Onward and to the Future
An Essay by Christopher Bek
christopher.bek@gmail.com
Summary—This essay tells my story, makes my argument, and sets forth The Philosophy Magazine Project as eight societal ventures grounded in Philosophy and Mathematics directed towards the Future.
Quotation—Paradigm shifts are not unpredictable, just unthinkable.
—Peter Bernstein
There is an ancient story of a courier who was carrying an important message from his king to a distant king. During his travels, the courier was confronted by three drunken fools who told the courier that he could only pass if he crawled through mud. The courier, who was an expert in martial arts and could have easily defeated the three clowns, proceeded to crawl through the mud. I have had the great honour, benefit, privilege, and responsibility of living at Horizon on Eighth, an Onward Homes property, ideally located in Downtown-West Calgary, Alberta, Canada for the past 19 years. For nearly 50 years Onward Homes has been working to ensure that every Calgarian has a safe, appropriate, affordable place to call home. I am a mathematician, actuary, philosopher, scientist, metaphysician, consultant, published writer, and whistle-blower. I have been problem-solving for a long time and have become fascinated with the following pair of parables that embody problem-solving.
1) A Family of Healers. There is an old story of three brothers from a family of healers. The youngest brother was a great surgeon whose name was known among the Lords. The middle brother prescribed elixirs and his name was known throughout the district. The oldest brother saw the spirit of sickness before it took shape, and so his name did not go beyond their house.
2) Predicting Reality. The Greek philosopher and mathematician Thales of Miletus forecasted a solar eclipse on 28 May 585 BC that brought an end to a war between the Lydians and the Medes. When the sky then went dark on queue, the warring factions laid down their arms and sought peace.
God’s Country. I would argue that Canada is the best country in the world to live. I would also argue that Alberta is the best province in Canada to live. And I would then argue that Calgary is the best place to be in Alberta. Mark Rypien is a former professional football player, who was born in Calgary in 1962, and was a quarterback for 14 seasons in the National Football League (NFL). He was the first Canadian-born quarterback to both start in the NFL, and be named Super Bowl MVP. When asked if he ever went home to Calgary, he responded that he went back all the time—asserting it to be God’s country. As citizens of God’s country, I believe that Calgarians should take the responsibility for the planet that comes with freedom. And I would argue that we ought to concentrate our problem-solving efforts on the following pair of fundamental world issues, which are paramount, now and in the future.
1) 256 years—Alpha to Omega. In 1854 the first oil company was founded in Canada. Frank Fenner (1914-2010) was an Australian researcher who cured small pox in 1980 that had plagued mankind for more than 3,500 years—for which The World Health Organization declared his accomplishment: The greatest humanitarian achievement of all time. In 2010 Fenner prophesied that mankind would go extinct within a hundred years because of overpopulation, deforestation, and climate change. That is 85 years from now, or 256 years: Alpha to Omega—from the first oil well drilled in Canada to the last breath taken on Earth.
2) Four-in-Five Are Animals. According to LeaderChat.org, “95 percent of people believe they are self-aware, but the real number is 12 to 15 percent.” This means that, on a good day, four out of five Canadians are self-unaware liars. Socrates maintained that the man who lies to himself has an enemy living within. He is not even a person. He is just a chaos of selfish desires wrapped in an animal hide. In other words, four-in-five are animals.
Philosophy and Science. I wrote my books and developed my website with the intention of applying the previous two parables directly to the work of solving these two major societal problems. The Canadian Constitution is prefaced as follows: Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law. Albert Einstein, Time Magazine’s Person of the Century, claimed that: God is the sum total of the laws of nature. My Theory of One, in fact, unites the laws of nature, and Existentialism Now identifies behaviourism as the problem in society—and the natural law of existentialism as the remedy.
The Defining Existential Heist. In that I have chosen the supremacy of God, I lost touch with the Everyman and the rule of law. I found myself crazed, alone, and unable to service the debt I had accumulated as the result of my philosophical work. In a delirious state, I went to my bank and presented the teller with a note that essentially said: I am robbing your bank today—armed only with books and a smartphone—looking to make arguments in exchange for debt relief. Long story short: I was arrested and charged with bank robbery that, because of the excellent legal work of my lawyer Alex Hedges, was eventually reduced to the charge of mischief. I made a mistake, even though things worked out for me, as I learned much about phenomena like bankruptcy, behaviourism, and the rule of law. I learned my lessons and will endeavor to do the right thing and only make socially acceptable mischief like writing paradigm-shifting essays.
