Massimo Melli

The Talmud of Scicli

( a detailed analysis of the God of Probability Ψ )

Introduction and commentaries by Aharon Nathan

PART - I Introduction

“…since it cannot be proved that God exists, it can hardly be shown that He spoke to Abraham, Moses or Isaiah. Each reader must decide if the Voice that spoke to the patriarchs and prophets speaks to him, too. If He does, there is no question of needing proof….” Thomas Cahill: The gift of the Jews

“The Voice has not spoken to us yet, however all our lives we have tried to figure out if the Voice that spoke to the Prophets has said the truth or simply has invented everything !”( Leo Lopes )

This last quotation, written by my friend Leo, gives to the reader some idea of his project: analyze the Revelation contained in the Scriptures to see if it fits well with the logic of modern Physics and Mathematics and with Leo’s theory of the Logons, considered by him the building bricks of Creation. If the answer were positive, then a few paragraphs of the Scriptures, if well interpreted, could reveal the secrets of the Creation transmitted by the Prophets through whom the voice of the Unknown God inspires us. Besides the theory of the Logons Leo believes that it is important to understand the role of Probability in human affairs. If God exists what role does He have in controlling the Law of Probability? “It is well known that the majority of events have the tendency to end up in disaster” explained to me Leo and he added that in Italy, fatalistically people say: It is the Law of Ψ, the law of Menga, the Devil put his horns in it.” Sometimes, however, rarely, a lucky strike of Fortune can happen when nobody expects it and when one does not deserve it. All this is due to God or to an abstract force that we call Probability? In order to understand this Leo is obliged to understand the relation that exists between God and the physical laws, between Religion and Science.

The work to unify Science and Religion had already been attempted with a certain amount of success by the great Maimonides and some Arab philosophers in Spain, around the twelfth century, eight hundred years ago. But after that time things had changed. In modern times Physics and Mathematics had made giant steps forward. It was necessary to review the conclusions of Maimonides to adapt them to the modern science and see if they confirmed or denied the Great Rabbi in his fundamental tenets still held today by many people: the Existence of God, His Unity , His lack of corporeality and His creation of the Universe from nothing. Leo has the double task of analyzing the Scriptures to compare them with the principles of Physics and of Mathematics, matter in which he is quite competent. Being a geologist and a scientist he is used to delve deep and unearth the treasures embedded in nature waiting for us to discover. Myself, being a social anthropologist by training more than by profession, I have both my feet well stuck on the ground surface although often I let my imagination loose into the clouds to speculate. What binds us Leo and I together is that both of us are amateur philosophers who are addicted, like the Talmudists, to confront themselves with questions that they initiate. Therefore we see the Bible from a broader perspective than its restricted historical and literal context. From my side, I had the unfortunate task of subjecting Leo’ theories to my common sense and my little grounding in science. In this limited way I try to refute or confute them or at least I try to create an atmosphere of doubt over them. Doubt is the mother of wisdom. But why unfortunate task? Because while Leo was developing step by step his theories to demonstrate that the revelation of the Prophets seemed to have a possible valid foundation I had serious trouble with that. My interpretation of the Bible and of the religion is very different from Leo’s. However, as I progressively ventured into his intricate theoretical scheme, it was difficult for me to refute completely his thesis because he presented his arguments with prophetic passion. He believes that some spirit, in moments of intimation of divine immortality, inspire us, we mortals, to reach to the eternal truth. The result is typical of how a Talmudist tries to cover the subject from all angles often adding spice to what is already over spiced. Not only the text is commented upon, but even the comments deriving from the interpretation of the text are subjected to new round of commentary. But with particular regard to our suffering readers we often decide to stop as otherwise this process could easily continue “ad infinitum”.) When I see the intensity of his face and his passion in defending his reflections on our life and existence on this earth Leo reminds me of the prophets of the Old Testament. He inspires me to meditate on the poetic text of the Bible to discover its marvelous secrets. When it comes to poetry Leo and I share the same feelings, therefore I cannot end this brief introduction without quoting the beautiful words of Dante when in the last verse of his Paradise, he compares God to the supreme force that moves the Universe: “the love that moves the Sun and the other Stars” ( J. Meron )

Author's Note: The symbol Ψ (the Greek letter Psi) is the probability of quantum physics that appears in the equation of Schroedinger: i h d/dt Ψ (r, t) = H Ψ (r, t)

Chapter 1

Bemidbar: in the Desert

Like it always happened in the rare days of vacation, Leo had woken up at dawn. He could have slept and had some rest, but the adrenaline of the newly acquired freedom was keeping him awake. As he dressed up to leave the caravan in search of the wolf, he thought that maybe that day something good would happen. He went out from the caravan with his right foot first, placing it carefully on the sand of the desert as if he were entering a mosque or a sacred place.

It is well known that one needs to start the holidays with the right foot. Leo therefore entered the world that day with the correct foot for what was going to happen. It was the feast of Id el Kabir. The rig had stopped drilling the night before to allow the Arabs to celebrate. The order had come from Gaddafi himself, through the heads of Veba Oil, from Tripoli.

Despite being a very humble work, Leo practiced with commitment and dedication the job of well-site geologist, because to collect data from wells is the first step in the process of exploration, but fortunately that day Leo was not required to work. Regardless of his age, Leo was still working as a well-site geologist, the lowest step of the geologist’s career, which starts from the drilling site, and goes on, through progressively more important positions to Senior Geologist, then Regional Geologist, then Chief Geologist and finally Exploration Manager.

At an age well past sixty years, once back from Equatorial Guinea, Leo had returned to work as a well site geologist, not due to his fault, of course, but because of his enemies. At the rig they called him "Shibani" which in Arabic means old man.

The days of rest for the "expatriates" who worked in the Libyan desert were rare and therefore the joy and exaltation of being able to spend the day at his favourite hobby, searching for the wolves, woke him up early. Leaving the caravan he took from behind the door the katana, the thin, long and sharp sword that the rig mechanic, Mohammed the Egyptian, had built for him from a piece of scrap iron.

So Leo came out of the caravan with the katana in his hand and briskly walked toward the East, towards the sun that was peeking behind the low hills of the Harudj al Asuad, that is the Black Harudj. This was a low plateau, just about black in colour, covered with dark layers of lava and volcanic ash of the Miocene, and segmented by narrow and steep valleys, where the he-wolf lived. At the foot of the Harudj al Asuad was the well-site of the drilling rig where Leo worked. Looking eastward against the sunlight Leo greeted the sun and blessed it and at the foot of the valley that was at the entrance to the Harudj he saw the camels of Hassan Fakri, the blond Bedouin who was his friend. God only knows from what Viking lineage descended Hassan Fakri and what circumstances had brought here in the desert his ancestors, thought Leo as he walked.

The camels were lined up at the mouth of the valley where Leo was directed and were intent to graze the few leaves of the thorny acacia trees that still survived in the dry valley. Watching the camels Leo thought: “There is nothing bigger than a camel, say the Bedouins. Except Allah of course”. Those who had caused the circumstances and the chain of events that eventually had forced him to work in the desert. We know that he who works in the desert is never a winner, but rather somebody that has survived some kind of disaster.

From the time when he was Exploration Manager at the head of the Norwegian North Sea for Phillips Petroleum, he became only Chief Geologist for OMV in Libya, then Senior Geologist for the Waha Oil Company still in Libya and after a short stroke of luck that had lasted only two years, in which he became General Manager for the UMC in Equatorial Guinea, too little to represent a real victory, he had returned to be a well-site geologist in Congo, for Agip. Then finally, he was now well-site geologist for Veba Oil Company, in the desert of Libya. An inverse career from the usual one. A career that instead of climbing, was going down. How much more down could he go? Not more than that, since he had reached bottom.

“Like everybody else I had my failures.” To justify his failures Leo had developed in the course of the years a mechanism of auto-defense that attributed the fault to an abstract and unforeseeable entity: probability. “ All of us are floating in the great sea of probability, whose waves determine the events and the direction of destiny.” Leo used to say.

He tried, as he walked along the dusty path covered with "fas-fas", the fine dust of the truck that led to the valley, to remember the names of his enemies, but, as it were, he had forgotten them. Miracle of the human mind that gets rid of unpleasant memories to make room only for hope and good news. He could hardly remember their faces, their mouths tight-lipped with envy, their pale colour of men from the North. He remembered only the face of the evil “ Curly-beard, yellow face and yellow soul ”, but he had forgotten his unpronounceable Norwegian name. “How In the Hell was he called? I have erased everything,” he said,” that's good. Today something good will happen.”

On the dusty track he saw the first footprint of the wolf, very clear, followed by others in single file, at a distance of about one meter from each other and immediately he forgot his enemies. Obviously the wolf had been running, he thought. With scientific professionalism he bent down to measure the width of the footprints. Exactly eight centimeters, all the same. The fact that the prints were all the same was of fundamental importance because there had been a heated discussion between him, Hassan Fakri and Nabil al Jundi, that is the soldier. Hassan Fakri argued that the wolf that almost every night was coming to drink the dirty water of the rig, from the drilling fluid tank, was one of many who were roaming around. “The wolf lives in packs” was saying Hassan Fakri. Nabil al Jundi whose profession was soldier and who lived at the Oil Center of Veba Oil with the thankless task of defending it from an unlikely attack of the Israelis, claimed that the wolf was only one. “The wolves are solitary animals”, he said. “You look for them and never see them, but they see you and follow you from afar. You walk and the wolf walks. You sit down and the wolf sneaks behind you on the ground. He waits for the right moment to grab you in the neck with a jump from behind, when you least expect it.” Leo, ash Shibani, with his good colloquial Arabic, explained that the accurate measures he had taken around the Harudj for months, were pointing in the direction of a single wolf, the grey one that almost every night had been sighted near the rig. The dimensions of the paws were precisely that of eight centimeters, always the same width. As for him, the wolf was a timid animal who disliked man and remained hidden during the day to go out only at night. With the katana as his only defense Leo had gone to his search in the Land rover and on foot to within a hundred kilometer radius around the rig, on the Harudj al Asuad, without ever meeting him. Of tracks he had seen many, all equal, but of wolves, except for the one who came to the rig, he had never seen one.

Hassan Fakri laughed and said that Leo had been lucky. He lived in tents in the desert with his family and the camels, and the wolves he knew them well. The wolves were many and if they had surrounded him, they would have overwhelmed him, with katana or without katana. Allah obviously had not wanted it to happen.

So Leo, in his free time from drilling, continued the search to prove his point: that every self-respecting scientific statement must be confirmed by a measurement. He worked about one hour to measure the width of the footprints and the distance between the various steps , taking accurate notes in a booklet that he was keeping in the back pocket of his blue jeans. He then walked for about one hour in the direction of the valley crossed by the truck that represented the easiest access to the plateau. Here and there he could see clearly some footprints of the wolf and sometimes Leo stopped to measure and record the data.

The sun was already quite high when Leo came to the valley, after crossing the herd of camels. The camels ignored him while he was passing by:” What kind of nice animals, they mind their business, they seem made specially to live in the desert! When they eat the thorny acacia they close their eyes. How do they manage to avoid being hurt?” He would have liked to embrace one of them, but he continued his walk. He had more important things to do!

It was getting hot, but Leo was dressed in light clothes, a pair of blue jeans, a cotton T-shirt and sandals. He was wearing sandals carelessly since he was not afraid of snakes, because during the day he had never seen one and as for the scorpions, if they were there, they remained in the shade under the rocks and came out only at night. It is better to let the foot breath, he thought.

Leo swung the katana that shone in the sun and began to climb the narrow valley with brisk steps. He had almost reached the top of the plateau when, looking before him, he saw the wolf. The grey wolf was tall and slim, silhouetted against the blue sky in front of him on the plateau. Leo felt a shiver running down his back and the hairs of his body stiffened. He turned around to watch the circle of rocks of the plateau surrounding the valley and saw the other wolves. They were almost white, the color of ivory, more dogs then wolves, but like the grey wolf in appearance. Leo felt stiffening this time even that bit of hair that remained on his head. Another of my theories proved wrong”, thought Leo, while a cold sweat was wetting his forehead. “ I am used to be wrong.” At an imperceptible nod of their chief, the grey wolf, the wolves began to descend toward the valley and began to encircle Leo from all directions in a semicircle. Leo counted eight of them, a real pack. A cold sweat came down also along his back and he began to back off without losing sight of the wolves, staring at them one by one while he drew back slowly toward the mouth of the valley. Meanwhile he was rolling the katana into the air to make it clear to the wolves that there was nothing to be gained by attacking him. For a few terrifying minutes the wolves continued to move closer, threatening, walking squatting low, almost crawling with their belly on the ground. The grey wolf had begun to curl his lips to show his teeth and becoming more menacing while crawling forwards. Leo for a moment thought that in a few years someone would find there, along the valley, his sandals, his glasses and his katana. The wolves would have devoured his entire body, including the bones.

It was at that moment that the white battered Land Rover of Fakri made its appearance, hobbling at the mouth of the valley, and began to honk its horn quickly approaching Leo . The wolves fled towards the plateau, scattering in different radial directions. Fakri laughingly said to Leo, forcing himself to speak in classical Arabic: "Shibani, trust the Bedouin! Did you see that I was right? Allah wanted that I should come to check my camels right now. Sometimes the wolves attack the herd to try to kill some little newborn, so I keep an eye on the herd. " Fakri motioned for Leo to mount into the Land Rover, and he did not need to be told twice: he was already inside and closed the door carefully drawing a deep sigh of relief. "I came looking for you, not only to check my camels. There was a phone call for you at the Oil Center, by an American. He said that he must speak to you. It 's something urgent. He will call back at noon to talk to you. "

Leo and Fakri returned to the rig and went into Leo’s caravan to drink tea with mint and have breakfast with Italian biscotti, while analyzing the issue of the wolves. When they entered, the rams brought by the Arabs for the sacrifice of Id el Kabir bleated still all in chorus. Obviously they were still alive but predicted that the feast would end up badly for them. There followed a discussion which dealt with the probability. Fakri had come to save Leo because of the phone call wanted by Allah? Or everything had happened for a series of happy coincidences? The discussion lasted until about noon, with no victors or losers, and after drinking several cups of tea with mint Leo started walking towards the Oil Center of Veba Oil, which was only less than a mile from the rig. As he walked Leo noticed that the sheep had stopped bleating and there was an unreal silence across the plain. "They are already in the Paradise of Allah," he thought . The sheep were sacrificed by the Arabs in remembrance of the failed sacrifice of Ismael, first born of Abraham, that was saved when Allah sent a ram to substitute the boy and save him from the hand of his father. Ismael was considered the ancestor of the Arab race, from whom descended all the Arab tribes. For the Jews and the Christians Abraham was supposed to have sacrificed Isaaq, the grandfather of the twelve tribes of Israel. But the legend was the same and everybody interpreted it his own way, to his own advantage. The only ones that were losing their lives were the rams.

Living in the desert a person was led to indulge in philosophical-religious thoughts, because the desert induces people to think about the great mysteries of existence. Leo owned a Koran as well as a Bible, both written in Arabic: he often was reading and comparing them before falling asleep. The Arabs knew that he knew since he often was quoting by memory some Surah of the Koran, and for this reason they respected him.

While walking Leo was thinking about Abraham:” If the Bible represents the revelation, what kind of message does it conveys with the story of Abraham? Two great peoples, the Arabs and the Jews were proud to descend from him, yet it was clear that from the human point of view, that patriarch was a despicable person. The list of his wrong doings described in the Bible was long indeed! Pretending that she was his sister and not his wife, he took advantage of the beauty of Sarah to become rich with the money of Pharaoh and later he agreed that Abimelek should marry her. On top of that he did not hesitate to get rid of his Cushite slave Agar and of his first born son Ishmael sending them to die of thirst in the desert. To finish the list of his horrible actions he had agreed to sacrifice his second child Isaac on Mount Moriah. Fortunately God had protected Sarah from the lust of Pharaoh and Abimelek, and then had saved first Ishmael and then Isaac with his divine intervention. Maybe the message was: Men, don’t be afraid, God is so merciful that he can love even a horrible person like Abraham and make him a prophet and the ancestor of two illustrious nations.”

Walking towards the Oil center Leo stopped a while thinking:”Was that the message?” he asked himself and started walking again with fast gait.

Once arrived at the Oil Center, opposite the radio room he found Abdel Basset who was cleaning the floors of the terrace with a large broom and a bucket of water. "How are you Mussolini, Benetton, Juventus, Alex Del Piero. Spaghetti with tomato sauce. All Gucci? Weather forecast on Italy? "It seemed that Abdel Basset spoke Italian correctly, but his knowledge of the language was based only on a few key words, skillfully arranged in a row and handed out all together fluently. Words learned from the TV, with the right pronunciation. Leo continued the conversation in Arabic "I'm fine, and you keef halek Abdel Basset. How are you Abdel Basset? How are you, Crazy Rocket? Coming with us for coffee at the Radio Room? “ " In shaa'Allah, in a little bit, ya Shibani. "Said Abdel Basset continuing to sweep. "Why in shaa'Allah?" Asked Leo "The Radio Room is here and the coffee is there. So we can drink it because we are also here! " Abdel Basset looking toward the sky replied " The future is in the hands of Allah! "Leo shook his head saying that only the present is in the hands of Allah. The future is in the hands of the law of Ψ! Abdel Basset shaking his head too and smiling, said: "You are majnoon, Shibani, you're crazy!"

Leo entered the radio room where another conversation like this, but in English, was waiting for him with the Philippino Radio Operator Resty. Twenty years spent in the Libyan desert, always at the same Oil Center of Veba Oil, with only one month vacation a year during which he regularly made his wife pregnant, had not destroyed the "sense of humor" of the Philippino.

"Rest your old arse in that chair, Shibani, while you wait for things to happen. Have a cup of coffee in the mean time. "Replied Leo laughing. Leo picked up a pair of scissors from Resty's desk and said: " Come here Resty. Your balls will rest in peace and you will stop making children! "

The conversation went along on the same high intellectual level until a few minutes later Resty told Leo to go in the cabin to take a phone call from the USA. Leo's heart was pounding at 120 beats when he picked up the receiver: "Leo”, said the voice of Jim, “where are you?" "I am in the middle of the Libyan desert, Jim, what's up?" "Well Leo , what are you doing there, working for chicken feed? 2004.Leo could not believe what he heard. Finally at the age of nearly 65 he would get the hell out of there. "OK! “ “Leo, we need you to be our Exploration Manager there! "

So did the conversation end with Jim, with a few crackles as the line was very bad, but Leo got the important point. Like a modern version of the Book of Job, the hero of the story, this time called Leo, was avenged of the injustice suffered after many years of unbelievable trouble. This was the second time that the “probability” had sent Jim to his rescue. The first time long time ago in 1997 the “probability” used Jim to offer him the General Manager job in Equatorial Guinea, a happy event that lasted only a short time of a couple of years. Who was Jim, an angel sent by God? That day two events, both positive, both good for him, had happened to Leo. He was rescued from the wolves by Fakri and rescued from the humiliating job in the desert by Jim. Was his good luck an act of God or had Leo worked to make his fortunes turn around? "Al hamdu l’ Illah" said Leo, just in case.

Chapter 2

Two Friends Reconnect

Leo e-mailed this little episode of his life in the desert to his friend Jacob, a prominent Jewish businessman living in London. He meant to start sending him several practical examples of the role of Probability in human affairs, a central subject in Leo`s personal theories that he had discussed with him on various occasions. Besides being a Geologist Leo was an amateurish student of religion and Jacob had helped him a long time ago to learn both Arabic and Hebrew, to get to the root of the Koran and the Bible. Over the years whenever Leo and Jacob met around the World, they discussed subjects of philosophical-scientific-religious nature. Leo thought as they were both retired, the time had come to write down some of their ideas and experiences in a book for their children and grandchildren. Whether they liked it or not the book would remain forever a document of their grandparents’ spiritual journey and heritage! As soon as Jacob received Leo`s e-mail he responded with a long e-mail:

Dear Leo, I wasn’t fascinated as much by the episode as by the way you described the landscape and the human aspects of an oil exploration in the Libyan Desert. Your description of the people there made me feel that I have met them myself and I can visualize what they looked like and even converse with them. That is why here I want to answer Abdel Basset. He believes that the future is in the hands of Allah, which leaves no space for doubt or any notion of probability. He, like all devout Muslims believes that Allah (God as we call him) has created the world and delineated its course. It did not occur to the Muslims that He might want to change its course in the future. God to them is not interventionist. Therefore the Muslims know that whatever happens in the future, one way or another, it is already decreed by Allah at the moment of the Creation. Nothing is wrong with that and on reflection it accords with much of modern scientific thinking in that Nature works within predetermined rules. But most Muslims carry this to extremes and say that this predestination includes even the writing of the Koran, done personally by God himself. The Jewish Bible and the Rabbis’ interpretations of the Holy Scriptures do not differ very much from this belief. Psalm No 139 says it all in detail: O Lord… You are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely…O Lord You hem me in – behind and ahead, you have laid your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain ... where can I flee your presence? … etc. But the Jews say: because God chose us as his people and loves us, He sometimes does intervene on our behalf. Nothing miraculous about that. Because after performing His intervention, He immediately thereafter, returns the world machine back to its original course in order to conform to His original plan. . The Red Sea opened but soon after the Israelites passed He returned it to its original course and the Egyptians were drowned. Too bad for the poor Egyptians! But back to Abdel Basset. In shaa’Allah means if that is what God has decreed using the past tense in Arabic, not what he will decide or is deciding now. God is always past. Even Spinoza with all his critique of the Bible did not deviate from this interpretation. He believed that the future is predetermined. And the reason why we can not foresee it, is because there is no way we can take into account the myriad of events that determine the future. Judaism in the Bible looks at the Creation in the same way. Unlike Islam however, it has to interpret the Miracles, which means that God does intervene exceptionally in the running of this world but only momentarily. Christianity being an offshoot of Judaism followed the same tradition of belief in occasional Divine intervention in human affairs. God created the world but sometimes he does intervene in its routine. But notice the Christians know that God cannot intervene directly so they invented the concept of Saints through whom He intervenes. The first challenge to break the rigidity of religion appeared in Judaism and Islam in Spain around the 12th century. Maimonides boldly challenged the intellectual “status quo” by questioning the received wisdom of his fellow Rabbis and was castigated in his lifetime for his unorthodox views. He said that God allows us to think and query, that this is why He endowed us with the rational mind. Maimonides expressed his logic and philosophy in his book “The Guide to the Perplexed” acknowledged by him to be based on Aristotle’s method of investigation. St Thomas Aquinas later on followed them and expressed similar concepts tentatively. He too was thought in his lifetime by the Church to be a heretic. It took the Enlightenment from Bacon down to Darwin to accept a new thinking based on logic, analysis and experimentation that we now take for granted. I was born in southern Iraq in the middle of the marshes surrounding old Babylon and the Biblical town of Ur-Cassdim. Actually not far from the Mausoleum of the Prophet Ezra who in the 5th century BC wrote down the verbal traditions of the Pentateuch i.e. the Torah as we know it today. (Yes he literally wrote it: that is why he is also called Ezra, the Scribe) The famous Psalm “on the banks of Babylon we wept the loss of Jerusalem” was inspired by the two rivers that flow in this region: the Tigris and the Euphrates. That was also where the first “big question” was asked by my ancestor Abraham in his sojourn in that area: Who am I? Who created me? And why? It was in response to the wonder and awe of existence that the ancient Hebrews asked these questions themselves. The same Big Question weighed on me and possessed me too and never left me from my childhood onwards. I was tossed about between the religion I was indoctrinated into and the reasoning that I started to use like any other child growing up in modern times. It took me many years to make sense of, and reconcile the two contradictory trends within me of Emotion and Reason. And it was only in my youth that I constructed for myself a framework, a formula to help me answer not only the Big Question, but also to challenge myself to understand it and to give my troubled soul peace. I will explain the formula to you Leo, after receiving your essay on your theory of Probability. But going back to religion Moses could only think of God as one. God is One, Adonai Echad. That of course is logical thinking. When you search for the prime mover you go back further and further till you come to one. The apex of the pyramid has to be one. So Moses can only think of God as one. So did all other religions and not only what we term the Monotheistic. But Moses wanted to distinguish our God, Adonai from others. He should have emphasized that our God is different not just one. And may be he said so but the writers of the Bible confused the two concepts. And here is the rub. We say God is one, Adonai Echad. In Hebrew one is Echad, whether that means the number one or unique. Unique denotes also one distinguished within a genre or a class. So He becomes one unique amongst others i.e. primus inter pares. Something still not right. So let us examine this in a different way as any Talmudnik worth his salt would do. Let us now assume that there was a printing error in the original Bible that the prophet Ezra wrote. That will solve our problem. The letter D: Dalet and the letter R: Resh in Hebrew are similar. Dalet is angular like the sides of a right angle triangle. Resh is circular and has no angle to it. It is Dalet rounded at the angle. It is easy to make a mistake of mixing one with the other. If you substitute the D of E’had with the R the word becomes A’her meaning different i.e God, Adonai is different from all other Gods, Adonai A’her. And the Jewish prayer becomes: Hear Ye Israel Adonai our God is a different God. Shemaa Yisrael Adonai Elohenu Adonai A’her. The correction of this one letter removes God from the confines of the human brain where logic and numerology are ingrained. This frees God, the Creator from the necessity of causality. God becomes one and many, past present and future and all other definitions that the nature of the human brain confines Him into. Dimensions, three, four or multiple do not apply to Him. God suddenly is outside the narrow human box. When Moses asked God what He is, God answered: I am whatever I be. Leo replied immediately with the following e-mail:

Dear Jacob, You want to change the Shemaa Israel to read A’her instead of E’had? No problem. Do what the Americans did. Here is the story:

The Americans wanted to increase the sales of Coca-cola in the world. So they created a task force that suggested two things: 1 —Change the Christian Prayer Pater Noster to say: give us our daily Coke, instead of give us our daily bread. Billions of Christians will then drink more Coke! 2 — Hire a prominent Italian politician as a consultant lobbyist to get the job done. So they hired a prominent Italian politician and he said: “No problem, in Italy there are only two people that count, the Chief of the Mafia and the Pope. Ask the Chief of the Mafia to go to Rome and find out from the Pope how much they pay him the “guys of the bread” and then offer him to pay double for the Coke!” Jacob, how much are you willing to pay the Chief Rabbi of Israel to change the Torah?

But back to our main story. Thank you for your exhaustive review of the origin of the expression “In shaa’Allah”. Now I know and I will never forget. My God of probability, Ψ, is different from Allah: he is always in the present, as probability starts in the present. But probability however develops in the future. The future is something that has not happened yet and the God of probability, who is a gambler, starts the events in the present, hoping to achieve good results and to win in the future. Ψ does not control the future because he lives only in the present. He can buy the ticket of the Lottery, he can buy millions of tickets now, but the results are unknown to him. My comments to Abdel Basset were however based simply on the story of Juha that you, having grown up in Iraq, must know very well:

Juha sells his donkey Juha was going to the market to sell a donkey. Passing in front of the shop of Ali’ he greeted his friend and Ali’ asked him: “Where are you going Juha?” “I am going to the market to sell my donkey.” Ali’ reproached Juha saying: “Say in shaa’Allah, then!” “Why should I say in shaa’Allah. The donkey is mine and I want to sell it and somebody may want to buy it in the market where I am going!” So Juha left and arrived at the market where he sold his donkey for ten dinars. On the way back, some bandits robbed him and beat him up very badly. As he passed by the shop struggling to walk straight, his friend Ali’ asked him what had happened and where he was going now, and Juha replied: “I was robbed and beaten up and now…in shaa’Allah I am going home”

As you can see our ambitions were very basic, but now I know why the Arabs say in shaa’Allah!

An invitation to Sicily

So when Leo received Jacob’s e-mail and his peculiar ideas, he decided to invite him to Sicily to continue the Dialogue according to the best Greek Tradition. Old Jacob accepted the invitation to debate the big Questions of our time with his younger friend Leo. After all he said Sicily was a Greek Island and it was there that the physicist Archimedes ran naked in the streets to tell the world that he broke the rigid mathematical constraints of the like of the mathematician Pythagoras of Samos. Even Pythagoras found Sicily’s air good for stimulating thinking. Jacob said that the battle of ideas had started in earnest right there in Sicily between the followers of these two great protagonists with the Brain and the Mind as their only weapons.

On the telephone Jacob, talking with Leo explained: “ ”Pythagoras belonged to the early Greek philosophers like Thales, Anaximander and others followed by Plato, who thought that we are born with our knowledge of the world, and that during our life we go through a process of rediscovering it. We have to look into ourselves to find out the secret of existence. The Pythagorean’s school that followed viewed the Universe as resting squarely on the belief that Natural Numbers, Numbers and combinations of numbers are unalterable and therefore they can explain objective knowledge. Archimedes, like Pythagoras was a mathematicians who turned later on to physics (so did Einstein) But unlike him Archimedes turned away from the stars and concentrated on the Earth. He was a bit like me Leo, he was trying to discover the secrets of our existence starting from the empirical knowledge. Of course accumulated knowledge through experimentation and innate knowledge are two very different philosophical positions in the process of discovering the secrets of existence. Hence between the followers of Pythagoras and Archimedes started what I call the battle of the Brain which is born as part of our being and the Mind which we as individuals create for ourselves.” Then Jacob concluded his phone call saying: “Knowing that you are fascinated by numbers and that I believe only in experimentation, with that as a background, we will have fun in Sicily!” Leo laughed and he replied: “I hope you will not succeed to break my rigid mathematical logic otherwise, like Archimedes, you will have to run naked to tell your truth to the inhabitants of Pozzallo where Gerd and I enjoy the sea and the warmth of the Mediterranean.!”

Plans for the reunion of the two Shibani

A few days later Leo received a long e-mail from Jacob in which he was trying to explain the role of Brain and Mind in controlling the religious thought of men. Evidently his interpretation was based on his vast knowledge of anthropology. After reading the monumental effort of Jacob to explain his ideas , Leo thought that he had understood only the basic concept: his computer ( brain ) was mathematically inclined to thank the God of Probability Ψ for having saved him from the desert, but his software (mind) was still lagging behind with his religious inclinations, that subconsciously were affecting his judgment, and therefore he had also thanked Allah, just in case He cared for his welfare and in case He controlled the future.

Clearly Jacob was preoccupied with what happened with Man after the creation. Although Leo shared in part his feelings of wonder and awe of existence, he was mostly possessed with how this existence came about in the first place. So to link his reflections to Jacob’s, he asked him if he would like to receive his essay on the sudden emergence of the Universe in what is now currently called the Big Bang. Jacob responded by saying that Leo was going to confront him with ideas based on science of which he was ignorant. Jacob had caused Leo to think about the past and about what caused the chain of human events and he plunged into deep reflections that evoked back in his mind many thoughts that often surfaced when he was contemplating nature around him, be it in the form of humans, animals or plants. One such example was the palm tree in his garden near Pozzallo in Sicily. Jacob’s curiosity was roused at the idea of a trip to Sicily. He told Leo that yes he would come but first he wanted him to email a simplified summary of his account of the Creation because in his modesty he insisted that his understanding of mathematics and geometry was very limited. So Leo e-mailed him the following simplified version to wet his appetite hoping to explain it fully with diagrams at a later stage.

Chapter 3

God and the Big Bang

Like everybody else these days I believe that the Universe began with a Big Bang, the huge explosion that started time and matter 15 billion years ago. But what was there before the Big Bang? Before everything was created there existed, in my opinion, only the Substance of God that was infinite. The Substance for me is made up of an infinite number of logons, ( this name derives from the word Logos, the Divine Mind of the Gospel of St. John ), and the Universe must have started from one logon, an infinitesimal, imaginary particle of zero mass and zero dimensions but possessing potential energy. The logons are the smaller parts of the “Being” and in a state of rest they fill up the whole space as a continuous substance made of particles of zero dimensions. Think of a gas or a crystal. Between the molecules of the gas or the atoms of a crystal there must be something filling the empty space, this is the substance made of logons. They are impossible to detect when at rest because they have no mass and no size ( therefore they have no power because they have no energy ) but when excited they vibrate like small pendulums or springs and start measuring time, while developing kinetic energy and mass. (Kinetic energy is the energy that is generated by movement so, as these logons move and vibrate they acquire more and more energy.) They are difficult to detect even in the excited state because they get entangled as waves with the particles that move around in the Universe. As the first particles that God created were the photons of light, it is quite possible that He utilized the logons to create the light and that a logon could be equivalent to an inactive photon, the quantum of light as explained by this formula: Logon = Potential Photon [logons are photons asleep]

Probability

The infinite space that existed before the Universe is filled by the logons, forming the substance of God, and is also the Probability field, because in it, and only in it, any possible events can happen as God is omnipotent. The Probability is considered a real force of the Infinity equivalent to a Potential Energy, because every logon of the infinite space is the center of the space, distant an infinite length in every direction from the space`s limits (like the center of the sphere is the point equidistant from the surface of the sphere). Therefore, when at rest, it possesses an inertia,[from the word inert] and conserves its position in space as each logon is the center of the space. When excited the logons acquire an infinitesimal mass [ because the kinetic energy generated is converted to mass ] that creates the field of forces of the substance. Each logon at rest has probability 1, as the probability field around it is very dense and time has stopped, therefore anything that is possible and that could happen, will happen in it.

Spinoza and Einstein

“Substance for Spinoza is everything that to exist does not need anything other than itself. It is clear to him that essentially this includes all the ”Being”, that is all that exists. ( Pantheism of Spinoza ). The substance is there, is unique, and is infinite, because nothing can limit it and thus it can occupy the entire space available, which is infinite. So there is a single substance for Spinoza: God [i.e. the infinite space]. If there exists only what to exist needs only itself, then, of course, there is only God. Spinoza gives explanations based on geometric-mathematical theorems to his thesis, but he does not explain in detail the nature of the substance in the physical sense. Among other things he does not distinguish between the two possible natures of the substance: the potential ( Logos ) and the kinetic ( Universe ). (Logos is the rational divine intelligence, which today is sometimes referred to in scientific discourse, Kinetic energy is the energy of motion, a concept which is used widely in physics to solve problems involving changes in motion). Spinoza crosses however the insurmountable obstacle that was presented to Descartes of how to reconcile the issue of the contact between “res cogitans” and “res extensa”, [ i.e. between thinking matter and extended matter ] since that thing that has nothing in common with something else, cannot be its cause. The “creatio ex nihilo” , i.e. the creation from nothing postulated by Maimonides and the Fathers of the Church for the Universe at the hands of a God “ Pure Spirit “, was difficult to explain. Spinoza went around the obstacle by admitting the existence of a single substance that has always existed and that includes the Universe. Spinoza however does not explain the genesis of the Universe and its relationship with the rest of the infinite substance of God.

For Einstein substance is defined more specifically in physical terms as the “ Ether”, which is not that material ether of the mechanical theory of electromagnetism of Leowell-Lorentz, but it is much more generally thought as that thing, physically real, that besides the measurable matter consisting of elementary electrically charged particles, plays a casual role in physics. Instead of ether, we can talk as well of “physical space”. In his speech on the properties of Ether in 1924 Einstein concludes: “….in theoretical physics we could not do without ether, that is the continuous possessing physical properties: the general relativity…..excludes an immediate interaction at a distance; every theory of action by proximity requires continuous fields, and hence the existence of an “ether”. “

With this we see that the Ether of Einstein, while containing in itself all the properties of the substance of Spinoza, as an infinite in which are verified all the phenomena of existence, assumes a physical value which is necessary to explain the electromagnetic phenomena and those of the theory of relativity.

The difference between the Ether of Einstein and the Substance made of Logons, is only a small detail: ether has a continuous structure, the logons have a granular structure. The ether does not explain the quantum behaviour of Energy: the logons in my view have a better chance to explain the phenomena of quantum mechanics.

The cone of certainty

The cone of certainty is that geometric figure that defines the limits of the probability field within which an event can happen. Outside the cone of certainty an event cannot happen. For the event “creation of the Universe” its cone of certainty is the cone of light that limits all that exists within the Universe. It starts from point O,( the red dot on the figure below showing the space-time diagram of Minkowski ) the origin of the Universe and extends in the direction of time, with an angle of 45 degrees with it, as light covers in one year the distance of one light year and the velocity of light according to Einstein is the limit of all the velocities of all the moving bodies. It forms the geometric figure of a cone, since light travels in all directions of space starting from point O, keeping a 45 degree-angle with the arrow of time. Outside the cone of light and surrounding it, there is the inverted cone of darkness, as light cannot travel in it and nothing moves in it.

Below the cone of light of the future, there is the plane of the present, the plane of action of God [ the square in the picture ], and below it there is the cone of the past, containing all the past events that have contributed to the event “ Creation of the Universe”.

Logos, the two natures of God

The Gospel of St. John is the only one to give a theoretical explanation of God and his relationship with the Creation. The Gospel begins with these beautiful words:

In the beginning was the Word ( Logos in Greek ) and the Word was with God and the Word was God. It was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were created, without him nothing was created of everything that has been created. In it was the life and that life became the light for men.

By analyzing in detail the first part of this passage of the Gospel it can be noted that St. John clearly distinguishes between the Word and God, saying: and the Word was with God and the Word was God .It was with God in the beginning.

The two essences that come together in a single essence: God, are specified. One spiritual essence, the Logos, and the other physical, the substance of God, not specified but clearly understood by us from the context.

We have seen how difficult it was for Descartes and Spinoza to reconcile the “creatio ex nihilo” of Maimonides from a Pure Spirit God, because that thing that has nothing in common with another thing, may not be its cause. If one accepts that God has two natures, a physical one, Substance, and a spiritual one, Logos, the Creation becomes easier to explain.

The creation

If we call all the totality of the logons of the potential probability space existing before the Creation: Substance, it is clear that the Universe must have originated from a point of the Substance without physical dimensions but with only potential energy and an essential quality: Existence. At the beginning of the kinetic Universe therefore there is a logon, which is also at the beginning of the cone of certainty of the event: Universe. In this point takes place the transition between logons (particles of the Substance) and kinetic energy-mass. Most likely there was the concentration of an infinite number of kinetically activated logons, in the cone of the past of the Universe, converging into a single point of infinite energy: a singularity or to be more specific a “black hole”. As we know the gravity is so high and the particles travel so fast inside the black hole that the time stops. [ As the distance between particles becomes eventually zero ] The contact occurred therefore at a point outside of time, on the plane belonging to the dimensions and the physical substance of an intangible and timeless God, with an act of His will, the Logos. Like the human mind controls the actions of the human body, the Logos must control the events and the movements of the Substance. In that point the potential energy was immense and the field of probability had infinite density therefore there was nothing impossible, because the cones of certainty of all events were all wrapped up together in one point. The laws of probability favoured the creation of mass from energy and the events that created the various particles, all sort of matter, the stars and the galaxies.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

The Substance is made of logons and to it we cannot assign any attributes except certainty and any physical quality except infinite potential energy, but as events evolve away from the point of Creation and from the plane of Creation, the plane on which God acts, in the cone of certainty of the kinetic Universe that develops afterwards, other events occur, difficult to predict and independent from the will of God. For this reason when the Logos conceived and created the light saying:

Let light be; and there was light.

Why does the Bible add the next sentence? Didn’t God know what he was going to create? Here is the next sentence:

And God saw the light, that was good.

God could not predict exactly how the final result would be, in fact only after having created the light, God saw that the light was good. Before the act of creation He could not know the details. As explained before God acts only at the origin of the cone of certainty of the events, and the rest of the evolution of the events takes place in the kinetic Universe in accordance with the laws of probability. Every act of creation is followed by the observation: and God saw that it was good, because between the idea of the Logos and the realization of His wish, there was naturally the effect of the probability that shaped the final result. Thus the Bible reveals that any act of creation is accomplished through the work of the probability and its laws.

Let’s analyze the second part of the sentence of the Gospel of St. John:

Through Him all things were created, without Him nothing was created that has been created. In Him was the life and that life became the light of men.

Clearly it is mentioned here that maybe through the will of the Logos and through its substance happened the creation of all things that were created, without any exclusion. I say maybe, because the creation from the substance of God could have happened spontaneously, without the will of the Logos, because of a non-zero probability that the event creation could occur.

The Bible however confirms that an act of the Divine Will is causing the creation of all the things mentioned in the Genesis. But the Evolutionists should be reassured: because the probability, which is a characteristic of the Substance, when it becomes kinetic, will have said the final word on each process of creation. “Res cogitans” [ thinking matter ] must have contributed and cooperated with” res extensa” [ extended matter ], but this latter must have directed the events where they were supposed to go.

In the portion of the Gospel that we just quoted, besides the confirmation that the creation is the work of God, through its Logos, there is also the confirmation that everything was created from the Substance of God and His Logos. This is the revelation that supports the Jewish and Christian belief that the Spirit of man, that is his Soul, derives from God. The Logos lightens the mind of man and is its light. We are an infinitesimal part of the Substance of God and we think with the same mechanism of the Divine Thought. In fact in the book of Genesis it is written that man was created in the image of God: be zelem Elohim, not to reveal to us how the human being functions, but to reveal how God functions: Substance and Spirit, like in man.

The engine of the Universe

From the equations of the quantum theory we know that all the matter that exists in the kinetic Universe is formed by particles that are in constant motion, in the form of waves that vibrate between maximum and minimum values with some kind of sinusoidal movement. [ Sinusoidal is the movement of a wave, a continuous cyclical movement starting from zero and going up to a maximum positive value, then returning to zero and going down to a minimum negative value to then complete the cycle by returning to zero ] Even the empty space between galaxies is full of waves of energy and matter and is mostly full of light. For every particle of matter, there is an antiparticle of equal mass but opposite electrical charge. The photon does not have an anti-photon, for this reason we suppose that the logon will have also no anti-logon, but there is a good reason for this. The logon is a particle of the Substance, and there is no need for an anti-substance, because only what exists can exist. (See the definition of Substance of Spinoza)

Particles with equal mass and equal waves but opposite electrical charges, when they collide can annihilate each other (matter and antimatter) to form energy and the apparent equilibrium of the so called “empty space”. In fact when excited or with the help of very high energies they can come back to life and disentangle. Fortunately there is more matter than antimatter in the kinetic Universe otherwise the Universe would be annihilated!

What generates the perpetual movement of matter? Let us take the cone of light as it is now in this precise instant and the circle of the cone corresponding to the distance of 15 billion years from the beginning of the Universe. Everything that exists now is found on this plane and is enclosed in this circle. The Bible calls this circle “raqi`a”, and normally this word is translated Heaven or Firmament. Within a short instant the Universe will have expanded of an infinitesimal length forwards and the circle will have expanded laterally inside the cone of darkness that surrounds it. Then the invasion of the activated logons of the expanding Universe inside the realm of the potential logons, will take place at the expense of energy, because the activated logons will have to overcome the inertia of the infinite probabilistic space that opposes itself to the invasion and waves will be created that will carry the movement forward. Like a breeze that creates waves on the surface of a lake. Every moving particle will continue its movement on top of the waves while bouncing back and forth between potential and activated logons that also vibrate inside their grid consisting of a tetrahedral structure. The frequency of the vibration of the particle will depend on the energy of the particle, and its speed will depend on its mass. The photons will continue smoothly their movement on top of the waves of the logons without any variation in their speed, which is the speed of light. This movement and the vibrations of the particles between future and past logons will go on forever as long as there is an expanding or a contracting Universe. Is this what explains the existence of matter and antimatter, that is the bouncing back and forth between past and future? Maybe. This is the way I see it: once the “Big Bang” has started, giving the initial impulse, what has been created will bounce back and forth between future and past. The Universe is characterized by a continuous motion and change governed by the Probability inside the Divine Substance. It is a bubble of kinetic energy and of time that develops within the” potential being” that is God, that exists outside of time. When Moses asked God: who are you? God rightfully answered: I am He who is! Ehyeh asher Ehyeh. (Exod: 3, 14)

And who is man? Is: “afar min ha adama’ ” that is dust from the earth, balanced between past and future like everything that exists. He is born from a point of the substance at a given instant and returns back to the substance an instant later.

Paradoxes and axioms

Let’s make a list of the main paradoxes and axioms that we have introduced with the theory explained so far:

1- The space is not empty but is full of logons, particles of

the “Being” (or Existence) which operate in the field of

probability. They are described in the Book of Genesis as

the totality of the waters that exist above the firmament: “ha mayim asher me ‘al ha raki ’a ”. That is: the “waters”

that exist above the envelope of the cone of light.

