because he
ignored the nonsensical and capricious rules of a bitter and jealous
God?
 
     Does the person who propitiated God properly only because he feared
Hell deserve to go to Heaven?  Does the person who was good naturally
but who rejects the existence of God deserve to go to Hell?
 
     I don't think so.
 
     Compassion doesn't demand Eternal Punishment for anything.
 
     If evil people thought what they were doing was wrong in their own
hearts, they wouldn't do it.  If they DID do it, even though they
thought it was wrong in their own hearts, then clearly they are not in
control and so they don't deserve punishment.
 
     Punishment must always serve a purpose to the PUNISHED!  Punishing
someone FOREVER can only serve a purpose to the PUNISHER.
 
     If someone is hell bent on doing wrong, you are well within your
rights to level pain at him to teach him a lesson, or merely to get him
to stop doing what he is doing.  But you gotta at least give him a
chance to respond to the corrective or constraining action of the
punishment.  If the guy is intractable and won't change and won't
restrain himself no matter what you do, why waste your time punishing
him forever, just destroy him.  End of story, end of problem.
 
     The only possible reason that any God would punish someone bad
forever was because it satisfied the good that He do so.  In other words
Hell is not payment to the wicked, it is payment to the righteous, for
having remained righteous.  It's a fulfillment of a promised contract,
'I will hurt your enemies bad if you but remain righteous.' So putting
the wicked in hell is where the righteous come to get their full measure
of satisfaction for having fulfilled their part of the bargain of
staying righteous.  In which case the righteous are worse than the
wicked, feeding at the trough of the suffering of the wicked.
 
     'What would I do if I didn't have someone bad to torture for the
rest of time, life would be so empty, it's hard being good.'
 
     The only possible SANE justification for some sort of Eternal
Punishment is if the person being punished may some day change his mind
and become tractable or better yet civilized.  So you throw him in the
lake of fire until he cries uncle.  Maybe some never cry uncle, so they
stay there.  At least they have the chance to cry uncle and get out and
become part of the GNP again.  And they have this chance FOREVER.
 
     But throwing someone into a lake of fire forever, GIVING HIM NO
CHANCE TO CRY UNCLE AND KEEPING HIM THERE EVEN IF HE DOES CRY UNCLE
BECAUSE 'IT'S TOO LATE, YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE', just means you belong in
that lake of fire yourself until YOU cry uncle.
 
     Yahweh, hear me, I am coming after you.  You gotta stop lying to
your children man.  It ain't right.
 
     Anyway, if you KNOW that someone will never cry uncle and will
continue to do bad forever, then you have a problem.
 
     Fine, so you destroy them as defective.  You don't punish them in
hell forever where the good can come look into the screaming pits for
the rest of time taking in and admiring the beauty of it all.
 
     "Ah, those satisfying screams, now I KNOW God is good!"
 
     So the subject of free will, pain and motivation etc.  is very
important to what makes something a living conscious unit and what makes
a machine.
 
     If a machine decides to follow the dark side of the force, do you
punish it in hell forever, or do you pull its plug?
 
     Would it make any sense to punish a machine in hell forever?  Even
if this satisfied your benighted craving for punishment, would the
machine give a damn?  Would it beg to die and feel sorry for what it had
done?  Would it promise to love you forever if you would only end its
misery in the peace of death or disassemblement?
 
     Homer
 
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Homer Wilson Smith           This file may be found at
homer@rahul.net              ftp.rahul.net/pub/homer/homer/act29.memo