The Love of Humanity and People. Over the years, I had become socially isolated and lost touch with people. I came to embody the quotation: I love humanity, but I hate people. I still love humanity, but now work every day at connecting with people. I meet with a nurse every two weeks where we talk about my health and my ideas. I talk to a counselor every month, and meet with friends weekly to discuss philosophy. I go to Church on Sunday, as I believe that philosophy is not in conflict with religion—nor is it a substitute.
A Whole Metaphysic. As a result of reading hundreds books on philosophy and science, and writing over a hundred essays on philosophy and science, I have come to consider myself a superior metaphysician. Metaphysics may be divided into three branches: being, the-world, and being-in-the-world—and I have mastered all three both individually and holistically. I solved the hard problem of consciousness, the mind-body problem, and have identified the true nature of God as Light. I have, in fact, identified four essential truths that I believe will fundamentally alter the course of history: God is Light, electrons are conscious, a^2 + b^2 = c^2 for all right-triangles, and existence precedes essence for man—the basis of existentialism.
The Philosophy Magazine Project. The following is a list of many of my lifelong projects that have come into focus holistically recently, which are based on philosophy and mathematics, that I plan to further flesh-out conceptually and from a business model perspective as realized by the essays, letters and other artistic essences found—past, present, and future—on the Philosophy Magazine website. Now consider the following eight project summaries:
1) Self-Day involves moving to a four-day workweek, where we could then study mathematics (eg. actuarial science) in the morning and philosophy (eg. metaphysics) in the afternoon on the fifth day. So, Sunday is Church and the Love of God—and Friday is Self-Day and the Intellectual Love of God.
2) The Bernoulli Stations are proposed Cafés where one goes to study mathematics and philosophy. These stations would include copies of about four hundred essential books on philosophy and mathematics for readers to enjoy and learn from. They would also have available computer workstations, and could ask questions of the likes of Google, Wikipedia, and AI such as: Is God Light? Are electrons conscious? And, does existence precede essence for man?
3) Honourables and Doctors. The two world problems: 256-years-alpha-to-omega, four-in-five-are-animals, combined with the fact that we are using up the planet at 1.7 times the rate that Nature can replenish—embody the Honourables and Doctors down to their marrow. I propose that Canadian Honourables and Doctors be encouraged to voluntarily contribute a percentage of their income to fund books and the education of young people studying philosophy and mathematics.
4) An Essay is a Try. Celebrate, honour, and encourage the writing and reading of the two-page, 1600-word essay in perpetuity. Imagine if every mailbox in Canada were to receive a spiffy and profound Philosophy Magazine essay every month.
5) PhilosophyMagazine.com. I believe that this website is Philosophy and Science for the Third Millennium since 1.1.2001—and is destined to be the well-founded online presence of all the Philosophy Magazine projects.
6) Books of Seven Essays. I would like to publish three more books of seven essays: The Bernoulli Model, The Theory of One 2.0, and Existentialism Now 2.0 with the great publisher Friesen Press here in Canada.
7) The Bernoulli Model. Continue to develop The Bernoulli Model in Microsoft Excel, Office, and the Palisade.Lumivero.com Suite of Decision Tools—that combine to capture the essence of risk-modeling, scientific-management, and decision-making—as a complete and holistic portfolio theory of everything for all organizations.
8) The Future. Young people, looking forward to a life spent in the pursuit of the Intellectual Love of God, could write essays about their beliefs and plans to study and practice philosophy and mathematics. Their essays could be read by Honourables and Doctors, which could lead to good things including possible funding, mentoring, and perhaps might even develop into lifelong peer-to-peer relationships.
Closing Arguments. I contend that my education, hard work, and unique life experiences confer that I have much to offer this world. And now follow me out of the cave of Behaviourism into the daylight of Existentialism Now by taking responsibility for the future in the present.