2- Because what exists is only the Substance, i.e. God, man is part of God and his mind operates within the field of influence of the Logos. This explains why the Scriptures that are written by prophets inspired by the Logos, are not in contrast with the tenets of theoretical physics, actually they help understanding physics, if well interpreted. On this subject the Bible says: “If there be among you a prophet, I, the Lord, will make myself known unto him in a vision, in a dream will I speak to him” ( Num: 12, 6 ). 3- God is at the start of the events but is not responsible for their development or for how they end up, since this is the

work of probability. God after creating the light was surprised to see how good it was! 4- Probability controls the development of the” kinetic being” independently from the will of God. We can quote the

words of the Biblical poet:” The heavens are the Lord’s, but the earth He hath given to the sons of man” (Ps: 115,

16). 5- God himself is subject to the laws of probability: He could

not be, instead He is. Even God, like all of us made at his

image and similarity, is condemned to being, to have an

existence. 6- The vibrations of the waves of energy-matter can be

explained by the movement of the cone of certainty of the

kinetic Universe within the Substance consisting of logons. 7- Does God exist? Maimonides talking about God quotes

the Ecclesiastes: 5, 2 where it is written: Because God is in the sky and you are on earth, therefore may your words be few (when you talk about Him). We don’t know, but we can quote the ancient Greek philosophers: what exists is, what does not exist is not. On this basis there is no doubt that the “Being” exists, it is only a matter of definition of what we mean by “Being”.

Final questions

If we define God as the “Being” or better as the place where all that can be (in probabilistic terms) is, and everything that cannot exist is not, we see that the existence of God is given for sure. Not only does He exist, but He includes within Himself all the existent. We are therefore part of God: the Koran says:” inna l’Illah ua inna ilaihi rajiouna”.( Sura: Baqara, v. 155) That is: we belong to God and to Him we shall return. The same concept, a bit more sophisticated in terms of theological thinking, is also written in the Ecclesiastes: 12, 7 that says: “the body returns to dust and the soul to God that has given it”. Here the two natures of God are respected and confirmed, and each one of them will get its share of man. So God exists, but there are a lot of questions that we would like to ask:

1- How does God think? We have seen that the infinite potential space containing the logons is a place where nothing moves and the time has stopped: it would therefore be difficult to develop in such a place a logical thought process that would take place at infinite velocity. Like Maimonides says: we don’t expect even God to do what is impossible. However the space is alive with energy that is being created spontaneously and that disappears spontaneously creating big and small bubbles of times here and there. These bubbles of time are the neurons of God, that allow Him to develop a thought process . God is therefore the Logos, the Thought, the Conscience of the Existence and yes God can think! But we don’t know how. We can quote the Bible on the subject as the prophet says: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways” (Isa: 55, 8-9). 2- Did God create the Universe with an act of His will? At this question we can only answer: maybe, we hope so! Because that means that the prophets have not been lying, because that means that the “Wailing Wall” has a meaning, that St. Peter in Rome and Notre Dame in Paris have a meaning and they are not an empty symbol of somebody’s megalomania! The best answer to this questions is given by the Bedouins of the desert: “sunnat Allah fy Khalqyhi”, that means that the orthodoxy of God is in His Creation. With or without His will, the Universe is created from His Substance, so, not only God creates but he must also be proud of his Creatures. Generally things start in an good way and go in the right direction, following the will of God, except that the law of probability regulates the final results and it can happen that events are going the wrong way. Maimonides says: we can make God accountable only for what is possible. Not even God can make what is impossible. 3- Is it justified the effort to demonstrate that the theory of creation, like it is written in the Bible, does not contain anything impossible or contrary to science? The times are ripe to add something to the effort of the great Maestro Maimonides, who was saying: “ Only a demonstration proven from reality could make you abandon the theory of the creation “ex nihilo”: but this proof does not exist in Nature”. This proof does exist now: the theory of relativity, the theory of quantum mechanics, the discovery of a background microwave radiation and the theory of the Big Bang. All these are more than theories, are now facts. All the facts seem to work well to explain what happened. Not ex nihilo was created the Universe, but ex substantia! 4- Is it justified the effort of man to understand what happened? I will answer with a sentence quoted from the Talmud by E. Abecassis in her great book Kumran: “Whoever has never thought about these four things: what is above, what is below, what existed before the world, what will there be after? It would be better if that person had not been born”. (Talmud of Babilonia, Hagigah, 11.b)

Einstein used to say: God is subtle but not malicious and the Bible says: “ It is the glory of God to conceal a thing.”(Prov: 25,2) In conclusion we can say that God hides the truth to men not because he does not want that they should know, but because they should have fun discovering it. Ignorance is the greatest gift that God has given us.

Chapter 4

Jacob’s Commentaries on Leo’s Theory Upon receiving Leo’s essay Jacob e-mailed Leo back in response: Dear Leo, I admire your science interpretation. But I have difficulty to relate it to God. My understanding is that God is a human invention. Man created God in his image and not the other way round. We have the imagination, not the tools to determine who created the world. May be it was created by necessity, or if you like by chance that came about within the law of Probability. You say that concentrated mass and energy can spawn new worlds. Theoretically this is possible. Maybe another world or worlds are being created now and at all times in the same way and under the same circumstances that have created our world. Maybe the worlds have a limited life span and sooner or later they contract and disappear in Black Holes. The same, I believe applies to every aspect or component of Nature as we know it. And this applies to animals, plants, every living cell and may be even to the inanimate. The wise Ecclesiastes depicts that metaphorically. “All streams flow into the sea, Yet the sea is never full; To the place which they flow, The streams flow back again.” I accept that the source of all is the substance of God or the Logons. But the enigma persists. Who created the Logos and the Logons? My father strongly advised me: Son, Do not attempt to investigate beginnings and ends because it is futile. It is great to find out HOW the world was created but no use trying to find out WHO created it and WHY. Moreover once we assume we can understand who and why we immediately fall into a contradiction that Maimonides warned us against. We can only think as human beings and even that within the limitations of what exist. God is a convenient hook to hang pending problems on. But God is not a Human. He presumably thinks differently and with different tools under his service. To start with we know of three dimensions. We may perceive or just impose on them a fourth or fifth that clearly are derivatives from the three. But God may know of tens of dimensions. Please don’t ask me to describe these dimensions, because my human limitations and my senses cannot conceptualize that. Or as you would say in your beautiful language, to me: Nihil in intellectu quod non fuerit in sensu. And there is something else that I have to point out. My understanding of science is very poor and I don’t want to presume otherwise. My queries are of philosophical nature. The difference between philosophy and science is that the first is open to everybody and does not need any prerequisite prior disciplined training. Humans are born with the capacity to imagine, reflect and think. Notwithstanding all the sophisticated theories and accumulated knowledge, they still have to use the same primitive tools of the Brain and the Mind. The problem with scientists is that out of necessity they have to reduce past knowledge into categories and formulae. The danger is that they start to think in categories and formulae and tend to forget that these are results of past conclusions and assumptions. They tend to become hostage to these formulae and neglect the underlying reality. This hampers and obstructs new thinking and insight. Einstein understood this well and called them past prejudices. That is why he reverted to what he called thought experiments, Gedanken experiment. He moved his thinking from mathematics to physics and reflected using a normal unsophisticated process to refresh his new thoughts. He triumphed. That is why, dear Leo, follow his footsteps. In this way at least my primitive, call it primary, responses can relate to your creative and innovative theories. And now back to our story. You say:“When Logons are excited they vibrate like small pendulums or springs and start measuring time.” Time is a conventional measure on an imaginary sundial or a clock. Our convention is the same whether here or on the Moon or Mars. You have to stick to the same measure because it is an accepted arbitrary measure. You can say that one minute or the period between two events on Earth is equivalent say to ten on another planet. But we are on Earth and we have decided on this measure. It is a virtual measure invented and agreed by humans to ease communications between them. It does not represent a reality the way that stone or any physical entity does. So you can safely just say that they (the logons) vibrate and produce energy. Energy is what propels them forward not time. Time helps us to measure the duration of the vibration. It is not a factor or a component of this process. In this I have Newton to back me. I know he is not the last word but neither is Einstein. In this way we cease to speculate whether the world was created in 6 days or 15 billion years. Indeed I find it disingenuous on part of modern arrogant scientists first to accuse all adherents of religions that they read the Bible literally and then follow that by ridiculing them. Genesis was told and related father to son without sophistication. The objective was to illustrate the story of creation in stages. However the problem of temporal time troubled philosophers from Galileo, Descartes and others. Leibnitz tried to clarify the issue through differentiating between velocity and speed. I wonder whether this is a point which you might be willing to consider. You say:“The Probability is considered a real force of the Infinity equivalent to a Potential Energy.” This is fine as long as we agree that Probability is or means potential energy or is the result of the impact of energy. Our problem here is if Probability is a haphazard event and not the result of an orderly predictable sequence of events, then it becomes an enigma, a puzzle, once we accept that we imply denial of causation which is the pillar of our innate logical thinking ingrained in the nature of our brains. You say: “The Universe at the hands of a God “Pure Spirit “, was difficult to explain. Spinoza went around the obstacle by admitting the existence of a single substance that has always existed and that includes the Universe. Spinoza however does not explain the genesis of the Universe and its relationship with the rest of the infinite substance of God.” Spinoza was a genius but he was a system builder. And like other system-building philosophers he became hostage to the system he had created. And he was still constraint by another builder, Descartes and his duality of mind and matter. Leibniz, a travelling commentator, who met Spinoza in long sessions, never admitted his debt to him. But in fairness he advanced the story further by talking about Monads. However the whole thing was vague to him too and that is why your idea of one single well defined Logon expanding is so much more credible and logical than Leibniz’ vague Monad. You say:“The difference between the Ether of Einstein and the Substance made of Logons, is only a small detail: ether has a continuous structure, the logons have a granular structure” Here Leo, you solve a big problem elegantly while bringing into it a very profound implied statement which completely closes the gap between the nature of wave and that of particle and you give a convincing solution to the question that troubled Louis de Broglie in 1925. Logons in themselves in their state of rest are linked and contiguous and create an uninterrupted medium made of particles. But unlike Einstein’s Ether, the logons are not always inert. Moreover particles by definition leave gaps or void between them to be filled and the logons don’t leave any void. Einstein’s Ether is merely an undefined notion that you have transformed into a solid interlinked and interlocked in clusters of logons. I believe that Einstein himself was not satisfied with his Ether. With you there is no place for zigzagging. Logons according to you are both waves and granules. They are waves ready for others to ride them when they are asleep and active participant and competing when roused. When at rest they are tightly linked to each other constituting a sheet of matter. When active they loosen the links between each other and become a jelly of granules as indeed they are. One such logon escapes and can expand and create a whole world as it gathers energy and mass which continues to expand until it encounters another force which forces it to contract and that is how this world ends to become a Black Hole. So don’t worry Leo you may live in Sicily and I live in London. In the future we shall meet in the Black Hole, your Ψ’s final Walhalla!!! You say about the engine of the universe: “From the equations of the quantum theory we know that all the matter that exists in the kinetic Universe is formed by particles that are in constant motion, in the form of waves that vibrate between maximum and minimum values with some kind of sinusoidal movement. Even the empty space between galaxies is full of waves of energy and matter and is mostly full of light. For every particle of matter, there is an antiparticle of equal mass but opposite electrical charge. The photon does not have an anti-photon, for this reason we suppose that the logon will likewise have no anti-logon, but there is a good reason for this. The logon is a particle of the Substance, and there is no need for an anti-substance, because only what exists can exist. (See the definition of Substance of Spinoza)” So far so good. But then you departed from your clear incisive scientific analysis and moved to showing that the Bible reflect this analysis. Much as I marvel and delight in aligning the Book of Genesis with the recent scientific discoveries I worry that such move might easily expose your sound scientific argumentation to the slippery slide of mixing religion with science. Such mixture is explosive and can lead to blocking rational thinking. But I enjoy this mixture because it brings the Bible I love into life. Therefore I go along with you. You say: “Every act of creation is followed by the observation: and God saw that it was good, because between the idea of the Logos and the realization of His wish, there was naturally the effect of the probability that shaped the final result. Thus the Bible reveals that any act of creation is accomplished through the work of the probability and its laws” Now I can see clearly why the concept of Probability is so relevant to understand Creation. But, like you said, the concept can be even more powerful and persuasive if we abandon the idea that there was nothing before the Creation. In fact the Bible itself does not say this. It says: God created the heavens and the earth. It does not state “ex-nihilo”. He decided to create a world and according to your interpretation released the Logons, lost control on them and let Probability lead. You can of course add that God set the rules of behavior of the development of the logon into our world. I call these rules the Laws of Nature. The Bible refer to them as ‘hukim. However your idea of the Logos sits comfortably with the Bible and the interpretation of the link or lack of it between God and Man as conceived by the mystics of Safed in northern Israel. The story goes like this: God’s world is pure and set apart. Man’s world is polluted and impure. They are completely separated and no way can one side encroach on the other. God occupied all His world so when He created our world He had to take a slice of His world and put it aside to be allocated for that purpose. Once He did this it was out of His control. That is as far as the Safed mystic story goes. But one of them, I believe called Luria, added that by mistake a piece of God’s holy substance was left behind, escaped and stayed behind into the world. Once the separation doors closed there was no way it could be retrieved. It is written: God closed the doors of the Garden of Eden, (call it Heaven) and put guards to ensure its complete separation from Adam’s world. The piece that escaped we call it the Shekhina, the spirit of God that was left behind. It figured in the Hagada of Passover as the Spirit that is standing for us, the people of Israel, through the generations. That every time the evil tries to destroy and annihilate us, the Spirit saves us. Because this Shekhina feels our sufferings because unlike God she resides amongst us here in our world. Hence are explained the most solemn three-lines-passage in the Hagada when everybody stands and recite with reverence and awe. This idea sheds light, if you wish, on the logons being beyond the control of God. The Bible is consistent here. That was why when God heard and saw the plight of His people, Israel in Egypt, He was helpless to intervene directly. He needed human hands from our world. That is why He inspired Moses and his brother Jacob to act. He needed to move pawns within our world to carry out His wishes. You can say that He used his Logos for that purpose. That might have been the origin for the miracles that needed to be performed through inspired prophets and later on by the Christian Saints and not directly by God simply because He cannot act directly in our world. He can wish an event to happen, but it is beyond His direct control. Leo upon receiving these comments and interpretation of his essay, quickly wrote back to Jacob: Jacob, Everything you write is relevant since it represents a dialogue between an anthropologist, you, and a geologist like me. Remember I am a geologist, not a physicist. So I accept it without discussion. But you must remember that what I say is only my interpretation and understanding of what Great Scientists like Einstein, Hawking and last but not least Richard Dawkins have said. I have to respect their opinions. But please, don’t ask too many questions in depth or my beautiful theory will collapse! You have understood perfectly, even better than me, the concept and peculiarities of the logons and the origin of the Universe from the first logon with a Big Bang. But I can see that you have some problems with a few basic concepts. You wrote: “In this way we cease to speculate whether the world was created in 6 days or 15 billion years.” 1 — This is the first problem of those that interpret literally the words of the Bible, but of course you know that the Bible cannot be interpreted literally but only metaphorically. But I offer another interpretation and the solution is easy. We can base our interpretation on Einstein and Relativity to reconcile this conflict of times. Let us say that the 6 days of Creation in the Bible correspond to 15 billion years of our time. Relativity foresees that time lengthens in a black hole to become infinite, so let’s suppose that the first day lasted 10 billion years of our time due to the proximity of the black hole with its immense mass and gravity before the light was allowed to escape. Let’s make the second day 3.4 billion years (or 1/3 of the first day) when the Good Lord finished creating the cone of light and separated the galaxies and the baby Earth from His Substance, at tremendous speed, close to the speed of light, which causes the time to stretch. Then let’s make the third day 1.1 billion years (1/3 of the second day) giving time to God to finish creating the Earth and start vegetable life on the planet on the third day. This would bring us to 14.5 billion years and give the Earth its correct age of 4.5 billion years, as it is precisely calculated today by Geologists. And this brings us to the Cambrian Era when animal life started to develop slowly in the seas. If we make the 4th day 1/3 of the 3rd we would come into the Palaeozoic and the Jurassic, 370 million years ago, when animal life started developing on the planet and finally, dividing the 4th day by 3 that would give us 120 million years for the fifth day when most animal and plant life was developed. The sixth day then would be 10 million years long, into the Miocene, giving enough time to the primates to be developed and eventually develop Australopithecus and then Homo Erectus and at the end the first Homo sapiens: Adam. The Universe’s clock was then beginning to move faster and at the end, after the birth of Adam it moved more or less at the same speed as now. This is the new time scale adjusted for the time stretching due to Relativity. You have to remember, however, that the time is relative to an observer, in this case God, observing creation from point zero. And for God time does not make any sense, because He is immortal. Thanks to Einstein we saved the reputation of the Prophets who wrote the Bible. Where is the problem? You also said: “The enigma still persists. Who created the Logons?” 2 — With this question you fall into the religious circular trap of causation that says that if something exists, it must be created by somebody, i.e. by God. And who created God? You fall into the logical trap of believing that the Nothing is a reality, that the Nothing exists. All that exists must be created from nothing, from the “ex nihilo“ of Maimonides and Aquinas. What if I reply to you: Only what can be measured exists and cannot be reduced to nothing. The Being is, the non-Being is not. Only what exists is, the Nothing does not exist, so it doesn’t matter. The Bible and Spinoza agree on this issue. The Bible tells us that God said to Moses: I am He who is! (I am the Existence!) Spinoza said that only the Substance of God exists. It doesn’t have to be created, it simply is. Finished! If there was a world of the non-Being, parallel to the one of the Being, what probability could we assign to it? The Being has probability ranging between 0 and 1, the infinite series of positive events, starting from no event to full successful events, from failure to happen to certainty of happening. What kind of probability field would we assign to the non-Being? A negative probability starting from 0 and ending with -1. What would happen in such a realm? The opposite of certainty is uncertainty, the opposite of success would be lack of success. If such a realm exists, it must be what the religious people call “Hell”. May be, but if everything that happens in Hell must be the opposite of a certainty, how do you envisage the creation of something positive like God and the Substance made of Logons, from Hell? Only a non-God and a non-Substance could be created from Hell. Obviously what exists and has a meaning is only what we can see and experience by opening the window and looking at the sky, at the Universe and beyond the Universe to the infinite, the “En Sof ”. Leo is a Cabbalist? To this came back Jacob’s swift response: Dear Leo, Your mathematical solutions are admirable. But they fly above my unscientific head. However I thought till now that you are a Talmudist in your approach. Now I realize that you are a Cabbalist. Please don’t worry about it. Pythagoras was a mathematician and a scientist but when he was confronted with causality, reason and logic all around him he was transformed into a mystic seeking his answers by intuition inspired, as he must have imagined, by forces from beyond our world, in your language the Holy Spirit or the En Sof. That approach spawned the Pythagorean School which of course started in Sicily. How about you, Leo, starting another mystic movement in your farm, your “Masseria” in the same Sicily?. Leo was encouraged to see that slowly he was bringing Jacob round to his concept of the origins of the world. So he wrote back: Dear Jacob It can be a brilliant money spinning business which no doubt appeals to your financial wizardry. Shall we call it: L’Accademia dei Cabbalisti di Scicli. May be you can persuade Madonna, a well known Cabbalist, to be the High Priestess or at least the Guardian Patron. You can be the treasurer and being made of logons you could start to gather money instead of energy. And the Accademia will attract all the clever guys who will find at long last a cooler replacement for the Maharishi in hot India. Sorry to disappoint you: if you can give me Madonna and all the clever guys I don’t need money, you can take it all and buy more stocks and shares. I will provide them with plenty of wine and pizza, free of charge! Who needs money when he has glory? But joking apart, I am very pleased to see that you accept the connection between velocity, energy and mass. Half of Einstein’s famous formula E = m c square is (E)nergy and (m)ass). Now we need the speed of light (c) to give the time for E and m to react on each other. But you have a serious problem with the concept of Time since you wrote: It does not represent a reality the way that stone or any physical entity does. Let’s start with the Greek philosophers: time is the measure of movement, a measure of the velocity of movement of a body. You need a moving body and a clock. You also need a distance. If the body does not move and the distance is zero, there is no need for the concept of time. This is the case for the logons in the probabilistic space outside of the Universe. They are packed together and don’t move. There is no time there. Now let’s apply the Greek philosophers’ concept: A particle goes from A to B and with a clock I measure how many seconds it takes to move. Say one second if the distance is one meter. So the velocity is one meter per second and the second is the time, an arbitrary tic of the clock to which we all agree. We could have a slower clock or a faster clock but we on Earth decided that the second is 1/60th of 1 minute which is 1/60th of one hour which is 1/24th of the rotation of the Earth around itself. Martians may have their system based on the rotation of Mars, but we don’t care. So far so good. Now here comes Einstein and he said that the speed of light c is the maximum speed that a moving body may achieve in the Universe: mind this concept would also be valid for Martians. Let us suppose that the speed of our particle moving from A to B is measured with a one meter long rod and the ends of the rod coincide with A and B. The particle travels from the end of the rod A to the other end B in one second. So far so good. But we can measure it also with a beam of light, and we can suppose that we fasten to the two ends of our rod A and B two mirrors one meter away from each other. Einstein liked these thought experiments “gedanken experiments” because he was able to explain his theories to laymen like us. The beam of light starts from A and is reflected back by B. When it comes back at A our clock has counted some infinitesimal length of time, say 2/300.000.000 of light seconds, that corresponds to two metres at the velocity of light, so we know that the distance of A to B is 2/300.000.000 of a light second divided by 2. What happens if our one meter long rod moves progressively faster until reaching the speed of light? Because of Einstein, the distance of the two mirrors A and B placed at the extremity of the rod becomes progressively shorter until it becomes zero at the speed of light to preserve c as a constant, as the space shrinks. So it becomes difficult to measure this distance now because if we send a beam from A to B two things now happen for us, as we observe the experiment from our laboratory on Earth. First of all the beam cannot reach the mirror B because it cannot travel faster than the mirror A, which is traveling at the speed of light, otherwise its speed would be higher than the speed of light, and that is not possible because nothing could travel faster than c . Second, because of the shrinking of the length of the rod to zero the distance between A and B has vanished: so how much time it takes to measure this distance now, at the speed of light? It would be 0 distance divided by 0 time, and c will still be equal to itself, i.e. = 1 as 0/0 = 1. (See appendix for explanation) So the time has stopped and has vanished at the speed of light. What happens in a black hole? All the distances between particles are zero, so even our measuring rod would shrink from one meter to 0 . The effect is that time stops, because the distance has become zero between the infinite mirrors forming the mass of the black hole. What would our Greek philosophers say now, given the measurement of a distance zero in zero time? Probably they would agree with Einstein that in such event time has vanished, that time has stopped, that a second has become infinite. I hope this clarifies it. Time is just a way to measure movement from A to B. If that distance vanishes, time does not have any meaning: we say that time has stopped. It is better to leave it at that: Einstein said so, so it must be right! The Pope said that God exists, so it must be right! We are only trying to figure out: HOW, but not WHY. Have a good day Leo

Chapter 5 Nature versus Nurture Jacob then sent an e-mail to Leo to define where each of them stands vis-à-vis the big questions raised in their correspondence in readiness to their impending get together. Dear Leo, “Your essay deals with the creation and God’s involvement in bringing it about. May be now is a good time to pause and to define the approach or the starting point that each of us take to build on this interpretation. It is like declaring our interest before plunging into further business. This is important because I can see that we are travelling parallel. You, Leo, clearly believe in the Holy Spirit which inspires us and accompanies us in our life on Earth. It is your Catholic upbringing which you don’t seem to be able to shake off. We Jews at least those from the East like me don’t really believe in that except metaphorically. For example our devout old womenfolk would leave the doors of their houses slightly open on Saturday evenings to let Elijah come in to bless us. It never occurs to them that Elijah can come in whether the door is open or closed. But nobody really took these old women seriously. Luckily, guided by my father, at home we accepted Maimonides’ division of the world into what is above and what is below. So you see I have no problem here and I am left to think things out freely having accepted that there is no profit in searching the Beginning and the End of the world. So how do I view Judaism and religion?

God and Religion That aside however, the concept of God and the social phenomenon of religion are intertwined throughout the ages and therefore cannot be treated in isolation of each other. The biggest obstacle to understanding our relationship and attitude to the concept of God and religion in the Western Hemisphere is the confusion of who this God is. At least three divergent concepts of God exist side by side: the Jewish Adonai, the Christian Deus and the Muslim Allah. We refer to all of them as God and therefore we assume mistakenly that we are talking about the same thing or entity. Consequently, here lies the core of the confusion resulting in misunderstandings between the three Monotheistic Religions. Maimonides before embarking on writing his philosophical masterpiece he preceded that by writing a treatise on the use of words and concepts. He recognized that the use of different words underlies different concepts complete with their associated emotional charges and historical prejudices. To me Judaism is a tribal religion and kept that way over three millennia. That is its strength and endurance. I think because of that Judaism would survive as long as a Jewish group who believes in the Torah (first 5 chapters of the Bible) survives because there lies its dynamic adaptability to new situations. Once they destroy that it will be the end of Judaism that otherwise would endure while both Christianity and Islam disappear. Historically, the Hebrew Adonai is the commander in chief, the generous giver, the undemanding recluse yet pervasive at the same time, He is different from the Greco- Roman Deus, the loving head of a family, partly human partly celestial, the judge, that rewards his followers standing at the narrow gate of Heaven and admitting Christians only - preferably with Church tickets. And both are almost unrecognizable to the woeful, powerful and unbending Allah who asks the Muslims to surrender without any condition or argument to His will here on earth, yet presiding over an undisciplined army of angels, creating for Himself a rival, Satan, in the bargain. Struggling to understand His essence behind the above confusion and in order to discover an elusive common ground, philosophers of these religions tried over the ages to find a definition of God that would gloss over and transcend the human way of molding Him in their image. Alas they were thwarted and overwhelmed, first by circular thinking of the theologians and then by powerful vested interests of the clergy and in latter days by woolly moralists, in arriving at that elusive common ground. They are all deluding themselves hoping to create an inclusive God out of the exclusive three faiths. The battle for a common God therefore will be lost, if it has not been lost already, to those who, intentionally or innocently, are keeping their respective adherents apart. In meantime, we are facing the consequences of 9/11. And many of the devout and aged amongst us live in terrible fear of death. Although personally I accept death to be the last stage of life I think most of people seek continuation and immortality. And of course with the advancement of science a new quandary is facing many: how can we define and teach morality without religion, if religion is the cause of so much crime like the 9/11? Nietzsche tried and failed maybe because the death of God that he declared was not followed by a replacement. The moral imperatives of Kant only added to the confusion. Moral religious values needed to be replaced by more plausible values, easily understandable and therefore accepted by the masses. I believe that only state laws based on dynamic democracy can replace the tenets of religions for the various communities. But to do that and find alternative to religion we need first to try to break away from our indoctrinated concepts that are imbedded in our minds and psyche. This is a difficult task that can take a great effort, but we have to start from a firm common basis by using the method and the tools of logic and reason. Hopefully our path can be followed and understood by future generations of Muslims, Christians and Jews. The religions of the orient are more advanced than us: Buddhism, Taoism and Confucianism start also from the study of nature and slowly approach the problem of understanding the metaphysics of existence. That’s why there is no religious strife in the Far East on the same scale as ours in the West. From what I see, you Leo are starting on the right path by studying the science of the beginning of the Universe. What is my formula to understand at least, let alone solve this problem? Here it is. The Formula – The Development of Human Values Nature and nurture are circular in their interaction of continuous cause and effect. They are not mutually exclusive. And that applies even when it comes to explaining the dichotomy of our mind being both biological and social. One side of the dichotomy is about the development of the social persons, the collective individual. The other side is linked with the specific biological individual that embodies the individual mind. A helpful clue to understand the two functions of the same individual is to compare him with a computer housing hardware and software in the same box. We have however to caution ourselves against carrying the metaphor too far. Man is free to think and to innovate. A computer is programmed, it is a robot notwithstanding the attempts to create artificial intelligence. Such artificial intelligence can only be perceived and created if we believe that Humans are governed by the law of probability. If that is so then it becomes plausible to think that a computer can think intelligently. Here Leo you have a chance to apply your theory if I understood correctly. I am not sure and I think differently. Forgive me if I suggest to agree to differ if indeed we differ. Our problem arises when evaluating the development of society. How do we bring into the equation and stress the role of the individual who is the core of society? How do we measure the way in which millions of individuals are developing their values? The answer is we cannot, because we are dealing with a multitude of individual minds and not least because the development of the individual values is happening in every second of our lives. However, we can try to understand how such developments occur and how values evolve through a mental experiment, using our old friend thought experiment, gedanken experiment. How? Our lives are governed by values which motivate and underlie our behaviour. Let us for the purpose of this exercise, divide our values into three categories and we call them objective, subjective and super-subjective values. Let us give them the symbols: O, S and S’. O represents objective technological values e.g. farming, industrial processes, making our clothes, preparing our meals, cleaning our environment, computing, etc. S represents aesthetic values, appreciation of art, music, beauty, attitudes and relationships between individuals, etc. S’ represents moral values, religious beliefs, a view of the world and the definition of the nature of our existence. The first two sets of values react on each other very quickly in days or years. Reactions between the second and third sets take a long time sometimes hundreds of years. But while changes and inter-reactions between O and S on individuals take place continuously without interruption, changes in S’ happen in leaps or jumps e.g. changes in individuals’ views on religion or creeds or changes in moral and ethical thinking or attitudes. And what is more important is that S’ tends to lag behind. So while O and S remain in step and are harmonious to a degree both are always out of step and unsynchronized with S’. That is because while O and S are rooted in reason S’ is anchored in emotions. The result is lack of harmony between them which itself is rooted in the influence that society exerts on the individual. In order to effect a leap in S’ a group of individuals have to get together tacitly or intentionally to create a group within the wider society to give these individuals a protective umbrella vis-à-vis the bigger society of which it is part. These changes and leaps happen by way of attempting to create harmonious relationships between the three sets of values. However such harmony can never be attained because O develops so quickly that it will always leave the others to catch up, S strives to catch up with the progress of O creating new values or modifying old ones. These new values exert more and more pressure on S’ until the latter cracks or mutates. Meantime new pressures for change arise and so on, in a never ending process. It is the process of the strife to reach an ever-elusive harmony, which develops our values and attitudes. Hence the desired stable harmony is never attained. The process is caused by the reactions of our individual mind on our environment. To the individuals this environment includes other human beings in the society. To illustrate these processes we can represent them in the following succession of formulas showing actions and reactions: 1 – S tage One O S S’. At this theoretical stage there is a sort of coordination between the three sets of values, a sort of harmony. 2 – Process of change: O under the ever-inventive human mind is pushed and propelled to a new state O1. This O1 exerts influence on S to produce S1 which in its turn influences O1 and transforms it to O2 which in its turn again influences S1 to produce S2. This circular movement continues incessantly and relentlessly. 3 – S tage two: As the above continuous process goes on a new stage is reached such as O10 S10 which co-exist in near harmony. This development leaves S’ strained, at odds and out of sync with the others. It is then that a leap happens. A new religion or a moral concept emerges which would be more in tune with the others. A new harmony of O10 S10 and S’10 temporarily starts to exist only to be disturbed by the same ever-moving process. One might ask: is this some mumbo-jumbo theorizing? The answer is no. Its purpose is to illustrate in a plausible mental exercise how human values are transformed. The conclusion is far reaching. Clearly there is no system of values that can be said to be enduring. Once this is grasped and accepted, the relativity of moral imperatives, religious commandments and principles of good and evil become apparent and therefore can be legitimately challenged and subjected to discussion and reasoning. It is then that the absolute and divine quality attributed to these values become shaky and their relative nature is explored. In the last two centuries philosophers and their offshoots dipped into this relative view of society. I believe the most plausible and coherent was Emile Durkheim, a 19th century social anthropologist. My formula is influenced by his insight into the phenomenon of religion. He says: “Religion is Society Deified” To put it plainly it is that society comes to worship its own ideals and values. Durkheim summarizes in one phrase what religion is all about. He indirectly chips at the rigidity of S’ i.e. the religious and moral values in my formula. It gives it the dynamics it needs for a smooth catching up with the “O” and “S” that makes the other values that govern our social life. May be I am reading in it more than Durkheim intended but that is how knowledge expands and develops. It took a lot of courage and defiance by Martin Luther to nail his protestations on the doors of the Cathedral in Prague. It took a lot of sufferings by the gentle Jesus to defy the established Jewish priests. In both cases and in every such situation the roots of the revolt was brewing long before and it did not come about suddenly out of nothing.

Leo’s reply by e-mail to the Formula

Dear Jacob, I read and understood your very clear definition of what causes the changes in social trends and values and in religious beliefs. Now it is apparent to me that mankind is lagging, in its evolution, behind the scientific progress that has occurred in recent years. Most people believe still in the God of the Bible and of the Koran and they still interpret what is written in a literal way, like 1000 years ago, while the technology of their TV sets is now based on quantum mechanics and Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle. Part of the problem is that science has become so difficult to understand and its mathematics is so complicated for the majority of people. Although I wrote my theory of Probability without any difficult mathematics, it may take some time before it is accepted by the masses and I become the harbinger of a new religion based on the Law of Menga! But I am patient. I used to be the child asking the funny questions to the priest during the hour of religion in school: “If God has created everything, did God create Himself? “Or I would ask: “Is God free to commit suicide if He wants?” Clearly my prophetic qualities were already apparent at an early age! Of course I am joking! But to be serious with you, my S’ heritage has not changed much from the times of Jesus and Moses. I still believe that by interpreting the Scriptures correctly a person could convince himself that they are inspired by God who gave us the “revelation”. The difficulty consists in visualizing the modern concept of God as an affectionate and loving father, rather than as a modern mathematical function. I will develop further my ideas and expand the geometry and algebra of my thought a bit better when you come to Sicily. I could see when I read your email that we need to meet and that we need a lot of time and a lot of wine for our encounter.

Chapter 6

The Two Shibanis Oldies Meet At long last Jacob and his family booked their flight to Sicily. The night before their arrival Leo was thinking: “Here I am, an Italian married to a Norwegian. Both countries are geographically far away in distance, history and culture from Iraq where Jacob was born. We are so different. We met through our children who were at school in Wimbledon. Sandra, his wife, is English and it was natural that she would find much in common with Gerd and me. We are all Europeans. But when Jacob and I met the first time we readily took to each other almost by magic despite the disparity in our background. Our friendship grew and blossomed. I felt near to him and he told me that he felt likewise and in his literary style he said he felt the sentiment expressed by the Anglo-American poet T.S.Elliot and he called me “mon semblable, mon frère”. For over 30 years we kept in touch. He, a Globe trotting Businessman and I a geologist hauled over by huge conglomerates in search of oil everywhere. On one occasion our roads crossed and we met in Manila in the Philippines. I asked him to help me with learning Arabic in preparation of going to Libya, and later on with Hebrew, when I suddenly felt the urge to know more about the Bible and the Jewish people. All these thoughts popped many questions in my mind. Are we related somehow? Is there something in our genes that made us feel so comfortable with each other? Is there such a thing as telepathy?” All that thinking about Jacob made Leo look with expectation to their encounter, while he was awake that night..

The Arrival in Sicily Three days before the Seder, Jacob and Sandra landed in Catania. They were met by Leo and Gerd at the airport and together they drove the 120 km to Pozzallo, the small Sicilian city where Leo and Gerd live in a nice summer house close to the beach in the Santa Maria del Focallo locality. Jacob and Sandra had come one day early, to make sure that the farm-house, that they had rented near Scicli, some 20 km west of Pozzallo, was up to the standard required to host their family. The first evening of their arrival, Jacob and Sandra, after checking in at a small B & B in Pozzallo had dinner with the friends at their summer house. The menu consisted of pasta with Norwegian salmon, a specialty of Gerd, and a large mixed salad with cheese and fruits. The wine for the occasion was a nice Nero d’Avola created with loving care by Francesco Valenti, a good friend of Leo. That evening, while having dinner and rekindling their old friendship of over thirty years, two bottles of Valenti’s wine finished honorably their existence, mostly with the help of Leo and Gerd, and were buried beneath a glass of Grappa, as a “digestive”. After dinner Leo explained that he had concentrated his interpretation on the book of Genesis, called in Hebrew Bereshit. Not because of some special scholarly requirement, but just because he had read the Hebrew Bible in Hebrew only up to page 27. Sandra laughing told Leo that she heard he thought that he was of Jewish descent and she added that he was crazy to want to be a Jew. Leo replied that, although some of his ancestors might have been Jews, he was neither a Jew, nor a Christian. In fact, from the age of sixteen, when he was beginning to question the many dogmas that the Catholic church had imposed on its faithful followers, with his friend Franco Pezzino, they had invented their own religion with only two dogmas: Probability and the “Law of Ψ “. “Pardon my rude language, but the Law of Ψ can be loosely translated from Italian as follows: “who gets screwed by an event, with his Fate should be content.” Literally that meant that even their God, Ψ, was subject to the same laws of probability, that, like everybody else, he could not control. One important aspect of the new religion was that it was very tolerant of sin. Because of probability governing the Universe and life on Earth, a man could not be made accountable for sinful actions caused by the random law of probability. Sandra laughed again commenting that this way of thinking was typical of Italian men, but it was crazy enough to qualify him as an honorary Jew. Then she asked what did Gerd think? Gerd smiled enigmatically. But Jacob was thinking of Leo’s essay and in his usual careful and always well calibrated words explained to all what he thought about Leo’ essay: “This essay is about mysteries and wonders. It is about questions, not answers, about travels not arrivals. There is here a mixture of facts and imagination, theology and science.” s “And yet it may or may not be meant for scientists in the laboratories, nor is it for long bearded Rabbis and Priests. But then who am I to judge?” Leo thanked him for his compliment but he added: “The theologians and religious have narrowed their horizons to the letter of the Great Bible and the Holy Koran, breeding blindness and fundamentalism without any attempt to go behind what is hidden behind the Text. This is rather curious. Because in both religions there is a tradition of seeing two meanings to the text: the obvious and that hidden behind the words, in Hebrew Peshat ve-Nistar. The Arabs have similar expressions. What a contrast to the days of Maimonides, Averroes and Thomas Aquinas! The young and those that stubbornly refuse to be old can find in their writings a fertile ground for their wild dreaming and suppressed inquisitiveness Then after another pause Jacob said: “The Creation is a concept. At the beginning was the thought, the concept. On the first day God created the background, the world, and then may be, in the words of Leo, probability proceeded to map it and fill in the details. Of course the Devil is in the details and probability is also a detail created by God. The world is the flesh and blood that followed the word, the concept. We may have been created in His image but not with His infinite intelligence and power. We admit that we are trying in vain to express our thoughts in words. Leo has however given a superb exposé based on real scientific facts, of the main issues that involve the Creation and the Man-God relations.” Everybody applauded him and Leo said: “Wow! If I know something of Hebrew and Arabic I owe my knowledge to you, my teacher.”

The Tree of Life Jacob and his tribe at last settled at the Masseria of Giovanni Modica near Scicli. Gerd and Leo were waiting to meet them and discuss the plans, especially the preparations for the coming feast of the Seder Shel Pesach, the Passover Meal. Jews remember their salvation from Egypt and the Christians remember the Last Supper of Jesus Christ. As he dressed to go into the garden, at 6.45am just at sunrise, he thought about that distant day when he got up in the desert so early with the feeling that something good was going to happen. And in fact it had happened. Now Leo was in Sicily, and at that very moment he was in his garden near the sea. Almost five years have passed since he had left the desert. He had time until 11am to prepare for the visit to Jacob and he took the opportunity to inspect the trees of his orange grove. Aleks, his son also had woken up early and went down into the garden, before going to jog on the beach. “Talking to your plants?” Aleks said to Leo “Of course, not just talking to the plants, but also cherishing them. The plants too are daughters of God: a plant that feels she is loved grows best.” Aleks smiled and said: “And the worms of the oranges grow better too. The rumor has spread among the insects of the neighborhood that here is something to eat and it seems that all the worms have gathered here,” “My plants are environmentally friendly and are not treated with insecticides, for that reason even the insects feel good here.” Leo said, smiling. But in anticipation of the feast with the Merons, come, I want to show you the tree of life”. Leo led Aleks to a corner of the garden where there grew a beautiful palm tree at least four metres high. “Here is the tree of life. The Essenes more than two thousand years ago, already knew everything about how the world works: the tree of life was invented by the Essenes” said Leo, looking with satisfaction at his palm, which had grown well after twenty years of loving care. “The trunk represents the past, more than twenty rounds of leaves cut each year, a round of leaves per year. Sometimes even two rounds, if the year was good. The leaves that soar upwards represent the future and they open up from the top of the trunk, forming a perfect cone. The point where the leaves are attached to the trunk represents the present, which is between past and future. Leo admired the palm with obvious pleasure and Aleks was looking at it thoughtfully. And God, where’s God in this plant? Asked Leo to Aleks. “I do not know, God should be everywhere, so He should be on the whole plant and also on the whole garden. And even in the worms of the oranges!” Said Aleks. “God is only in the point of contact between the trunk and the leaves, because God lives in the present being Eternal. If you pass an infinite horizontal plane perpendicular to the palm through the point of contact between trunk and leaves, that is the plane of God! God is not like us who quickly pass between past and future, without ever stopping. God is only in the present. It is just right what the Scriptures say about him, that he is the Eternal Father, because his time never passes.” Leo explained to Aleks: “The palm represents perfectly well the three-dimensional version of Minkowski’s space-time which we will discuss today with Jacob. “ Good show!” said Aleks “At this point I’m going to jog. For the rest of my life I will look at the palms with a certain respect, after your explanation. But who the Hell was this Minkowski? “ If he had waited, Leo could have explained to him that Minkowski was born in a suburb called Aleksotas in Lithuania. He taught Einstein at Zurich University. And following the introduction in 1905 of Einstein’s special theory of relativity Minkowski declared that that theory is best understood in a four dimensional space since known as Minkowski Space-time in which time and space are not separated entities but intermingled in a four dimensional space-time.

The trip to Scicli. Leo and his family, consisting of Gerd, Aleks and his children Felix and Leonardo left together Pozzallo to visit the Merons. Before they arrival they stopped at their masseria to get Mafish, Leo’s dog. They entered the driveway leading to the farm. Mafish was already out of the gate in front of the house howling and wagging her tail with joy. Uuuuuh, uuuuuh, muuuuh. Leo went out of the car to caress her .” Mafish Mushkeela, how are you beautiful girl? Come, I’ll put the collar and leash and then we go” Mafish was always glad to get in the car with her owner, although sometimes there were ugly surprises, to go to the vet who gave her injections or worse still, who operated on her for some canine problems.

Mafish and the dogs of Leo Mafish, a female German shepherd that Leo had adopted and had her sterilized, was the first to have come spontaneously to the farm four years ago. She was also the last survivor of a number of dogs that had decided to move to the farm. Mafish had arrived thin and so starved that she could barely walk. Leo thought that if he did not give her something to eat quickly, she would die. So he gave her a piadina, some sort of pita bread from Romagna, and water to drink in a bowl. Not knowing her name he called her Mafish Mushkeela, which in Arabic means No Problem, but usually only called her Mafish for short. Since then he had continued to feed her until she gained weight and her coat was again shiny. Mafish was now an excellent example of a German shepherd. On summer afternoons, Leo sat on a deck chair under the large olive tree behind the house and Mafish would lie in the shade next to him. She never left him for a moment. Where he was, there she was. Then came Maaquq, a beautiful black Belgian shepherd, his hair long and lustrous, a beautiful dog, very young and strong, with beautiful and healthy white teeth. He had come to visit Mafish but was frustrated by the fact that being sterilized, Mafish did not appreciate his “advances”. Also Maaquq stayed and Leo started feeding him too and named him Maaquq because he reminded him of the crazy Abdel Basset. Now under the olive tree there were two dogs lying at the feet of Leo while he was dozing in the summer afternoons. Maaquq always wanted to be stroked and if Leo closed his eyes for a while, Maaquq woke him up pushing his wet nose under his hand to be stroked. When they went around the farm to inspect the plants, Maaquq, crazy with joy, used to run here and there chasing lizards. He was the terror of the lizards of the area. He jumped the dry-stone walls with surprising agility and was always in motion. Then came Ben Zaqen. A beautiful sporting dog of Setter breed, a dog good for hunting birds. Ben Zaqen was also adopted by Leo who thought: “One more one less, the farm is big. The dogs keep the thieves away when I’m gone, since I prefer to sleep at the house by the sea.” He named the Setter Ben Zaqen, which in Hebrew means Son of the Old Man. Ben Zaqen was a bird chasing dog and did not belie his character. If he saw a bird or any feathered animal resembling a bird , he ran after it and chased it in earnest until the bird stopped flying. Then Ben Zaqen remained motionless with a paw raised wagging his tail until Leo came. He was never still a single minute. When Leo was dozing under the olive tree, with at his feet Mafish and Maaquq, Ben Zaqen’s eyes followed the flight of the magpies and he ran here and there. Then came Dolly Parton, a plump little female dog, quite short, white with coffee stains and a thorough bred mongrel. Leo adopted also her and gave her that name because she reminded him of the famous singer of western songs with the big bursting chest. Leo liked to name the dogs because in the Bible it was written that God after He had created the animals, had asked Adam to give them their names. Now Leo, surrounded by all four dogs, was dozing blessedly beneath the olive tree. He could hear the chirping of cicadas, the croaking magpies and the sparrows were twittering from the nests that they had built in the stone walls of the houses of the farm. In the air there was the smell of dry hay and the pungent smell of ripe carob. Peace was perfect. Children of the God of agriculture, Leo and his dogs were enjoying the peace of the Sicilian countryside on the farm that Leo had bought with money earned in Libya. “I must ask the vet to also sterilize Dolly Parton, thought Leo, otherwise I will fill the place with dogs. Four are enough for me.” But time passed and his proverbial laziness prevented Leo to bring Dolly Parton to the vet. So in a beautiful autumn day, when Leo arrived from Pozzallo to the farm to feed the dogs, he found a nice surprise: Dolly Parton had given birth to twelve puppies. Strangely, half of them resembled Maaquq and the other half resembled Ben Zaqen. When the pups grew up they showed the same kind of character of their fathers. The children of Maaquq were chasing lizards, and as it is known, were also good for hunting rabbits. Lizard’s dog is also a rabbit’s dog , they said. The sons of Ben Zaqen were instead feather chasing dogs, they were never still, always in search of birds. Now Leo was bringing the food for the dogs every day with big bags, because all those dogs ate quite a lot of food. To the twelve puppies he gave the name of the twelve tribes of Israel, without fail. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, Issachar, Zebulon and Benjamin, Dan, Naphtali, Gad and Asher. But lacking a name, the only female he named Dina, according to the Bible. When the puppies grew, the trouble began. First of all dog’s droppings were everywhere. Although the farm was large it was difficult to get around and avoid stepping on a fresh poo. Then the dogs began to annoy the neighborhood. The dogs were good natured and did not bark and did not bite people. However the children of Maaquq were chasing the rabbits and the lizards of the neighboring farms within a radius of five km. The sons of Ben Zaqen were chasing the chickens of the neighbors and moved up to Sanpieri eight km away. The word spread and neighbors’ complaints reached Scicli and the authorities responsible for preservation of wildlife. The WWF was also alerted and they were sending their spies to ascertain the situation. But Leo was quiet and kept resting under his olive tree, surrounded by his dogs. When however also Dina, imitating her mother, gave birth to twelve puppies Leo thought that it was time to intervene. He invited “Pippazzo” a character from Scicli, known to all including the the police for his suspected illegal activities. Pippazzo was a self- proclaimed dog dealer, a profession that was more than legitimate but that people found it hard to believe. The spies of the WWF, who were keeping an eye on the farm, hiding among the carob and olive trees, saw from a distance with the telescope that Pippazzo was sitting in the sun together with Leo and they discussed drinking beer together. Nobody knew what was said, the fact is that a few days later all the dogs were gone, except Maaquq and Mafish. When the authorities showed up to Leo to notify a large fine for mistreatment of animals, Leo said that, no dog had ever had in all of Sicily a good treatment like his. But even if the dogs were gone and therefore was lacking the evidence of the offense, Leo had to pay a large fine all the same. A few months after that, also Maaquq disappeared and Leo with Mafish looked for him everywhere in the neighborhood. Leo was asking Mafish: “Where is Maaquq? “And she howled mournfully. “Tell me the truth “Leo told her, but she remained silent, conspiratorial like all Sicilians. Two months after the disappearance, Leo found the body of Maaquq in the river cobbles of the San Bartolomeo canyon, under the bridge near his farm. The day of the disappearance of Maaquq, Leo had indeed found a spot of blood in the yard in front of the garage and other spots of blood mixed with urine in the shed where Maaquq used to sleep. At first he had not paid much attention to the blood, because he hoped that Maaquq had disappeared behind some bitch and then would return. But now that he had found the body, everything was clear. Maaquq was not killed by a hunter or a thief, because the murderer in this case would have left him there and would not have bothered to throw him in the canyon to erase the tracks. The spots of urine in the shed showed that Maaquq had died there because in the act of dying humans also pee on their pants. This was an argument that had been suggested by the cow herder Gna’, whose cows Leo allowed the right of grazing in the ground in front of the farm. Someone had killed him in the yard, said Gna’, perhaps by accident with a tractor or a truck, and then to get rid of the traces of the killing, he had thrown the dog down the bridge. It was apparent to Leo that Maaquq was killed by a son of a bitch he knew well, maybe one of his workers or a neighbor. That was the story of Leo’s dogs. When he remembered his dogs Leo thought that here was a spirit of growth that pervaded the Universe. Every living species tend to multiply as if the available space was infinite. This was true for men as well. Be fruitful and multiply, said God. It was evident in the head of Leo that God was not concerned about the lack of space, because He knew that the space was infinite. But then he mused how would Jacob connect this to his theory of Brain and Mind, Nature and Nurture! For this reason, he sent the story by e-mail to Jacob.

Sandra thought that Leo was a born writer. His sensitive account and beautiful pastoral description was worthy of a passage in the Song of Songs. Jacob on the other hand was fascinated by the account of the puppies of Ben Zaqen and Maaquq. He thought that the pattern of behavior of the puppies may be an example of having inherited nurture as much as nature. Otherwise how can one explain their behavior. He said that it always intrigued him how tiger cubs learn to hunt. They could not have observed and therefore imitated their parents tripping a Gazelle while chasing at a speed of 80 km per hour. So maybe we inherit mind as well as brain after all.

Under the tree of Mamre Jacob was waiting for them outside the kitchen door at the back of the farm. A nice thick, graying hair, a smiling face, a medium size height and always impeccably dressed in jacket and tie, Jacob looked much younger than his seventy-seven years. “Shalom” he said “Come in here in the kitchen. The women are preparing a nice lunch which will be ready about one o’clock. Let’s pass through here to get out into the garden. The guys are in the pool and are swimming. Felix and Leo, if you like, you can join them.” “For us Sicilians it still is too cold , it’s only the first week of April, said Leo, but the kids can go and play ball on the lawn.” Passing through the kitchen they saw that there were two women, a cook and her assistant who together with Sandra, were busy preparing lunch. Mafish passing by showed a great interest in the enticing food that was on the table, but Leo pushed her forward, saying “Go on Mafish, relax, it’s not something for you. Let’s go out.” Sandra was happy and smiling: “I brought everything needed for the Passover Seder for tomorrow from England, but for today I have asked these brave girls to give us a hand and to prepare a Sicilian lunch!”. Explained Sandra” You guys go on in the garden, within an hour lunch will be ready.” Gerd and Sandra were getting on together like a house on fire. Gerd always expressed her view without pretentions as befits the matter of fact Nordic approach. They enjoyed talking about their children and grandchildren. Now they went out together from the kitchen to see the farm and the organization of the rooms, the boys came running out into the yard to join the sons of Jacob and the children in the swimming pool. Aleks, Jacob and Leo, followed by Mafish wagging her tail, crossed the large yard to go and sit under the veranda at the center of the yard, from which they could enjoy an excellent view of the countryside all the way to the sea. The farmhouse was built of stone, a low construction “L” shaped with the rooms that opened toward the south into a broad yard paved with old stones and cobbles of local limestone. The farmhouse was surrounded by a garden of English lawn with many palm trees. The veranda at the center of the yard consisted of an old building, maybe an old barn, converted to be used as a covered porch, beneath which there was a barbecue and a large table for outdoor dining. There was also a fridge in the shed and a sink. Obviously the intention of the owners was that one could stay in the shade of the shed and eat while enjoying the wonderful view of the countryside and the sea. Two other independent buildings bordered the yard to the east, and each contained an apartment where they had installed Jacob’s three sons with their wives and the four grandchildren of Jacob. Overall, the houses were arranged in a horseshoe shape around the open yard to the South. Everything was carefully studied in every detail and renovated with taste to give a pleasant impression of rural environment and of luxury. The large pool was on the East side, on the edge of the yard, on a terrace paved with stone also open to the South and overlooked the valley. Beyond the pool further to the East, there was a large lawn, impeccably cared for, and at its center a huge carob tree. Leo sat under the porch and with a sigh of satisfaction made a wide tour with his eyes toward the horizon.

“I don’t know why the ancients thought that the Earth was flat. Just look at the broad horizon that we have in front of us to see that the line of the sea is very curved,” said Leo. “Don’t worry, our ancestors knew much more than what we think they knew. By the way, I read your essay, and as I said last night I found it very interesting, but there are many things that I don’t quite understand, and I would like you to explain things to me a bit better“, said Jacob. “I’ve read yours too and I found it very interesting but I didn’t understand almost anything. Philosophy is not my specialty”, laughed Leo. “As you know I’m not a philosopher. With difficulty I can define myself a scientist, I am rather an oil man, a geologist”, continued Leo. “Don’t worry, we will have time to tell each other our theories. I too have many doubts to accept everything that you’ve written”, said Jacob indulgent in a way. Leo offered to go and sit under the beautiful Carob tree in the middle of the lawn, while Aleks went to the pool to chat with Jacob’s sons and the children. Leo took two deck chairs and Jacob took a bottle of white wine from the refrigerator in the shed, with two glasses and they settled in the shadow of the great Carob Tree. Leo opened the bottle and he and Jacob poured a glass of white wine each. From under the tree they were enjoying the view of the valley and the sea, and they could see the pool where the children played, supervised by their parents. “If we were not born, Jacob, all these children would not be here now,” said Leo while sampling the wine with satisfaction. “And if only one of my Jewish ancestors had not existed, I would not be here either. For this reason I am very fond of my genealogy. In fact, as you know, even the ancient Hebrews were very fond of their ancestors, judging from the long genealogies described in the sacred texts. Each of us is the result of a chain of probability verified with the passing of time, from the origin of the world up till now “continued Leo while his glance was inspecting the horizon. “I agree with you Leo, each of us is a link in a chain, without which the future would be different.” Jacob said. “You are a modern version of Abraham, you brought your tribe to London rescuing them from Iraq, your homeland. It is a bit the fate of the Jews to be always on the move: Lekh-Lekha God said to Abraham, go, get going. Although my ancestors were Jews, I have become one of the Goyim, as was Job, to whom I think I resemble. Job also lived in the desert like I lived in the desert and he was fearing God as a real Jew and like me. Job also wondered if God was responsible for what happens to men and if God was responsible for the injustice that sometimes hits the righteous man.” Leo continued talking with his face inspired by the depth of the thought that he was expressing. “Well! It ‘s true. The comparison fits well. Certainly, like Abraham, I am from Iraq. He lived for sometime in Ur of the Chaldeans, I am from Amara a near-by new town in the middle of the marshes of Southern Iraq. We both left our hometown and moved elsewhere” Jacob admitted. “And like Abraham we sit under the oak of Mamre’ discussing, not with the angels sent from God, but discussing between us the fruit of our thought, that perhaps, in one way or another, is inspired by God” . Leo said solemnly.

The Seder Night The “Seder shel Pasach” means: the order of the first evening of Passover as immortalised in the booklet called the Hagada which is used by all the Jewish communities all over the world and throughout the generations. It is rather an unusual family ritual that follows a precise pattern with rules to follow in the tradition, prayers to recite and special bread, matzot to eat. The matzot were some kind of small flat cakes of unleavened unsalted bread, which looked like crackers and represented the symbol of Passover. When the Jews had to hurry to leave Egypt to follow Moses not having had time to wait for the yeasted bread to rise, they nourished themselves in the desert with matzot, unleavened bread. The Hagada stipulates that when eating the matzot Jews should internalise the thought that they are actually eating the same bread that they baked in a hurry when they left Egypt. May be this is the origin of the Christian ritual when the priest consecrates the little wafers in church and declares that after the consecration they become the body of Christ. When the guests had arrived in the dining room, the dishes, prepared with all the ingredients, were already on the table, one for each guest. Jacob sat at the head of the table and asked Leo to sit at his right and Gerd to sit at his left. The rest of his sons sat next to their respective families around the table. A kippah was distributed for each male participant, i.e. a skullcap according to the Jewish tradition, black for the adults and white for the children. Upon his arrival in Pozzallo, Jacob had given Leo a Hagada, the prayer book of the Seder, indicating that he had to read the prayer in Hebrew and Leo had trained at that task, spending a few hours to read the text. At the table, everyone was handed a text of prayers in English, so each one would follow the prayers that were recited. Leo thought that probably many decades had passed and perhaps centuries since the last time one of his ancestors had celebrated the Passover in that way. For him this was the third time he wore the kippah. The first time he had worn one when he attended the tenth International Congress of Sedimentology, organized by Israel in Jerusalem. On that occasion many sedimentologists and geologists of Jewish origin, including the famous Gerry Friedman, had taken the opportunity to visit the land of their ancestors. The morning before the conference began Leo went to visit the mausoleum of the Holocaust, Yad Va-Shem, and on that occasion he had worn a kippah for the first time. The second time was at the “Wailing Wall”, where Leo had sent a secret message to God, written on a piece of paper that he had slipped through the cracks of the ancient wall. But Leo did not limit himself only to visit the holy places of Judaism. Since he was in Jerusalem he went to visit the Dome of the Rock, and had crawled into the cave under the big stone from which Mohammed had soared for his journey to Paradise. Then he visited Gethsemane, with its ancient olive trees that Jesus had seen and also had been at the Holy Crypt, which still retains the stone under which Jesus had been buried for a short time before he was resurrected and ascended to heaven. During his visit, Leo was able to observe that all religions were closely connected with the worship of stones that he, as a good sedimentologist, had defined “Biocalcarenitic limestone of the Cretaceous-Jurassic” similar to those that he knew around his house, the so-called “timpa” of the Iblean plateau. Evidently, the religions needed something solid to lean on and there was nothing more solid than that stone, which made an excellent building material. Then all the religions used stones of the same kind that were formed in the same ancient Mediterranean sea, which embraced all the religions in a single geographical area where for the first time God was discovered.

Leo had the great honour of reading the first prayer of the Seder. After the first two lines he stopped to allow Philip, the cantor of the Meron tribe to sing, with the old melody, the first verses, in which God was praised for having created the grapes, from which the wine was made. Leo then pursued his reading, making some little mistakes that were quickly corrected by Jacob and that nobody noticed because nobody except Jacob and Leo, knew Hebrew well enough. Then followed other prayers, including in particular one that caught the imagination of Leo. It was a sung prayer in which the Lord was praised and thanked for having saved them from slavery in Egypt, and the refrain sung by all in chorus was in Hebrew and said: dayienu, i.e.: it would have been enough for us. You saved us from Egypt, and this would suffice us: dayienu, but you’ve done more: you have fed us with manna in the wilderness: and this would have been enough, dayienu, and so on etc. The Merons had brought from London the tape recorder with the music to accompany the prayers. Leo thought that this was the first time he participated in a prayer where nothing was asked from God, actually He was even reproached for having given too much. What a beautiful people these are who are singing the praises of God for inventing the wine and scolding Him for having given them too much. Here with us in Italy, thought Leo, we are nothing else but a nuisance to God, asking too much, asking even some Saint or the Madonna to recommend us, to make more effect on God. Leo noticed that the two girls of Daniel, the first born of Jacob, were busy singing “dayienu” with great concentration. In other times they would have been persecuted for their religion. The horrors of the Inquisition and of the Holocaust must have far more deep-rooted reasons than simple religious and cultural differences. They were born from the hatred that a brother has for the other more fortunate and more intelligent brother than him: from the unspeakable hatred and envy that religions had tried to erase together with the Commandments and with Jesus’ preaching. The hatred that had armed the hand of Cain against Abel, of Romulus against Remus. When they had finished the prayers Jacob broke a big matzot and distributed little pieces to everybody around the table, then proposed a toast and they could then begin to eat. Leo let off a al hamdu l’Illah, which fortunately no one noticed, because at that point he was in fact almost dying of hunger. Then Gerd and Sandra got busy to bring the real supper which of course whether we call it Passover or Easter it is the Last Supper that Jesus had before the Romans took him away the next morning. Jacob explained to Leo: “They wanted to get rid of this stubborn Rabbi Jesus of Nazareth who thought in his arrogance that he could teach the great Romans how to co-exist with other peoples instead of trying all the time to Romanize them. To achieve their goal the Romans used first bribery and persuasion of the leaders and then the force of the arms. May be Local Arabs were looking and passing the story from one generation to the next that eventually found its way into the Koran. And the Koran says unequivocally: the Jews neither killed Christ nor crucified him. Who can argue with them since they were the impartial historical witnesses of the events that took place in those days. It was the vengeful Romans who killed this kind Resistance Fighter on the very day that he was celebrating his freedom from the Egyptians. A freedom obtained all those years before, but still dear to the heart of the Jews even today.” Leo interrupted Jacob’s smiling and reminded him to take the traditional third glass of wine and asked him why he looked entranced in thought. Jacob said: “You know Leo, while we were reading the parable of the four boys in the Hagada for the Passover meal, I was thinking that it was indeed meant as an allegory to raise questions and not to give answers. The actual meaning will never be resolved. One day also Aleks and his two boys will get tired of asking questions and resign themselves, like you, to accept that there are no answers. That day they will become wise. Then I suddenly thought: here are the four children of the parable, my guests. I was looking at the four of you and thinking how apt was the description of the Hagada to picture you. You Leo are the Wise Person of the Hagada who has matured and resigned himself that no answers are possible for the questions of your youth about the end of the World. That is why you are trying to find at least the World’s beginnings. I envy you because I am still a tortured soul who is trying to understand both ends of the string. Do I refer to the new Geneva scientists’ fad of the String theory? May be.” Leo whose imagination was always fired up by the meanings of the Torah asked: “Then who are the other three sons?” Jacob replied: “They are Aleks, who the Hagada calls the Contrary. Because he is tired of asking questions and does not get satisfying answers. He became cynical and skeptical. These questions will continue to bug him. One day he will find his own answers and then he will reach your stage of wisdom. The third child is the Innocent. This is Felix who is now 15. He is in the best age between 13 and thirty. He is the innovative one, the creative one who asks questions to others and to himself. These questions and answers will shape his life until he grows up. And then society will suppress his spirit. Only few escape this insidious power of society on us, as Durkheim explained. Only the stubborn stay creative like Einstein who only at the age of 25 created his great breakthrough. He subdued this wild beast, Society, in time before it destroyed him. He said: what we call received wisdom is the total sum of the prejudices that indoctrinate us. So you are warned.” “I understand, you are beginning to see that I have very few prejudices left to dare to come up with my own interpretation of the Scriptures! But who is the fourth son who does not know how to raise the Question?” asked Leo. Jacob, who at this stage was beginning to look like a Biblical patriarch, replied in short Biblical sentences: ” The Hagada tells you. You open the story to him. You open the door for him. He has already absorbed so much knowledge and facts. At 13, the age of Bar- Mitzva, in the Jewish tradition he will start to join the world of his brother and digest it and create his own opinions at the end with his own individual mental process and come up with his own new answers. This is Leonardo, of course! I hope neither you Leo nor Aleks will block the Doors of Perception for him.”

After dinner , having just toasted the end of the proceedings with a fourth glass, Jacob and Leo sat slightly intoxicated on a sofa and started talking briefly about some extra doubts that the essay had planted in the mind of Jacob. In spite of the lengthy comments already sent to Leo, Jacob said that the wine must have opened his mind a bit more. Leo patiently took mental note and promised that the next day he would try to answer his questions. Then just before he left Leo told Jacob: “When I came I was worried about the ceremony. As you know my God Ψ does not require prayers or sacred duties from us, but I am pleased that we celebrated the night when the Jews left Egypt without much fuss, very casually laughing and joking. If this is Judaism, it would please my God Ψ.” Jacob smiled delighted and replied: “You are right but that is the only way I could repeat the occasion every year with my children and grandchildren to avoid boring them and inducing them to perpetuate it by making it an enjoyable family gathering. A British Anthropologist, Frazer, in his book “The Golden Bow” says: Religion is danced out, not thought out”, which means that it is the ritual that counts. But it is counterproductive to make rituals very rigid. If you believe in the thought, then dance to the tune of the time if you want to preserve it. In the case of the Jews rituals are there to preserve their identity.”

Part II I am a very religious nonbeliever. This is a somewhat new kind of religion. Albert Einstein

Introduction and Disclaimer The first chapter of this book tells a story that, as Leo said, resembles the Book of Job. But the similarities are only superficial: there is a fundamental difference. In the Book of Job, God is the main Actor and is responsible for everything that happens to his faithful servant Job. God is responsible for the good fortunes of Job and for his bad luck. In the words of Job: “God takes and God gives, may blessed be His Holy Name!” Man does not know why, but God has a superior knowledge because He sees the future and decides with His Justice that man does not always understand and that occasionally may look strange and not quite right to human eyes. In this story, born in the desert, however a new concept transpires: God is not responsible for events that happen on Earth, but a new strange entity, difficult to describe and to understand, is responsible for every event, good or bad: the Probability. Leo here is trying to explain his concept of Probability: “Like everybody else I had my failures.” To justify his failures Leo had developed in the course of the years a mechanism of selfdefense that attributed the fault to an abstract and unforeseeable entity: probability. “All of us are floating in the vast sea of probability, whose waves determine the events and the direction of destiny.” Leo used to say.” This is a completely new concept, not found in the Bible, which needs therefore to be understood not in a Biblical context but in a physical context. Is there such a thing as probability? What is it? Is it a field of forces or a potential energy? The Rabbis of Safed and the Great Maimonides have never discussed the possible existence of an entity called Probability. To them all that happens is due to God, who is infallible and omnipotent: there is no doubt in the essence of God. But in the description of this new entity everything seems to be doubtful, uncertain, undefined. Is this entity what regulates life, what shapes the future events? What God has to do with it? Is He responsible for this force of the Universe, like He is responsible for everything else? These are the questions that Leo will try to answer with his thesis in the following chapters.

Basic theory in a nutshell In order to explain “probability” as a physical entity Leo had to assign to God a material Substance, equivalent to the infinite space that must have existed before the creation. That must have been the “Kingdom of God”. Therefore for Leo, God must have a Substance (His Body) and a Logos (the Divine Mind). But the Substance must be made of something, to have a physical reality: Leo therefore concluded that the Substance must be made of Logons: particles representing the “rest mass” of the photons, the most common and ubiquitous particles of the Universe. Therefore these logons were photons asleep and the formula written by Leo was: logons = potential photons. But once he established, this basic theory Leo had to dress up the logons to make them reasonably real in the physical and logical sense. The following problems were facing Leo: 1 – The logons of the Substance must allow the photons, after the Big Bang, to expand into the infinite space at the speed of light, therefore they must have the following characteristics: 2 – Zero mass and zero dimensions, like the photons, to respect Relativity. 3 – Potential energy to be transformed into Kinetic energy, to create the mass of the Universe. 4 – Probability = 1, i.e. certainty, when all of the logons are added together. 5 – They must create a force of “inertia” of the Substance to give to the probability field the same qualities of a potential field of forces. 6 – They must obey Heisenberg “uncertainty principle” to give the probability field a background energy that would cause it to exist as a physical entity. 7 – They must be exempt from Pauli “exclusion principle” to be allowed to be packed together into a single substance without leaving any voids in space. 8 – They must have a somewhat rigid structure to form waves that interacted with particles or photons moving through them. Besides the above problems Leo had the problem of understanding how God, could control His infinite Substance at the speed of light. It would take infinite time to send His messages through it. Leo found in the literature the solution to this problem: there were some imaginary particles that could travel at infinite speed: the tachyons. Do these particles exist? Maybe, in any case they were necessary to allow God to think and to control the Universe and the infinite space around it. The hypotheses of Leo are explained to Jacob in chapters 3 in simple words as an abstract, but after a number of questions, asked by Jacob, Leo was obliged to explain in detail his theory in chapter 8,9,10 and 11. To defend his theories Leo sometimes was obliged to use physics and mathematics his own way, in a rather unorthodox way. The danger is that the result might resemble science fiction rather than real science. But Leo believed also in some of the revelations given in the Bible because they could be explained scientifically. The Bible did not explain in detail how could Moses open the Red Sea or transform his stick into a snake or how Jesus could walk on water or transform water into wine. If those were prophetic revelations, science should take care of the explanation. Science and not faith should give the answer, and Leo after all was the Prophet of a new religion based on the theory of

Probability and the Law of his God, Ψ.

Chapter 8

Mystic Interpretation of Big Bang – In the Beginning: Bereshit Before going to bed the night of the Seder Leo was collecting his thoughts and was thinking: “Jacob is getting more and more excited about our forthcoming meeting in which I will explain my thesis and has asked me to explain to him when we meet tomorrow, how could the Universe have started from one logon, an infinitesimal, imaginary particle of zero mass and zero dimensions. This is notwithstanding his tentative commentaries, sent to me by e-mail. I hope Jacob does not have too great an opinion of my scientific knowledge. Some of these questions have not been answered yet even by the scientific community! Before leaving last night he also asked me: Leo, is your statement about the logon a question or an answer? And how it is related to the ever intriguing enigma: with no mass and no dimensions then what is it in ordinary language: is it energy? And do we need to group it under nihilo or extensa? Clearly I would have to explain to him the difference between kinetic energy and potential energy. The logon has potential energy provided by the infinite probability field, but I need to explain to him also the concept of inertia. Maybe the logon, being a particle that will carry the photon or that can be turned into a photon, has a spin like the photon. It is my guess. This would not violate Pauli’s exclusion principle that forbids packing together in the same region of space Fermions, i.e. particles with ½ integer spin. The photon has spin 1 and it is a Boson and I can jam together as many photons as I want, like in a laser beam. Likewise I can guess that the logons can be packed together even if they spin. But how am I going to explain this to Jacob in simple words? I really don’t know.” Leo took note of that question on a booklet to remind himself to talk about it. Then Leo thought that Jacob had asked him also the following questions: “Another problem which initially confused me and may confuse others. When we talk of waves we think or imagine or conceive of spatial waves in a container like a river or an ocean. But of course these are not the spatial waves that we see on the surface of water but are concentric waves within spheres. I need you to help me to understand this phenomenon. There is also the problem of waves or particles which bothers me and I need an explanation to understand it.” Leo thought that he should explain to Jacob his concept that the photons were particles or quanta of energy, riding on the waves provided by the activated logons caused by the photons as they were moving through the sea of logons. That was a difficult task indeed, but Leo should try his best using some tricks. Jacob was quite confused between Planck and Einstein and the dual nature of particle/wave suggested by experiments, but Leo had to admit that that problem was confusing him too. In fact he had to explain to Jacob that his interpretations were only guesses invented to put together that puzzle. Jacob had also asked:”You can see the problem in the case of electric energy. A person is electrocuted immediately and if he is holding another person, that person is also electrocuted unless some material separates them like rubber or wood which implies that these materials have only inert logons inside them. Does that mean that living beings are themselves energized logons and wood and rubber are inert logons? Leo! Am I confusing myself? Can you help?” Jacob was obviously confusing the activated logons with the electrons, a totally different story. Leo thought that those were a lot of questions that needed to be answered, and he wrote them down in his booklet. “Clearly we must have a long discussion to clarify all these doubts.” He thought. The day after the Seder Leo and his family were again invited at the masseria of the Merons, to spend the day with them. Jacob was hoping to discuss in detail the theories of Leo with him to clarify some doubts and some concepts that he had not quite understood. The two friends sat again under the carob tree, around 10 a.m. and Jacob asked Leo to start reviewing his essay with as many details as he thought would be necessary to explain his ideas to a layman like him. “Let me say that I belong to that category of people that hate to read the instructions.” Leo started explaining in self defense his works method:” When I buy a new computer I call Marco, my computer specialist to help me install it. The same attitude applies when I read about the new theories of physics. I hate, like most people, the mathematics that explains them and I try to understand them without any equations, if possible. Most of my knowledge of modern physics comes from books of science divulgation written either by theoretical Physicists for people like me or written by science writers that pretend to understand what they are talking about. But I use my imagination and try to explain to myself what they are divulgating with tricks and mental exercises, based on Euclid or simple logic. Here are some explanations of the main issues of modern physics, filtered by my brain. The theories have already been described in detail by those that have discovered them, most of them have been proved by experiments, but what do they say that may change the way we see the world, what new do they say about how the world functions and how it came to be? Let me try to describe how I understand these theories and my hypothesis as an example: “Having understood the space-time diagram of the theory of relativity, I realized that God, as He was interpreted by Maimonides and by the Fathers of the Church, that is a Pure Spirit devoid of corporeality and outside of time, could not think and even less could He create the Universe out of nothing. The laws of physics valid for the Universe must be valid also for God. Now I am convinced that God not only utilizes the physical laws, He is the physical laws. And this is what I will try to demonstrate.” And let me develop my thesis to demonstrate the validity of my hypothesis, but let’s proceed step by step. I think it is worth explaining the main points of my “essay”, which treat of the origin of the Universe, i.e. the Big Bang. Then we can talk about God and His role in creating the Universe. We begin to describe the three-dimensional version of Minkowski’s space-time. He was the mathematician who first explained the theory of relativity of Einstein in mathematical terms.” Leo said pulling out of his pocket a sheet of paper on which was represented very clearly Minkowski’s diagram. (Fig. 1) Leo explained briefly the diagram that showed two coaxial cones stacked on top of each other according to a mirror symmetry, one vertical and one reverse, whose apexes met at a point colored black through which passed the plane of symmetry.

Fig.1 “The two superimposed cones seem to represent an hourglass. The upper cone is inverted, with the apex pointing downwards, and represents the future. The bottom cone represents the past. The black point where they meet is the point at which a possible observer, for example God, was at the beginning of the Big Bang. The arrow of time points upward and is located on the vertical axis of the two cones, so the cone above the horizontal plane of symmetry represents all the possible trajectories of particles moving in the Universe after the Big Bang. The cone below the plane represents all the past events that caused the Big Bang. The horizontal plane represents the present of the Big Bang event, and it passes through the black dot which is the origin of the event. “Leo saw that Jacob looked thoughtful, but said nothing, therefore he continued:” Now that we explained the diagram, we can discuss the basic argument of my thesis, the probability and the field of probability. I tried to show that the probability is a fundamental property of space, not only of that portion of space enclosed in the cone of the future, he said pointing the finger at the drawing on the paper but also of all the space above the plane of the present, which surrounds the cone of the future. Instead, the probability, with regard to the cone of the past, has become “history” because the events that should have occurred, have already occurred in the past. Do you agree so far? Do you agree that the probability relates only to the future? “Asked Leo looking at Jacob. “No Leo, I’m sorry, you have already lost me. You should explain a bit better considering that I am not a physicist.” Jacob answered. “OK, let’s proceed step by step. In the picture that I am showing, you can see two overlapping cones that meet at a point. “Jacob nodded. Up to that point he had understood. “Well, you see this arrow at the top? It shows the direction of time that passes, relative to a Cartesian coordinate system. On this system the intersection of time T = 1 year with the space S = 1 light-year, will fall on the outer surface of the cone representing the space-time trajectory of a photon whose direction intersects the plane of the present forming a 45 degrees angle with the time axis. The speed of light is the limit of all the possible speeds. You cannot exceed this speed and it is always the same for any observer, whatever the speed and direction of space in which the observer travels. We will do some tricky things to explain these statements in a simple form later. For now take them as good. If we look at figure 1, the red arrow linking point A and point B would not be allowed as a possible trajectory, because point B is outside of the cone of light. In one year the light can only cover the distance of one light year, not of two or three light years. Only speeds of less than that of light are permitted, and they fall on Universe lines that form angles with the direction of time T less than 45 degrees. Now let’s take any point on the plane of the present and link it with the origin A. The angle of this plane with the direction of time T would now be of 90 degrees and the velocity of the trajectory of an object on this plane would be infinite, because the movement would happen with time 0. The cone of the future of the Minkowski’s diagram is also called the cone of light, because it is enclosed by the envelope of light.” Leo watched Jacob to see if he understood. The head of Jacob nodded in a positive way, but Aaron did not smile and seemed more thoughtful than ever. “Well, we will now make some practical examples and you will understand better. The three-dimensional Cartesian space to which we are accustomed in nature is the only one that we can easily understand. It is very difficult for us to think in terms of space-time, as did Einstein. OK so far? “Asked Leo and Jacob said to go ahead. “Now imagine that the plane x, y, described in the drawing as the plane of the present, is the flat surface of a lake. We throw a stone at the point O and in the direction T we measure the time in seconds to indicate the expansion of the waves caused by the stone on the surface of the lake. The T direction, in addition to being a space direction, now becomes also a time direction, i.e. the direction in which time passes. Suppose that the speed of the waves is constant and equal to one meter per second. We measure a second on the axis T of the time and one meter per second, on the axis x of space. After a second the wave caused by the stone will describe the circle C1 having moved away from the origin one meter. After 2 seconds the circle C2 will be formed at a distance of two metres and after 3 seconds the circle C3 at a distance of three metres. We can now connect all the circles into a cone which separates the water in movement from the quiet water of the lake, not yet reached by the waves. See Figure 2. We represented the cone space-time of the event “stone thrown into the lake at the point O.” Leo showed a new figure to Jacob that explained the phenomenon of the cone of the future according to the genius of Stephen Hawkins. F ig.2

“The cone looks like the cone of light, right? “Jacob now was smiling because evidently he had understood “Well, now we return to the diagram of Minkowski. The cone of fig. 2 is similar to the future light cone of the Universe. Inside the cone there are waves generated by the stone thrown at the point O of the lake. But what happens outside the cone of waves? There is only the still water of the lake, because it is not yet reached by the waves, right? Also the entire space contained in the cone of light represents the possible reality in the Universe in the future of the event taking place in the point A of figure 1, such as the beginning of the light when God created it. Heavy bodies and slower bodies will be found inside the cone, near the axis of time. Relative to our Universe outside the cone of light, movement is not possible because it would be at a speed higher than the speed of light. As with the lake, the particles of matter that exist here must be still. The cone of the past is the region that contains all the signals that traveled at the speed of light or slower and that reached the point A, i.e. that could have affected the creation of light in the point A.” At this point, Jacob said, “Slowly please, now I am a bit lost!” “Well”, Leo said, let’s make an example or even better two examples. One based on plants, the other on humans. All exist and all are subject to the same physical rules. Look at that beautiful palm out there. (Fig.3a) The trunk is shaped like a cone as the cone of the past of Minkowski’s diagram. F ig. 3a

The leaves are shaped like a cone, as the cone of the future of the same diagram, since they have just been pruned and only the young leaves are left on the plant. The point where the palm narrows, where the trunk meets the leaves, is the point O where the observer of the Minkowski diagram is stationed and represents the present. Theoretically I could cut all the leaves at the base, without killing the plant, and wait for the leaves to grow back. (Fig.3b)

Fig.3b

In this case the comparison with the cone of Minkowski’s future would be even more valid. The leaves growing up from O will extend upward, while the trunk remains only to support the plant and serves to bring the sap from the roots to the leaves. Imagine several small veins that carry the lifeblood and converge at the point where the green leaves begin. These small veins represent the past of the event “green leaves that grow.” We have now a new example, this time based on me. I am the source of my two children, Aleks and Karoline, who then in turn each have two children. These children are my descendants. Let’s draw them here in another sheet of paper. (Fig. 4)

Fig.4 Let’s continue to draw the descendants in the future, 8 greatgrandchildren, and so on up to 100, 1000 etc.. For my part, I have two parents, let’s draw them below me, four grandparents, eight great-grandparents, 16 great- great-grandparents and so on until the huge number of my ancestors, some of them, as I already said, were Jews. All of these ancestors, who are part of the cone of the past event of Leo, are important for my life. If only one had never existed, I would not be here right now. They are part of the history of Leo “Leo stopped talking and poured for himself another glass of wine while Jacob laughed and clapped his hands satisfied:” Now I really understood. Why didn’t you explain it so simply before?” “Then we go forward. Consider again the diagram of Minkowski “Leo said pointing to the drawing on the same paper as before” The space above the plane of the present is divided into two parts, one contained in the cone of the future, and the infinite portion of space all around the cone. The cone of the future, as we explained, is also called the cone of light. This means that the trajectory of a body traveling through space and time must be represented by a line that is inside the cone. The movement in space outside the cone, starting from the point A is not possible, (like for example the trajectory AB shown as a red arrow on fig.1) because every movement would be at a speed higher than the speed of light. Other movements could be made, of course, but from other points other than A, in which case they would belong to other light cones that have nothing to do with our universe. The movement on the plane of the present is not possible, because every movement would occur with zero time, i.e. at an infinite speed. Don’t forget, however, that the Universe originated from a point of this plane at time zero. But what is the Universe expanding into? Nothing prevent us from thinking that there is something in the space around the cone of light that we call the inverted cone of darkness, since in it there is no light. “Ve hoshekh al pnei tehom” and the darkness were upon the face of the abyss, says the Bible, i.e. when in the beginning “the Earth was inert and void and darkness covered the abyss.” This is a clear reference of the Bible that the creation was done starting from the cone of darkness. In fact if in this space there were nothing, we should say that outside the cone of light there is nothing, i.e. there is only our Universe. Instead you can think that there is “something” out there, as in the case of figure 2, where outside the cone of the waves there is the still water of the lake. This “quid” that may have existed has to have the property to adapt well with what happens in the cone of light. In other words, the physical laws that exist in the cone of light must also apply in the reverse cone of darkness and the transition between the two should occur without changes in the physical laws. To make again an analogy with the cone of waves shown in the diagram of figure 2, if there is water inside the cone, there must be water outside the cone. The only difference is that the water outside does not move. But what existed on the plane of the present before the Big Bang? This is the first question to which we have to give an answer based on modern science. Here the quantum theory comes to our aid. For simplicity’s sake, let’s draw on a sheet of paper only the cone of the future and its inverse cone and let’s forget the cone of the past. (Fig. 5)

Fig.5 The point O is the start of the event “Creation of the Universe.” One interesting thing to note is that in Hebrew an event is called “Davar”, but also a word, i.e. a thought, is called “Davar”. For the ancient Jews, there was obviously no difference between event and thought. We will see that the word of God, i.e. his thought gave rise to the event “light of the Universe”, according to the Bible. But how could God think if on His plane of action the time was still? This is the second question that we should try to answer if we should attempt to understand how the creation took place. The early Universe, according to modern theories “may have been smaller than the nucleus of an atom, an embryo that would yield ultimately the Universe we see today. But that embryo must have had infinite potential energy to originate the Universe complete with people, planets, stars and galaxies. One-hundredth of a second later, after time zero, the Universe was a 100-billion-degree inferno of dashing subatomic particles in contact with each other and forming a super dense soup. At that time the Universe was no larger in volume than the Earth is now, yet it contained all the basic ingredients to form later a trillion of trillions of stars and probably even more planets.” (Ref. 2, T. Dickinson) In Figure 5 is shown the circle corresponding to the section of the cone of light after 1 / 100 of a second. What happened within that section of the cone, where the particles collided with incredible speed and unbelievably high temperature was governed by the laws of probability. The probability reigned supreme in that hell of fire. The physical laws that govern the probability and the potential fields of forces inside the cone should have continued vertically in the direction of time and whether some particles existed in this area, they must be compatible with the continuation of the cone in that direction. The density of matter inside the primordial cone was immense, so because of the enormous force of gravity that existed there, the light could not escape. So the Bible, in addition to mention: “and darkness was …….” adds a second image:”upon the face of the abyss,” which according to the modern theories, would be a “black hole”. After that initial description the Bible describes the creation of the light, which God made emerge from the black abyss, by an act of his thought, as soon as the primordial physical conditions permitted the realization of that event. My question at this point is: “How could the ancient Jews, who wrote the Bible, describe exactly the creation in exact terms from the scientific point of view, if they were not illuminated by the “divine revelation “? This is the third question to which we should try to give a plausible answer.” Leo asked Jacob if up to then his explanation was clear and Jacob said, “I am a bit exhausted, but go right ahead ten more minutes, in a while it will be time for lunch.” Even Mafish moaned uuuuuh and changed position going to crouch a yard away. “Well, I just need only ten minutes.” Leo continued to explain.

Chapte r 9

The Probability Field “Since the time when I was a boy I was fascinated by the existence of a physical entity in the world surrounding me that was called “probability”. Probability, I understood, was linked with existence and controlled our future, making us doubt about our future, about the success or the failure of all the future events that had something to do with us, with our friends, with our parents. Will I pass the exam? Will it rain tomorrow? Nothing that had to do with the future was certain. There must be a field of probability, I thought later on, when I joined the Faculty of Science of Bologna University, that functions like the gravity field and that field surrounds us. The possibility that a particular future event, wanted or unwanted or random, may occur, is measured by one of the infinite numbers ranging from 1 (certainty) to zero (failure) and the number assigned to the event is called “probability of the event”. The probability is a quantity that has real physical dimensions in spacetime, since it measures the success or the lack of success of all kinetic events, i.e. all the possible events that are due to a movement. Let us describe in probabilistic terms the possibility that two billiard balls, A and B, moving in space, clash with each other. For simplicity let’s assume that B is stationary in space and that A moves in a linear fashion towards B in such a way that B is on the trajectory of A. In this case the clash will happen for sure and its implementation will depend only on the distance and on the speed of movement of A relative to B. In this case the probability of the event “clash” will be 1, i.e. certainty. In general the probability that the event “collision” occur will be proportional to the reverse of the square of the distance between the two balls and directly proportional to their speed and direction . We may add that if the event is random, the time available to repeat the event is also directly proportional to the probability. This means that the closer the two balls, the higher the chances that they will collide. The higher the speed of the two balls, the sooner they will collide and in a situation in which the event is random, the component time will be of great importance to verify the event. Imagine playing with two dice. Leo weighing the Power of Probability

The chances of making 7 with only one throw of the dice in a second, are smaller than the chances of making 7 with hundred throws in 10 minutes. Having infinite time to repeat the number of throws, we are sure to make eventually 7. Probability becomes certainty. This is why I believe that at the beginning of the Universe, when there was a very dense soup of particles clashing with each other, with almost zero distance with each other and infinite time available, the probability of any event to be verified must have been 1. At the time of the Creation, the probability was certainty? Why do we have such a varied Universe, with all possible particles, atoms and stars in it? This is the fourth important question that we must answer. Let us define the field of action in space of the probability. In the case of the two balls, we can determine around them a physical field of the event “clash” in the form of a cone, with apex on A and base on the meridian circumference of B. Each one of the two balls is limited in space in its potential movement by the presence of the other and therefore each ball “feels the presence” of the other as a limiting factor relative to its freedom to move in space. This is the field of probability. Note that this field depends only on the position in space of the two objects and it’s independent of time. It exists even if one object is on the Moon and the other is on Mars. While the probability of the occurrence of an event depends on the time available to verify it, the field of probability in which the action take place depends only on the existence of a space. Figure 6 describes the cone. F ig. 6

If the movement takes place within that cone, there is a certainty that the event clash will happen, that’s why I called that cone: cone of certainty. When the two balls touch each other, the cone disappears and the field of probability will be infinite. This is why “bereshit” when the Universe was smaller than a photon, the field of probability of all possible future events was infinite as everything was wrapped up into a single point and the probability of all the possible events allowed by the laws of physics must have been equal to 1, certainty. Cone of Certainty The cone of certainty is that geometric figure that defines the limit of space within which an event can happen. Outside the cone of certainty an event cannot happen. Let’s take an event more complicated than the two billiard balls: a bullet fired by a gun 100 metres away hits the blades of a rotating windmill. Even in this case there will be a cone of certainty with apex in the mouth of the gun and base on the circle described by the rotating blades of the windmill. (Fig. 7)

Fig.7 While it is certain that, if the bullet will hit one of the blades of the windmill, this event will take place inside this cone of certainty, the bullet could pass through without hitting any blade. So in this case the field of probability of the event “bullet strikes the blade” will be more complex. It will always be limited by the cone of certainty, but inside the cone the probability will be variable with time from place to place and will depend not only on the direction of movement of the bullet, but also on the period of rotation of the blades. There is certainty that the desired event will occur within the cone of certainty, but with variables depending on the time that the bullet is fired and on the speed of rotation of the blades. If we take as an example a subatomic particle, like an electron, since this particle behaves like a small wave oscillating up and down, the cone of certainty describing for example the event “impact of another electron with the first “, will cover the area around the two waves of the electrons, but the field of probability inside this cone will be even more complex, and a function of where the two electrons will be found when the impact occurs. It is obvious that in general, in a cone of certainty, the interior space is always probabilistic, with the probability that depends on many factors, such as distance, time, relative speed, relative acceleration, vibrations of the bodies involved in the event etc... I will give now a few definitions, necessary to understand the logic of my thinking. Jacob at this point interrupted Leo with these comments: “What still troubles me is your use of Probability. To me it is basically a thinking tool i.e. a virtual entity. You seem to give it a physical existence. Has it got mass or energy? If not then it remains a virtual concept, a ghost. Please help me to understand this point.” And Leo replied: “Probability has a physical reality, exactly like time and energy. Here is why: A cone of certainty can define exactly what can happen in space from what cannot happen. A cone of certainty has a size, a distance in space. In reality it is like a vector. Time gets involved with probability when events “happen” but it is only “potential” when events are potential in a physical field of forces. Like time is the measure of movement, likewise probability is the measure of the chance of an event to be verified and it has, in my opinion, a physical meaning in the realm of reality. If anything else, with my concept of the cone of certainty, I have tried to put limits to the very vague concept of probability, because not all that is probable can happen if it is outside the cone of certainty. I realize that my thinking is controversial and may not be “true” or accepted by everybody, for this reason the dialogue with you is very beneficial to me, because you are asking legitimate questions and are keeping me on my toes.” Jacob nodded as if he was agreeing with that explanation so Leo continued talking and explaining his thesis. “I will give now a few definitions, necessary to understand the logic of my thinking. Cone of Light For our Universe in which we live, following the discovery of Einstein of the constancy of the speed of light, since this is the speed limit of the Universe, we can build a “cone of certainty of the Universe” with apex at the beginning of time, T = 0, and bounded by the speed of the photons, forming the outer surface of the cone at a 45 degree angle with the axis of time, the direction “T” on figure 5. All the events occurring in the Universe are confined inside this cone, also known as the “cone of light”. No event can get out, because there is no greater speed than the speed of light. The slower the speed with which an event occurs, the closer its trajectory will be to the axis of time “T”. The greater the speed, the closer its trajectory will be to the outer envelope of the cone of light, without ever overcoming or approaching it, unless the travelling particle has properties equal to those of the photon.

Outside of the cone of light The probability space outside the cone of light of the Universe is by definition the reverse “cone of darkness”, where there is no light and there is no movement, and were time is infinite, that is a clock in this area would take an infinite time to measure a second. The origin of the cone of light is in this space and would have Cartesian coordinates X = 0, Y = 0, T = 0, with time = 0, that is the origin is a point stationary in space and time.” At this point Jacob interrupted Leo asking: “Why the time stops in this area, it’s not at all clear! We have discussed before the problem of time stopping at the speed of light or into a black hole, and I begin to understand, but never what happens in the cone of darkness.” Leo gave the following explanation: “Time varies, for the theory of relativity, according to the speed of the objects moving in spacetime. Within the cone of light of the Universe it is fastest for objects stationary in space-time, on the axis T of the arrow of time. It becomes progressively slower as the speed of light is approached. At the speed of light the time stops, because a second would take an infinite time to pass. Another phenomenon that happens as the speed of light is approached is that the dimensions of objects become progressively shorter until they shrink to zero length at the speed of light. There are of course mathematical demonstrations of these phenomena, but they tend to be complicated involving Pythagoras and square roots and transformation equations. I will try a few tricks to demonstrate the phenomena, using only a few rules based on Euclidean geometry. The point to bear in mind is that the theory of relativity is based on the concept that the speed of light “c” is a constant for every observer, regardless at which speed they move in space or if they are motionless in space. “c” has been measured very precisely to be 300 000 Km/sec, and like every velocity its formula is: c = S/T or a space divided by a time.

Leo then tried to explain to Jacob the concept of the elasticity of time and space drawing some squares and some parallelograms in his booklet. The geometry of Euclid demonstrates that if the base and the height are the same, a parallelogram has the same area of a square, regardless of the spatial dimension of the parallelogram. While two sides remain of the same size, the other two could extend up to an infinite limit. ( See explanation on appendix ) When he finished drawing he continued explaining the concept of time stopping at the speed of light. “The time stops for the photon and the reason can be understood with the following mental experiment relative to an observer stationary in space: let’s suppose that photon Alfa follows his brother Beta along the 45 degrees line and wants to stop his brother by shooting him with a gun. (Such stories are frequent in all cultures and also in the Bible. It is called brotherly love!) He will fire a bullet in his direction, but the bullet will never reach Beta, because it cannot leave Alpha, as Alpha travels at the speed of light, and that speed cannot be exceeded. But time means moving from Alpha to Beta in a few instants, and no time will pass because the bullet of Alpha is not moving. That means that the time for the photon Alpha has stopped. Also the distance from Alpha to Beta will be zero as space shrinks due to the speed of light.” Jacob looked puzzled and asked if that was the famous “twins paradox”. He also added: “You said that this effect was apparent to an observer stationary in space. How would Alpha see the situation, from his reference frame?” Leo had to admit that it was a big puzzle, if he understood well the theory of relativity and he explained: “I am puzzled. My puzzle started when I wanted to play around with the following gedanken experiment: from the Earth I observe photon Alfa that is about to shoot his brother Beta. From my coordinate system the Time for Alfa has stopped because I observe that he travels at the speed of light, therefore how could he send a signal, like a bullet, to kill Beta? He would invalidate the Relativity and its predictions because that signal would then travel faster than light. Yet in the coordinate system of Alfa, nothing unusual is happening and he could shoot not a lead bullet, which is too heavy, but a Laser beam and kill his brother, because he would have to agree that the signal travels at the speed of light. So the brother Beta, like the cat of Schroedinger, is half dead and half alive! My mind is boggled. I can’t take it. But you are a philosopher, for you the door is opened. You are lucky. Now, to answer your question: the cone of darkness is outside the 45 degrees line where the time stops. If a particle exists there, it must be stationary in space and its time must also stop, because time is the measure of movement and because the physical laws valid for the cone of light must be valid also outside of it. We will see later however that there exist special particles that can travel in space, in this area, and they travel at speeds higher than the speed of light, but they have imaginary mass, which is completely different from the photon that has zero mass. Probability Space The space within which occur or fail to occur the events is a probability space, because every kinetic event, that is linked with a movement occurs or not in this space. But then, this definition includes all the infinite space, because the space could be divided into kinetic space, inside the Universe or the Universes, because there could be more than one Universe,(but their existence could not be confirmed), and potential space, outside of the Universes, and again the existence of this outer space cannot be confirmed, therefore we call it “potential space”. Time Time, as Einstein taught us, is a dimension of space. It exists because space exists and in particular it exists where there is a movement. The best description of time is given to us by the ancient Greek Philosophers: Time is the measure of movement. After Einstein we can add that time is a measure of movement: one second is long, if the movement is fast, one second is short if the movement is slow. We can define two types of time, as in the case of space: kinetic time, inside the kinetic space, that is within the Universe, and potential time, outside the Universe, where there is no movement. On the surface of the cone of light and on the potential space surrounding it, time stops and a clock would take an infinite length of time to measure a second. Axioms From the definitions given above and from our description of probability, space and time we can derive the following axioms: 1 – E ach point of an infinite space is its geometric center. 2 – Two or more Universes share the same cone of darkness, but each Universe has its cone of light and its direction of time. 3 – The space and the time of the cone of darkness cannot be measured, but only conceived by our intellect, as we cannot go out of our Universe to measure them. But they can be inferred to exist on the basis of scientific or logical inferences. 4 – I n the cone of darkness there could be” bubbles of time and of kinetic space”, the Universes, that could have evolved separately from our Universe. 5 – The time at the origin of the cone of light slows down until it becomes infinite (time zero). Even on the surface of the cone of light, time stops. As suggested by the theory of relativity, a body that could be moving gradually up to the speed of light would lengthen the time to become infinite at the speed of light. The photon expanding from the cone of light into the cone of darkness, does not record any change in the physical laws that govern its movement, because it passes from an area where time has stopped, to an area where time is still. Due to the presence of the photon the cone of darkness will become progressively lightened as part of the cone of light. 6 – Playing dice, the possibility of making seven in the game of “seven- eleven”, with two dice, increases if the time available to repeat the throws increases and a large number of trials are available. Also the probability of events occurring increases if the distance between objects is small, it follows that at the beginning of the cone of light, where the distance is zero and time is infinite, the probability of events happening is greatest, being equal to 1. 7 – Most of the events, apparently impossible for their small probability, have been possible in the area near the origin of the cone of light, “the beginning of Creation”. With this axiom we have confirmed the myth of an “Omnipotens Deus”. But we still have to demonstrate His existence. At this point we have defined the fundamental concepts to arrive later on at the conclusion.” Leo said, smiling. “The bottom line is that now we have to go to lunch. We are already half an hour late and the women are calling us. We leave the conclusion to this evening, after having digested the meal, otherwise it is likely that it may stop our digestion,” Jacob said, laughing and walked towards the veranda where his grandchildren, his sons and the daughters in law, Sandra and Gerd and Aleks and his children had begun to gather around the table already set with ready food. Jacob filled his glass with red wine from Valenti and invited all the adults to do the same. He sat at the head of the table and had to his right Leo and to the left Gerd. “Let’s make a toast to Sicily and to Israel and to all the friends of Israel.” “La-Hayim” said Jacob. “Salute” said Leo and Aleks “Skål” said Gerd and everyone began to eat with good appetite. The food was delicious: ravioli in tomato sauce filled with ricotta. Baked lamb with potato chips. The party was perfect and the atmosphere cheerful. Leo after lunch went to sit on a lounge chair under the carob tree, while Jacob went inside the house to lie down on his favourite sofa. The boys were playing hide and seek, the ladies were arguing heatedly among themselves and with the daughters in law of Aaron, still seated at the table drinking coffee. Aleks came to sit under the carob tree on the lounge chair next to his father. Mafish followed him and laid at his feet in the shade. “What a difference between here and Libya, Dad!” said Aleks looking at the sea far away, beyond which was Libya. “The sky is the same, the sea also, the only difference is that here we are free. This is the land of freedom,” Leo said thoughtfully. And before falling asleep for a nap he recollected in his mind the visit of Aleks in Libya several years before and the beautiful beaches and the desert. As he was drifting into a nice slumber, he felt a feeling of regret for the adventures he had experienced in Libya, now lost forever.

Chapte r 10 The Divine Spirit Floating And the Spirit of God floated on the surface of the waters: Ve ruah Elohim merakhefet al pnei ha mayim To recall the past had a soporific effect on Leo, who fell asleep under the carob tree. After waking up he went for a long walk in the vast land around the farm that Jacob had rented. He was followed by Mafish, happy to be helpful to her master by keeping him company. On his return from the promenade it was almost evening. The sun had dropped significantly lower over the sea, at the horizon, when Leo entered the office where Aaron was busy working at the computer. “Are you ready to continue the discussion?” Leo asked Jacob “We are only missing the conclusions” said Leo, sitting on the armchair opposite the desk of Jacob. “Okay,” said Jacob, closing the lid of the laptop on which he was working. “Go right ahead, I am curious to see how it will end.” In that very moment Aleks came into the office carrying a tray with some icy beers and some chips: “I came to listen to the intelligent conversation of two Tzaddikim, that is two rightful people in Biblical jargon, and if you don’t mind I will sit in that armchair and promise to keep quiet. In any case I know well the theories of my father: he sent also to me his “essay”!” “Do you promise that you will let me finish before making your comments? We are almost at the conclusion!” Said Leo:” Indeed I promise. Drink a nice cold beer and here we have some chips to help your thoughts.” Said Aleks handing a beer to each one of them, after having removed the cork. Leo continued talking while drinking the beer and after taking a generous helping of chips. “ Rather than the existence of nothing it’s easier to think that there was at least some potential energy that, at the time of the Big Bang, was converted into kinetic energy and then into mass, that is into matter. The theory of fields of modern physics obliges us to abandon the classical distinction between material particles and empty space. The classic distinction between matter and empty space had to be abandoned when it became clear that the particles can be generated spontaneously by the vacuum and disappear back into it. The vacuum is far from empty. Instead it contains an unlimited number of particles that are generated and disappear in a process without end. (Ref. 3, F. Capra ) Einstein’s theory allows for the possible existence of mass-less particles, the most famous of them is the “photon”, also called the quantum of light. This is why both future cone of light and potential space around it above the plane of the present, must be filled with mass-less particles, to allow the light to expand in them. One of these particles has given rise to the universe at the point O. We call these particles Logons, from the Scriptures of the Gospel according to John that in Greek say: “En arche’ ein ‘o Logos: In the beginning was the Logos”. We are now ready to analyze this new particle, provided by my thesis, to explain Creation. Note that the Bible shows very clearly the existence of these particles in the space that existed before the light was created. In fact after describing perfectly the abyss full of darkness says: “ve ruah Elohim merakhefet al pnei ha-mayim,” i.e.: and the Spirit of God (the Logos) floated on the surface of the waters. For waters it meant the sea of logons that existed even before the Universe.” Leo then showed a sheet of paper where he had copied the first lines of the Book of Genesis. In red he had highlighted the portion that concerned the spirit of God that was floating on the waters.

א בְּ רֵ א שִׁ י ת, בָּרָ א אֱ �הִ ים, אֵ ת הַ שָּׁ מַ יִ ם, וְאֵ ת הָ אָרֶ ץ. ב וְ הָ אָ רֶ ץ, הָ יְתָ ה תֹהוּ וָבֹהוּ, וְ ֹ ח שֶׁ �, עַ ל-פְּ נֵי תְ הוֹם; וְ ר וּ חַ אֱ � הִ י ם, מְ רַ חֶ פֶ ת עַ ל- פְּ ֵנ י הַ מָּ יִ ם . ג וַיֹּאמֶ ר אֱ �הִ ים, יְהִ י אוֹר; וַ יְ הִ י-אוֹר. ד וַיַּרְ א אֱ �הִ ים אֶ ת- הָ א וֹ ר, כִּ י-טוֹב; וַ ַ יּ בְ דֵּ ל אֱ � הִ י ם, בֵּ ין הָ אוֹר וּבֵ ין הַ חֹשֶׁ �. ה וַיִּקְרָ א אֱ �הִ ים לָאוֹר יוֹם, וְ לַחֹשֶׁ � קָרָ א לָיְלָה; וַ יְ הִ י-עֶ רֶ ב וַ יְ הִ י- ֹב קֶ ר, יוֹם אֶחָ ד. {פ}

After this long explanation Leo had a sigh of relief for having arrived at that point without being interrupted in his reasoning by Aleks.

The Logon “We must think of a particle that fits well with all the axioms mentioned above and that allows the expansion of light in space without disrupting the laws of physics. We must imagine therefore the existence of a particle so small as to have zero spatial dimensions, like a geometric point such as the origin of a cone of certainty. Then we can define the size of the particle as the dimension that separates the being from the non-being, but that is measured from the positive side of the being starting from the origin of a Cartesian coordinate system. Call this imaginary particle: Logon and its symbol: 0+, that is the part of the zero that is developed within the being. Besides having size zero+, the particle has no mass when in a state of rest, but when it moves at the speed of light, by the theory of relativity of Einstein, the particle will be gaining kinetic energy and momentum. Within the kinetic Universe this particle is supposed to be the photon, which then would be nothing else than an activated and kinetic logon. Imagine that this particle will behave like a tiny pendulum fixed in space (in accordance with the axiom that every point in the probability space occupies its centre). A pendulum that when still, has maximum potential energy, and does not measure Time, but when in motion begins to measure Time and oscillates with variable kinetic energy ranging between zero and a maximum value at the speed of light. When at rest this particle exists only as a point without dimensions in space but with high potential energy due to its presence in the potential space and within the field of probability. Most probably this particle has also a spin like the photon, so we have to imagine it not only as a little vibrating wave, but also as a little rotating top. We are all familiar with the gyroscopic effect of a rotating mass around its axis. It keeps a stable position in space and does not fall off even if we incline its axis of rotation. But can a particle of zero mass spin? Yes, of course because the photon that has zero mass has a spin and rotates around itself clockwise or anticlockwise, so we have to suppose that also the logon has the same spin. A rotating skater can increase his spin by bringing his arms progressively closer to his body, so a particle of zero size could spin very fast indeed. The Logon is the Smallest Part of the “Being” — This imaginary particle, whose physical existence can be proved only conceptually, we will call Logon, as it existed even before the creation of the Universe, when, according to the Bible there existed only the divine Logos (en arche’ ein ‘o Logos = Greek for: in the beginning there was the Word: Gospel of St. John) and the Spirit of God was “floating over the surface of the waters”. These waters we interpret to be the “Substance” of God. And given the equivalence Logon = Potential Photon, we can quote the Bible again, saying that even this equation was foreseen in the Bible, as Daniel: 2, 22 talking about the Holy One, says: “And the light dwelleth with Him “. This explains why light (and its velocity) is the only “absolute value” remaining in the Universe after the theory of relativity has made time and space relative entities: it is the Substance of God. Suppose that the space is not empty in the physical sense, but is filled with logons, separated from one another but in contact among them forming a continuous crystal lattice of tetrahedral three-dimensional structure enabling each particle to be in contact with its neighbour in space. Under this concept the logons would fill all the infinite space and therefore would be infinite in number, forming the sea of waters described in the Book of Genesis. In a state of rest in the potential space, they would have collectively infinite potential energy, the sum of their individual potential energies, and the sum of their collective mass would be zero but, as I mentioned before, quantum mechanics come to our aid. The uncertainty principle of Heisenberg is a Law of Nature that states that of a particle is impossible to know precisely at the same time its position and its momentum: therefore the logon, which is fixed in space, cannot have also zero momentum, and must therefore have an infinitesimal momentum different from zero. Its probability to vibrate or to spin is not zero. When there comes a wave of energy or matter, such as a photon, the logons are activated and acquire enough kinetic energy and momentum to start vibrating with a wave-like fluctuation and motion between zero and maximum kinetic energy, exactly like the molecules of sea water with their movements form the sea waves. In fact, due to the effect of the inertia of the infinity, the logons cannot move very far from their fixed positions, but move only a short distance from their position of rest, causing a wave that moves at the speed of light. I believe that by introducing the logons in the space that existed before the “Big Bang” we have attempted to answer the first question: what was there before the creation, what existed on the plane of the present before the Big Bang? Jacob at this point interrupted Leo and asked:” Why the crystal structure of the logons should be just tetrahedral? “And Leo replied: “I was expecting from you this question, Jacob! Since we are imagining the logon and its functions, we may as well imagine also its structure. There are three reasons: first the tetrahedron is the most compact structure, the one leaving least voids in space. Second, the most common minerals like quartz and silicates, crystallize in this structure or in multiples of this structure. Even water crystallizes in snow-flakes with multiples of this structure. Third reason and the most extravagant of all, is the idea of the Tetragrammaton: YHWH, the famous “shem hameforash” of the Prophets. According to me, they knew that the name of God was a tetrahedron! “Jacob laughed and said: “Now I know that you are a real Jew!” “Maybe in the depth of my soul, not in my brain! I told you that I follow my own God: the mighty Ψ!” answered Leo and smiling continued his explanations. “The tetrahedron that I have in mind is the ‘Reuleaux Tetrahedron’ shown here on this picture.” Leo showed a picture copied from the Internet that he had taken with him to show to Jacob .(Fig. 8) “It is a three dimensional solid common to 4 spheres of equal radius, placed so that the centre of each sphere lies on the surface of the other three. The centres of the 4 spheres are therefore located at the vertices of the regular tetrahedron, formed by 4 logons positively excited. The 4 spheres represent the probability field of each logon positively excited. To answer a question that you asked last night, of course the excited logons vibrate forming concentric waves within their spheres of probability, being the space three-dimensional and to complicate things I may add that in my opinion the distance between two centres of vibration must be equal to h, the constant of Planck, which is the smallest wave length possible in the Universe.” Jacob smiled and said:” Whaw! I am not going to ask you why, because I don’t want to stop your beautiful description.” But Leo answered:” I will tell you why with some tricks in a minute, but let’s continue to explain the logons! You can fill all the space by adding more spheres in a corkscrew fashion in all directions of space.. As a geologist the structure of quartz is the model that I have in mind for the distribution of the quantized logons in space. ( Fig. 8)

Fig.8 Quartz is one of the silicates, the main constituents of the earth’s rocks of volcanic origin, and has a unique structure. The structure of quartz involves corkscrewing (helix) chains of silicon (SiO4) tetrahedrons. The structure of quartz helps explain many of the physical attributes of the helix of DNA and may be the cause of the particular origin of life on the planet. For one, the helix makes three turns and this helps produce the triangular symmetry of quartz. Any living creature starts life with one cell that divides itself in two and each divides in two forming the first tetrahedron. Each tetrahedron then duplicates itself to form the body of the creature, man, plant or animal. This is the reason why I think that the tetrahedron is not only the symbol of the Substance of God but also the symbol of life on the planet.” Jacob seemed happy with the explanations given by Leo so far but he added: “I may accept that the logons in space have a crystalline structure and the twin paradox of light and the elasticity of time due to the speed of light. But, in spite of your explanations my bigger problem is to accept a particle of zero mass. It does not make sense! Could you explain to me what it means in simple terms?” And Leo quickly replied with enthusiasm, as he was always thrilled with any chance that he had to give his opinion about the absurdities of science: “Jacob, talking about absurdities, I noticed long time ago that you have a problem with the concept of “zero”. Let me clarify the difference between mathematical zero and zero in physics. In mathematics zero is the “empty set” and it means “ nothing “. In physics this does not have the same meaning, because physics deals with something that has a physical reality, something that exists. So the zero in physics is not the empty set, but the beginning of the “cone of certainty” of a physical event. Zero mass means the beginning of positive mass on an infinite line that stretches from – infinite to + infinite. It is that point that separates all the positive masses from the negative masses, and it has a physical reality. The same applies to zero size in physics. It is the beginning of all the positive sizes as opposed to the negative sizes. With time it is the same concept: zero time means that the clock is stopped, but it could start any time on the time axis. Why does the photon have zero size and zero mass, and consequently also the logon, which is a photon asleep must have zero size and zero mass? This is due to the requirements of the Relativity. I am afraid that now we must use some simple mathematical explanations. We have seen that Relativity applies corrections to the physical entities of time, space and mass to preserve “c “as a constant. These corrections are as follows: m = m’ / gamma (the rest mass divided by the correction gamma) L = L’ X gamma (the rest length multiplied by the correction gamma t = t’ X gamma (the time at rest multiplied by the correction gamma) Where m’, L’ and t’ are respectively the mass at rest when velocity is zero, the length at rest of an object and the time when the velocity is zero. Gamma is the relativistic correction applied when the velocity of an object increases from the state of rest to the state of movement. Gamma is the square root of (1 - (v /c) square). It follows that when the velocity (v square) of a body is equal to the velocity of light (c square) gamma becomes mathematically zero, because, since v square / c square is = 1, gamma becomes the square root of 1-1 = 0. Square root of 0 is zero. In the case of mass, the original mass at rest is then divided by zero as follows: m = m’/ 0, but any number divided by zero becomes infinite. So if the object has an infinitesimal mass different from zero, its mass, at the speed of light becomes infinite. But this does not happen when the body has zero mass (physical) because in this case: m = 0/0, and remains the same, because 0/0 is not infinite but funny enough it is 1, as any number divided by itself is = 1. (See appendix for Leo’s mathematical explanation) So mass is not affected by the velocity of light when it is a physical zero, but remains equal to itself, or m = 1. Therefore substituting the mass in the famous equation of Einstein with 1, we obtain that: E = c square, and the momentum of the photon becomes a meaningful: p = v. This means that the photon must travel at the speed of light to have energy and momentum. Remember that zero mass has a physical reality in physics, being the beginning of all the positive masses! Only objects with zero mass are allowed to travel at the speed of light, like the photon and our little friend the logon. To conclude, the logon is the rest mass of the photon. The corrections for length and time at the speed of light are also explained and perhaps easier to understand than the correction for mass. L = L’ X 0 becomes zero length (physical), the beginning of the positive number on an infinite line. t = t’ X 0 becomes zero time (physical), the beginning of time in the time axis. Is this clear? So when I talk about the logon having zero mass or zero size, I have to assign to it a zero entity, but still physical, to make it compatible with the photon.” Jacob was still puzzled and he said:” You convinced me about all these zeros. As a man that used to deal with finances I understand zero interest on money. But I don’t understand why you put all these squares on the formulas of relativity. Why c square, v square etc.. ?” Leo then tried to explain that it wasn’t his fault if an energy increases with the square of velocity, like an acceleration. He then wrote down a few formulas starting from Pythagoras and his theorem that involved squares. But Jacob still did not seem to understand. Then Leo had a bright idea and asked: “Jacob, as a financial expert that has made quite a lot of money in his life, do you understand compounded interest?” And Jacob smiling said:” Yes, of course. If you leave your money in the bank at 7% rate of interest without touching it will increase exponentially to double in ten years!” “Right!” Said Leo” The same happens with the energy, it will increase exponentially with the velocity.” At this point Jacob asked Leo if he really believed in his description of the logons and Leo admitted that he still had trouble understanding how a particle with no mass and no size could generate kinetic energy and electromagnetic energy, but he was convinced that that was the probable mechanism to create energy out of the empty space. After all that was the accepted definition of the photon of light.

Chapter 11

Tachyons, Malaache Hasharett, Ministering Angels Leo continued his explanation to Jacob and Aleks. Here he tries to connect God who is by definition outside the world into the same world. In biblical jargon Leo is finding here a gap in the wall of the Garden of Eden that is supposed to separate the Divine from the earthly, the Holy from the profane: “It remains to be solved the problem of how God, that is outside of time, could think at the point of contact between logon and Logos. A thought is a logical sequence of mental images that is developed in time. Thought presupposes a subject, a verb, an action, an object etc…. that have to obey to a temporal symmetry. For instance if I think: “my father is coming to dinner tomorrow”, I have to refer to a sequence of events that must respect a temporal symmetry. My father is older than me, I am not his father, but I am his son and tomorrow is in the future. The dinner with my father has not taken place while I am thinking. Today I am located in the past of tomorrow and my father is located in my past. He existed before I was born. How could the Logos, utilizing the inertial logons of the cone of darkness, express the thought that caused the creation of light while the time was stopped? The Book of Genesis says: “Let there be light, and there was light and God saw that the light was good”: there is the command of God to his substance to create the light given before the light was created, after that there is the divine comment approving what was created, pleasantly surprised. God could think inside the kinetic Universe, where time exists. But at the instant of creation the Universe didn’t exist yet. God could also utilize the bubbles of time that existed in the cone of darkness, but most probably they were not in connection with the original logon from which the Universe sprang forth. Fortunately in modern physics there is the solution of the problem- the Tachyon. It is a hypothetical particle foreseen by the quantum theory and by the string theory and allowed by the theory of relativity. Its existence has not been proved yet, but it seems to be necessary to explain certain phenomena that occur in the galaxies. The tachyon takes its name from the Greek word tachys: fast and is called so because it travels in space at a speed higher than light and is never still, it moves all the time. Its lower velocity limit is the speed of light “c” and its maximum speed is infinite speed, that means that if we send a tachyon to a star distant one light year, it arrives as soon as it is sent, instantaneously. Pretty good, isn’t it? Exactly the particle that we needed to send intergalactic messages! The tachyon has two strange properties: the first is that its mass is “imaginary”, which means that its mass m, multiplied by itself is equal to Minus 1. The imaginary numbers are numbers that solve the equation x square + 1 = 0, i.e.an imaginary mass i square = -1 (See appendix for Leo’s explanation of negative mass) The mathematics to describe this particle are very elegant. When applied to the equations of transformation of relativity, they show that this particle must travel faster than light to exist. The second strange quality is that the lower its energy, the faster the tachyon moves. If its energy is zero, it moves at infinite speed. Exactly the particle we were looking for to put in communication among them the various bubbles of time of the substance of God to realize the thought of the Logos. It’s needless to say that such a particle has been used by the writers of science fiction to make people travel in space or to send messages between space ships far apart instantaneously. They also say that the tachyons could travel back in time, moving contrary to the arrow of time. They could be utilized for example to kill my grandfather before my father was born in order to kill me. This is pure nonsensical science fiction and it’s not possible, because the principle of temporal symmetry that should apply to all physical phenomena, would not be respected. Even for the tachyon the past must happen before the present and the future! The tachyons are particles of the potential field and are associated to every point of the field, therefore there are plenty of them in every point of the space and agree perfectly with the field of probability and with the logons described above. They could be described as sound entities, sound signals, rather than particles with a mass and an electric charge. If they exist, like they are foreseen by physics, they are the ideal particles to send messages instantaneously throughout the infinite divine substance. They are also the particles that give an answer to the second question: how could God think if on His plane of action the time was still. By using the tachyons to communicate at infinite speed between the “neurons” of God! The majority of physicists don’t like tachyons because they break causality law according to them, making events happen before their causes, which is absurd. Note that we need the tachyons to operate on the plane of God where there is no time, therefore if the time is still there is no way they can travel back in time, breaking causality law.

Equivalence of Mass and Energy “With his famous equation E = mc square, Einstein demonstrated the equivalence between these two physical quantities: mass and energy. Not only that, but also the possibility that one will turn into the other, and vice versa. We know also that potential energy turns into kinetic energy when a body moves in a field of forces. We know also that the elementary particles are made by waves that behave like small springs when the particles clash among them, sometimes bouncing back with elastic energy. It is well known from elementary physics that Elastic Energy consists of the sum of Kinetic Energy and Potential Energy, therefore we can write the equation: E elastic = Ek + Ep When the potential energy Ep has a maximum value the kinetic energy Ek is zero and vice versa, and their sum forms the total elastic energy E. While it is easy to conceive and understand the kinetic energy, represented by the movement and change of position of bodies in time and space, the potential energy remains a mystery tied to physical phenomena intangible and difficult to explain: the field of force and the space. Let me explain with some examples: 1 – the swinging pendulum 2 – the tennis ball bouncing against the wall 3 – The bumpers of the wagon of a train that recoil after hitting another wagon. The potential energy in these cases is greatest when the pendulum, at the height of the trajectory begins to change direction, when the tennis ball hits the wall and stops for a moment before turning back, or when the spring inside the bumper of the wagon is compressed, before returning to recoil. If we observe these objects when the potential energy has maximum value, we would arrive at the erroneous conclusion that the objects are stationary and at rest in space. Even a stationary object in a field of forces, because prevented from moving, may give the impression of being motionless without any energy, but it has potential energy supplied by the field. Then the potential energy of a body is difficult to quantify and can easily mislead the unwary and ignorant observer of the system in which the body acts. Now, observing nature, we can see that all that exists and that has a physical reality behaves in the same way: its condition fluctuates continually between potential energy and kinetic energy. An example of this fluctuation it is given by the subatomic particles that oscillate like waves vibrating in space. If we take a slice of the cone of light of the Universe at any instant of time it looks like everything that exists should bounce to and fro between the kinetic Universe and the potential space. Applying what we said about energy to the field of probability, we have different phenomena and consequences that apply to the logon.

Consequences of these natural laws for the logons 1 – We have seen that the probability that an event will occur is directly proportional to the time available for the event to happen and inversely proportional to the square of the distance of its cone of certainty. Therefore for the logon that has zero+ size and infinite time, the spontaneous transformation of its potential energy into kinetic energy and therefore into mass, although small, has never zero probability because of the uncertainty principle of quantum mechanics. Each logon is fixed in space and is located at the center of its spherical field of probability therefore its cone of certainty relative to this transformation has zero dimensions. It follows that this event can possibly occur and sooner or later it occurs. 2 – I n the potential probability space, some logons become active “spontaneously”, becoming kinetic logons = photons, causing a transformation between potential energy and kinetic energy. 3 – We can then imagine the cone of darkness, not exactly dark, “hoshekh” , separated from “or”, light, by an act of God, but as an area illuminated by flashes of energy that occur here and there according to the law of probability that governs the event of transformation. 4 – There is life even in the cone of darkness: these activated logons are alive and start measuring time and represent the “neurons” of God, because they allow a thought process to exist in time. Even if God has probability 1, we cannot expect Him to do what is impossible, that is to think at infinite velocity. Therefore the “quantum fluctuations “of the potential space are the mechanism by which He thinks aided by the tachyons of the space to transmit the thought throughout the Substance at infinite velocity. We therefore need the logons and the tachyons with their peculiarities to allow God to think. 5 – With a God consisting of Pure Spirit, outside of time, it would be difficult for us to figure out how he could think at time zero when the time had stopped. But fortunately God has a substance made of logons and the tachyons come to our help. They are peculiar imaginary particles traveling in space at a speed higher than the speed of light. They can also travel at infinite speed linking the “neurons” of God on the plane of the creation, to help God conceive the creation. 6 – We will explain later why we need the presence of the logons in the probability space, kinetic and potential, to explain why energy is produced in quanta and not in a continuous flow. 7 – The likelihood that a huge number of logons are activated together spontaneously at the same time in a region of space, although very small, since it is the compounded probability of many small probabilities, is not zero. Having infinite time, this event may occur. When this happens, the total sum of the infinitesimal energy of all the activated logons becomes a huge quantity which is capable of creating the mass for a Universe. Since every point of an infinite space is its center, all this energy is concentrated in one point of immense density and that point becomes a “Big Bang” singularity. Then the logons, not only explain the creation of kinetic energy from potential energy, but also the creation of the kinetic Universe from the potential probability space. 8 – A s a conscious act of the Divine Mind, the Logos, or as a spontaneous random event, due to the probability, the Substance of God is involved in the process of “Creation”. If the equation kinetic logon = photon is possible, as supposed, it allows the transformation of logons into photons.( See explanation in appendix ) Thus from the collisions of an immense quantity of pure energy like that provided by a huge number of interacting mass-less photons, it is possible to build most of the mass of the Universe. 9 – The next question now is: do we need God to create the Universe?

Comments of Aleks As soon as Leo had finished talking, Aleks, who couldn’t stand anymore to wait to intervene said in English, to involve also Jacob in the discussion:” Dad! I subscribe to several scientific magazines like Nature and Illustrert Vitenskap, and I understand something of basic scientific divulgation. I think that you aren’t realizing that your logons are nothing else than the strings theory! You haven’t invented anything new.” Leo smiling patiently answered: “It wasn’t my intention to discover something new, but to understand what has been discovered. If the logons are the strings theory, all the better, it means that somebody else is thinking like me. I limited myself to interpret the words of the Bible!” Aleks didn’t give up and continued his attack on his father: “What you are doing is to utilize all these particles ending with “on”, Logon, Tachyon, to create a theory “ad hoc” to justify your philosophical theories without any practical foundation. I am surprised that you haven’t invented the “B.S.ion” to justify your bull shit! Science is a serious matter. All your statements are inventions pulled out of thin air, if they are not confirmed by experiments” Leo was used to this kind of extreme critique and calmly answered: “The majority of what I said has been already published in elegant mathematical equations and has been confirmed by experiments. The space is not empty but full of particles and energy. The logons could be regarded as a special kind of strings of zero dimensions, i.e. geometric points rather than strings of one dimension only: length. I liked the idea to call them logons, from Logos, and to consider them points, because the Universe was born from a point and not from a string, according to what the physicists are saying. I accept that if I say a bunch of B.S. my brain is probably made of B.S.ions. Where is the problem? Even the existence of God is not proved.” At this point Jacob got involved in the discussion saying “This doesn’t mean that it’s not a valid hypothesis: in Nature there is a Coordinating Spirit that is difficult to ignore. All of us share a moral law, based on respect for our neighbours, all of us agree on the mathematical demonstrations, when they are logic and we all agree on good classical music. This Coordinating Spirit call it as you please. Your father calls it God and he tries to demonstrate that God, who includes all the substance, including the Universe and us all, has inspired the humble Hebrew sheep herders revealing to them the secrets of creation. No wonder he sees that the message that the ancient Hebrew have sent us agrees perfectly well with the findings of modern science.” Aleks smiled saying: “Well! I am going to fetch three more beers from the fridge. There are other possible explanations: the Universe could have always existed or it could be one of an infinity of Universes that created themselves. We will not know until that day when science will be ready to reveal these secrets. I’ll stop talking and will go to the kitchen.”

Leo’s Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics “I promised you, Jacob, that I would try to explain to you why the velocity of light is a constant for any observer, regardless of the velocity of their movement. By postulating the sea of logons suggested by the Bible, we have introduced the idea of the existence in the empty space of a Substance, consisting of logons, that is fixed relative to all the possible movements within the Universe. An observer travelling in space would learn that the space dimensions and the time are modified to allow the speed of light to remain constant for every observer while the photons travel through this Substance. We made the example of the parallelograms of Euclid to show how this could be possible. The space around the photon shrinks to zero and the time becomes infinite. That is the limit of all possible modifications of space and time allowed, and that happens at the speed of light: 300,000 Km/sec. Less than zero space and infinite time is impossible, right? We have also said that the logons, when set in motion by the arrival of light, vibrate forming waves that propagate at the speed of light in every direction of space. Now, to understand what happens to the logons we have to make an analogy with keel sailboats as they sail through the sea. There is a law of nature, very well known to all the sailors, that links the length of their boats and the size of their sails to the maximum speed that they can achieve in water. Because their boats push the sea water ahead of their bows, a “bow wave “is formed in front of the boat that has the effect of limiting the speed of the keel sailboat to only as many knots as the square root of the length of the sailboat in feet. Nothing more. If the length of the boat is 25 feet, the maximum speed allowed is 5 knots, the square root of 25, if the boat is 36 feet, its maximum speed is 6 knots, the square root of 36, if the sail boat is 49 feet, it can reach a maximum speed of 7 knots. Obviously this means that the longer the sailboats and the larger the sails, the lighter they become in the water, in spite of their increased length. But only up to about 100 feet, i.e. 10 knots speed, because after that it does not pay to increase the length of the sailboats as they start weighing more and to slow down again. The speed limit for keel sailboats is about 10 knots, obtained by the long boats that weigh less relative to the sea. This applies only to sail boats with a keel, because they cannot plane over the waves, they can only cut the waves. If the boat has a very flat bottom, the rule does not apply of course, and the boat can plane over the “bow wave” and can go faster but then it loses stability and can easily capsize. They are very well known problems to the planners of “America’s Cup”. The analogy with the sea of logons is now clear: a particle travelling through the sea of logons, must cause a “pilot wave” that controls its speed according to its mass. The more massive particles create a large and massive “pilot wave”, and therefore travel slowly. The lighter particles travel fast . The photon, having zero mass and zero size, travels fastest at the maximum speed allowed, the speed of light: 300,000 Km/sec. Let’s now push the analogy a step further. Let’s suppose that the photons of light are like surfers on the waves of the sea. They weigh very little and can plane on the waves. If the surfers want to continue riding the waves, they must travel slightly before the crests of the waves, on top of the waves. If they fall behind the crests, they lose speed and slow down, losing their waves. If they travel too fast, they finish in the troughs in front of the waves and therefore are overtaken by the waves and slow down to a full stop. Only the surfers that maintain their position on top of the waves manage to ride the waves all the way to the beach at constant speed. We can imagine now the photon, riding the waves generated in the sea of logons, exactly like a surfer. Only the photons carried by the crests of the waves travel in the direction of propagation of the waves at a constant velocity and survive. Their velocity is the speed of light, the maximum speed that the waves of logons can reach, as also for them the space shrinks to zero and the time lengthen to infinite. But this should not be a problem for them because by definition they should have zero size, zero mass and the time for them and all around them must be stopped. Those photons that travel too fast or too slowly on top of the waves of the logons will not survive. (Fig. 9)

Fig.9 The illustration above shows a cross section through the activated logons forming waves that carry the photon. Don’t take it too seriously, it is just a cartoon to illustrate the concept. There are plenty of photons around even if a few will not survive. Astronomers have observed that for every matter particle in the Universe, there are around 100 billion photons.” At this point Jacob asked a question:” You said that a massive particle creates a wave in the sea of logons, which slows it down. This must apply also to the Earth, why it doesn’t slow down?” Leo replied that the wave was most relevant as the speed of light was approached and the Earth was moving too slowly, but never-the-less it was also creating a compression wave ahead of it as it moved and a dilation wave on its tail that compensated for the slowing down, accelerating the speed of the same amount that the compression wave was slowing it down. Remember that this effect was foreseen by the theory of relativity: in front of a moving object the space shortens and time lengthens. In the tail of the moving object the space lengthens and the time shortens to keep the speed of light constant. It is called “the Doppler effect”. The shortening of space, according to my hypothesis, must be the cause of the formation of the hypothetical pilot waves that are supposed to form in front of a moving particle.” “Now let’s address the fact that energy comes only in separate entities called “quanta”. Before starting we have to explain that quantum mechanics deals mostly with the behaviour of very small particles, like atoms and particles smaller than the atoms. The fundamental equation of quantum mechanics links the energy to the frequency of vibration of a vibrating particle and is: E = h f where the letter f represents the frequency, that is how many times per second a particle belonging to a wave goes up and down a full cycle every second, and h is the constant of Planck. In essence h represents the distance between two waves on figure 11. The amazing thing is that this fundamental equation links energy to an up and down movement, a vibration, while the relativity equation E = m c square was linking energy to a straight horizontal movement, the speed of light, and to the mass of the body m. From this observation we can begin to understand that movement is a fundamental cause of kinetic energy. There is a third type of movement of a particle, a rotation movement, a spin, which causes the electromagnetic energy, but let’s skip it, because the discussion would become too complicated and nobody really has explained to me how it works in simple words , but we have to suppose that the logons, like the photons are spinning. So movement is energy. By equating the two fundamental equations above we obtain: h f = m c square and if we want to focus on what the frequency is, we can solve the equation as follows: f = 1/h m c square which means that we can transform frequency of movement into mass. The higher the frequency the larger the mass that we can obtain. Since I am interested in understanding theories if possible without mathematic explanations, I invented a gadget, called “the little wagon of Leo” that travels to and fro, along a straight railroad track without attrition, between two walls fixed at the opposite sides of the tracks. The important thing is that the distance between the two walls should be relatively large compared to the dimension of the wagon. The wagon has bumpers on both sides, in front and in the back, so that when it hits the walls it can bounce back. However the bumpers are attached to the wagon with springs that oscillate in time as the springs extend or contract rhythmically. Each spring is like a pendulum that oscillates at precise intervals of time that are all the same. If the wagon hits the wall when the spring of the bumper is extended, the wagon can go backwards and hit the other wall, and if the second spring also happens to be extended, the wagon can go back and repeat the movement back and forth. If the spring is contracted when hitting the wall, then the wagon stops its trip, lacking elastic energy to continue moving. Let us suppose that the spring is extended only for a fraction of a second every second, and that the wagon travels at a speed of one meter per second. If the extended springs are perfectly synchronized with the wagon, i.e. they are extended each time the wagon has covered the length of one meter, two metres, three metres etc.. the wagon will hit the wall and continue going back and forth only when the distance between the two walls is 1 m, 2m, 3m etc.. i.e. an even number, a multiple of 1. Any other distance between the two walls or any lack of synchronization between the extended springs and the speed of the wagon, will cause the wagon to stop. Jacob, a question for you to see if you have understood so far: what represent the equal distances 1, 2, 3 shown in the drawing?” “I suppose the constant of Planck?” Replied Jacob quickly. “Bravo” said Leo:” I knew that you are a genius. They are quanta of energy and multiples of quanta. But let’s continue with the analogies. If we call the little wagon “E”, the energy of Einstein, equivalent to mass, then the little wagon will have a momentum: p = m v, that will depend on the velocity and the kinetic energy of the particle that moves between the walls. The springs of the bumpers symbolize the frequency of the oscillations at which the particle vibrates between zero value and a maximum positive value and a minimum negative value. (Fig.10)

Fig.10

If the walls are hit when the frequency is at its maximum positive value, the particle will bounce back with maximum elastic energy and transmit to the walls the maximum kinetic energy that it can produce. But what is the equivalent of the walls against which the little wagon bounces back and forth? These walls are provided by the “inertia” of the logons as they are hit by the kinetically charged particle. In other words they are walls of still logons. Let us see what happens when the little wagon has got just enough energy and momentum to generate a photon when hitting the wall of logons. First of all it must carry enough energy to hit the wall with sufficient impact to create a photon. Then, if the vibrations of its bumpers (the frequency) are synchronized with the speed of the wagon, and they hit the wall of logons when their energy is highest, they will transform their energy in a momentum that will move the logons forward, creating a wave that moves at the speed of light , on top of which will ride the quantum of energy that we will call photon. Kinetic energy and frequency can be used to create mass, with this mechanism. The larger the energy and the frequency, the larger the mass created. Only discrete quanta of energy can be created at each energy level. Let’s now make another mental experiment. On top of the wagon of figure 12 there is a little arrow pointing to the left. Let’s call it the arrow of time. When the wagon hits the left wall, the particle created by the impact with the wall travels to the left, with the direction of the arrow of time, towards the future. But when the wagon hits the right wall, the particle created by the impact travels in the opposite direction, i.e. against the arrow of time, from the future to the past. This is a horrible thing, against the human logic, but this could be the cause of the existence of antimatter. It is intuitive that, while the left wall consists of smooth and well organized potential logons of the cone of the future, the right wall consists of activated and chaotic kinetic logons or photons, belonging to the cone of the past, therefore the probability that the “little wagon of Leo” will create antiparticles will be obviously less probable due to the difficulty to make a proper impact of the right frequency with the wall. This is of course a hypothesis, yet it would explain, better than any explanation given in the literature by physicists, why there is less antimatter in the Universe. This movement towards the future and towards the past, back and forth, must have been very effective when the Universe was very young and the energy of expansion was very high. It is at that time, during the first few minutes that most of the particles of the Universe where created. I must apologize to the good soul of Dirac that has written the beautiful math to explain antimatter, but explaining it my own way, I now understand why! I hope you understand better now why particles that consist of waves carrying energy, can only exist at special levels of energy or why they are all the same for each level of energy utilized to produce them. Electrons have all the same mass and are created at the same discrete level of energy, nothing more, nothing less. The same applies to quarks, the basic constituents of protons and neutrons: they have the same mass although they may have different characteristics. Mass is created with a mechanism similar to the “little wagon of Leo”. Aleks at this point returned from the kitchen carrying three more bottles: he opened the beers and handed one to each one of them. Leo stopped talking and noticed that Jacob was tired but too polite to tell him that that was enough for today. He could not take any more conversation about that stuff. But being Jacob he could not help adding an epilogue: “Leo, you say: A thought is a logical sequence of mental images that is developed in time. Thought presupposes a subject, a verb, an action, an object etc….that have to obey to a temporal symmetry…… God could think inside the kinetic Universe, where time exists. But at the instant of creation the Universe didn’t exist yet. God could also utilize the bubbles of time that existed in the cone of darkness, but most probably they were not in connection with the original logon from which the Universe sprang forth. Fortunately in modern physics there is the solution of the problem. The tachyon.

I believe that your science is sound but unfortunately you get it entangled with your passion for the old Testament. Your whole statement reflect a priori your concept of God as a human being. You subject him to all human attributes. Suddenly you create a big Jesus. Why? Because you are determined to analyse God. This is the same problem that faced the writer of Genesis. How could God communicate with Abraham? Genesis says, through his angel emissaries, ministering angels. You substitute angels with Tachyons. You are 800 years behind. You ignore Maimonides’ advice to leave what is in heaven to heaven. If you breach the walls of the Garden of Eden you get lost in its huge maze. And yet I am intrigued, indeed bewitched by your intricate explanation. This is how science progresses. You put up a theses and future scientists attempt to falsify it. I better leave it to them to dare! “ Leo laughed saying that he understood how Jacob’s Talmudic ancestors enjoyed torturing each other with unending argumentation but he would find a clever response; meantime he proposed to open a bottle of wine and go out in the beautiful sunset and relax. That was a proposal that everybody accepted without discussion and all three of them left the study to go out to sit under the porch. In the evening Leo’s and Jacob’s families had dinner together again, this time in the kitchen. Dinner consisted mostly of sandwiches of prosciutto and salami with cheese and chicken legs prepared by the cooks before they left to go home. Leo said to Jacob that he was surprised to see that the Merons did not observe the kosher law regarding food. But Jacob said that only Michael was very observant and he would never eat salami or prosciutto, but only food that contained neither pork or shell fish, otherwise he is even less religious than his brothers. He is a cultural Jew. As for the rest of the family the process of assimilation in the Christian culture had gone too far ahead to avoid eating wonderful prosciutto like the one from Parma or San Daniele.

A different scenario for the origin of Judaism After dinner Leo and Jacob sat on the sofa of the living room to chat and to drink the last glass of red wine. This time Jacob talked about his vision of the Jewish religion, while Leo was listening with interest. “For me the commandments are not the Law of God, but the law of a special community to regulate its life against its circumstances of the time. Moses needed to create a law for the community to cohere and bond together. He created a Jewish Constitution. Although Constitutions and Laws existed before in Egypt, Babylonia and other parts of the world it was Moses and the Tablets that gave them frame and permanency. That was how the concept of the Rule of Law had evolved and came to be the guiding principle to regulate social interactions. Fortunately this basic constitutional law is now accepted by everybody as it has come to be part of an admired code of conduct, common to all men. It became a self evident essential requirement for any society of people to exist. And that was too the essence of religion. It follows that the commandments are the cement that kept the people of Israel together. Golda Meir said when they asked her if she believed in God: “I believe in Israel, and Israel believes in God!” So I too accept the commandments and most of the rituals associated with them which we call mitzvoth, the traditional cultural religious behaviour, but not necessarily all the mitzvoth, some of which have become obsolete and are being replaced by others, because rituals are there to perpetuate faith i.e. community. To paraphrase another great anthropologist, Frazer, Religion has to be danced out in order to continue to be thought out. The only real pure religion is the attempt of Abraham to converse with God, to link with God, i.e. with Nature as Spinoza reminded us “Deus sive Natura”. He enjoyed the process of thinking and meditating when he was eking a living in alien Ur of the Chaldeans under the influence of the descendants of Gilgamesh.. He carried his thoughts with him and imbedded them into his descendants creating the pure Judaism. The same religious impulse is also what moves the scientists to discover the laws of nature, to try to understand how God thinks. Modern secular scientists are too arrogant to understand that. In contrast Einstein did understand that to be a creative scientist you have to be a philosopher first. Well, Abraham was such philosopher. Under the influence of my father who was a follower of Maimonides, my concept of God of Israel was that he was different and as I wrote to you before, starting from this conviction, I believed that our God of Israel, Adonai is different. He is virtual. He is not the God that we have created in our image. May be the human concepts of numerology, causality, temporality, space and time do not apply to Him. He cannot be considered only one, he could be two, three, four, infinite. He occupies a potential space, an infinite absolute space. You understood well that God is the Space, the infinite space, the probability space if you wish. En Sof. But to some mystics amongst us Jews, God is also the Shekhinah which they have invented.. The Shekhinah to those mystics, Chasidim, is the Spirit of God that resides amongst us in this world. And because the word in Hebrew is in the female gender some modernistic pagan, I would say cretins pseudo Bible-Scholars, went to the length of depicting her as the female extension of God, that could be identified with the whole of Nature or maybe even with your Substance of logons. They think absurdly that God is complete only when united with the Shekhinah, with the female nature, to become a perfect Unity. In a way their imaginative theory is a take-of from the Song of Songs which itself is a sexual metaphor expressing the yearnings of man lost in the bewildering Nature surrounding him. The concept of Shekhinah has inspired the Jews over generations and at all times, and I am not different. The Christians have adopted that by referring to the Holy Spirit. And of course also the unification of God with humanity hence the idea of Trinity. You Leo call that Logos stripping it out of its mystic emotional and theological baggage. But I am beginning to be fascinated by your concept of Logos and Logons. You said that God lives outside of time, and I think that you are wrong. God is space, the Divine presence, the Shekhinah, but God is also Time. God sometimes is real time, may be potential time, therefore He lives contemporaneously in the present, in the future and in the past. He can do what He wants. Asking the question:” How does God think?” This is our human nature and the way our minds operate that make us wonder. Does God have to think, since he “knows”, since he is the “Thought”? Do not apply to God what applies to man, because God is different, a’her. Instead of reading 20 books of theology and science, read the Bible 20 times and you will begin to understand because you will be inspired. It is a concentrated synopsis of what we can ever aspire to understand. And most of all is the book of Genesis. This is how I managed to understand the modern prophet Einstein. When I arrived in Israel I bought a little book in the early 50s by Lincoln Barnett introducing the great man. Einstein himself wrote a forward to it. Since that time I read and reread it many times to get a glimpse of the story of Relativity. The Prophets, inspired by their religious thoughts, have written beautiful poetry and sometimes the Shekhinah or the Spirit or your Logos, might have inspired them, opening a narrow gap in the fog of their limited human nature, to disclose a bit of revelation. That is why, dear Leo I admire your approach that while believing in science to you it is not an impediment to combine it with spirituality. But you have to tread carefully. I often read the Bible, like I think you do too, to be inspired by its high standards of poetic prose and bewitched by its profound wisdom. But I know that it is written by men, not by God. You told me that there are clear indications that parts of Genesis contain “revelations”. May be so, after all it is the most extraordinary best piece of insightful imagination ever written by human beings. But is Einstein’s E = m c Square not a revelation?” Berlusconi After listening to Jacob’s new biblical theory,Leo was impressed and amused and said with a broad smile: “You did it again, Jacob: you are shaking the bases of the pillars of Judaism. But I think we, Italians will love your theory, exactly like the Italian Jews love Berlusconi, because of his Jewish jokes. After all he declared, in front of the Italian Parliament that he admired Israel so much that he felt an Israeli himself. Two days after his declarations of support to Israel, Silvio cracked one of his famous jokes among friends and supporters: “An Italian Jew went to his Rabbi to confess. “Maestro,” he said, “I have committed a big sin! I have been hiding a fellow Jew in the cellar of my house to save him from the Holocaust, but I charged him a rent.” “How much did you charge him?” “Well, correcting for inflation and converting to today currency: 3000 Euro.” “Per month? “ “No, I am afraid, per day!” said the Jew. The Rabbi shook his head then said: “That was a stiff price to pay, but according to the Talmud: who saves one life, saves all mankind, so that price was not too high for all mankind. Therefore you should still be praised for your generosity. You didn’t commit any sin.” “But wait Rabbi, Sir. Do you think that I should tell him now that Hitler is dead and the war is finished?”

The opposition party thought the joke was horrible and hopelessly anti- Semitic, but the Italian Jews were delighted with it and liked it so much they say that they are going to vote for Berlusconi next time there is an election in Italy. But it would be helpful if he did not increase taxes. Jacob laughed heartily. He said that throughout history Jews learnt to laugh at themselves to relieve the tension of a constantly hostile environment. “ About what the Talmud says, I have an idea: one of these evenings I will invite you to visit Scicli, the holy town of Judaism. If it is true that who saves a life saves all mankind, Scicli has saved thousands of human lives at the time of the persecutions against the Jews” said Leo. “ Actually it is related that Scicli had his Jews escorted by armed guards all the way to the pier of Pozzallo, to prevent that they should be harmed when they were obliged to abandon Sicily. I will tell you the story of what happened in 1492 when we will go to Scicli.”

Chapter 12 From a Geologist’s Diary in Libya The phone call

The day after,Leo as usual inspected his plants in the garden at St. Maria del Focallo quite early in the morning. The first thing he did after the inspection of the garden was to send the story of his own departure from Libya to Jacob for his comments. The story contained some nice anecdotes and some examples of the strange implication of probability in human life. Here is the story: Leo’s first departure from Libya to take that job in Equatorial Guinea was a confirmation of the game of probability that characterized the lives of men. Leo was in fact already “saved” from the desert of Libya, the first time in 1997 by a phone call from Bill offering him the job of General Manager in Malabo. But his transfer from Libya to Equatorial Guinea was not an escape, but was rather quite a bit of luck, perhaps not entirely deserved. But good luck, as well as bad luck strikes at random even those who do not deserve it. In his case he had been quite happy in Libya and his work, even if it wasn’t the most exciting and profitable, it was nonetheless useful to make ends meet and to keep him busy. Then Libya, with its beautiful landscapes and its wildlife as well as its humanity so rich with exotic charm, had offered him a lot and had offered him a friendly hand at a time when he really needed it. Leo, with his thoughts, went back with a certain regret to those earlier days spent in Libya as a Senior Geologist at Waha and to his friends then at the filing room. In those days Leo worked as senior geologist with Waha, the most important of the Libyan companies nationalized and expropriated from the Americans by Gaddafi in the early seventies. His office colleagues in the exploration department were mostly technical people of the industrialized third world, many Iranians, many Turks, many Egyptians, one Indian and one Englishman, who had remained miraculously with Waha since the times of the Americans. Leo was the only Italian of the exploration department. In this cosmopolitan and interesting atmosphere, Leo had been immediately noticed for his good language skills that included classical Arabic. The working atmosphere was calm and relaxed especially because the leaders of the department understood little or nothing about the work that needed to be done and left the geologists and geophysicists alone most of the time. During the frequent breaks from work , the geologists and geophysicists would often gather in the filing room of the exploration department of Waha to chat, drink coffee and laugh a bit. The political situation was never discussed, nor ever even touched on by chance, because it could be very dangerous to talk about politics or to make even implicit mention of the regime. The chief filing clerk named Moukhtar, was a Libyan sly and rather lazy, that kept on his desk a list with the names of the “shaqiqah” (literally: headaches) or the pain in the ass , which were coming to demand reports, logs of wells etc., and therefore obliged him to work. Geologists often joked with Moukhtar about the list, and sometimes they asked him how the list was doing, who was number one, who the number two and so on, and Moukhtar read the list, with the same seriousness with which a judge in court, reads a guilty verdict for the defendants. One day there was a big discussion in the office, always in the filing room. Both Racip, the Turk, and Ahmed, the Iranian, accused Moukhtar of not pronouncing well in Arabic the word alekum. According to them the way Moukhtar pronounced it was incorrect because he pronounced the word as if it were alek. Leo intervened to say that the word should be pronounced alaikum, as in the expression: as salamu alaikum. His teacher of Arabic, Imam Fathallah, had given the following explanation of the fact that when one person greets you, you always use the plural in the formula “as salamu alaikum” which in the singular should be “as salamu alaik” or peace be with you. “Next to each man,” said Fathallah, “there were always two guardian angels, who together with the person being saluted makes three. Three people in Arabic grammar require the plural, while only two the dual and one, of course, singular. So when you greet somebody you want to include in the greeting also the two guardian angels: the angel on the right is the head of the angels, and in a book he writes only the good deeds of his “protected”, the left angel only writes the bad actions, of course after consulting with the head. When the man goes to the toilet, the angels remain outside, at a respectful distance. ” Then Moukhtar, when he greets us in his office by saying: salamu alek, he greets us as if we were in the toilet, or as if his room was a toilet. Ahmed exclaimed , always ready to throw an arrow at Moukhtar. Moukhtar responded to the attack by saying that in that office he was the only Arab and he decided how he would pronounce the Arabic words, then he pulled out the list of the shaqiqah and tore it up. Then he took a new sheet and wrote a new list with beautiful calligraphy. Leo was the first on the list and Ahmed the second.

One day during the lunch break they passed in single file down a side street of the Suq of Tripoli, Yasher first, then Racip and finally and last was Leo. They passed in front of an old man who was sitting on a chair outside the door of a house. This guy turning to Yasher said: as salamu alaikum. But Yasher, who was preoccupied as usual with other thoughts, did not answer his greeting. The old man then, feeling offended, because the Arabs are offended when you do not return the greeting, became very angry and started swearing and cursing Yasher, accusing him of being too important to respond and wanting to ignore him on purpose. Leo, who understood Arabic, and being the last in line, had clearly heard what the old man had said, and stopped to say: “Do not get mad, because they are Turks and do not understand Arabic.” But the old man continued to curse, saying that once he knew Yasher and now Yasher ignored him on purpose. Racip and Yasher came back and all three tried to calm the old man and to reason with him, without success because he did not want to reason. Eventually they went away because there was nothing to do. Racip told Yasher: “Lucky that you have not touched him, otherwise something would have happened to you like in the story of the butcher!” Yasher smiled and shook his head, but Leo did not know the story and asked Racip to tell it to him. They sat in a small café of the Suq and ordered Turkish coffee, then Racip began to tell the story: “There was once a butcher. One day a man showed up in front of him in his shop and asked him some fillet steaks. The butcher cut them for him, after which the man studied them carefully and then said that he didn’t like them. He asked the butcher to give him instead some cutlets. The butcher cut them for him and even these he disliked: he asked instead for a leg of lamb. The butcher cut it for him patiently, but he didn’t like even that. After having continued so for a while, finally the man was so angry with the butcher, insulting him and telling him that he would not serve him well and that he could not give him the meat he wanted, that eventually the two decided to go to present the issue before the court. The judge, after hearing them said to the butcher: “Put your hand on the man’s head:” The butcher, astonished, obeyed. The man who was so angry, finding himself being touched by the butcher, became so angry that he died. The judge then said to the butcher: “It was written that he should die by your hand! It is a good thing that you haven’t touched him in your shop, because in that case I would have had to condemn you. Since the fact happened in front of me, and since I am the witness, I’ll let you go free!” Leo laughed at that nice little story and thought, while sipping Turkish coffee, that after all he was quite happy to sit with the Turks! The Middle Ages and the struggle against the Ottomans were finished a long time ago! Leo thought that the story had a deep meaning because it described very well the role of the “destiny” in human affairs. Leo did not believe in “destiny” but he knew that the Muslims were strong believers in it. The destiny after all was a sort of probability decided by Allah in the past rather than in the future.

There were two clubs in the office, whose members met every morning for a chat before starting the workday. The atmosphere in the office was very peaceful and relaxed because the geologists and geophysicists of the exploration department were free to do more or less what they wanted most of the time, except when there were annual meetings with the Muassasah, i.e. with the General Management of the Oil sector. Then there was a lot of electricity in the air and they had to work seriously. Leo belonged to the club of the shaqiqah, which met in the filing room. Moukhtar presided over the sessions and other members were Ahmed the Iranian and Racip the Turk, as well as Leo. In those meetings they were saying a lot of nonsense, they laughed a lot and they fought a lot. The second club, more intellectual, met in the office of Mansour, the Iranian considered the best geologist of Waha, for having found large quantities of oil with the wells which he had recommended to drill. Other members of the club were two geophysicists, Yasher, the Turk and Gharib, the Egyptian. This latter was equipped with lively intelligence, but he was always rather sarcastic and negative. One day when Leo had met him at the toilet and jokingly told him: “We have to stop getting together like that! “He answered quickly:” But why? These are the only meetings at Waha where the participants know why they are where they are, and know what the outcome of their meeting will be.”

Another day in which Gharib was particularly negative and was cross with the “white Anglo-Saxons” he made to Leo to the following compliment: “I don’t consider you “white” being a Mediterranean. You’re one of us, you cannot be defined white! “After that Leo had been running to the bathroom mirror. Actually he was very tanned and vaguely resembled a portrait of Abd el Aziz ibn Saud, the king of Arabia when the king was a middle age gentleman. When Leo met by chance Gharib in the corridor, in his office or elsewhere, he used to ask him: “Is there any bad news, Gharib? Please ruin my day, I need an injection of pessimism!” And he invariably began telling the most negative news that he knew. When Leo passed in the hallway outside the office of Gharib, he saw him sitting at his desk motionless, his eyes staring into empty space. In front of him always the same seismic section open on the table and a slightly disgusted expression on his face that made him look like the Sphinx. It is strange how the Egyptians, after many millennia, continue to resemble their ancestors, the Sphinxes, thought Leo every time.

One day Fauzi, the young Libyan geologist, which, as everyone knew, was also the spy assigned by the regime to the exploration department, after finishing to prepare a geological report on which he had spent more than three years to complete, came into the filing room to give Moukhtar a copy of the report to be filed. That day the club of the shaqiqah was full with all its members meeting in the filing room. Leo had noticed that Fauzi was wearing a new outfit and was completely dressed up with blue jacket, white shirt and tie. Leo said, turning to Fauzi: “You do as my friend Saro Iacono, who after finishing the novel “The fault is of the Lambs” he dressed very well with a nice new black suit, white shirt and new black tie. He walked through via Rome of Ragusa, greeting everyone and then went back home. Without undressing he went to bed: the next morning they found that he had kicked the bucket. He was buried with his new suit. He was only 26 years! The colleagues of the club of the shaqiqah began to discuss the fact: “Was the novel ever published?” Asked Ahmed the Iranian. Leo said no because the novel was completely indecipherable and written in a language that only Saro understood. Saro was illiterate and selftaught and had thus learned the language he invented himself. The language was decidedly Caucasian, similar to Italian-Sicilian, but it contained strange linguistic elements, such as “amofera”, space, that clearly came from the word atmosphere. The club members discussed at length the fact, while Fauzi listened in silence, then Racip said: “So there are similarities with the report of Fauzi. Even his report is completely indecipherable and no one will understand anything. But Fauzi can sleep in peace, because a geological report in our department does not conclude anything and is never really finished. All our reports are “progress reports” and Fauzi will continue to work on it for years. Before you came along, Leo, there was a geologist in our department that worked at the same geological map for 17 years and at the meetings with the leaders always carried the same map. All the leaders liked him, because he was kind of stable and convinced of his views. Besides, after years they knew his map by heart. The leaders do not like surprises! Leo laughed thinking that with their mentality, the leaders were avoiding surprises, trying to control the role of probability and thus avoiding the unknown relative to petroleum exploration.

That day, in the afternoon, Leo had a problem with his legs. The blood could not circulate well. He had to change three chairs to restore his circulation. He kept thinking about what Racip had said and a cold sweat was beginning to wet his forehead. He, had in one year already prepared 24 geological maps and was about to prepare for the 25th! Were the leaders already looking at him with suspicion? They would accuse him of being a drifter, a butterfly that flies from geological map to geological map without a precise destination? He went for a walk around the office and stopped by Yasher the Turk. There was also Gharib with Yasher, and his face wore an expression more disgusted than ever. Leo explained the problem with his legs. Gharib told him at once that they had recently discovered a new virus in Libya, which first affects the legs and then gradually extends upwards. He knew a Canadian geologist with Veba that had been transported out of Libya in a wheelchair…

One day before the friends of the club of the Shaqiqah Leo said: “It isn’t what new I learn that requires time and effort, but what I try to forget. But today I made a big step forward: I forgot the name of an American that used to be my enemy. Racip replied: “Moukhtar makes no effort himself. He never learns anything new and does not even make the effort to forget. He does not remember anything!” Moukhtar pulled out the list of the Shaqiqah and tore it up. Then he took out a new sheet of paper and began writing with ostentatious slowness. Racip became the first on the list and Leo remained in third place.

Another day during the lunch break, which was very generous at Waha: two hours, they sat under a tree in a small café on the waterfront of Tripoli. The old trees were Ficus Benjamina, still those planted by the Italians and made a lot of shade. As usual Leo was together with the two Turks, Yasher and Racip. An ancient Mediterranean affinity united them. The main topic of discussion that day was evolution. “I think that evolution takes place by ‘quanta’ and it’s not a gradual process. For example, the intelligence of a genius is an order of magnitude bigger than that of a normal man. The evolution has already created the superman of the future ... and lives with us camouflaged, with its superior brains unnoticed,” Leo said, and instinctively turned his eyes toward Yasher, who modestly lowered his eyes. Everyone knew the mathematical intelligence of the geophysicist Yasher and his tendency to explain everything with maths, at department meetings, which of course no one understood. Racip said: “I agree that the superman of the future is camouflaged to avoid being noticed. He even camouflages himself as a Neanderthal, and nobody understands what he says” and caressed the bald head of Yasher, which more than to a Neanderthal man, resembled an old condor. “I think that the intelligent camouflages himself because the stupid, which represents most of the leadership and managerial class, tries in every possible way to get rid of him, hiding him, firing him, throwing him in jail and killing him.” Added Leo and Racip in order to conclude added: “The fool has the right to preserve his race. This is a natural survival instinct.” By association of ideas Leo said: “I think the ‘big boss’ is a misunderstood superman” And with the thumb he was pointing up toward the sky to make it clear who he was speaking about. Yasher and Racip burst into laughter. “I started to read and translate into Italian the new book of the great leader. I cannot help but find it funny, and written with elegance. I have translated four pages at the weekend. At this rate it will take me two years to translate everything. I like especially the part that says that in the city the walls are more polite than men, because if you followed a wall you could get where you wanted to go, while men are too busy and point you in the wrong direction. Or the part that says that in the city men and cats have the same fate. That of ending up killed by a car... or when he says that the city is always humid, even if it is in the middle of the Sahara.” Racip frowned and asked:” What is the book about? “And Leo gave him a brief summary: “They are the usual thoughts of the Communists, like Marx, Mao etc ... but written in a manner to surprise you on every page. The book is funny. Since I understand what he says and I agree with him, he tells the truth. Jibran Khalil Jibran says that the truth needs at least two people: one to utter it and one to understand it. I must add that the truth is accepted as such only by those who had already sensed it before. It is since I was 26 years old that I wanted to live in a country-farm!” Yasher spoke for the first time that afternoon: “It is better not to talk about politics, especially in the office. There are spies everywhere. If you do not talk about politics you can continue to live here in Tripoli up to the age of 65 years.” Leo figured out that in order to buy the farm that he liked he should just have continued to work in Libya until that age. Yasher watched him smiling as if he had read his thoughts and said one of his usual: “C’est la vie!” Thinking about it and evaluating his probability to survive in Libya all those years to verify his dream, Leo assigned a very low probability to the event “masseria” and fatalistically he too said ; “ C’est la vie!”

“Today I finally had a good geological idea. I will propose a new well near Harash and I will make a great discovery! I have a new idea.” Leo said another day, breaking the silence punctuated only by the sighs of Yasher and his rare:”C’est la vie!“ They were sitting atthe usual café under the tree. Racip replied: “Then the boss will fire you straight away! “Leo asked why. “Why?” replied Racip, “He will do what the master of the caravan did with the herculean guardian. Here’s the story: There was once a caravan of camels, which traveled from Syria to the coast of Turkey. It occurred often in those territories that the caravans were attacked by robbers. To overcome this problem, the owner of the caravan decided to take a giant guardian, big and strong like Hercules. The caravan departed, with its new guardian, and a few days later, during the night it was attacked by Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The giant guard was sleeping under a tree. After trying unsuccessfully to wake him up, the men of the caravan and the master ran away. After duly robbing the caravan, the forty thieves, according to their custom, began to sodomize the sleeping guardian. One by one they made their own thing, abusing the giant, but he continued to sleep. When was the turn of the fortieth, the guard finally awoke. After realizing what had happened, the guard became very angry and began to beat the robbers until he put them all out of action and recovered all what they had stolen. Then the master and his men came back and the caravan went back in good order. Before leaving, the master called the guardian and after thanking him, he dismissed him. “Why do you fire me?” Said the astonished guard “Didn’t you see what I made out of the forty thieves?” “Sure, sure, you were good, but I sack you because you are hard to wake up! Where will I find forty thieves who fuck you every time we must wake you up? “ Leo burst out laughing and said to Racip that he hoped he did not believe that forty thieves had given him the same treatment, in order for him to have a new idea. He said no, that he didn’t believe it, but added: “Any new idea that you have, it is you who fucks forty geologists who have preceded you in the office, and that have not had the same idea. The leaders are asking: Why didn’t we think of that before? And they feel insulted & their pride hurt ... and you’ll be fired. And thus are things going on in Libya! “ That day Leo ignored the disaster of Harash that would have happened in the near future, because an event located in the future can’t be foreseen.

A few months later, after his well at Harash resulted in the deepest and most expensive well ever drilled in Libya, Leo had swallowed his wounded pride thinking that after all an event located in the future is never sure of being successful. The probability of Libyan exploratory wells was usually only 20%. During that period he limited himself to visit only Gharib, the prophet of doom. After listening to the sad story of the failure of the exploration well, Gharib commented: “You see, from the point of view of the office life, the enemies are better than your friends. The enemies are the ones that will plant a dagger in your stomach, looking at you to see you suffer, but the friends stab you in the back and go away because they love you too much to see you suffer. So then those that are truly useful to your career are those who don’t care about you to the point that they don’t even care to stab you”. Following these cryptic words, Leo went back to his room and began to sharpen all his pencils in anticipation of starting a new map. For some months he had preferred to stay quietly in his room, keeping a low profile as if he were a cockroach or a worm. But then he started showing up at meetings of the club of the shaqiqah. Other important philosophical achievements occurred then, to replace the financial disaster caused by Leo to Libya. One of the more profound philosophical thoughts that emerged from the filing room at that time occurred a day in which Leo had quoted the Arabic proverb derived from the Koran: And there is no fly on Earth, without that from Allah comes its livelihood. Present that day, as well as Leo and Moukhtar were also Racip and Yasher as well as Mohammed Fikrin, the technician of the computer room, and moreover there was a Canadian engineer, David Bergen, visiting the department to discuss with the exploration department the drilling of a development well at Masrab. “If Allah is truly responsible for my food,” said Leo, “then it’s He who has made me come to work at Waha.” Moukhtar shook his head saying that he thought that this time Allah had made a big mistake. Everyone laughed, and Leo, who was still sensitive for the disaster of Harash, blushed. Mohammed Fikrin expressed the idea that who is fearing Allah, He makes him find a way out and feeds him in a way completely unexpected. Leo knew that this was a famous phrase from the Koran, but as a precaution, remained silent. David Bergen instead said that if everything depended on Allah, then it was the fault of Allah if he was married to that “witch” of his wife. She was German and had emigrated to Canada after the Second World War, with the family that had survived the bombing of Dresden. “Indeed I shall say more” went on David Bergen.” Allah started up the World War II in order to make me meet my wife!” Everyone roared with laughter, but Leo thought that David Bergen had a point, unless you changed your mind and identified Allah with the probability, “Big P”, because of which everything that is possible, may occur. Too bad that to verify that event 20 million people had to die, of which six million were Jews. The probability obviously did not have a conscience. Even Leo owed to the Second World War the privilege of being in Libya, Leo explained to his colleagues. If his mother had not died because of the war, which caused the dispersion of his family, at this time he would be the director of the Hotel Primavera in avenue Cormons in Rimini. Moukhtar took the opportunity to comment that it would have been best for Libya if that were so. The last episode that was notable for Leo took place one day that Leo had gone to see Gharib, while he was engaged in conversation with Mansour and Yasher, in his office. Leo sat down and asked his colleagues what they were talking about. Mansour said that Leo had showed up at the right time. They were talking about Iranian Jews and of the fact that there were still many Jews in Iran. “By the way,” said Mansour watching with interest Leo “You know that Lopes is a name that exist also in Iran among the Jewish community coming from Spain in the Middle Age and your name could be of Sefarad origin.” You have Jewish ancestors? You have the typical face, especially the nose, of Iranian Jews! “Leo smiled embarrassed and for a while he didn’t answer: was it possible that as Gharib looked like the Sphinx, he resembled his ancestors? Then Leo said: “Everyone has the ancestors and the face he deserves. It is all the fault of probability! “ Everyone laughed but that event started a rumor and from that day on Moukhtar and the Coffee boy Mohammed, began to call Leo: Kissinger, probably because of the eye glasses he was wearing and of his nose. Leo thought that the time was up and in one way or another he had to begin to pack. That very afternoon back at the Regatta village, Leo decided to go for a walk to the beach, to collect his thoughts and decide what to do next. He took his walking stick and locked the door of his apartment. He walked past the apartment of David Bergen, about hundred metres down the road from his own, and he noticed that the windows were closed and the apartment looked deserted. Usually at that time of the day his door was always open and one would hear Philippine women chanting with loud voices as David organized sessions of “born again Christians “meetings and prayers in the afternoons after work. Leo thought that David’s involvement with the Philippine women and his new faith must have been a consequence and a reaction from the fact that he had run away from his wife. With that name, Leo thought, David must have been of Jewish descent and the cause of his conversion must be due to the desire of breaking all his connections with Canada and with his past. The colleagues at the office were saying that David was sleeping with more than one Philippine at the time and that during their religious sessions they all were speaking “in tongues “, babbling with each other in some incomprehensible mixture of languages that nobody understood. Walking down to the beach Leo saw from a distance a crowd of people, mostly women, waving their arms up towards the sky, and chanting as they were entering into the sea. All of them were fully dressed. He caught a glimpse of David leading the flock of his followers a few metres ahead of them. He too was fully dressed and was already knee deep into the water. “He tries to walk on the water, like Jesus!” Thought Leo and a feeling of disgust filled his mouth. He turned around to go back home and watch on TV the evening news in Italian, English and Arabic and thought: “I must get the hell out of here. This place is turning everybody nuts!” The time had obviously come for a miracle to help him get out of there . It was then that the incoming phone call arrived at nine o’clock in the morning the next day. Miracles, as you know, can happen, but was it possible the transmission of thought from a distance through space? After all the thought consisted of electromagnetic waves such as radio signals. Moreover the scientists had found out a new particle, the tachyon that could travel faster than the speed of light. Was it possible that Leo had influenced Bill so that he was thinking of him, at that precise moment? “Leo,” said a voice, faint and far away: it was Bill van Goidtsnoven that called from Equatorial Guinea. “Leo, do you feel like coming to take my place here in Equatorial Guinea? I’m tired of being eaten by mosquitoes and I want to retire! If you want, look for Jim and call this number in the U.S. and you can reach an agreement with him.” That faint voice seemed to come from Heaven at the right time to save him. The next few months Bill, Leo and Jim exchanged c.v.’s, letters and phone calls, until a beautiful day of July, 1997, Leo left Libya heading for Houston, to sign the contract with UMC for the job of General Manager in Equatorial Guinea. Leaving his little friends of the exploration department of Waha caused a bit of pain to Leo: he would never again have so much time available to discuss things so useless but so profound. “C’est la vie!” thought Leo shrugging his shoulders, when he was about to board the plane that would take him from Djerba to Rome, on the road to Houston. Farewell, dear Libya, thought Leo as he looked out of the airplane window toward the coast of North Africa that stretched from Tunisia to Libya, along the blue sea. Leo ignored that day that the probability would have made him come back again another time to Libya.

Chapter 13

Equatorial Guinea Next morning Leo e-mailed this last episode from his life around the world as a new example of the effects of probability, not on human life this time, but on large corporations. Here is the story: “The work of Leo, as General Manager of UMC in Equatorial Guinea, had proved at once difficult and complicated. UMC, the company of which Jim was the “Vice-President for Exploration and Production”, had a 25% share of the oil operation handled brilliantly and expertly by Mobil, which produced 200.000 barrels of oil per day from the continental shelf offshore the island of Bioko. But that was not the work of Leo. UMC had four other blocks offshore around the island of Bioko, assigned to them for the exploration of their petroleum potential, plus the mineral rights throughout the Rio Muni, a large territory belonging to Equatorial Guinea on the African continent. The capital of the country was Malabo, a small village lost in the midst of the Gulf of Guinea at the foot of a volcano: Malabo had previously been the capital of the only Spanish colony in Equatorial Africa, which was now an independent country. The Government was indeed in Malabo, as well as the office of the UMC and of the Oil Ministry, which supervised and controlled the oil operations. The leaders of UMC in no uncertain terms, had explained to Leo that his job was to keep good relations with the government and to ensure that the Oil Minister was satisfied with UMC. But the Minister, on behalf of the Government and of the people of Equatorial Guinea, of course, always asked for more money from the oil companies operating in the area and the American leaders were always more reluctant to pay, so poor Leo found himself between anvil and hammer, or rather had fallen from the frying pan of Libya to the hot coals of Malabo. If he had not caved in to the more than legitimate demands of the Minister, he would have endangered the concessions of UMC. If he had opened the exploration budget to the requests of the Government, he would have been criticized by his bosses, to the point of possibly being fired. He decided to use his vast knowledge in the field of ethology, especially using all he knew about the behaviour of wolves and hyenas, to design a strategy that might have led to good results. Since it was known from the studies of Konrad Lorenz and others that in order to ingratiate himself the favours of the leaders, “alpha” of the flock, a wolf must first of all start from the bottom, gaining the friendship and the sympathy of the “betas” and “gammas” up to the “omega” of the pack, in order to create the conditions for his insertion in the social life of the flock. Leo decided he had to start from the bottom of the hierarchy of the country. One had to be humble and become a friend of the humble. So Leo increased the salary of all the employees of UMC, to the cleaning women, the gardeners, the drivers and to his famous chef Gabriel, that being a Fang, belonged to the tribe of the Minister of petroleum, that originated from the continent. Then he established the payment of overtime for all Guineans and created a maintenance team for the maintenance of the various houses of the UMC in Malabo, putting as team leader Augusto, who being a Bubi, was from the island of Bioko, and therefore from the same tribe of the Secretary of State for Petroleum who was also a Bubi. For the expatriates who worked for UMC, and there were only three or four, he instituted the policy that they could eat for free in the three Lebanese restaurants. The only ones were in Malabo, where he would go every month to pay the bill. He also encouraged Jose Brito, his Public Relations man, who was from the Cape Verde Islands, and from the same country as the wife of the Minister, who was a Cape Verdean, to organize parties and banquets at his home. There was no need to incite Jose’ Brito, because he knew instinctively what had to be done: to invite the famous Cape Verdean singer Cesaria Evora to give a concert in Malabo for the Guinean Government and People. The good vibrations soon began to spread from the bottom towards the top and reached the ear of the Minister and of the Secretary of State. It seemed impossible, but the new head of UMC was still better than the legendary Bill who was loved by all, for having managed with magnanimity and generosity the affairs of UMC in the country. The Minister and the Secretary of State were quick to plant the seedlings of their carnivorous plants, hungry for dollars, in the fertile soil that was fertilized by Leo and they sent for him to come and tell them what he could do to help the people of Equatorial Guinea. Leo in reality could do very little, because the budget was decided and approved in Houston and there was nothing to do about it. He however noted that there was a bit of elasticity in the travel budget and in that of the social budget, therefore he suggested two proposals to the Secretary of State, who was extremely intelligent and very fast in catching the meaning of economic concepts. Primero: hay que viajar un poco mas (First: you must travel a little more). Suggested Leo. But that suggestion was like preaching to the converted, because the Secretary of State and the Ministers were always travelling for one reason or another and people said that they had also their personal Travel Agency, which provided them with first class tickets for the journeys they were making. Then, second, he suggested to build a little church in Corisco, the tiny island near the coast of Africa that had beautiful white sandy beaches, in order to make the tourists go to church for confession. Nowadays, the Europeans do not confess any more, explained Leo, for fear that their sins could be disclosed by the priests of their countries and of their parish, who knew them well. But in Corisco, in the heart of black Africa with Guinean priests, who knew them? They could organize charter trips for tourism-and-religious purposes, organized by the Travel Agency of the Minister and of Secretary of State. The tourists would be relieved from their sins, and then return to their countries more purified than ever, to start to sin again. There followed much laughter and an atmosphere of friendship was created. They became friends, and the proposal that was accepted in the end was the more logical one: to travel more. But the Minister had an ace up his sleeve, an idea more lucrative for the country and a more than legitimate purpose: to increase revenue renegotiating royalties and taxes received by Equatorial Guinea from the oil companies. Fortunately this request saved Leo, because all the companies were involved, and decisions were taken at a high level. He would restrict his involvement to managing travel arrangements and to pay for the tickets. They began to travel a lot: travelling to America to discuss the budget for exploration, trips to London to discuss and renegotiate the royalties, travelling to Paris to try to clarify the issue of sharing of territorial waters around Equatorial Guinea with neighbours: Nigeria and the Cameroons. Whenever he travelled the Minister was accompanied by the Secretary of State and by twenty members of his staff, including secretaries. And Leo paid, whenever needed, for the tickets and the “per diem” of the members of the delegation of the Oil Ministry. The administration budget of the office had doubled and that for travel, which fortunately was tax deductible, had tripled. Leo of course always travelled with them in business class, naturally with Iberia, so he accumulated so many free travel points with Iberia to travel for four years free of charge, after the work was finished in Malabo.

Things, despite the increased spending, were going so well for UMC that towards the end of 1997 and into early 1998, the Houston Management had started negotiations for a merger with Ocean Energy, a young and dynamic company that in ten years had reached a market capitalization of more than a billion dollars. The merger eventually did take place, and the old chairman of UMC was sent into retirement with a “golden hand shake” that would have caused the envy of a member of the Saudi royal family. Jim became the new President of the new company, which was named Ocean Energy and at once began the festivities. At the end of March 1998, Leo was invited to the party in Houston to celebrate the successful merger. He was almost like the guest of honour for being the manager, despite himself, of the most productive and the most promising branch of the new company, which now had a market capitalization of around two billion dollars. The new leaders said they were pleased with the work of Leo in Equatorial Guinea and guaranteed that he could stay out there as long as he wanted. But we know that all good things do not last long and probability took over and the devil stuck his horns into that good situation almost immediately. The price of oil, which was at that time around $ 20 a barrel, suddenly dropped to just under $ 9. The new company was heavily in debt and to continue to pay the debt and prosper, one needed a price of at least $ 18 a barrel, so things started to go wrong. The accounting officers of the company began to put their claws on the budgets of the various operations, to try to reduce costs, and Leo was called back to Houston, to discuss the matter. Leo had tried to study its costs to see what could be done to reduce them, but there was little one could do. The majority of costs were caused by the Government, which was untouchable, so Leo managed to convince the accountants that all was well. But towards the end of the year the real disaster happened. The value of its shares now dropped to a tenth of the value they had been earlier that year. Ocean Energy was bought for a pittance by Seagull, a small Houston company filled with cash. Jim was the first having to go, when Seagull took over the helm of the boat. The new leaders looked with suspicion even at Leo, but they dared not dismiss him, knowing he was getting on very well with the Guineans. But Leo had very few friends among the accountants of the new company, that now obliged him to deal with a new activity: that of controlling costs. It was thus that Leo discovered that humans, like packs of wolves or lions, needed authoritarian and unscrupulous leaders to keep them on their toes. While he was spending hours studying the Bible or watching TV documentaries of animals in the National Geographic channel, his “expatriates” consumed incredible quantities of beer and invited to the bar and to the restaurant half of the girls of easy virtue who lived in Malabo. The rumour had spread that there was food and drink for free, and like any wolf or lion or worm worth his name, even his “expatriates” had gone overboard in their behaviour. The restaurant bills had become astronomical. But this was not all: his gardener Roberto, who often came to his office for a chat and to talk about snakes with Leo (he had indeed found several black mambas in the office garden), a subject that fascinated Leo, had copied Leo’s signature to perfection and made checks for a total of $ 45,000 from the book that Leo kept in a locked desk drawer. Roberto with that money had gone out drinking in Douala, in Cameroon, and had bought three Land rovers with which he began a Taxi business. But even this was nothing. By studying carefully the forms where the men involved in the maintenance signalled the hours of overtime, to be then paid by the accountants, Leo saw that Augusto had averaged 12 hours of overtime per day, which together with the regular working hours and the lunch break, showed that 22 hours were devoted to the company daily. But that was nothing, because Augusto had slept at least two hours a night. There were those who had worked 24 hours a day and those who mistakenly had calculated that they had worked 25 hours. But even this was not surprising in comparison to what was being done by his Ghanaian guardians, Mustafa , his day guardian and Hassan, his night watchman. The Ghanaians were very much liked by Leo, as he used to have long talks with them in Arabic, because they were Muslims and well educated on the language of the Koran. Sometimes he would recite with them some surah of the Koran, when the opportunity would arise. The Ghanaians called Leo: Hadj, that is a name given to those who had been to Mecca, or sometimes: Sheikh, a term of respect for an important elder of the tribe. Well, controlling expenses, he discovered that both were working also for Jose Brito, Mustafa by night and Hassan by day. Leo amazed by this discovery called Mustafa:” Mustafa, you work 12 hours during the day for me and during the night 12 hours for Brito. When do you sleep? “Leo asked and Mustafa replied with a smile on his lips: “Hadj! I do not need to sleep, I read the Qur’an! “ Several days had passed, and Leo made another discovery that surprised him greatly. His maid Escolastica for more than a year had opened a small shop where she sold canned beans, cooked prosciutto, beer and cans of coca cola. Well, all sorts of goods that came from the immense pantry of food that the Americans had sent him to supply the guest house that Leo was running in his huge house, for use by the visitors that came from America. The pantry was managed with commitment and precision by his chef Gabriel, who was naturally unaware of everything. But even this was nothing compared to the disaster of the fast destruction of a thriving company, which once had had a bright future, because of the price of oil. The Arab proverb said: The prices (of oil) and the lives (of men) are in the hands of Allah. Or of the law of Menga, thought Leo. At the end of September 1999, even Leo and Brito were fired and Severino, the Guinean chief accountant, took the place of Leo in Malabo. Leo received a nice golden “hand shake”, so once he came back to Sicily, he had a sigh of relief. Rather than rest on his laurels, Leo began to try and do something else, and together with his old boss Jim decided to start the exploration of Sicily, an activity which resulted in a license and a new job offer for Leo by Jim nearly five years later. This time the offer of Jim saved him from the desert of Libya, for the second time.”

Jacob had received the e-mails of Leo and the day after, when they as usual sat under the carob tree he said: “ Enough, you convinced me that the events on Earth, if we exclude a Divine Design and a Providence, are due either to chance or to the actions of men. We must therefore make a distinction between what happens independently from the will of man and what happens as a consequence of his free will. For what concerns your theory of probability, you have given an exhaustive answer about the physical causes the bring about the events. But you haven’t discussed the fact that man can be the cause of future events, good or bad ones. According to me first of all we must give a simple definition of what is evil: evil is everything that is opposed to the most fundamental tenants that regulate our social life, love your neighbour like yourself. In modern parlour: if you cherish your freedom don’t deny it to others. According to Rabbi Hillel, this commandment is the synthesis of all the Torah. Jesus Christ echoed the same concept (Matthew, 22:39). Let’s analyze now the details of what causes evil, or sin within its social context. Is it an act of free will or is it induced by circumstances outside the individual? The Arabs would say: it was written and most people would say: nothing was written, it was your doing, your fault! It all amounts to understanding and solving the problem of free will versus predetermination in a satisfactory way. This problem vexed philosophy and science for more than three thousand years. It vexed me personally for at least sixty years! I feel now I found a comforting answer, though it might not be a completely satisfactory one. This is how my personal story started. My father was a businessman who devoted every minute of his spare time to Biblical studies. He was a follower of Maimonides. I often frequented his study and attended his discussions with his peers. From my early years until the age of 10/12, I would accompany him on his contemplative walks along the Tigris bank especially on Friday evenings after leaving the Synagogue. He hoped that I would follow in his footsteps: that I would become a Talmudic scholar or even a Rabbi. We talked about God, the creation and our obligations under the Torah and Moses Law. I hated the idea that God was watching me and that there was no way to get out of his constant sight. I would plead with my father saying: “Why does God have to watch me and thereafter to judge me, after all he knows what I would be thinking and doing. He knows the future. Why I must be punished for what he had already known and planned for me?” My father could sense my frustration and anxiety and I could sense that he had no answer. Then, with him being at a loss, he would invoke the standard rabbinical solution by saying unconvincingly that God knows the future but Man does not know and therefore he must be accountable for his actions because man chooses his actions. Then the conversation would take the form of a circular argument of repetitive similar questions and answers and we end up back home for dinner. Now I think I found the answer, may be because for too long I have become tired of constantly asking the question. Does the answer convince anybody else? I hope and wonder. So what is the answer? Put simply and briefly, it is because the individual, through the process of his life, creates his own individual mind and consequently he is free to think what he likes and to act accordingly he is free to commit sins and crimes! During his lifetime he possesses his own free will, in the words of Sartre he is master of his destiny: “Man is condemned to be free” Thus we cannot predict the outcome of an individual choice before it is made and is not a haphazard outcome of probability. Free will determines the future actions. Theoretically could an individual free will and his action disturb the predestined order of the universe? The answer to this problem is again simple. We know that the universe and all its systems, whether macro or micro, are self regulated and adjustable to ensure self preservation. This is true for organs or systems in our bodies and it is true for the micro and macro systems of the universe. Whenever they are disturbed they self-adjust any disturbing change out of an innate propensity for self preservation. The simple conclusion is therefore that freewill can coexist and does not contradict predestination. Therefore we can be accountable, and in fact we are responsible for our actions. The next question is: we are responsible to whom? This question will be answered later when we will discuss the role of God in our lives. Let us now, as an example, analyze the problem of the evil caused by an Arab terrorist.. It is natural that Moses’ commandments do not apply to him: he has other overriding commandments such as those given in the Koran that supersede them and incite him to: fight, in the path of Allah, those that fight you.(Sura: The cow: Baqara: 190) But as a human being he must adhere to the solidarity law that binds all human beings of all faiths. He must know what is wrong and yet he takes a decision of his own free will dictated by his loyalty. According to him his side is predetermined by his birth: it was written according to him that he should behave like that. In reality, I say that the choice remains his and his alone.”

Leo remained silent to think for a while, then answered:” Your father convinced you that God knows the future. I disagree entirely with that notion: God is eternal and immortal; therefore there is no future and no past for Him, but an eternal, continuous present. Second I believe that Heisenberg’s concept is correct: Probability rules the game of dice played by God and therefore a man is not responsible for his sins, if the circumstances of all the events are due to chance. But this does not condone committing a crime, like that of the Islamic terrorists, because man should know that there exist a moral law that is against this. Third there has been no agreement between God and man that this latter should follow a predetermined behaviour. The commandments are only moral suggestions transmitted by way of revelation like the rest of the revelation. I agree with you however that a terrorist is partly guilty and partly innocent. He transgresses the moral law, but the circumstances of his probability field have determined his future actions. An excited exchange of e-mails followed. Jacob was saying that the concept of a God that knows the future was fundamental to all monotheistic religious faiths. It originated from the fact that God was supposed to be independent from the flow of time. For God future, present and past were bound together in an infinite present that explained why he could know the future. And Leo replied that precisely because of such dogma and other similar dogmas that did not fit with scientific thoughts that he was trying to counteract with his thesis. Jacob objected also to the concept of moral Laws. Which laws? He asked. Whose laws? Laws of the rich or laws of the poor? Kant’s imperatives? But Hegel who followed Kant thought that Prussia and the Germanic Peoples reached the zenith of civilization and by implication the last word on moral behavior. Curiously he included Scandinavia amongst the Germanics and even England but not France or Italy. (I wonder whether this was to do with Protestantism versus Catholicism, or facetiously beer drinkers versus wine drinkers!) May be here you see manifested the germ of the German belief of their superiority leading to their World War II tragedies. After much discussion Leo told Jacob: “ We are getting in deepwater. It’s better to conclude our discussion here. Our points of view are difficult to reconcile!”

Chapter 14 Big Bang for the Children Before returning home a few days after the Seder Jacob had asked Leo to come back to the farm, to explain his theories to the children. He was curious to see how they would react. Undoubtedly Felix, Leonardo, and perhaps even Mia, the elder daughter of Daniel that was aged 6, would have grasped the basic idea, but the younger children would not have understood anything. But at least it would be fun for them to do something new. Leo was honoured by that request and he came back to Jacob’s farm the next day in the afternoon accompanied by Aleks, Felix and Leonardo and his wife Gerd. By now all of his family had taken a liking to going there to visit the Merons, since each one of them, in his own way, enjoyed being in the company of the English friends. Before coming to Jacob, Leo had stopped at his farm to take Mafish and a large cardboard box, which he placed in the trunk of the Toyota, along with the dog. From Santa Maria del Focallo he had brought hammer and nails, coloured pens, a triangular design ruler of plastic and rubber balloons coloured in various colours, which he would use to show the Universe to the children. As soon as she arrived, Gerd let Leo and Jacob carry on with their crazy activities and went under the shed for a chat with Sandra and her daughters-in-law, who had remained at home looking after the children while their husbands had gone around the province of Ragusa to do some site-seeing. Jacob called all the children, except of course for the baby Oscar, to follow him under the big carob tree in the meadow and Leo asked Aleks and his grandchildren to come too, because he needed their help. Jacob told the children to sit on the grass in the shadow of the carob tree and said: “Children, now the Rabbi Leo will instruct you on how the Universe we live in was born and will tell you how God created it. Sit quietly and listen. Then you can ask Leo all the questions you want! All right? “Mafish sat in the shade of the carob tree and followed with her eyes all the movements of her master. Leo began to organize on the ground under the carob tree the material he had brought with him. First of all, he took the cover off the box, then he nailed the bottom of the box lengthwise to the trunk of the carob tree about three feet in height, so that the children could see inside the box. “This box is the empty space before God created the Universe,” said Leo, talking to the children as he moved a hand inside the box to prove that it was empty. Then Leo took out of his pocket a knife, a Sicilian peasant knife that he always carried with him, the so-called “licca-sapuni”, and with the knife he made a little hole in the wall at the bottom of the box. Then he took a deflated red balloon, which was about the size of a walnut and inserted the little tube, used to inflate it, inside the small hole, so that the balloon was inside the box, and the little tube hang down below the box . “This balloon represents the Universe before God began to create the light, the first day. Now I need the help of Leonardo and Aleks. Come here please.” Asked Leo: “You Leonardo take this black marker and start drawing the dots on the balloon all around it, exactly as I do.” And Leo showed Leonardo what he should do. Leonardo followed the instructions of his grandfather and designed many dots on the balloon:” These are the stars and the galaxies when God began to build the Universe. As you can see they were all gathered together in a point in space. (Fig.13)

Fig. 11 Leo then took the triangular plastic ruler and supporting the base of the triangle against the bottom of the box, he made a mark on the bottom of the box with a black marker projecting the side of the balloon on the right side. Then he made a sign on the left side. “We projected the size of the balloon, which is approximately 4 cm in diameter and is about two centimetres above the plane on which we have started the Universe. This represents the Universe the first day. Besides the points that we have drawn we write 1, the first day. Aleks now I need your help: do you mind if I ask you to be God?“ ”No,” said Aleks, “actually I think that God’s role is well suited to my personality. Tell me what I should do: “Well, sit down below the box and blow into the balloon when I tell you. After having blown, with two fingers hold the tube so that the air will not come out. Okay? Do you think you can?” “It’s a bit uncomfortable, but okay, I can! After all God is omnipotent, “said Aleks, settling below the box and bending his head so that he could blow into the tube. “Well, Leo said, God give a nice blow into the balloon and then hold the tube closed.” Aleks did as Leo asked him to do and blew his breath once. The balloon became about 10 centimetres in diameter. Leo projected with the triangle the size of the balloon on the bottom of the box. The height of its diameter from the bottom was 5 cm, and the distance between the two points on the left and on the right, representing the new diameter of the balloon, was 10 cm. Leo marked with the black marker also these two points and then wrote next to them 2. “These are the dimensions of the Universe, the second day,” said Leo, “Come on God another blow!” Aleks blew his breath and then closed the stem of the balloon with two fingers. The balloon had become 15 cm in diameter and Leo took the measurements and wrote opposite the corresponding point on the bottom of the box, 3, the third day. “Another good blow, God” Aleks blew and the balloon was now 20 cm in diameter and Leo projected the new measurements on the bottom of the box and wrote 4 next to the new points that he had drawn, then turning to the children he said, “See how the galaxies and the stars that Leo had drawn have moved far from each other! The Universe is expanding! Come on God-Aleks, another blow.” “Let’s hope it’s the last time because God is beginning to be tired,” said Aleks. “The job of God is not easy and it shouldn’t be easy to create the Universe. Courage, two other blows and then you can rest! “Said Leo. Aleks blew twice more and the balloon becomes first 25 cm and then 30 cm in diameter. Leo took the measurements and wrote the numbers 5 and 6 in correspondence of the marks. Then he took a string and tied the stem of the balloon in order to free the hand of Aleks. “On the seventh day God rested,” Leo said, “so you Aleks can finally rest. “This is the Yom Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, perfect, get it Joshua?” Joshua had understood and smiled at his grandfather. Joshua loves Saturday because it is the only day his parents allow him to eat chocolate and sweets which he is not allowed all the week. Leo told Aleks to go and sit among the children, but he still had not finished with him. “I still have many questions to ask God,” he said as he connected with the ruler the points which he had drawn on the bottom of the box. (Fig. 14)

Fig. 12 “God, what is this cone that I drew?” Asked Leo to Aleks: “It could be the cone of that fool of Minchio-wski,” said Aleks. “That’s right God, but those two lines I drew, what are they?” “May be the limits of the balloon rubber: every time I blew the balloon was inflated to a certain limit,” said Aleks: “Good God, the answer is correct. In the case of the balloon, the two lines are the limits of resistance to the expansion of the balloon rubber. But in the specific case of the Universe they are the limits of the speed of the photons that cannot be overcome.” Joshua got involved by saying: “But I with a pin can explode the balloon!” “Good Joshua, you can burst the balloon, but you cannot go to blow out the photons with a pin, because you can’t fly at the speed of light to reach the limits of the Universe, since you cannot fly faster than the speed of light.” said Leo “Why? “Asked Joshua” Because Einstein said so,” Leo said. That answer appeared to satisfy Joshua, though he didn’t have any idea of who Einstein was, and he remained silent, asking no more questions. “Another question for you, God. There is air around the balloon, right? And there is air inside the balloon from your lungs that you’ve blown and that you have set in motion, isn’t that so? But before you created the Universe what was there in the space around the Universe?““There was nothing “said Leonardo,”there was nothing because nothing was yet created!““These are the ideas of the atheists, Leonardo: give me an example of something that does not exist, something that is made of nothing in the Universe.” said Leo, but Leonardo could not answer:” Everything that is created is created from something. Nothing is created out of nothing! Well I think that like around the balloon there is air, around the Universe there were the logons” “Log-on,” said Felix, “God made the log-on in the Universe, like one connects to the Internet?“ “Right Felix, I see that you’re intelligent and you understand how God works. God has used the logons which are tiny particles that existed in space even before he created the Universe, for logging-on in the Universe he was creating. Just like when you enter the Internet with the computer. Beautiful example. The logons are very small particles forming the substance that God is made of and that surrounds the Universe. But they exist also inside the Universe.“ “Then God is made of gas?” asked Leonardo. “Very good Leonardo, this time your question is a good one. God is made of a substance that looks like a crystallized gas that forms the grid of the logons: “Leo asked if there were other questions, but nobody said anything more, so turning to Aleks, Leo said:”A question for you, God. When you blew into the balloon-Universe, where were you?” “I was under the box, sitting rather uncomfortably,“ said Aleks surprised by the question” And you could control what was happening inside the balloon?” “No, I would just blow from under the box and the balloon was inside the box and what happened inside the balloon after having blown, I could not control it,” said Aleks. “Good God, the answer is correct. God is beneath the plane on which the Universe is developing and cannot control what happens inside the Universe, once created.” Leo at this point noticed that the Children were beginning to lose concentration. Even Mafish had grown tired of following the master with her eyes and was asleep in a corner of shade under the carob tree. So Leo handed out some balloons to the children telling them to go play with the markers to expand the galaxies on the balloons. Then, turning to Aaron and Aleks he suggested to go and sit under the veranda to drink a glass of icy Chardonnay of Valenti and relax for the rest of the afternoon. “We have worked long enough: creating Universes is hard work. Tonight we want to invite all your tribe to Scicli to eat pizza in a nice square.” Concluded Leo and there was unanimous approval for that proposal.

Part III Introduction

"The Rock of Shiklah, placed high on a hill, is one of the most noble fortresses and its surrounding plains are among the most fertile lands. It is about three miles from the sea. The city thrives greatly: populous, industrious, surrounded by an inhabited countryside, provided with markets ... At Shiklah there is still a source called 'Aynu-l Awqat (Donnalucata) [i.e. "The source of the prayers"] so called because the water doesn’t flow there except during the hours of prayer. " Thus, in the first half of the twelfth century, the Arab geographer al-Idrisi described Scicli in Kitâb nuzhatu-l Mushtaq (Book for those who delight to travel the world ...), better known as the Book of King Roger. Already between 1100 and 1200, Scicli was one of the main centers of civic and business life. There lived together two souls, the Arab and the Christian. Soon the second prevailed on the first, but abundant traces of the first remained in the places and names. ( Published in the Internet by Prof. Lisa Bachis ) Arab sources narrate, but only Allah knows the facts better than all of us, that in the Middle Ages lived in harmony in Scicli Arabs, Christians and Jews. The name of the town seems to derive from Sikilly, which in Arabic means Sicilian or Shiklah, the name of the imposing fortress that overlooks the city. According to recent and authoritative historical investigations, published in the Internet by Prof. Lisa Bachis, within the city there was a thriving Jewish community, which was part of the 52 Sicilian communities until the edict of expulsion in 1492. The presence of Jews in Scicli is documented by numerous archival and literature sources, although there are few material traces of their passage, except for some place names that still can be found in the area that once was the Giudecca, which is the Jewish Quarter. The Jewish community of Scicli was certainly very large since it was allowed to have two Synagogues and the economy on which the welfare of the wealthy Jews was based was of agricultural and rural land type. In fact, many were those who owned lands and mills and enjoyed privileges granted first by the King and then by local lords, so that such an economy prospered and brought benefit to the economy of the area. After 1300, the history of the community of Scicli is intertwined with that of the County of Modica and also the news related to the increasing acts of intolerance and reprisal of the Christians against the Jews can be found under the heading of the County of Modica. So also are the news about the anti-Jewish riots that broke out in August 1474. But the disappearance of the Jews from the Sciclitan community has a history less tragic and traumatic than what happened in the rest of the County of Modica. No act of violence was committed on the Jewish population. Jews were allowed to take refuge to more tolerant countries, thanks to the collaboration of the city authorities and the population.

Chapter 15

Scicli in Sicily, The Righteous Town

Felix and Leonardo wanted to sit in Daniel’s car with Jacob’s grandchildren with whom they were beginning to have fun, so there was room in the Toyota for Jacob, who sat in the front seat, so he could better admire the view of Scicli. Leo sat behind Jacob, together with Gerd, to act as tourist guide while Aleks was driving the car. After leaving Jacob’s farm, they took the path leading to the farm of Leo, a hundred metres or more along the main road, to return Mafish home and then head toward Scicli. “My neighbour across the Western border of my land breeds about fifty heads of cattle. He’s called Gna’ and is a nice and helpful guy. For this reason I gave him permission to let some of his cows with calves graze on my land. The cows act as lawn-mowers: they keep the grass low to prevent fires and Gna’ acts as guardian of the farm, because he is always around here with eyes wide open to watch his calves and checks that there are no thieves around. Gna’ belongs to a family of Scicli, and lives in Scicli. The rumour is going around that his brother is in jail for killing three or four people, but it is just a “rumour”. Although in Sicily who knows does not speak and those that don’t know don’t want to get involved, therefore to know how things really are one has to rely only on hearsay. It might be true that the brother of Gna’ is in jail. But I don’t care. On the other side of my farm I have a boundary with a farmer from Modica, a certain Rizza, who has the land across the San Bartholomew torrent, that you see out there” Leo indicated the East side with his hand. “Beyond the land of Rizza there is the small farm of a certain Ciccio, from the mountains of Riesi, in the center of Sicily. This guy, Ciccio, is dead. According to a “rumour” spread by Rizza, who should be well informed, because he is his neighbour, this Ciccio shot himself when a mobster from Riesi, also from the Mountains, got out of jail. Because Ciccio had informed the police about the mobster causing him to end up in jail, he was scared of being shot by him when he got out of jail, therefore Ciccio shot himself to avoid being shot by the mobster. A strange logic isn’t it? “Asked Leo to Jacob. “I see that you really have good neighbours, Leo, congratulations!” Jacob said, laughing. “You shouldn’t fear, they are not all like that in Scicli and especially you have nothing to fear from the Sciclitans. For the Jews, Scicli and Pozzallo should be two holy cities. That’s why I live in these two cities, to honour the memory of my Jewish ancestors. The edict of the King of Spain, who ruled the whole of southern Italy and Sicily in the late fifteenth century, had ordered to expel the Jews from the kingdom, and throughout the South began the hunt for the Jews. The nearby town of Modica, killed about 400 Jews, other cities lynched and persecuted their Jews to gain possession of their property. According to what Francesco Barone writes in a book published in 1974 and titled: Sicily and the province of Ragusa, Scicli and Pozzallo these two towns were a notable exception to the general rule which began the ruthless persecution of the Jews in Sicily. I quote from memory what Barone writes: The Jews of the large colony of Scicli could leave the country and embark in Pozzallo without violence. The fortress of Pozzallo was more often used to drive out the invading Turks, but the greatest Christian victory was achieved on the morning of 20 September 1492, not against the Jews who were leaving Sicily, but against the brutal instinct of violence, so contrary to the doctrine of love that Jesus left us, so often forgotten by those who fight in his name.” Leo stopped talking to see if Aaron had something to say, but he just shook his head and smiled. “The two cities should be named by Israel: Tzaddikim bein ha-Goyim, i.e. Righteous amongst the Nations. When you go to Jerusalem suggest it to the Israeli Government. Then we could increase the tourism by the Israelis: we could give a 10% discount on the price of the Hotels and Restaurants to all the Israelis who come here.” Continued Leo. Aleks entered into the conversation by saying:” Always generous these Jews: a 10% discount only! “ “Okay, we make a discount of 20%. To the Israelis 10%, is just enough then I take 5% and 5% for your father, what do you think Leo? “Concluded Jacob who was an expert in these matters. “Fine by me,” said Leo, “but tell me one thing Jacob. The city of Scicli in Italian has a feminine gender. What is the female for tzaddik in Hebrew?” “There is no feminine, a woman cannot be tzaddik.” Aleks and Leo laughed, but Gerd shook her head disapprovingly. They were about to approach Scicli that was only four kilometres away from the farms. They started driving down the curved road that ran along the great San Bartholomew valley, a kind of narrow canyon in the mountains. They could notice some caves in the steep walls of the canyon and already could begin to glimpse the first houses clinging to the rock at the bottom of the valley.” Once there lived people there, from the ancient times. Scicli is an ancient town. People lived here in caves or in houses dug into the rock up to the 1950s, when the economic miracle spread even to Scicli, and people moved into better homes,” Leo explained to Jacob. They found parking on the street next to the baroque church of St. Bartholomew and waved to the boys who followed them with three cars to park there too, because it would be easier to drive from there back to the farms. They walked all together on foot along the short stretch of road leading into the square in front of the town hall, where Leo had decided to invite them to the pizza restaurant, in order to sit outside and enjoy the elegant atmosphere of the old town. They passed in front of baroque buildings renovated with good taste, on both sides of the road. Some of those buildings were used for the filming of the movies of Chief Inspector Montalbano, which had a great success on television. They stopped in front of the restaurant facing the City Hall and sat around a long table under a large canopy of white canvas cloth in the area of the square filled with tables and parasols reserved for the customers of the restaurant. The square was long and narrow and the traffic was banned, so it was really ideal for them to sit there enjoying the sight of the beautiful baroque buildings that surrounded it. The children could run around and chase each other and play safely on the large stand that served to accommodate the band of Scicli when they played at city festivals. All the adults ordered pizza and beer and the kids ordered pizza and Coke. Leo was sitting next to Jacob, in order not to miss a single word of what he would say. After eating pizza and drinking beer Jacob said, “You know that the Talmud is a collection of stories and writings based on the interpretation of several Rabbis of the Torah and the rest of the Bible. There are two Talmuds, both books very bulky. One is the Jerusalem Talmud, and the other the Babylonian Talmud. Religious Jews read the Talmud with the same spirit with which they read the Torah, i.e. the first five books of the Bible, containing the law. The rest of the Bible contains the books of Jewish history, the prayers and the stories of the prophets. Well, with your interpretation of the scriptures, adding some comments arising from the Gospels and the Koran, you’ve written a new Talmud, the Talmud of Scicli. Now I will add my comments to the Talmud of Scicli and then we shall publish it to allow others to read what Scicli inspired us with.” Aleks was sitting in front of Jacob and followed the conversation closely. After these final words spoken by Jacob Aleks turning to him said, “See Jacob, as a child my father would have liked to be a prophet, so he wrote together with his great friend, my godfather Pezzino, his personal Gospel, when they were still in high school. I’ve got one copy of it. It contains strange concepts such as the fact that nobody is to blame for their sins and the evil that he does to others, including murder, because everything is governed by probability. With Pezzino they had also suggested to replace the symbol of the cross with that of the sign of multiplication, the “X”. I think the secret dream of my father has always been to create his own religious sect and to be the prophet of his tribe.” Then, turning to Leo, Aleks said,” Why didn’t you go ahead with that project? It would have been beautiful and rewarding for your finances if you had convinced your followers to pay you every year the equivalent of your weight in gold and diamonds, as the Aga Khan!“ Leo laughed heartily to Aleks’ joke and said: “Our program with the good soul of your godfather Pezzino, was not so ambitious. We just founded a religion that would allow us to justify our sins and that would avoid us the hassle of having to confess our sins to a priest. But I think that more than a prophet I have become a new Maimonides, as my essay may be regarded as an addendum to his “Guide for the Perplexed.” Aleks interrupted his father, saying: “How dare you compare yourself to the great Maimonides? Where are the bases of your theological knowledge?” Leo said with a smile: “See, in my small way I have tried to modify, according to modern science, some of the key tenets to which Maimonides adhered, such as the “creatio ex nihilo”, the existence of God, the lack of corporeality of God and His Unity. I’ve replaced the creation from nothing with the creation from the Substance, to the spiritual nature of God, I’ve added a physical nature, the Substance, and I’ve replaced the Unity of God with His Duality. The only dogma that sees me in agreement with Maimonides is the indisputable existence of God.” At this point Jacob entered into the conversation to say:” Every Jew, and your father foolishly wants to be a Jew like his ancestors, must interpret the Torah according to his intellect and his level of knowledge. Your father has enough scientific basis for understanding at least the basic points of the most important theories of our times. Let him write his own Talmud, based on his knowledge. You, when it pleases you, you can write your Talmud, no one forbids you, indeed it would be your duty to convey to your children your vision of the world and of God “Then turning to Leo he said:” In your essay you haven’t touched on the problem of what happens to human beings after death. What do you think about this? This was a problem that confronted Maimonides and led to his exclusion by the Rabbis of his time.” Leo replied,” The Ecclesiastes provided the answer to your question. Quite simply, the body returns to dust and the soul returns to God. But the new concept that I introduced with my theories of the logons, suggests that the kinetic logons that are part of our brain, return to be potential logons, i.e. return to the potential substance of God. Theoretically this would represent a loss of kinetic energy, which is equivalent to a loss of mass. A curious experiment quoted in a book that Aleks gave me for my birthday that I have just read (Ref: Alex Boese, Elephants on Acid), shows that some mad scientist has already thought of measuring the weight loss which is recorded when a person dies and his soul leaves the body, i.e. the substance of his body, from kinetic, returns to being potential. It is only 21 grams of weight difference between a living person and the weight of a dead person. A dead person weighs 21 grams less because his soul is returned to God” Aleks burst out laughing and said they might sacrifice Mafish for the sake of Theology and weigh her before giving her a lethal injection and see what was happening. Of course they should measure how many milligrams of venom were injected before figuring out the weight loss. “I’m sorry, but in the case of Mafish the experiment would not give any results. Dogs don’t have a soul. According to the book of Genesis, only man has the soul, given to him directly by God, with an injection of logons.” The rest of the evening was spent drinking beer and kicking around various topics of religious and demented nature introduced by Aleks to destroy the thesis of Leo, while the children were playing hide and seek in the square in front of the restaurant. After more than five centuries, Scicli proved to be the right place for that kind of reasoning, in order to confirm its vocation as a holy place for Judaism.

Chapte r 16

Before the Creation: Beterem Kol Yetzir Nivra’ Before leaving the pizzeria of Scicli, Leo felt like concluding his concept of God for the benefit of Jacob and touch on the question raised by Aleks by way of a Religious Doctrinal Explanation “Cantor, the father of the set theory, did a lot of thinking about the infinite. Among other things Cantor was trying to count all the irrational numbers forming a continuous solid set, and did not succeed. From where should one start counting such a rebellious and unpredictable bunch of numbers? Between a number and the next number there is an infinite and unpredictable sequence of irrational numbers continuing to infinite without any rule, (like for example pi: 3.14159..... infinite). My idea is that he should have counted starting from zero all the zeros to infinite, since they are the smaller numbers available in any set, and he would have succeeded, because the zeros are in contact with each other filling all the space and leaving no gaps. Counting the infinite zeros he would have been surprised to arrive to one, as the sum of infinite zeros is = 1. (See appendix for Leo’s mathematical demonstration) “Beterem kohl Yetzir nivra’” from Hebrew, which means “Before that all that exists was created”, the probability field on which God ruled was a mathematical continuous completely homogeneous, impossible to count and identifiable with the substance of God. In the probability space there were only the logons as dense geometric points without dimension, in contact with each other without leaving any voids and forming an infinite continuous. If we are trying to count them we arrive to One = God. The ancient Hebrew Prophets that have written the Bible had a very clear idea about God when they wrote: Shema’ Israel YHWH Eloheinu, YHWH e’had (Listen Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One). Yet another time the prophets, according to my modest opinion, were right and their prophecies were well adapted to the tenets of modern science and of the most advanced mathematics thinking. Not only that, but due to their religious belief already from the ancient times the Jews had a very clear concept of the infinite Unity of God: in other words they had understood very well that God was One while being also Infinite. Not only the ancient Jews had understood in Israel the concept of the infinite unity of God, but also in the Orient, the Taoist and the Buddhists were aware of the fundamental unity of all the things, the great whole that all includes. (F. Capra, The unity of all things: The Tao of Physics) Even for the quantum mechanics the same awareness is valid. David Bohm, cited by Fritjof Capra writes: “… we say that the fundamental reality is the inseparable quantum entwining of all the Universe and that the parts that have a relative independent behaviour are only particular and contingent forms within this wholeness.” When Leo had finished talking Jacob commented on the explanation given by Leo with words of praise and declared that he was impressed by how elegant and at the same time easy to comprehend his demonstration of the unity of God was. Aleks, on the other hand, commented on the mathematical demonstration of Leo saying that while Cantor and Goedel had become insane trying to understand the mathematics of the infinity, Leo had not suffered any mental damages because he was already crazy. Everybody laughed and then Aleks added:” I caught you red handed once again! You just finished saying that to the Unity of God predicated by Maimonides you had substituted the Duality of Logos and Substance. What kind of coherence there is with what you have just finished demonstrating? God is no longer 2, did he become 1 again?” “Well, the divine Substance is one and infinite is its potentiality, and in its wholeness it is not countable, while the Logos is one and unique in his infinite wisdom. But the natures of God are two, Substance and Logos. Like man that consists of body and mind, while being one, also God is one, while possessing two natures!” Answered Leo with an amused smile. It was getting late and the children were very sleepy, so they decided to close there the evening and return to the farm of the Nathans. On the way there Jacob asked a last question: “During the last few days you said that the logons form a compact geometric tetrahedral grid, but now you say that they form a compact continuous infinite, the Aleph of Cantor. If the logons are forming a condensation, a continuous and compact set around the zero, how are you explaining the vibration of the logons allowing the formation of the waves that are supposed to transport the photons in space like surfers riding the waves? In order to vibrate they need spaces between them.” “Yet another fine question, Jacob, my compliments. I cannot answer you other than by an imaginary answer since nobody knows what goes on really outside of the Universe or if the Ether really exists within the kinetic Universe. There are several new theories about the subject and it would seem really that it does exist! First of all let’s imagine a mental experiment to explain the concept of sum of logons of zero dimension. Take an interval of one kilometre along a straight road, between Km zero and Km 1. Let’s start subdividing the road in smaller and smaller segments , one centimetre then one millimetre until we obtain, after an infinite number of subdivisions, a series of segments of zero dimension. Of course that will take an infinite length of time and could be done only by somebody living outside of time like God or by somebody sitting in a black hole or travelling at the speed of light! Regardless of how we do it, after having obtained a compact series of segments of zero dimension in contact with each other, theoretically and paradoxically, by adding together all the intervals of length zero, we should be able at the end to reconstruct the segment of road long one Km, because while we are busy dividing the distance into infinitesimal slices, the road does not change and the Kilometre is still there where it was. If this were not true we would enter into a mathematical contradiction, even if, to be honest with you, at the infinity the laws of mathematics and physics become rather strange indeed, like Cantor has demonstrated. We now can say that by adding together all the logons we should obtain the undivided and unique substance of God, which is One. Now then we have to distinguish two situations: 1. The probabilistic space that existed beterem , that is before the creation 2. The space reacting to the arrival of the light of the expanding Universe after the Big Bang. Under condition 1) the logons were not yet activated and in space an infinite peace reigned outside of time and of movement, broken only by localized and sporadic energy: “quantum fluctuations”, the bubbles of time. We have to figure now the logons as only some mathematical points of zero dimensions in contact among themselves and filling the infinite space in perfect quiet, but perhaps spinning around their axis. (Note: Quantum mechanics laws forbid two particles with half integer spins like electrons, protons and neutrons from occupying the same space, so when you pack them in, they resist being squeezed together. If the particles have integers 2, 1 or zero spin, like the photons (spin 1) and we suppose also the logons, you can pack as many as you want in a given volume, filling the infinite space if you want.) One way of visualizing them would be to imagine that in a state of rest they spin slowly around their axis, to respect the principle of Heisenberg. In this case they would achieve contemporaneously three things: they would keep their position in space like tiny gyroscopes, and therefore they would not move, they would also create some energy, due to their rotation, (causing the inertia of the infinite space) and they would live outside of time, because they would not move and would not create voids. In the condition 2) we should imagine that the arrival of a photon after the Big Bang will give an impulse to the first logons that it will encounter, moving them a certain distance away. Now, since the inactive logons are all grouped together in contact with each other, the impulse given to the first logons reaches infinity instantaneously, because if one logon moves all logons move. This phenomenon of instantaneous transformation of the space is called “non-locality”, as it spreads to the four corners of the Space transmitting information about the arrival of energy ahead of its arrival. It is one of the big puzzles of the quantum theory. At this point, automatically the logons become condensations of the probability field, because “something now is happening”, and will orient themselves in an orderly geometric manner forming the tetrahedral crystalline grid that we have described in previous days. Every logon is transmitting immediately the impulse received from the photon to its neighbour logons which will then start vibrating with waves of length h, like sinusoidal waves. This impulse towards the infinite will cause an instantaneous “rarefaction” near the point zero of the Big Bang that will make room for the “baby” Universe to expand into space. The total number of logons will not change because of this impulse. Even if the expansion due to the Big Bang was very large the number of logons would not change because of the fact that Cantor had demonstrated that the funny mathematics of the infinite sets suggest that an Aleph(zero) multiplied by an Aleph(zero) = Aleph(zero). That means that not only the sum of two infinite sets is always equal to an infinite set, but also multiplying them between themselves the final result is always an infinite set.(In the case of infinite sets, 1 X 1 = 1, which happens to be mathematically correct, but also 1 + 1 = 1 , believe it or not ! What would Bertrand Russell say about this?)” When Leo stopped talking Jacob said:” Well, well! I can see that you have really an answer for any question and an unlimited imagination! “ “It’s not only imagination but an attempt to explain things by analyzing the observed facts in a logical manner!” They had already reached the farm and were standing in front of the kitchen door and before saying farewell Aleks concluded the evening saying:” His capacity to pull out new” bullshit” is infinite like the divine substance that he is theorizing about!” It is then that Jacob tried to mediate between father and son saying: “Our differences stem from the problem of the value we attach to Zero. Scientists think in Algebra i.e. in categories. They tend to fly in their imaginations. We mortals, Aleks and I, think in arithmetic. Everything to us represents reality i.e. what exists. Zero to us cannot exist. So we are stuck on the ground unable to fly. Algebra is virtual, arithmetic is real. They are two media. So in conclusion I borrow two wise sayings that I learnt from the English: “Everyone is entitled to his opinion” and let us therefore “agree to disagree”. Good Night to father Leo and son Aleks. Good Night and maybe the Holy Spirit that inspires us all will find its way to the minds of the father and son to reconcile their conflicting opinions into a Holy Trinity.”

Chapte r 17

An English Gentleman’s Talmud The events that are related here took place in Norway in July 2010, one year and four months after the Easter celebrations in Sicily. Leo and Jacob had agreed to continue work on the story that started in Scicli of Ragusa in order to complete it as yet another version of the modern commentaries to the Bible. Leo said that while in Norway he would try to enlist the help of a young physicist, friend of his daughter, to read the draft of the book and make comments and suggest changes as necessary. But time passed and nothing happened: Leo never had a chance to talk with this young physicist, who had been always on vacation when Leo was visiting his daughter in Stavanger where she lived. A new opportunity to find some skilled help however did arise when Gerd invited one evening an old girl friend of hers with her boyfriend, an Englishman called Bob, who was a philosopher and, according to rumours, was very interested in the history of religion. By word of mouth Gerd had learned that Bob was extremely intelligent and quite an interesting person. “I am a philosopher, not by training nor by profession, but by pure interest in learning alone. I got a degree in Philosophy and the History of Religion from Leeds University. After finishing my studies my mind has never been obscured or corrupted by the fog that is caused in the human brain by the requirements of a professional life. I never had to lie or pretend because I was never contaminated by the social rules of a standard work routine as I never worked. Although I never stopped studying all sort of subjects related to my main interests: philosophy and religion, I managed to refrain from having a job all of my life. I kept my mind free to be able to think in an uncontaminated way and I admit that I am attracted by the Oriental Religions, especially by Buddhism. My name is Bob North, I am an Englishman, turned 56 a short time ago and I owe to the generosity of the British social system my success in avoiding all my life to be a slave of somebody or of some company or of some public institution. As an eighteen-year old boy I lost both my parents and inherited a country hotel with an annex pub, where for a few months, while the hotel lasted, I learned a lot about life. In the early seventies the Hippy culture and way of life was still lingering into the social frame of English society from its peak in the sixties. It was especially popular with the upper class British youth like me. Not as much as during the sixties, but at that time quite a few young guys were still getting regularly high on hashish and LSD. Not having any parents to bother me with their advice and reproaches, I was free to live the life that I preferred living. Drinking, getting high on hashish or LSD and having fun with my friends while listening to the music of the Beatles or to American Jazz. With my good friend John South we became inseparable: we used to spend hours philosophizing, discussing about Buddhism, and listening to very high full volume music while letting our brains drift in an absolutely blissful Nirvana of carelessness. We were known around our town, Winchester, as North and South. Let’s go to North and South to have a few drinks and get high, our friends used to say. In the many rooms of the Hotel anybody could spend the night and we had several wild parties with girls and all kinds of drugs until the Police was informed of what was going on and, after only six months of wonderful life, they closed down my hotel and my pub. My friend John South made himself get lost and went to the South, naturally, and I remained where I was, not quite penniless, but quite poorer after I was obliged to sell the premises of the Hotel and pub to pay the debts and the Lawyers that saved me from going to jail. The new situation left me empty and purposeless for a while until I decided to finish my studies and seek entrance to the University of Leeds, in the faculty of Philosophy. Since I had read several books of philosophy and religion, especially of Buddhism, because that was the fashion among the Hippies of that day, I had no trouble passing the entrance exams and being admitted with a scholarship into the faculty of Philosophy.” This is what the bulky British gentleman, sitting comfortably in an armchair in Leo’s living room was telling him, only a few minutes after they had met for the very first time. He had been talking non-stop and Leo, although quite shocked by such open frankness, remained silent listening to the biography of Bob North and wondering how far he would go with his confessions. “To fill up the emptiness left in my soul by the loss of my parents and all my property, I continued drinking until I became an alcoholic, but I never stopped studying and reading books. I became illuminated by Oriental religions and this is what helped me to avoid becoming insane. Ingrid told me that you are interested in religion and that you have written an essay about your religious theories. Actually it was Ingrid, that I met 26 years ago, that saved my life, by giving me a new scope in life. I started studying Ingrid besides Buddhism: the study of a woman is a subject that can go on forever, without ever reaching the end, like the study of God.” Ingrid, sitting in a sofa besides him gave out an amused giggle and said: “Actually it was me that succeeded in convincing Bob to stop drinking and stop taking drugs. He now dedicates most of his time to reading and swimming in the public swimming pools.” Now Leo was beginning to understand where the origin of Bob’s extreme openness was coming from: it was only the desire to show Leo that he was into the same wave length as him and he had a strong desire to be accepted. Nothing wrong with it, besides he quite liked the man: he was sending good vibrations in space and his eyes were telling that he was not lying. Leo had never met a person that managed to spend all of his life without working a single day, and he was quite intrigued by Bob. Ingrid and Bob had been invited that evening by Gerd, Leo’s wife, to eat ice-cream and drink coffee at their Norwegian summer house by the Oslo fjord. “I have invited my old friend Ingrid and her younger boyfriend Bob after dinner. He is a few years younger than her, an Englishman, and quite a character! I am sure you will get along well with him.“Gerd had told her husband. Leo was intrigued indeed. “Tell me about your experiences with drugs. Do you miss taking drugs now?” Leo asked as he was handing out a generous portion of ice-cream to Bob. “Not quite. Some experiences were terrifying, not only for me, but also for my friends. One friend of mine, who after a party was sleeping in a tent, when the next morning he woke up started screaming in terror that he had seen a tiger when he had opened the tent to go out. He was terrified by the experience and in full shock for the next hour or so until it was discovered that a tiger had been running out of a circus in the town nearby and was running loose around.” Bob had a thunderous laughter that must have lasted about five minutes, sincerely amused by his own joke. Everybody was amused and started laughing quite loudly, as Bob’s laughter was infectious like a virus. “On another occasion a guy that we called French- Jean-Marie since he was actually French , came back into the room, where we were having one of our parties, after having been to the toilet, completely stark naked and sitting in a lotus position in the middle of the room started saying with a thick French accent: I am God! I am God!” This time Bob started laughing even louder than before for such a long time, becoming red and eventually cyanotic, until Leo had to shake him up to try to save his life from a possible heart attack.” I also met a guy that I discovered was God: his name is Dave Ryker, a friend of mine that worked for the C.I.A.” said Leo. “Where else would you work if you were God!” Bob replied. But Leo insisted: “Look, in the case of Dave he was really God. He would never have admitted it, but I discovered the truth about his identity by looking in his eyes!“This statement was followed by another round of extremely high laughter as the party was getting high, not on drugs or on alcohol, but on bull-shit. The conversation carried out along similar lines for quite a while until Leo discovered that he really liked Bob, for he had a beautiful logical mind, quite the type of mind necessary to review his essay and advise if there were any logical inconsistencies in it. “Have you carried out learning and learning on the way to absolute illumination without ever teaching your theories to somebody or trying to build a school of followers and proselytes, or without ever writing down your ideas for posterity?” “Look Leo, my purpose has been learning, not teaching. Moses, Jesus, Mohammed never wrote a single line for posterity. Their followers wrote down what they said, often misinterpreting what they were saying and often making them say things that they would not have said, if they could read and write properly. My scope is not to teach or to work. My scope is to empty my mind. As a student complained to his Buddhist teacher saying: “Master, my brain is completely full of nothing and I cannot follow your teaching, what shall I do?” “Empty it out!” Replied the teacher! This is my position: I try to empty my brain and work is not a good method to achieve my goal.” By now Leo was completely conquered by the beauty of Bob’s logic and asked him if he would mind reading some paragraphs of Leo’s essay in order to have a general idea of what Leo’s theories consisted of. Bob said that he was delighted and so for half an hour they sat by the computer reading some selected portions of what Leo had written. At the end Bob declared that he was impressed by Leo’s thoughts and although he was not a physicist he could understand the logic of some of the arguments discussed that were dealing with religion. Leo then explained to Bob that in two weeks he would go to Sweden to discuss with Jacob the final layout of their joint essay, that would be like a sort of Talmud, interpreting portions of the Bible in the light of the new scientific discoveries made in recent years. We need a Talmudist to try to make order into a bunch of writing, e-mails and separated stories written in various periods of time, and vaguely related to each other. We need somebody to order them in a logical sequence and to read them to check out their logical validity. Of course we would pay for your time, your hotel costs and your trip. “It sounds like work, and therefore I would have to decline the offer. It’s against my religion based on the “speech of the mountain “made by Jesus. Why worry about making money when I am extremely content living in poverty. Even the little birds get their share of food daily without having to worry about the future, isn’t it?” “I understand “Said Leo sadly and for a second he envied Bob for his faith in Jesus and for his belief in Buddhism . It was easier to believe in a man that you could visualize as a Buddha or as part of the Trinity, God in the shape of Man (et Verbum caro factum est), rather than in an abstract mathematical formula with Probability 1 and total size 1 like his God: Ψ . But he kept quiet not wanting to antagonize Bob. As far as Leo was concerned he had lost his faith already since his youth, when one day he discovered, with his inquires into the Gospels, that the Holy Mary was not a virgin since she had other children. When he showed the paragraph with the evidence that Jesus had brothers and sisters to the teacher of religion, he came up with a very doubtful explanation: in Hebrew and in Aramaic brothers and sisters are also called the cousins, and the Greek translation reflects this fact. But Leo could not believe it and went to all the trouble to prove the existence of specific Hebrew words for brothers and sisters: ach and achot. If the dogma of the virginity was a fake one invented by some ancient Pope, to lure his innocent followers, how could Leo believe in the Divine Nature of Jesus? Faith means accepting the existence of something without being able to prove it, trusting what some authority was saying about it. Could he trust the Popes, could he trust the priests? Maybe not! Probably Jesus was only a Great Rabbi, probably the greatest Rabbi that ever existed, but probably not God. There could have been another explanation, therefore without a faith, to the Trinity Leo preferred the Duality of God! But he kept his mouth shut on this subject. After much laughter and philosophy eventually the friends left the party and returned home, promising to meet again. So Leo had to admit that he had lost the battle to convince Bob. “Too bad, I will ask Jacob, with his tremendous knowledge and brilliant logic to review the final layout of the book in the tradition of the Talmudists of Safed, first among them Isaac Luria.” When all of this was happening it was past the middle of July 2010 and Leo was supposed to meet Jacob in Sweden on August 10 to work on the organization of their book.

The Stigmata saves Pezzino from the Devil (Painting by Leo Lopes)

Chapter 18

The Meeting in Sweden Leo and Jacob, with respective wives, met in Sweden as planned on August 10, in a small but beautiful country house transformed into a small, well organized B&B. The Hotel was located just on the sea shore, in front of the Island of Oeland. A few kilometres to the South, where Jacob’s son Philip and his family owned a nice sea cottage in the forest. It was a wonderful place for the kids to run around free and to enjoy the forest and the sea, away from London. For a few days they visited the country around, enjoyed the landscape, visited Philip and had a barbeque at the cottage and had time to discuss their joint project, the Talmud of Scicli. Jacob had prepared a draft of the organization of the book that one beautiful summer day, sitting in the shade of a tall tree in Oeland, he explained to Leo. The organization of the book made sense: Jacob would provide comments to Leo’s theories and take care of the religious commentaries in the tradition of the Talmudists. Jacob asked Leo a few questions about quarks and Pauli’s exclusion principle that he had learned from a TV program on science, but Leo dismissed the argument quickly by saying: “Jacob, it’s better to avoid confusing the issue with details such as spin, quarks and Pauli. We risk to ruin a good theory with details. Let’s stick to the Big-Bang and what preceded it, and forget about how probability organized events later.” Jacob laughing commented that many good theories had been destroyed by stupid facts, but he agreed to restrict the story to the beginning. Then he added that at the end of the book they should touch briefly on the problem of afterlife, that was central to all religions. Leo agreed that next time when they met he would provide his theories about the subject, but for the time being he had only some clues and had not developed a full theory about the subject.

Ha-Olam ha-Ba: the World to Come For years Leo had discussed with his friends the possibility that the soul would survive as an individual entity, after returning to God. The book of Ecclesiastes was giving no details, except that the soul returns to God who has given it. Would the soul be lost in the immense substance of God, like a water drop in the ocean, or would its logons stick together, preserving some kind of individuality? His best friend and school mate Franco Pezzino, who had cooperated with Leo in writing their Gospel: Probability and the Law of Ψ , was perfectly aware of the legitimate desire of Leo to find out what happens to the soul in case of death. Also Bill van Goidtsnoven, during the long evenings spent drinking whisky and gin and tonic in Equatorial Guinea, to accompany the generous slices of Spanish chorizos, had discussed with Leo the possibility that the soul would survive complete disintegration and annihilation. Bill was a devout Catholic and believed in the afterlife. But when Pezzino was close to death, because of prostate cancer, Leo visited him and tried to heal his friend by whispering in his ear the name of YHWH, to see if he could repeat the miracle of the Golem: an inert statue of mud that became alive when a Rabbi whispered the Holy Name in his ear. Seeing no immediate results, Leo had asked his dying friend to try to send him a message to tell him what was going on in the world after life. Whether Pezzino was able to understand Leo ’s request or not at that point in time, he must have known that that was an important question that troubled Leo. Pezzino had died two days later, leaving no message for Leo from his new location. After the funeral, Pezzino’s younger daughter, Giulia, who had followed constantly her father’s agony up to the last minute, told Leo that her father, after exhaling the last breath, started smiling, like as if he had been pleasantly surprised by what he saw. In the case of Bill, he suddenly died three years after leaving Equatorial Guinea, at an age of 69, killed by a sudden heart attack while driving his car in New Mexico. Obviously the abundant chorizos that he used to eat every evening had contributed to plug his coronaries. Bill had retired in New Mexico and after leaving Equatorial Guinea, Leo had been in touch with Bill via e-mails. They exchanged news, Christmas greetings and jokes. Leo had returned to Sicily when Bill died. Strangely enough Leo continued to receive for a while e-mails from Bill’s computer after his death. Marco, Leo ’s computer guru, looked into the problem and diagnosed that viruses had continued to come out of Bill’s computer, by chance. He then managed to kill all the viruses and told Leo that he had killed 11 viruses, before the problem was solved. Leo was familiar with the Kabbalah’s method to assign letters of the Hebrew alphabet to the numbers to get a reading of what they meant, therefore he assigned to the number 11 its Hebrew equivalent, the first letter, the Aleph and the tenth letter Yod. The name that came out was: YA . Was it a message that Bill had sent him, from the sky? What could be the meaning of YA ? First of all it was short for the Biblical name of God, used in prayers and in religious songs. Bill had not known Hebrew, but Bill, as an American, was using YA as yes, to affirm that he agreed to something. Probably that was an affirmative statement that something existed on the other side. That was at least a clue. So Leo was beginning to get signals from his friends, but nothing concrete transpired to confirm life after death. Additional clues could be obtained perhaps by analyzing the loss of consciousness that occurs when a person was under anesthesia and therefore was suspended between life and death. So Leo decided to keep his brain alerted, when he underwent surgery for a hernia that had developed on his belly after a gall bladder operation. That happened upon his return from Norway to Sicily, the 20th September 2010. The operation was supposed to be an easy one, a routine little hernia operation, but nevertheless it should have been carried out under total anesthesia, so Leo took the opportunity to study the loss of consciousness on himself. He therefore decided to preserve his self awareness as long as possible to see what would happen after losing his consciousness. Would he remember something? The answer was: nothing at all! The instant the doctor told him: now you are going to sleep, he quickly fell into a black hole without dreams or memories, from which he was brought back with great effort two hours later. The night of the operation he had been sedated with injections and pain killers and while in a sort of trance between dream and reality he floated into a different state of consciousness: a condition he had not experienced before. He was floating in space without worries, quite happy to be floating around. Everything around him was pink or very light blue, with the two colors floating around and mixing. “Welcome into the world of imagination”, said a young man with a smiling face, a thin blond beard and long blond hair. The young man was smiling and had a very friendly face: “You won this year’s prize for your work on the logons and on the probability field. However you missed on the tachyons and you did not understand that the mind does not need the tachyons to transmit instantaneously thoughts across space. Imagination does the job. The Commission, in spite of that, decided in your favor. This is the realm of the mind, which is preserved after death, with all its files, within the greater computer: my mind.” “Who are you?” asked Leo with apprehension tinged with carelessness, as he could not really care less. “I am Ψ , your God, the God of probability. You won the first prize that consists of a guided tour of the garden of Eden. You are still alive, but as a special treat we allowed you to come and have a look.” “But you look like Jesus” said Leo , showing a lot of respect in his voice as he was speaking. “You know Leo , here we can take any shape or zelem we want: the mind decides. I took the zelem of Jesus because I was going to welcome you, and you after all have been baptized. I could have taken any zelem, for example the one of Moses, had I met a Jew. It is very easy: nothing is impossible in the realm of imagination and in the realm of the mind. But come I want you to meet Einstein and Minkowski, they have been voting in your favor to assign you the first prize.” Ψ changed the landscape with the same easiness of somebody changing a channel on TV or a page on the internet by clicking with the mouse and Leo saw a Mediterranean landscape and recognized Einstein, talking with a short bald man, that he had not seen before, who must have been Minkowski. They were sitting on a bench in a little square surrounded by trees. Leo thought he recognized a corner of Tripoli. “Is my mother here? “asked Leo with hope in his voice. “Yes, of course, she is here. You want to see her? Just switch on your mind and think about her and she will appear. As simple as that. Nothing is impossible for the imagination.” Leo did so and the image of the landscape changed: many women were sitting around a large wooden table in the kitchen of an old farm in what looked like a familiar landscape near Cervia. Certainly it was “la cà d’la vultèda” as it was familiarly called in the local dialect, the house of the road-bend, the old farm where his grandmother was born, near the sharp bend in the road that Leo remembered from his childhood. The women were preparing “tortellini” and “passatelli”, the typical holiday food used for the Sunday meal in Romagna, where Leo was born. Leo recognized his mother with a feeling of trepidation and commotion, which in spite of his carelessness, surfaced on his conscience. She was a very young and happy lady, like when she died at the age of 33, but the other women were considerably older, like Leo remembered them a few years before they died. He recognized his grandmother Carlotta and her sister Giovanna, his grandaunt, as well as his recently deceased aunt Maria, sister of his mother, who had substituted her sister, Leo ’s mother, in raising Leo . They were all happy and busy preparing the food. At this point a sharp pain on his side woke up Leo and reluctantly he had to abandon his dream. He lay there, for a while, thinking about what he had dreamt, with a little regret of having interrupted his dream, but he rehearsed what he had been dreaming. “I must remember this dream, he thought, and of course I must inform Jacob about it.”

The Soul: Nishemat hayim Leo had been theorizing all his life about all sorts of subjects: one can say that there was no stone unturned in the amount of his theorizing. Geological theories were his specialty, of course, because of his professional life, but, as we have seen, he had been theorizing also about the Universe and the Big Bang and the role of God in the Universe, the subjects of the various essays that he had discussed with Jacob. But animal behavior, the science called Ethology, was not immune from his analysis and deductions. One of the subjects that fascinated him was the application of the rules of Ethology to the behavior of his Managers. The objective was to find out what motivated them and by what rules they were judging the performance of Leo . Studying the behavior of wolves and dogs could offer a valid explanation? Quite often during his very varied carrier as an oil geologist, Leo had experienced trouble and distress because of the behavior of his Managers. Several times, in spite of the success of his advanced geological theories, he had been recommended for a demotion rather than for a promotion. Far from thinking that the causes of his troubles were due to himself, and to his hopelessness as an employee, Leo believed that the fault was of his Managers and of some hidden law of human behavior that should be studied and understood. Of course the same law should be applied to him on the occasions in which he had been a Manager himself, to explain his behavior and his failure to manage people. As usual when the subject interested him, Leo would start his analysis from square one: in this case from Adam, the first man described in the Bible: and the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and man became a living soul. (Gen.: 2,7) Now the key was in the words: the breath of life, in Hebrew nishemat hayim. Could it be that God had given Adam the soul, as suggested by the rest of the verse: and man became a living soul? Leo had reasoned that this soul must consist of a small portion of the substance of God, in other words an injection of Logons into the body of Adam. The soul must be the mechanism that allowed man to link up with the Divine Logos, becoming therefore intelligent. It goes without saying that the gift of the soul could be transmitted to the descendents of Adam and to their children, some mentioned in the Bible, like Cain and Abel and Seth, and others not mentioned but understood to exist from the context. The idea that the original soul of Adam could become progressively diluted in his descendents did not bother Leo , since, because of the theorem of Bolzano, any closed set of numbers, contained an infinite number of zero-size logons. If one started with a set between zero and one with Adam, then maybe Cain would have inherited no logons from his mother Eva and only half of his father’s logons, i.e. a set between 0.5 and 0, but that set could be demonstrated to contain as many logons as the set given to Adam, that is an infinite number of logons. That was not a problem, even after many thousands of generations the amount of logons would be still infinite and enough to guarantee a proper soul to all the descendents of Adam. The problem was another. Abel had died young , but Cain and Seth had married women that existed around the area East of Eden, women that were unrelated to Adam, and obviously had not received a soul, not being off-springs of Adam. Their children however must have inherited one half of their father’s soul, which by the theorem of Bolzano would have been enough to supply them with an infinite number of logons. Other human beings must have existed besides the descendents of Adam, but they did not possess a soul. Let’s call them the Neanderthal. If two Neanderthals of different sex managed to have enough sense to reproduce themselves, they would produce off-springs without a soul: only those that intermarried with descendents of Adam would have a soul. The descendents of Adam were very few, even after many generations, compared with the full blood Neanderthal. But God, sending the Big Flood to eliminate all mankind from the face of the earth had equalized the situation: everybody had become a descendant of Adam, through Noah and his three children. So everybody now had a soul. Leo had toyed with the idea that some of his Managers had evolved from Neanderthals and had survived from the Big Flood and therefore were soul-less people, but that concept was not supported by the Bible. Everybody was equal and equally equipped. Of course Leo did not believe in the little story of Noah. He had seen the seismic lines that his friend and colleague Peter Barber had used to show the three-kilometre deep canyon created by the Nile when it was discharging its waters in the Mediterranean during the Miocene. The Mediterranean was then a closed, dip basin mostly devoid of waters, except for some salt lakes similar to the present day Dead Sea, but its surface was 3 Km below the surface of the Atlantic ocean. Then suddenly it became flooded by the waters of the Atlantic that catastrophically opened a gap trough the Strait of Gibraltar filling up the Mediterranean and the Black Sea in a matter of a few days. The early men that lived around the shores of the old basin, the ancestors of the Neanderthal, had all drowned, and thus the legend of the Big Flood was originated and transmitted from father to son, until Biblical times. More recently in the South of Iraq was found evidence of the catastrophic flooding of all the Persian Gulf area, all the way to Ur and further North into Mesopotamia, as sea level rose by 150 metres. The area had been a dry land since the lowering of the sea level during the last glaciations that terminated 12,000 years ago. This last flood was due to the sudden opening of the Strait of Hormuz, as sea levels began to rise again due to the melting of the Glaciers. Certainly some early pre-Neanderthal or some more recent people survived to tell the stories of these natural disasters that found their way into the myth of Noah. The Bible was a combination of history, legends and religious poetry. Evidently large portions of the Holy Book had been written by priests and political leaders for their demagogic scope. A minimal part of the Bible could be understood to be real “revelation”. The myth of Noah could be understood as a way to reveal that all man have been created equal, that all descended from the same ancestors and had received the same gift of the soul. Leo refused to be a racist and suppose that there are modern people less intelligent than others because they are descendent of less developed races. There must have been a different explanation. How could he explain the difficulty of communication of his Managers with him? Not that they were stupid, of course some of them were clever enough, but their brains had difficulty in understanding Leo . Plainly said, they connected their brain computers to a different Server and a different Internet system from the one of Leo , or was it a simple case of Nurture, rather than Nature? How could he explain the fact that most of the scientists that had contributed to the advancement of physics were of proven Jewish descent? Einstein, Minkowski and Feynman, not to mention Bohm , Cantor and Spinoza, the main pillars of Leo ’s theories. That meant that their brains were better connected with the substance of God, the infinite Mind behind any abstract human thought? Or was it because of their education and upbringing that they were better trained to formulate abstract thoughts? Were they some sort of mutations in the Superman direction of evolution, or simply was it because since childhood they were used to formulate abstract thoughts dealing with questions of existence based on the Bible? He was not able to write down the main axioms and he did not have a theory for the soul, besides the fact that it must consist of logons. The big question was: “How could the logons of a soul preserve their identity after death, to avoid being annihilated into the infinite substance of God? He decided to discuss the problem with Jacob in London, but then he said to himself: “What the hell! Jacob will decide if there is a theory to explain the intelligence of the scientists and the stupidity of my Managers. He must have a brain-mind-soul theory, since that is Jacob’s field of specialization!” He therefore emailed all this to Jacob to prepare for the meeting in London. Jacob responded: Dear Leo , Revelation of the creation and God’s relationship with us humans and our world is a step too far for me. That is why I am the last person from whom you can expect guidance. Who am I to judge your theories and your insight into human relation with the world beyond our world! You are trying to find your way to the Eternal or may be to eternity. I don’t cherish such ambition. I feel it is enough that I was given the miraculous opportunity to live. I want to end my life with a deep feeling of gratitude to whoever gave me the opportunity to be here. You remember, I hope, the refrain in our song in the Hagada: Dayienu. It suffices for me what I have been given. If He, whoever may be, wants to give me more I am happy to accept with appreciation. The problem is how to convey my message of thanks so far! Leo ! you are the creative. Do find me a way to do that!.

Theory of the Tachyon Leo obliged and sent the following e-mail: “Jacob, I found a very well written paper that explains very well what the tachyon is and its peculiarities. It is written by a still undiscovered and unknown genius, a guy called Gregory Meholic from California. The equations are easy to figure out leading to the main conclusions, but the diagrams are even easier to understand. When in London we will discuss together what it means. This paper is important because it confirms two basic assumptions that I made: 1 – That reality could be divided into 3 space-time environments: a. the space of the Universe within the cone of light, where massive bodies travel below the speed of light b. the surface of the cone of light where mass-less bodies, like the photon and the logon, travel at the speed of light 231 c. the infinite space outside the Universe, the cone of darkness, where particles with mass from 0 to very large must be standing still, of course relative to our Universe. In this area, only particles with imaginary mass, that is with negative mass, could travel at speeds higher than that of light. These particles are called Tachyons, from Greek, meaning “fast ones”. 2 – That we need the tachyons, to explain two mechanisms: a. H ow God controls the events of His immense Substance, b. H ow the Soul could return to God after the death of the individual and preserve its identity within the infinite substance of God. The tachyons so far are only hypothetical particles, but logic and symmetry demand that they should exist. If not it would be impossible to understand how God consists of a material Substance responsible for all the events and how the preservation of the soul would be possible within that Substance. I am of course still intrigued by what are the attributes of a hypothetical God and the mechanisms by which this God creates and controls his creation. In my mind it begs the question: how could the soul possibly survive in a hypothetical Garden of Eden, Gan Eden, how could the soul preserve its identity after death.”

Discussion about the Soul Leo found no problem in explaining to himself how the infinite set of logons of Adam’s soul would be transmitted to his progenies in such a manner that each descendent would get an infinite number of logons in his soul. Galileo had figured out that the infinite set of Natural numbers (1, 2, 3…100….infinite) would contain an infinite number of Square numbers (1, 4, 9, …10.000…..infinite), obtained by squaring each natural number. When comparing the two sets it was easy to see that the Natural numbers were denser than the Square numbers, yet both were an infinite set of the same magnitude and containing the same amount of numbers. An infinite could exist within an infinite. That was the peculiarity and the paradox of the infinite. If that was settled and understood, still how could the logons that made up the soul of an individual be differentiated from the logons of another soul? This was a critical question that needed to be answered, before any theory of the soul could be formulated. Billions of cars were differentiated from other cars by their number plates. Logons of course could be given individual numbers, all different from the other infinite numbers making an infinite set, but how would these numbers be written on the logons? Moreover how would the logons of a soul know that they belonged to a particular soul, so that in case of death of their host body they would gather together as a separate unit, distinct from the infinite number of all the other logons that existed in the infinite space? The logons consisted of mass-less and point like particles of zero dimensions, possessing only potential energy, when at rest, or vibrating and spinning at frequencies that were determined by the energy field in which they were located, when activated. Leo reasoned that there must be a method of marking the logons into families, that gave at the same time to each logon the certainty of belonging to a given soul. Once again his knowledge of Ethology came to his rescue. There were several analogy in Nature: among seals the mothers coming back ashore after a hunting expedition would identify their young pups from their voice, among a million of different pups and the same was true of penguins. But the best analogy that he found in the natural world was the behavior of the bees. Each bee knew that it belonged to a given beehive and each bee could recognize another bee as a sister from the same beehive or as a foreign, from a different beehive. They identified each other by the frequency of their buzzing, in other words they had a “language” based on sound waves that all the members of the same beehive understood. Leo reasoned that that was an important identification system that must apply also to the logons. Each logon of a soul must communicate with its fellow logons using sound waves of different frequencies. Leo knew that the only particles that did not rely on mass and energy to exist were the tachyons, sound waves that were independent of mass, having an imaginary mass, and lived outside of time in a “space only” dimension. Their time was not simply stopped, their time did not exist at the tremendous speed at which they were traveling. The tachyons moreover had the peculiarity that they increased their speed as their energy decreased. At zero energy their speed would become infinite. They were musical notes, rather than particles. Music was the perfect system to communicate information among the logons of a dead body, among logons that had lost their kinetic energy. The tachyons would then bind the logons of a soul into a single musical identity and preserve their individuality by assigning to each soul a given melody, transmitting the information to all the logons instantaneously. Leo was pleased with that idea because it explained as well the love that all human beings shared for music and harmony. They were deeply rooted in their souls. That mechanism, i.e. the use of the tachyons as carriers of information through space at infinite speed, was also supposed by Leo to be the only way to allow God to communicate instantaneously with any part of his substance. The human souls would then fit perfectly well in the great system of the Divine Mind. If that mechanism was not possible, Leo thought, then the logons would lose their identity and survival of an individual soul in the “after life” would be impossible. All the individual human beings would lose the identity of their souls in the infinite substance of God, and the religious concepts such as the Garden of Eden and the Paradise would not make sense. They would become empty ideas, only figments of somebody’s vivid imagination. On top of that, it would be impossible to differentiate between good souls , worthy of Paradise’s residence permits, and bad souls that should go to Hell straight away. The soul of a Mafioso that had killed 20 people could sneak inside Paradise, pretending to be the soul of a Saint if not identified. There must be an identification mechanism, thought Leo . God must assign a unique sound frequency, or better a melody to each soul, based on the vibrations of sound waves like the tachyons, to identify it among all the billions of other souls, to prevent cheating and to preserve their individuality in the after-life. To keep track of all the souls’ sounds would not be a problem for the infinite power of God’s mind. Thinking about his own soul Leo joked with himself that a good melody would be that of the film “The Godfather”, like the one of his cellular phone! Once the problem of the identification of the soul was solved, a greater problem still existed. The problem would arise when the logons, after death were supposed to return to God. Traveling out of the kinetic Universe to join the potential space where the Substance of God lived would imply travelling faster than the speed of light, to reach the limits of the cone of light, cross its boundary and enter into the inverse cone of darkness. But that could never be achieved by particles possessing a real mass, albeit only 0+, like the logons. They could only travel at the speed of light. On top of that they would have lost all their kinetic energy when their host had died. Only particles of imaginary mass, like the tachyons could travel at speeds higher than light to get out of the kinetic Universe by crossing the barrier of the cone of light. Was it possible the transformation of the logons into tachyons to be able to escape from the boundaries of the Universe and return to the substance of God? That would mean changing the rules of the game of dice of Ψ : there must be a better way, thought Leo . After a couple of nights of restless sleep, the solution came to him unexpectedly in the middle of the third night. Didn’t Leo explain that God lived in the present and the flow of events passed through him like a film passed through the projector of a movie camera between the two revolving reels of the future and the past? Perfect, the point of contact between the soul and God at the instant of death of an individual would be only a point of zero dimensions (i.e. the beginning of a cone of certainty). That would allow the inert logons to sneak out of the dead body and enter automatically into the substance of God without moving at the speed of light. And certainly no superluminal speed would be necessary. Only the speed provided by the random quantum fluctuations of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle would be sufficient for the short trip. Once returned to the peace and quiet of the Divine Substance, the soul would be safely home and would return to its Creator from whose substance it had originated. The door of Paradise was very narrow indeed. That explained the sudden smile of Leo ’s friend Franco Pezzino when he died! One minor problem would be only the movements of the logons through the substance of God to reach the location of Paradise. Photons were constantly expanding into that environment, as the logons were potential photons and allowed that movement to occur without disruption of the laws of physics. But how could potential logons that lost their kinetic energy be allowed into that environment, to transfer the soul of the dead back to God? Only photons were allowed to move into that environment at the speed of light and tachyons were allowed to move but at speeds higher than the speed of light. The only solution was that entering into the cone of darkness through the plane of God, the inert mass-less logon would become a tachyon during its trip into the Substance and would acquire an imaginary mass, to return then to be a logon at the end of the trip. The transformation would be easy because the logon would have zero kinetic energy, when entering the substance, therefore it would be easily transformed into a tachyon travelling at infinite speed. It was during that journey that the soul would acquire a sound identity, a melody: was that melody what contributed to make his friend Pezzino smile when he died? There was then another formula that should be included in the theory of Leo . The formulas: logon = potential photon and: photon = kinetic logon, were valid for describing respectively the energy environments of: 1) the potential space of the Substance and of: 2) the cone of light of the Universe. The new formula required was one that described the movement of the logon into the quiet environment of the Substance: tachyon = potential logon. To move in the cone of darkness related to the Universe, the logon had to become a tachyon. Reality consisted therefore of three environments separated by the cone of light: the environment inside the cone of light where movement was restricted to massive particles travelling at a speed v smaller that the speed of light c, and the ratio was therefore v/c < 1. The second environment was the surface of the cone of light where only mass-less particles like the photons could travel at the speed of light and the ratio of their speed to the speed of light was v/c = 1. The third environment was the infinite cone of darkness where, relative to the event Universe, movement was not possible for massive particles, but only tachyons with velocity ratio v/c > 1 were allowed to move at speeds higher that the speed of light. All three environments could share the same space-time and exist together obeying their own laws. Example: a photon could move at the speed of light well inside the Universe and some tachyons could be responsible for the existence around the galaxies of some “dark energy” creating a repulsive force that counteracted gravity. The transformation equations of Einstein showed perfectly why. Einstein was of course very aware of the possible existence of repulsive forces besides gravity and of the possible existence of the tachyon, as a consequence of relativity. For the tachyons the rules of the kinetic Universe would be reversed. First of all their energy would still create mass, but that mass would not cause gravity but expansion and repulsion. Contrary to the ordinary matter an increase in velocity of the tachyons would not be caused by an increase in their energy, but by a decrease of their energy. They would have a minimum speed equal to c, the speed of light, and a maximum speed that was infinite. The mass of the tachyons would not increase with increasing speed, but would decrease to become negative (expansion) at infinite speed. Length would increase rather than decrease with speed, and time would become slower with decreased speed, not with increased speed. All the rules of the Universe were turned upside down by the tachyon. The only rule respected was the temporal symmetry as time for the tachyon was still expanding from the past to the future. Although the tachyon could exist everywhere, its natural environment was in the cone of darkness, where the lack of kinetic energy of the still logons of the Substance would favor the development of the fastest tachyons. Leo wrote down the transformation equations posted on the Internet that explained so well the peculiar behavior of the tachyon and why it had an imaginary mass. From the equations and the simple explanation it was easy to understand why the tachyon increased its speed as its energy diminished. Leo was sure that once the science is understood, his proposed soul theory would be approved by Jacob. If so, they could then move on to discuss other unresolved questions. When Jacob received Leo ’ explanation of the transformation of the soul he thought of John Dryden beautiful poem of 1687: A song for St Cecilia’s Day in which a voice from high above the celestial harmony calls the dead and orders them to obey to the power of music. But when Jacob woke up from his reverie under the spell of the beautiful words of Dryden he emailed Leo : Leo , The trouble with you is that you are a Christian deep down. You believe in the Spirit. And worse you believe in the corporeality of God. As a Jewish follower of Maimonides I have no such problem. If there is a God in our human perception He is different. In Hebrew He is A’her. He has no problem communicating. Are you still living at the time of the wires before the wireless was invented. You can Skype me from Sicily and instantaneously converse with me but you think that God needs the means to communicate. Tell God to use Skype, it is free! He can dispense with the Tachyon, His Ministering Angel.! But Joking apart, here you are the inventor of the Logons solving so many pending problems in Physics that are baffling the science community: are you suddenly supplanting it with Tychons? The Logon is such a multi faceted tool, so why you need something else to share its functions. I explained to you that the mind i.e. the individual identity ceases and dies with the individual. This identity is peculiar to that individual in his worldly life span. It is not a piece of the Spirit of God. That piece is the intelligence, the capacity, the potential to create that the human is endowed with. You see: God is the whole substance not part of the substance. You don’t need a medium to communicate with yourself. Why you think that God needs such tool to communicate with Himself? The reason is that Christians came to think that God is a superior human being, hence their idea of a father and a son like Leo and his son Aleks! It is a beautiful concept and imagery but don’t let it take over the sur-reality of God. Light can ride the logons. Why God can’t do the same! In short, Leo , you have constructed a great theory and found an amazing substance, the Logon, which can function both as particle and wave and here you are destroying all your edifice by bringing in the Tachyon. Do you really intend that? When Leo received this email he took his famous little book from his pocket and made a note for the following meeting in London.

Chapter 19

The Meeting in London The Talmud of Scicli According to Leo Leo and Gerd arrived in London as planned on the evening of the 4th of December and after the ceremony of the welcome to their house, the Nathans took them to a local Pub in Wimbledon located only a few hundred metres away. Leo could then fulfil one of his main objectives: To eat “fish and chips” English style and drink a famous English pint of local beer. They enjoyed the atmosphere of the pub and each others company for over an hour, then they returned home. Once sitting comfortably in an armchair in Jacob’s study upstairs, Leo began straight away to discuss the subject of the book. Gerd and Sandra sat in the living room downstairs, joking that they were not interested in listening to the crazy ideas of their husbands. They had a lot more important things to talk about. “I want to be honest with you Jacob, therefore I will empty the sack about my knowledge of science, started Leo . First of all let me say that I hate reading the fine print of the details, and the lengthy mathematics that accompany most scientific papers that obviously are written only for a restricted circle of scientists. I confess that I would not understand their complexities. And should I devote a lot of time to understand them, they would still have to be translated into practical examples to be useful to me. I stick to basic concepts leaving the details to “probability “to figure out. My point is this: if the theories are clear in the minds of the scientists, they, the scientists, ought to be able to explain their theories to other people with simple “gedanken experiments” the way Einstein used to do. He knew his science so well that he was able to explain his theories to everybody who had a basic notion of elementary physics and maths. Hopefully the scientists know well their science, but do they bother to explain it to the man in the street? Why should they? The divulgation of their theories most of the time is delegated to writers about science. My question to science divulgators is: if you don’t understand clearly what you are talking about, how can you explain the subject to me? But there could be another reason. Is it possible that the scientists are proud to belong to a very exclusive club, from whose membership most people are excluded? After all, knowledge gives power. Like in the old days, priests and Rabbis had exclusive knowledge of religious arguments that gave them power over the ignorant masses, so modern scientists may want to keep their secrets to themselves.” Leo stopped talking and looked inquisitively into Jacob’s eyes to get a confirmation of his statements. Jacob nodded and said: “It would make life easier and cause less problems between the supporters of the various religions if people had a better understanding of science, but this objective is not realized yet, even in the developed countries of the West. Ignorance of science is widespread, probably because of what you said. And to give you comfort that what you say is not blasphemous listen to Einstein himself: “It is of great importance that the general public be given an opportunity to experience – consciously and intelligently – the efforts and results of scientific research. It is not sufficient that each result be taken up, elaborated, and applied by a few specialists in the field. Restricting the body of knowledge to a small group deadens the philosophical spirit of a people and leads to spiritual poverty” Leo had come to London for the final revision of what he calls his Talmud of Scicli which is an interpretation of the Book of Genesis in the light of recent discoveries in science. And in anticipation of questions on his theories he had prepared a list of answers to the most probable questions that Jacob might ask. This included some simple mathematics explaining the basic formulae of relativity and quantum mechanics and how they could be derived. “Let me show you a list, very short indeed, of what I know. Starting from the Theory of Relativity. I read so many books about it and I know by heart the biography of Einstein and his famous attempts to explain his theories to the people, that I think I am able to say a few things about it and to quote some of his famous equations: 1 – I know and, with a few tricks, I can explain his most famous equation E = m c square and above all I understand its meaning. 2 – The photon must have zero mass and zero dimensions to move at the maximum speed allowed, the speed of light of 300,000Km/sec in a vacuum and I understand the simple relativistic formulae that explain mathematically why. 3 – F or the photon at the speed of light, time has stopped and not only I understand why, but I can also derive the simple mathematical formula that explains why, starting from Pythagoras. 4 – F rom my days as a student of elementary physics for geologists at the Institute “Righi” at Bologna University, I know that the cosmic rays like muons (the muon is an unstable particle which exists for only a fraction of a second and disintegrates and turns into other particles) increase their mass by travelling close to the speed of light and live longer than they should, because their time lengthens. Moreover, possessing a relatively large mass, they cannot travel at the speed of light, otherwise their mass would increase to become infinite. 5 – I understand “black holes” very well because Stephen Hawking, who understands them well and has developed their theory, has explained them very well. 6 – N obody has explained to me clearly the theory, but I have to admit that I started understanding “quantum mechanics” and how energy is produced in “quanta”, only after having created the “gedanken” experiment that I called the “little wagon of Leo ”. 7 – I started understanding the famous “two slits experiment” that demonstrated the duality of particle/wave behavior of all subatomic particles, only when I made the analogy with the behavior of keel sailing boats, cutting the waves and forming a “bow wave” as they are moving. 8 – I understand how particles and antiparticles can annihilate each other when colliding because I am familiar with wave convolution and de-convolution used by geophysicists to correct seismic records from noise. Two waves of similar wave length, but opposite phase, can completely annihilate each other and clean out the seismic reflectors used in the search for oil. But I can only guess about the causes of matter and antimatter, using the “little wagon of Leo ”. To help me understand better I would have to dig out the explanation of Paul Dirac and study it a lot closer. So far no book of science divulgation has explained the theory clearly to me. The truth is lost in extremely complicated mathematics. But who cares, these are details and there are more important subjects that I would like to understand. 9 – I can visualize the constant speed of light for every observer only 252 by thinking that the photons are carried “piggy back” on the waves of an ether-like substance, like surfers on the waves of the sea. Moreover to preserve the same speed for every observer I think that the “substance” must be fixed relative to the movements of the Universe. 10 – The fact that for the photons the time is still, explains why for them there are no antiparticles: if they exist, they must be identical with the photons. This is the extent of my knowledge based on other people’s theories: not too much but enough to have a better understanding of God and the creation. How about my own theories? The list is very short: a. The only subject with physical applications where I have done a lot of independent thinking is “probability”. b. I have discovered the “cone of certainty” and what is important to make an event succeed. c. B ased on my knowledge of the cone of certainty, I understand now the “cone of light” of Minkowski. d. I have done a lot of thinking about the “cone of darkness”, i.e. the cone inverse of the cone of light and what it could contain for the event”the creation of the Universe”. e. I have done some thinking about Potential Energy and what it really means. The transformation of Potential Energy/ Kinetic Energy, I think, is the key to understand how God operates creation. f. I have invented the logons as the constituents of the Substance of God to fit the requirements of the theory of relativity, as mass-less, dimension-less points possessing potential energy and capable of moving at the speed of light when activated.” It was getting late, past midnight and Jacob was very tired so he proposed to conclude the discussion there and go to sleep. They would continue talking the next day after breakfast. Sandra and Gerd, who had been pleasantly chatting in the living room downstairs, also reluctantly interrupted their nice conversation and joined their husbands upstairs to their respective rooms. The house was brand new, constructed in some kind of Scandinavian style, partly in bricks, partly in wood and contained all sort of comforts. Upstairs were the bedrooms, the master bedroom, and the guest room, all with their bath on suite. Jacob study was also upstairs, adjoining his bedroom, and contained a large desk, computers and a large library. Among the philosophy books stood, in a separate section, the scientific books and most prominent of all an old book written by Lincoln Barnett about and with approval of Einstein published in the 50s. It had a worn out cover and loose pages, testifying that it had been read several times during the past 60 years. After a very good night’s sleep, the friends met downstairs in the breakfast room the following day. During the night it had been snowing quite a lot, and the large glass windows of the breakfast room revealed a Christmas landscape, quite different from the usual landscape of London and more like those that one experiences in Norway or in Switzerland. Sandra had prepared an outstandingly rich breakfast consisting of croissants, cakes, all sort of exotic fruits and cereals and Leo complained that it was too much, that she had been overdoing it, and that he did not deserve such a treat. But Sandra replied that he certainly did not deserve it, but Gerd did. Then she pointed outside the large windows towards the garden. “Look, that little bird on the fence, is a robin and is the boss here. He defends his territory against all the intruders and does not allow any birds to come here.” The little bird was in fact sitting with his head proudly straight up and was chirping with enthusiasm while he was jumping around in the garden covered with fresh snow. “It must be the soul of a previous landlord of this land.” said Leo following the moving bird with admiration. There followed a discussion about robins and their territorial instincts and everybody had to agree that Nature was really special and difficult to understand with all its wonders. After breakfast Leo and Jacob sat in two armchairs in the breakfast room, facing the garden. Leo could not take his eyes off the robin while he resumed his discussion about his theories. “About the total extent of my thinking I must relate a little story to you. We were driving from Sutherland, in the Karroo desert of South Africa, towards Cape Town. At the foot of a flat hill called in Afrikaans “koppie”, we saw a donkey completely motionless standing on his four legs and keeping his head down. The sun was almost vertical over the donkey. Around him not a single bush or straw of grass. Only yellowish barren rock of the Karroo formation. I asked my friend Paolo Catrani, another Italian Geologist traveling with me: What do you think that donkey is doing? Without hesitation my friend answered: He is thinking, what else! Inertia according to Leo Back to my thinking: maybe my greatest contribution to my own understanding of physics is my concept of what causes “inertia”. I stress my own understanding of physics, because my concept may not be useful to other people, and it could certainly be proved wrong, but nevertheless it has helped me to understand. Inertia was discovered by Galileo but, as you probably know, the causes of inertia were unknown to him as well as to Newton and Einstein. All of them however came up with partial explanations. In particular Newton made the greatest contribution by saying that inertia is the resistance of a body to change its status of quiet or uniform motion, like Galileo had suggested, but added that to obtain a change in motion a force was necessary and mass was the measure of the body’s resistance to movement or to acceleration. Einstein had a completely new and innovative idea: for him inertia was equivalent to gravity and both concepts originated from an elusive quantity called mass. Gravitational mass was equivalent to inertial mass and mass was moreover equivalent to energy. Both Newton and Einstein restricted their investigations to the Universe. A theory about inertia that caught the attention of Einstein was formulated by Ernst Mach who said that inertia is caused by the total effect of the combined mass of all the matter of the Universe and the distant galaxies, acting upon a body. Again Mach was restricting his theory to the Universe. My concept of inertia is completely different. I start from the infinite Substance of God made of logons inside which our Universe is just a drop in an ocean. The axiom that each logon is the center of a sphere of infinite radius, equidistant from each point of the surface of the sphere, provides the explanation of what my concept of inertia is. If a logon could think, like the donkey of the story, he would say: here I am, distant an equal distance from the edges of the infinite space, ergo: I am its center. But also his neighbor would say the same, and also a logon one light year away from them would feel to be the center of the universe. This is due to the funny behavior of the infinite, so well described by Cantor. You can add any distance to an infinite radius, but the result is still an infinite. Sorry Jacob, it is the prerogative of God to be different: like you said so clearly, Adonai Aher, God is different! Human rules and mathematical logic do not apply to Him. This is about it: the extent of my knowledge is not much, but I think that the little I know, at least I understand it well, of course in my own way, with my own tricks. Is it enough to use what I know to come up with an interpretation of the event the “Creation of the Universe”? Jacob seemed to be satisfied with the explanations of Leo but he added: “You have done a lot of thinking, certainly more than that donkey in the Karroo, yet I am sure there is a lot still to be understood. The astronomers for instance are saying that only about 10% of the matter forming the Universe is known. But that is not enough to keep the Universe together and to cause the gravitational pull to keep the stars from running away in the empty intergalactic space. There is a shortage of up to 90% of mass. They speculate that the remainder 90%, may consist of mass from invisible black holes and dark matter located inside the galaxies, forming about 20% of the total, and the rest 70% consists of a strange form of energy called dark energy, whose origin is still unknown to the scientists. You still have a lot to discover to keep you busy until you are at least ninety! Didn’t you say that the greatest gift we received from God is our ignorance? Leo , you are modest and despite your vast knowledge you wisely restrict yourself to what a human being can know. As for me I try to keep my feet welded to the ground.” Leo had to agree that the question of the dark energy was a tough one to explain and not enough work had been done to try to understand it, but he added: “I am of the opinion that the astronomers have not done their home work on the theory of relativity yet, and have not properly applied what Einstein said. Didn’t he say that with the increase in velocity an object containing mass, would increase its mass until it became infinite at the speed of light? Now the astronomers have measured the expansion of the Universe, discovering that the velocity of expansion is increasing progressively with the distance from us. The more the stars and galaxies are distant, the faster they move away from us. The result is that the astronomers think that some distant galaxies must move at the speed of light. But if they move at the speed of light away from us, we are moving at the speed of light away from them as well. Do you agree?” Jacob nodded in agreement and said: “It seems logical to me!” Leo then triumphantly concluded: “But at the speed of light, the mass of the stars and the galaxies must increase to become infinite, if we understand Einstein correctly. There is the cause and the origin of the dark energy: the increase in mass due to the expanding Universe. But who am I to guess and give an answer to this puzzle? I am just a donkey that has done some thinking!” Leo sat comfortably back in his armchair smiling and studying the expression of surprise on Jacob’s face “I am afraid that if the Universe is continuing to expand at this speed, it may be because all the matter of the Universe is sucked in by some giant distant black hole. If that is true, it will be bad news for the future. If I understand the theory correctly, as all the galaxies reach the speed of light, all the matter of the Universe will disappear into some gigantic black hole and the Apocalypse foreseen by St John will take place. Even this last bit of prophecy will be confirmed and verified. It could be a mechanism of waste disposal of God to clean up the Universe and start again from scratch. But that is far in the future and we should forget about the End, the Sof , and stick to what we understand best, the Beginning, the Rosh. To conclude let me make a synthesis of my theory, using of course some simple mathematical formula, because a respectable theory must be described in simple terms with numbers. We have seen that the numbers 0, 1, and infinite have been utilized to describe the Substance of God. Infinite is the substance of God. The value of the logon is 0, and 1 is the Unity of God as well as His Probability and the sum of all the infinite number of logons. Utilizing these three numbers we can write the first of two equations: 1. Infinite = 1/ 0 God (Infinite Substance equals Unity of God divided by the Logon) 2. 0 = 1/ Infinite Logon (Size of the Logon equals Unity of God divided by its Substance) A single number represents a line, a dimension of space, like Time and Length, therefore a Velocity is a Square, i.e. two numbers multiplied between themselves, and a Space is three numbers multiplied among them, i.e. base, height and depth. But the space does not need to be explained to be understood, it is intuitive to all of us. It is described by a tetrahedron! Back to velocity of light: there is a third equation that proves its connection with God and that can be written utilizing the three Divine Numbers 0, 1, and Infinite. Because multiplying an infinite time by a zero size, we obtain the Einstein-Minkowski constant One, the magic square of the speed of light, we obtain: 3. Infinite X 0 = 1 c (Constant velocity of light) Note: the three numbers 0, 1 and infinite are the only three numbers that when squared are equal to themselves! (See appendix for Leo ’s mathematical explanations of his formulas) That’s all, Jacob, those are the fundamental equations describing my theory. The psalm however says: “By the Word of the Lord were the Heavens made.” (Ps: 33,6) Therefore if the infinite Substance can think, it is possible that God created the Universe by controlling the Absolute Space. Also a merciful God (El malé rahammim) can possibly take care of us after death. I say possible and possibly because these two processes require the existence of the Tachyons, which is probable, but not certain and for these I have no formula except Probability and the Law of Ψ .” Jacob congratulated Leo on a lucid and coherent presentation of his thesis. But Leo insisted with humility and modesty that his effort was just another link in the long chain of man marveling and attempting to make sense of his existence. He admitted that his religious beliefs could be described as something sitting between Faith in God and Agnosticism or to be more precise some sort of Pantheism resembling the Pantheism of Spinoza and Einstein, except that his God Ψ played dice. “Certainty is supposed to be only the prerogative of God, but probability being by definition never certain in the real world, all of my beliefs are never certain, but always tentative. As you noticed, Jacob, I was obliged to resort to the tachyons, some hypothetical imaginary particles with imaginary mass, on two occasions: when explaining how God controls His infinite Substance instantaneously and when explaining how the soul returns to God after death. But it is a well known fact that when in a physical theory tachyons and infinities start appearing, there is something wrong with that theory. Normally that theory fails. But in my case I still believe in tachyons almost exactly like Juha believed in the story that he had invented. Here is the story, another little story of the magic world of the Middle East where you were born: The Party at the House of the Cadì “In the early afternoon, while Juha and his wife were resting, some children played football in front of their house making a lot of noise. “Juha, why don’t you go out and tell the children to stop” said the wife. So Juha went out and told the children an invented story: “Why are you playing football instead of joining the party at the house of the Cadì where you could eat cakes, sweets, ice cream and drink cool drinks?” Hearing that, the children left running towards the house of the Cadì. Juha then entered his house and picked up his jacket. His wife asked him: “Juha, where are you going now?” Juha answered smiling: “I go to the house of the Cadì, just in case what I said to the children is right!”

I differ however a bit from Juha in my belief. He believed only in probability. I also believe in probability, but my belief in the tachyons stems from a deep faith in the elegant symmetry of reality that foresees that such imaginary particles of imaginary mass must exist, thereby justifying the active role of God and the survival of the soul.” Jacob then sighed in relief and mumbled in Hebrew: Tam Ve-Nishlam. Toda La-El Boreh Olam That is, having finished the Talmud of Sicili let us sing, It is finished and completed thank the Lord the Creator of the Universe.

Chapter 20

Does God Know the Future? After the nice reunion in London, Leo and Gerd left London to spend the Christmas vacation with relatives, children and grandchildren in Norway. But the discussions continued through the ether, using the telephones and the emails. Among other items of discussion, there followed an additional exchange of ideas to analyze the different theses of the two Shibanis. On the important subject of the Omniscience of God Leo sent this e-mail to Jacob: Jacob, “On the question: “God knows the future?” I offer the following explanation. My point of view is that the Logos, utilizing the tachyons, can travel into our future faster than us, therefore it looks like He knows our future before it happens, but in reality he doesn’t. It looks like God could travel along the arrow of time of the Universe faster than any event involving us and then stop and wait for our future event to reach His plane of the present there. In reality God cannot move in time, except with His Logos, but from His observation point He will see what happens to the past events as they occur. But the events are still free to occur according to the laws of probability, although God, if He wants can modify somewhat the conditions of the game, to make sure that things can happen according to His will. But this is only like buying a lot of tickets to the Lottery, to make sure that He wins, however things can go wrong for Him because He can still lose the game. Here is why. Suppose your enemy travels from Catania to Milano by Airplane at 10 am and you travel by train to Milano starting your trip also at 10 am the same day. He will reach Milano in only two hours, at 12 am, therefore he will be in Milano “in your future” because your train will get there at 10 am the following day. He will have therefore good time to plan his vendetta. But being in your future doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows your future. Probability will decide what happens at the end. In fact being 22 hours ahead of you into your future will allow him to hire a car and drive South to Bologna and go to the station in about 3 hours and wait for you there with a gun to shoot you to stop you from reaching Milano. Excuse me Jacob: what a terrible way to prove my point! But let’s continue with the story. In 5 hours you would be somewhere in Calabria, still quite a long way from Naples and from Bologna and several events could happen to you before reaching Bologna. You still have most of your future in front of you while your enemy is ahead of you in your future. You can meet a “nice girl” in the train that convinces you to follow her to Naples and that can “spend the night” with you for a fee; naturally for a fee, since I doubt that at our age any girl would fall in love with us free of charge. If the event “girl” does not materialize, on the way to Rome you could be convinced by a fellow passenger to follow him in Rome to eat in a fantastic restaurant in the Ghetto of Trastevere where you can eat the best Jewish food in the world. You could decide to follow him and take another train to Milano a few hours later: after all we only live once and a good gastronomic experience in Rome is worth a little delay in getting to Milano. This event has a better probability to occur than the event “girl”, given our age and our love for food! But suppose that the “restaurant” event does not happen, you could still decide to go off from the train in Florence, caught by a sudden architectural urge to visit the “Ponte Vecchio”. In the meantime several things can happen to your enemy in Bologna. Having a lot of time he can have a meeting with the local mafia boss to discuss business and get shot after a disagreement with him. He could visit an old girl friend and get shot by her jealous husband. The railway police can arrest your enemy for unlawful possession of a weapon when he frantically looks for you inside the train in Bologna the following morning, with the gun in his hand, while you are safely in Florence, Rome or Naples hundreds of kilometres away. You see Jacob, you have infinite chances to avoid being murdered in your future, before it happens, since your enemy doesn’t know your future. A good example of God possibly foreseeing the future before it happened is given in chapter 22 of the book of Genesis. Abraham was told by God to go to the mountain of Moriah to sacrifice his beloved son Isaac. The objective of God was to test the faith of Abraham, not to kill poor little Isaac. The trip took three days to Abraham and Isaac and their two servants to get there. At the foot of the mountain Abraham and Isaac continued the trip alone to reach the top of the mountain and therefore God had ample time, more than three days, to convince a local Shepherd to bring a ram and entangle its horns in the bush on the top of the mountain before Abraham had the time to commit the terrible sacrifice of his son. The Angel of God then could intervene in time and tell Abraham to sacrifice the ram instead of Isaac. One thing is to move fast and precede an event to try to modify it, and one thing is to know the future. Abraham could have stopped to sacrifice Isaac before reaching the top of the mountain where he was going to commit a terrible crime in obedience to God. Fortunately it did not happen that way. God didn’t know exactly the future but He knew how obedient his servant Abraham was: He had told him to go to the top of mount Moriah, and Abraham had obeyed. Why did God tell Abraham to go all the way to mount Moriah? Why not ask Abraham to go behind his tent immediately? He obviously needed time to plan the future rescue of Isaac. God gambled a little bit with the life of Isaac, but the odds of Isaac were very good indeed and this time God won.” Jacob replied: “Leo , you are right. God endowed man with a Free Will. This free will can intervene at any time to change the future. Therefore the future is unpredictable to man. Predestination is not logically possible and therefore your concept of Probability is correct. Philosophers mix the Laws of Nature established by God with Man’s Free Will.” But one thing still bugs me. What is present. I think it does not exist. It is a virtual time space that we have invented to link the past with the future. Basically it is like an eye-blink or you can say it is part of the future that once it occurs it becomes past. But certainly it is not definable like past and future. So how God knows the future? Because He knows every bit of the past and He knows according to the ‘HUKIM, the laws of nature that He had laid down and made them unalterable how these bits of the past would combine and create future events. His is the only software that can do it that instantly. So God knows the future. He knows the outcome of future Probabilities because Probability exist within the rules of the game that God laid out for this world, the ‘hukim. God does not play dice. With Man or at all. Anyway back to the story of sacrifice I have a different take on it. This was a parable to teach the people of Israel that they had to stop human sacrifice practiced so widely by other peoples at the time. Unfortunately not only Jews but also Muslims misinterpreted this mythical event except that the latter substituted Ishmael for Isaac. The Speed of Light and the Cluster of Jacob Then Jacob intoxicated one evening wrote the following e-mail to Leo to discuss his view about the speed of light that in spite of what the scientists said must be according to him instantaneous at least within a sphere of radius equal to half what we term the speed of light:

Leo , First of all please forgive me and may the great scientists from Parmenides right through to Hawking forgive me too. Because I have no presumption in me and it is the first time that I want to show you how to repent and sin simultaneously a la Saint Augustine!. So please do not take me seriously. I have nothing to show but simple common sense provoked by a mixture of Champagne and red wine - a lot of it. When we say that the velocity of light is constant and does not change, we are implying that it, i.e. the light, travels in space. If light travels then it must create time, because time is the measure of movement, however it does not seem to move to our human perception because it appears that it strikes the eye of a person one meter away or thousands of metres away simultaneously even if he is 300,000 km. away. But according to what physicists are telling us if the person is 300.000 km away, light takes time, one second to cover the distance, very short but still time by divine standards. I accept that it looks like that because Einstein said so and I don’t like to argue with another Jew, because I get nowhere. Besides, in this uncertain world which you seem to create where Probability rules, we Jews i.e. Einstein and I should stick together to protect our sheer existence in the future. But search for truth should come first. So in spite of this digression, I stubbornly disagree with your understanding of light and I try to tell you why I think that light travels instantaneously! I want to venture a crazy idea. Light is neither waves nor particles. It is in a way like the electricity we experience every day in that it is there and it is not there at the same time. It is an impulse of vibrating Energy. To use your language, Leo , try to imagine that what is conventionally called the void is actually full of logons that are all clustered together and joined in a crystal like fashion. Don’t forget, Leo . You told me that and I thought it to be plausible. These are sitting quietly, asleep. When a light strikes anywhere in the middle of this void, it wakes up and excites a quantity of these logons within a sphere around the centre of the light with a radius of say for example: 150.000 km which is half the assumed speed of light, if light travels. But it does not travel like sound. As a light appears these logons go crazy and they start to move or better we can say that they vibrate, because logons can not move in the sense that they move from point A to point B. It is like you when you exercise on a “tapis roulant”, you burn calories without moving in space. The logons stay put while vibrating to gather energy. The only change is in their mode. They become what we call photons. To borrow a famous analogy from Spinoza: now it is Jacob, now it is Israel. But both Jacob and Israel is the same Biblical individual, the son of Isaac! Then, when the light goes away or disappears, these logons altogether enclosed in a cluster of 150.000 km of radius go to sleep again. My point is that this movement of the logons in and out of excitement within the cluster takes place as light appears and disappears instantaneously. Why? Because these logons don’t change their positions, they only vibrate. If they change their position they will create void to be filled and they would create Time, because Time is the measure of kinetic movement. But the logons are one primordial infinite uninterrupted substance through which other particles travel, but the substance itself, it does not move. It is God’s substance. And to complete the picture as light touches the next cluster of Logons at the periphery i.e. at the diameter of 300,000 km it activates or awakens this next cluster and so on and that is how the sunlight reaches us. So now, having surrendered, let us examine what the scientists say about Light irrespective of the size of its quanta: 1. Einstein pushed Planck’s Quantum Theory further. He concluded that all forms of radiant energy, e.g. light, heat, X-rays actually travel through space, i.e. through the void in separate and discontinuous quanta with the same velocity irrespective of their intensity i.e. the quanta they release. These are tiny particles which he called photons. 2. E instein mixes all radiant energy together and consequently trips himself. 3. What is in between the photons? He does not tell us. 4. B ut this new theory of light is in direct collision with the prevailing theory that light is made up of waves. When obstructed by small objects, not big objects, they go round them in the way that water waves do i.e. they are not diverted or in physics we say not refracted or reflected but are diffracted. Waves move or travel in an up-and-down manner in crests and troughs. When they interfere with each other they may cancel each other or add each other up. That is why we talk of diffraction and interference. 5. Conclusion is that Light has a dualistic nature, i.e. particles (photons) and waves. So far so good. 6. To sort out this problem Louis de Broglie postulated that although light is made of little tiny balls, they travel in crowds like migrating birds forming vibrating waves through space. But because physicists lack imagination they needed to express these ideas in mathematics. So we all now have to follow them and trip ourselves and woe to intelligent people who like to utilize “Gedanken Experiments” with geometry as normal human beings do. 7. S o Schrodinger, the Austrian, clothed the French de Broglie in mathematics to ease the way for the Germans who always rated pure theoretical physics superior, leaving the lower-grade applications of dirty physics and their practicalities to Jews to deal with. And that is how Heisenberg jumped to follow and recast the de Broglie findings. So even if light quanta (Photons) exist, as it is impossible to measure them as individual particles, we can ignore them and treat them only as clusters of waves of probability. But still what exists between the particles in these clusters of waves of probability is not explained by Heisenberg. You see Leo this is typical German behaviour. They grasp something and theorize without attributing the origin of it to its author. (That is exactly what Leibniz did after meeting Spinoza in Holland. He got the idea of “Deus sive Natura” from a Jew and transformed it into his theory of Monads. He did the same with the Unitarian Christian Newton. He grasped the idea of binary maths from him and created his own that the Continent followed toNewton’s chagrin. Then he combined the two ideas of Spinoza and Newton to state that binary explains the relation between God and Man, i.e. God is one and Man is somewhere between 0 and 1. Therefore Man is partly God as otherwise he becomes Nothing i.e. 0. Still I concede Leibniz was a genius. Newton and Spinoza had their revenge when both Heidegger and Sartre based their philosophies on Leibniz without acknowledging their debts. You Leo are more decent you acknowledged your debts to other scientists when you emptied the sack in my Study in London.) However let us skip this digression too and continue. 8. H ere the Italian Leo Melli came to the rescue encouraged by his Jewish friend. Leo postulates that the void is filled with logons. These are the primordial substance. They exist linked to each other the way crystals are linked together. There is no void in-between because they are the void. They are in a state of rest, asleep. When light shines on them they get excited and start vibrating. We call the excited logons Photons. We call them photons i.e. logons in a waking mode. They are the same logons except the mode and the state of energy they are in. But Einstein said that Light is made up of Quanta. 9. I told you Leo I don’t argue with other Jews. If you dare, you do it. But I can dare say that Einstein did not tell us the truth about the size of a Photon i.e. the awaken logon. To help my description of the argument I think that the size of a cluster of logons is a ball with a radius of 150.000 km (half what we designated as the speed of light). So when a light impulse touches the edge of this logon cluster it excites the whole cluster at once instantaneously and not in one second, like Einstein said. 10. If the original light that has awakened the cluster of logons is powerful enough or becomes powerful enough through the kinetic energy of its string-like bits vibrating, then its edge excites the next cluster and so it lights it up and so on. I view the expansion of light in space as the vibration of spherical waves moving within concentric spheres. 11. A nd this process continues the light becomes too weak to excite the next cluster unless it continues to be reinforced or reinforces itself through gathering kinetic energy as it vibrates. And that is how the light of the sun, the moon and other stars touches the clusters adjacent to our Earth. 12. And that is what happens when you switch on the light in a room. The electrical bulb simultaneously lights the whole void of the room and without the walls it would have lit up a cluster of logons with a radius of 150,000 km. 13. And what happens when you feed the cluster with more and more light energy? It explodes and creates a Mini Bang. A mini bang creates light as a by-product which itself excites the next lot of clusters. My theory is so beautiful. Please, Leo , don’t destroy it with scientific facts! And till the New Year drink and be merry. Jacob

Upon receiving this e-mail with the theories of Jacob about the essence of the light and its speed, he quickly answered with the following email: Jacob, Honestly! Tears of joy filled my eyes as I read your e-mail because you have understood what I tried to tell all along and on top of that you have taken the theory one step forwards. I explain to you why, but step by step. First of all I made small editions to your text to make it more understandable to everybody, without, I hope, changing its meaning. The changes are all additions to the text, as you have the habit of writing in the concise language of the Bible and the Talmud, but we Europeans need more words to say the same things. I have not taken a single word out of your text. There is a lot of confusion in what you say but also a lot of truth. The text is now readable and I only want to comment the passages that I have outlined in Italics. The passages are repeated below and interpreted like I normally interpret the Scriptures, because most of the time your truth is hidden and I have to dig it out. 1. As a light appears these logons go crazy and as they start to move they become what we call photons. This is correct. The “impulse” given by the arrival of light on the first logon is transmitted instantaneously to all the other logons of the sphere that you are using for your “gedanken experiment” let’s call it “the cluster”. In fact the logons are all in contact with each other and when quiet they are not measuring time. Time is standing still before movement takes place. Touching one means touching all. Movement occurs instantaneously in absence of time. Actually we can take the radius of the “cluster” and imagine that it consists of a rigid iron rod long 150.000 km. If with a hammer we hit the beginning of the rod near the center of the sphere and we move it by a centimetre we can expect that at the other end, i.e. at the circumference of the sphere, the rod moves instantaneously outwards of one centimetre as the impulse is transmitted to the whole rod. If we then take all the infinite radii of the cluster and we apply to all the same concept, we will see that the cluster has expanded by one centimetre its size in every directions. In reality what happens is that the information of the impulse travels through space “informing “the space that a certain impulse with a certain energy has arrived and each logon becomes quantized and after that, one split instant later all the logons of the cluster start vibrating forming waves that spread throughout the space. The distance between two waves is the constant of Planck and the cluster transmits the impulse of energy through space as waves of energy E = h f which means that the energy is equal to the constant of Planck h multiplied by the frequency of vibration of the photons. At the arrival of the impulse of the photons, the quantized logons are then transformed into waves of photons and become photons, carrying forward the energy at the speed of light. 2. When the light goes away or disappears, these logons altogether enclosed in a cluster of 150.000 km of radius go to sleep again. My point is that this movement of the logons in and out of excitement within the cluster takes place as light appears and disappears instantaneously. Why? Because these logons don’t change their positions. They only vibrate. If they change their position they will create void to be filled and they would create Time, because Time is the measure of kinetic movement. But the logons are one primordial infinite uninterrupted substance through which other particles travel, but the substance itself, it does not move. It is God’s substance. 3. A haron, this is your discovery, because I have not said that. But I enthusiastically agree with it! You are discovering that the space full of logons behaves elastically to an impulse and returns to normal when the impulse is finished. And this phenomenon takes place instantaneously. This fact may be due to the “inertia” of the logons that obliges them to keep the same position in space. The “cluster” then expands and contracts in space. Naturally this phenomenon must not apply only in the space outside of the Universe, but it must apply also within the Universe. In other words the rigid rods of logons vibrate outwards in the direction of the impulse, instantaneously, because the movement happens with time zero, and inwards instantaneously, for the same reason, as soon as the impulse is passed. You are discovering that the space of your “cluster“, containing the logons, becomes instantaneously “quantized” because of the arrival of the light impulse. But I must warn you not to mistake the speed of activation of the logons with the speed of the photons, which must travel at the speed of light. Once activated the logons become photons and time starts because they start moving and then their waves have to travel at the speed of light. So Einstein was right for the speed of light, but he stubbornly refused to believe that space in the Quantum Theory knows instantaneously what is going to happen before the light arrives. 4. What is in between the photons? Einstein said that energy consists of quanta and that a photon is a quantum of electromagnetic energy. Let’s call the quantum an “impulse of energy” like the strike of the hammer on the rod of the logons, i.e. the radius of the “cluster”. Between two successive strikes of the hammer there is the wave of the logons that react to the arrival of energy, first becoming quantized and then becoming waves of photons. The impulse provides the quantum of energy and the logons provide the waves carrying the impulse forwards. Between two successive photons there is the trough of the wave of the activated logons carrying piggy back the photons, the quanta of energy. Between two consecutive up and down waves there is the position zero of the wave changing sign of movement from up to down: from +1 to 0 to -1 and back to 0, to start again with +1 and so forth and so on. The zeros are separating the maximum amplitudes of the waves. This is what gives the impressions that energy comes in separate packages called quanta. Like the waves of the sea would hit a pier with separate impulses, and only the positive waves cause the damage to the pier, so the waves of the photons would hit an obstacle with separate quanta, and only the positive part of the waves, the +1 portion, would be affecting the obstacle. 5. This new theory of light is in direct collision with the prevailing theory that light is made up of waves. There is no collision if we suppose that the quanta are impulses of energy and the waves are provided by the substance of the logons through which they travel. The quantum is the stone thrown in the quiet surface of the lake and the waves of logons are similar to the movement of the water molecules transmitting the impulse of the stone throughout the lake. The impulse is the particle concentrating the energy in one point and the wave is the mechanism that transmits the energy through space. 6. Conclusion is that Light has a dualistic nature, i.e. particles (photons) and waves. Correct, light, and for that matter any sort of particle has a dual nature: particle, i.e. energy impulse, and wave carrying the impulse within the lake of logons. The waves and the impulse are bound together in the same quanta of energy. 7. There is no void in-between because they are the void. This statement is very good and it describes perfectly the concept of the logons. Actually you have helped the theory of the logons a lot with the concept of “cluster”. You made me understand that as soon as the impulse has passed the sphere should return to its normal conditions of quiet again. 8. So when a light touches the edge of a logon cluster it excites the whole cluster at once. Again this is a good concept resembling the idea of the Monad of Leibnitz. The space within the cluster prepares itself to the arrival of light and time begins to flow for the logons within the cluster. The logons become photons and their waves move at the speed of light. Be careful! An observer fixed in space and not moving outside the cluster would think that the time is still within the cluster which is expanding at the speed of light but the movement does not take place instantaneously, once the logons have become photons. 9. Its edge excites the next cluster and so it lights it up and so on till the light becomes too weak to excite the next cluster unless it continues to be reinforced or reinforces itself through gathering energy as it moves. The light starts propagating trough the cluster at the speed of light as foreseen by the theory of relativity and its propagation continues until all the adjacent clusters are activated in this process. Naturally as the radii of the clusters diverge away from the origin of the first impulse, the intensity of light becomes weaker and weaker. Additional impulses of energy, additional quanta must supply additional energy for the process of expansion of light to continue. If the wind that originates the waves stops blowing, the waves would eventually stop and the sea would become calm. 10. A nd that is what happens when you switch on the light in a room. The electrical light simultaneously lights the whole void of the room and without the walls it would have lit up a cluster of logons with a radius of 150.000 km. This concept is not exactly correct as light cannot expand faster than the velocity of light, because it would violate relativity that puts a limit to the velocity of light at 300.000 km per second. So your cluster, if the light bulb is in its centre, would light up in only half a second, but not in zero seconds. However it is true that the space would prepare itself and becomes quantized at tachyon’s speed, that is instantaneously, in anticipation of the arrival of the photons. We shouldn’t be confused between the velocity of the photon and the preparation of space to its arrival. The first phenomenon happens in the presence of time and causes the time to stop and the second happens in absence of time and causes time to start. 11. What happens when you feed the cluster with more and more light energy? It explodes and creates a Mini Bang. A mini bang creates light as a by-product which itself excites the next lot of clusters. This is precisely how I think bubbles of time are started, spontaneously due to the probability that a photon is generated by chance, for the uncertainty principle, or caused by the will of the Logos. The Big Bang has probably started the same way, hopefully with the creative impulse of the Logos that gave the order to an infinite number of bubbles of time to start gathering in one point of space at time zero. To conclude I agree with your theory of the instantaneous velocity of activation and of return to quiet of the logons, provided that it is restricted to the way the space full of logons become quantized as a consequence of the arrival of light or of any other type of energy. I don’t accept the notion that light moves instantaneously within a cluster of 150.000 km of radius, because this violates relativity and is not confirmed by experiments. On the other hand, the phenomenon called entanglement of two photons is supposed to happen instantaneously in Quantum Mechanics theory, and Einstein has never accepted it. But you could be true, even if this puts you in collision with another Jew. You also postulated that the space behaves elastically to adjust to the arrival and disappearance of an impulse of energy. Not all what you said is acceptable but you made some valid addition to the theory of the logons and therefore you should not apologize to Parmenides, Hawking or to Einstein. You are one of them! And remember, even they sometimes can be wrong! Happy New Year to all of you. Leo

What Is Gravity? After a few days into the New Year 2011 Leo continued to think about the e-mail of Jacob and the new concept that within the clusters of Jacob the activated logons would return to their quiet state after the impulse of energy had passed. That meant that their “inertia” would oblige the logons to occupy again their position of space that they had before the impulse of energy had caused them to move. Jacob had introduced an elasticity of the space that Leo had not foreseen before. The original idea of Leo was that the logons were either still in space, outside the cone of light of the Universe, or excited and moving with vibrations similar to little pendulums inside the kinetic Universe. Leo had thought the possibility that in the cone of darkness some of the logons could spin around their axis, to create a small electromagnetic field, as the principle of uncertainty suggested, but like little rotating “tops” they would keep their position in space as each of them was the centre of the infinite space. But large vibrations were not possible for the still logons, because in that case they would create bubbles of time independent from the events of the Universe and that would have nothing to do with our reality. They would belong to a separate reality. Inside the Universe, however, he would foresee that the logons would behave both like rotating “tops” as well as like moving pendulums at the same time and if the logons for some reasons were moved from their locations in space the thought had not occurred to Leo that they would return to be quiet again and regain their original position after the impulse had passed. They would become photons and fly away at the speed of light. His first idea was that inside the kinetic Universe the substance would be always moving, always vibrating. There would be no place for peace and quiet. But now maybe the concept had to be modified. Even inside the Universe, the activated logons would return to their quiet state after the light impulse had passed. Why not? Jacob was correct. The logons could only vibrate keeping their position in space to avoid creating voids. But then Leo had another thought. Light was one form of energy, but also the mass of an object was a form of energy. Take a ball of iron, of one centimetre of radius and place it in the centre of a “cluster of Jacob”. It would move the radii of the cluster in every direction of space of one centimetre and the cluster would increase of one centimetre its radius, but then the logons would try to return to their original position to fill the empty spaces inside the atoms of the ball. But this time the iron ball would not pass, it would stay where it was, it would be a static impulse, a stationary sum of energy waves. What effect would this situation have on the elastic behaviour of the cluster of logons? The logons trying to regain their position would exercise an “inertial pressure” on the ball of iron directly proportional to the inverse of the distance from which they were moved to accommodate the volume of the ball. The intensity of pressure would diminish and increase with the inverse of the square of the distance from the centre of the iron ball, i.e. from its centre of mass. But that was exactly the same effect that gravity was causing on the space. That was the same formula of Newton’s gravity. (See Appendix for mathematical explanation).Did they discover what caused gravity, in other words a pressure of the logons around a massive object, similar to the pressure exercised on your body when you dive under water? Except that the water molecules moved away and did not try to regain their position of rest. The consequences of his mental thought process were mind boggling: Einstein had said that a massive object causes the space to bend and warp all around it, but he did not explain why. Did Jacob and Leo discover that the elasticity of space full of logons caused gravity? Unbelievable, yet the conclusions seemed clear. Inertia was the cause of gravity and was equivalent to gravity. Now Leo knew why. He quickly sent an e-mail with his ideas to Jacob to see what he would say. One never knows under what stone the truth hides, until one turns that stone upside down.

Jacob’s reply was not late in arriving: Dear Leo , There is no end to your “tortuous speculation”. You are like Tantalus and Prometheus in your attempt the reach Olympus and discover the secrets of the Gods. Hopefully you will not be punished in the same way. We will be going for few days (22-28 January) to Montreux to see the snow. I cannot stand heat. You see, Haran where Abraham came from is at the edge of mountains, not far from Mount Ararat. That is why Noah’s Ark had to rest near home! Being infected by Logons and Einstein I will be experimenting with my thoughts, hence Gedanken Experiment. You see, when you think you think in images. These images are drawn from the reality you know because you cannot imagine what you don’t know. Imagining is visual. It is interesting how born-blinds think! So when you think, that has to be in three dimensions i.e. in Geometry. That is why great philosophising scientists hate maths. Einstein who started as a mathematician moved to physics because physics is based on geometry not on maths. And so did you, Leo , on your theory of gravity. Let me say straight away that I liked your idea that gravity is a pressure of space, rather than an attraction of matter. It is easier to understand intuitively. Why should mass be pulling other mass? Where is the rope to pull it? Why not the inertia of the sea of logons, acting on a body with a pressure like the one discovered by Archimedes for a body immersed in a liquid? But if you are right, your theory should be proved by experiments. Do you have any suggestions? Leo replied to Jacob at the speed of light: Dear Maestro, don’t put all the blame on me for the new gravity theory. You are the one that started the gedanken experiment that led to its discovery. If I am Prometheus, you are Tantalus! I think a couple of experiments could be made, really! But first let us discuss what happen to light when it encounters a heavy and massive body. By the consequences of the General Theory of Relativity, the mass has the same effect on time as velocity: it slows down time. The more massive objects, larger than the Sun, would slow down time even more and black holes would slow time down completely, until time stops. In the case of normal velocity we have said that the inverse of time multiplied by the space would be an area of two dimensions, a square, and that in the case of the speed of light the area would become an infinitely long line, the time, multiplied by zero space, but still measuring 1, the constant of Minkowski. Therefore around the black holes, as explained by Hawking, an “event horizon” will be formed beyond whose surface time would stop and light would slow down and would not be able to come out of it. The “event horizon” becomes a cylinder beyond which time stops and light stops. Outside the event horizon light still travels at the speed c = 1, but progressively slows down approaching the event horizon. The event horizon has a very sharp edge. Far from it, light travels with its usual speed c, approaching it light slows progressively down, inside it, it slows down even more to the point that it does not have enough speed to come out of it. Now Einstein said that a massive body like the Sun will bend a light beam, and he said that it would slow it down in spite of his theory that the speed of light should always be equal to “c”. Black holes are a special category of massive bodies and they do not only slow down time to zero and stop light, they seem to eliminate completely time in their centres. So while the speed of light transforms time in one infinitely long line of one dimension, the gravity of a black hole progressively shortens that long dimension and shrinks it into one point of zero dimensions. So the speed of light becomes a point of the following dimensions: zero time multiplied by zero space = zero speed. It follows that in the black hole, the validity of the preservation of the speed of light as the constant 1, fails completely, because everything becomes zero, as the space shrinks to zero and time shrinks to zero in its centre. In its centre nothing moves and all the particles become progressively logons. In other words the particles return to be logons like in the plane of God that created them in the beginning, “sicut erat in principium” as the Latin Bible, the Vulgata would say. You see Jacob, we started with a normal velocity forming a square, then, using Euclid, we transformed it into an infinite one dimensional line at the speed of light and now we transform it into a point of zero dimensions, the logon, inside a black hole. The humble logon is indeed the son of some powerful parents, the space and the light, and its potential field contains “the potential” to transform it back into light and into space when it wakes up. The space consisting of logons around a massive body shrinks, because the logons are moved from their position of equilibrium in the centre of space, therefore what does this do to our logons? As they try to regain their position of equilibrium, their inertia exercises a pressure around the massive body that causes the phenomenon that we call gravity. If this is true, this shrinking causes not only the light to bend around a massive body, like Einstein predicted, but also to slow down its speed, as Einstein also predicted, in other words light becomes “refracted” like when light is refracted by the water and its velocity slows down. Einstein did not say that this phenomenon was due to the contraction of the ether, because he was never convinced of the existence of the ether, he believed in abstract gravity fields carrying abstract forces. When at Sunrise or at Sunset we see the sun becoming a red and compressed sphere, I believe that this phenomenon is due, not to the refraction of the Earth’s atmosphere that elongates the sun and changes the frequency of the sun rays with a shift to the “red” as its frequency slows down. I believe that it is due to the action of the compressed tetrahedral structure of the logons surrounding the Earth. But the Earth has an atmosphere that confuses the issue. Where can we try an experiment that would convince us of the existence of the logons and of their effect around massive bodies? I believe Mars would be the place, since the red planet is big enough and does not have an atmosphere. Let’s go to Mars and watch a Martian sunrise or sunset. If the Sun becomes squashed and red, in absence of atmosphere, then we will know that this effect is due to the shrinking of space caused by the logons. Of course Einstein also had predicted the bending of space and the slowing down of the speed of light but he did not say that it was due to the logons! Jacob replied by saying that that would certainly prove the point of the theory, but what would they do if the Sun would emerge behind the horizon of Mars as a perfect round sphere of a bright yellow colour?

Leo immediately replied: Jacob, We would sit under a carob tree in Sicily and open a bottle of red wine!

Chapter 21

Jacob comments the Talmud of Scicli After their meetings in London and the last exchange of e-mails during January 2011, there was a long pause in which Leo and Jacob communicated very little. They were both busy doing other things. Jacob was finalizing his book on the Electoral System and meeting with Israeli statesmen in Israel and in London to discuss his political views. In the mean time Jacob was also busy completing the Hebrew translation of a book on the prospects for peace in Israel that he had written in English the previous years. In February Leo and Gerd returned to Sicily from Norway and Leo dedicated most of his time to take care of the garden at the beach house, but he also dedicated some time to his trees at the farm near Scicli. The olive trees needed pruning and the palm trees needed spraying to defend them against a beetle that was killing all the palm trees of Sicily. Leo hired some farm hands to do the job, but he needed to supervise them to make sure that the job was done well. In reality it was an excuse to go to the farm and sit under his favourite olive tree to read a book or doze off. Unfortunately Mafish was no longer there to keep him company for she died the previous year. Leo and Jacob exchanged a few e-mails during the spring, to agree on when to meet again and eventually they agreed to spend some time together in July, this time at Leo ’s summer house in Norway. The quiet and beauty of the Norwegian fjords would be the right place to finalize their book. On June 15, 2011, Leo and Gerd returned to Norway from Sicily like typical snow birds, taking the exact migration route of the Norwegian geese, via Amsterdam and Copenhagen and returning to the North for the summer months from the Mediterranean regions. Three weeks later they drove to the Sandefjord airport to fetch Jacob and Sandra that had decided to visit them from London on their way to Sweden. The weather was nice and sunny and the temperature a pleasant 22 degrees Celsius when they sat on the terrace of the summer house to drink coffee and admire the beautiful view over the Fjord in the afternoon following the Nathan’s arrival. While Gerd and Sandra were pleasantly chatting in a corner of the veranda, Leo and Jacob organized themselves with their computers on a garden table and started immediately to discuss the project of the book. Jacob explained that he had now analyzed the important aspects of Leo ’s theories and prepared a list of subjects that he considered important enough to deserve their review. “You convinced me that travel at infinite speed can be achieved only in absence of time, this must be true. However, for me, God does not need the tachyons to think and He could be Infinite and at the same time He could have zero size, because He is immune from the constraints of all human constraints. I repeat: God is different.” Said Jacob and then took some time to think, while observing the landscape towards the fjord and then continued talking: ” Many questions were asked, all important, all equally difficult to answer. The answers would cause other questions to be answered with other questions in a typical Talmudic infinite process.” Then he summarized Leo ’ ideas: “The Arab proverb says: He, whose argument is short, his tong is long. This means that the Arabs understood perfectly well the concept of the Occam Razor, which says that the simplest explanation is generally the shortest one and also the best and the most elegant one. Applying the concept of the Occam Razor to the main axioms of your theory leads us to the following conclusions: 1 – The space exists because we can see it and we can experience it. 2 – I t must be infinite because if it were finite, something would limit it. 3 – O nly what exists is real. A “nothing”, does not exist. 4 – Time is made of past and future. Present does not exist because once it exists it becomes past. The present is virtual. It is conceptually invented to understand past and future. It is like your zero. It is there to understand the plus which is tomorrow and the minus which is yesterday. 5 – What limits the space cannot be a “nothing”, because a nothing does not exist. Therefore the space should be infinite. 6 – The probability of an infinite space must be 1, which is the maximum probability available, because all the possible events must happen in that space. 7 – The probability of an empty space is zero and nothing can happen in it. 8 – F rom the above it follows that only the infinite space exists and the space could be the Substance of God and it should be full of something. I therefore think that it is full of logons like you suggest. I am afraid that up to this point I am qualified to analyze your theories using the Occam razor method, but I cannot go any further because I lack the scientific knowledge.” They then drank a glass of chilly “Prosecco” white wine to celebrate the end of their effort and Jacob said: “Like all respected Talmudists I have to say that our work will never be finished, because with our answers we have raised more questions, that would have to be answered, maybe by our children and grandchildren all the way to the En Sof.” Is the Hand of God Short? When Jacob finished talking Leo was very impressed by the wisdom shown in his comments, then Leo commented the Talmudic interpretation of Jacob in the following way: “Yes indeed, the Substance of God must be the infinite space. His logons must then generate the Logos and we can visualize the position of God relative to the creation of the Universe in the following manner: the projector of a film remains still as the film moves through it. On one reel is the film to be projected (the future) and on a second reel is the film already projected (the past) while the projector remains always still in the same place (the present). Through His Logos He reveals the secrets of the Creation to the Hebrew prophets. This answers question number three. Of course nobody has recently seen God to judge if this interpretation is correct. One would have to rely on those, like the prophet Elijah that said to have come in contact with God in the Sinai. God had told him: “Go out and stand on the mountain before YHWH.” At that moment YHWH would be passing by. Elijah relates that a mighty hurricane split the mountains and shattered the rocks before YHWH, but YHWH was not in the hurricane. And after the hurricane, an earthquake. But YHWH was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire. But YHWH was not in the fire. And after the fire a gentle light sound. And that was the YHWH. (I Kings, 19: 9,12) That is the description of the Lord that best fits my interpretation: a gentle light sound produced by a slight breeze of mass-less logons and the faint echo of the tachyons that had just passed by.” Leo paused to study the reaction of Jacob who simply said:”Beautiful!” Then Leo continued: “God asked this rhetoric question to Moses: is the hand of God short? (Num. 11: 23) The meaning was: is there something that God cannot do? The answer is yes: an omnipotent God can do only what is possible, from the point of view of probability: the limit is 1, certainty, not 2 or 3. There is nothing more than certainty that He can do. For example, He can make 7 with the first throw of two dice, but He cannot make 7 with only one die, as the numbers on the six faces of a die stop at six. But a God that has started the Universe from His substance and has created the rules of the game of dice can occasionally interfere with the running of the Universe, with fine adjustments. Let’s go back a nearly infinite number of probability steps in the event “creation of a man”. The probability of his parents meeting, falling in love, conceiving him out of millions of sperms and eggs, must be very small indeed, yet the man is here now, moving, thinking, talking. Going back one step, there are 4 grandparents, all with their probability to meet, to fall in love, to conceive the parents of the man. Yet another very small probability is calculated that must be multiplied by that of the parents of the man to become a very small number indeed. And so forth and so on until the beginning of mankind on Earth. The compounded probability of that man being here now must be a number close to zero, but not totally zero, and certainly in this process nothing impossible was done. So this process was allowed and the hand of God was not too short. The question now is: could God interfere to induce into the brain of the first intelligent man, Adam, an amount of His logons, a small bit of His substance to make Adam an intelligent human being, and to give him a soul, like the Bible said? Like God was able to move His substance to create the Universe, so God could have moved a small portion of His logons to create an intelligent being connected to his substance through a soul, like a computer to the Internet. The logons of God must have been special logons, because all the substance and the Universe is made of logons. The logons given by God must have had a special characteristic to differentiate them from all the other logons: were they logons-tachyons? Why not! Nothing impossible so far! Let’s go back even further. Homo Erectus similar to modern man but not too intelligent yet, and back to the Australopythecus and the first mammals and back to the first form of life on Earth, from which all life evolved. The laws of Nature and evolution took care of the necessary mutations to achieve the diversity of life. But perhaps it was too much to ask probability to do all the work to create life with all its complexity. Could God with an influx of his logons-tachyons have created the conditions and started the first molecule of DNA and the first virus that was capable of replicating itself to start life on the planet? Even this is possible and the hand of God was not short! One tetrahedron here, one there, one logon here, an atom there: why not, with the help of the tachyons? All is possible to an omnipotent God operating in the realm of probability 1= certainty. Let’s go back one step further and we arrive at the Big Bang singularity and to the first logon where the field of probability is infinitely dense and time available is infinite. Everything that exists now started there. The probability was certainty there. This answers question number four. Everything that was possible could happen and the seed of all the future events started there, including the probability of this wonderful planet Earth, that at that time was according to the Bible: “inert and void” that is not moving and of zero dimensions within the singularity. And perhaps the seed of Life on the planet and the ascent of an intelligent man were there too. The hand of God was not short!” Jacob was smiling and he said:” Leo , you are revealing that after all your philosophy and science you are a Creationist. Your God cannot refrain from interfering with his creation, in spite of the role of probability!” Then he added:” And the hand of God was not short to cause a Virgin to conceive Jesus! If He did all the other tricks, why not this last? I am more Christian than you, since I believe in what Maimonides said: for a Jew, it’s quite possible that an omnipotent God could, although rarely, have done miracles. And I add that that included the immaculate conception of Jesus!” Leo laughed and said: “O.K.! I agree to that. We managed to save Jesus as a special son of God, but can we make him God as well and save also the Holy Trinity?” Jacob was smiling and was pleased with the way the conversation was evolving: “Yes, certainly. The divine nature of Jesus was demonstrated by the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, Marc and John, as the son of God. You have demonstrated the existence of the God of probability Ψ (the Substance), the Father of God (the Logos) because the Substance generates the Logos. Ψ therefore is the Grandfather of Jesus. You just explained in Scicli that for Cantor the sum of two infinite Alephs is one Aleph: Do you remember: for the infinite set 1 + 1 = 1. So for Cantor, Jesus can also be God!” Leo started laughing and shook his head saying: “You are becoming a Christian, but I think that you are not counting right: now we have the Grandfather, the Father and the Son, but don’t forget the Holy Ghost, the Shekhina left behind in the Universe! All together they are four, forming the Tetrahedron, YHWH: which is also one. This means that with all my doubts, I am becoming a Jew!” “Now that we have written our Talmud of Scicli, our roles are reversed, nothing wrong with that. One question still bugs me. Is Ψ Jewish or Christian!! Whatever I think, this is a happy ending for our book.” said Jacob to conclude his final comment.

List of Quotations 1: Konrad Lorenz, King Solomon’s Ring and On Aggression 2: E. Abecassis, Qumran 3: Stephen Hawking, Brief History of Time 4: T. Dickinson, From the Big Bang to Planet X 5: B.Cox and J.Forshaw, Why E = m c square? 6: Robert Ardrey, African Genesis 7: F. Capra, The Tao of Physics 8: Francesco Barone, Sicily and the province of Ragusa 9: Alex Boese, Elephants on Acid 10: Amir D. Aczel, Il mistero dell’Alef

Appendix

(An explanation of the strange mathematics of Leo )

1- Why 0/0 = 1? I have made several statements that may be not “ kosher “ to classical mathematicians, but that can be understood if you consider 0 and infinite as physical numbers, rather than mathematical abstractions. They represent the logon and the En Sof, i.e. God.

So let`s analyze the controversial statements:

I said that: 0/0 = 1 because 0 is considered a physical reality. This may not be accepted by most books of mathematics, yet this statement does not conflict with mathematical logic for two reasons:

a- A number divided by itself is always 1, and zero is a physical number. b- The multiplication reciprocal of the division is true because by multiplying both sides of the equation by 0 we obtain 0 = 0, which is true since 0 X 1 = 0 for all the numbers except infinite (we will see why). Therefore in the relativistic correction gamma:

mo m = if mo is 0 and the particle travels at the speed of light 2  v  1−    c  m = 0/0 = 1

I also said that infinite/infinite = 1, which is true for the same reasons above and can be demonstrated using the same logics. Multiplying both sides of the equation by infinite we obtain: infinite = infinite.( The reciprocal of the equation above.)

2- Let us suppose we have a square A with an area of 300 000 Km square, which is the number of the speed of light. The two sides of the square are then long 547Km each so that 547X547 = 300 000, (rounded off to avoid decimals). Substituting these figures in the formula for the speed of light, we have: c = 300 000 and S = 547 X 1/T = 547 or : c 300 000 = S/T 300 000. Since the number of the speed of light is too big to be used all the time, let’s simplify things by dividing both side of the equation by 300 000 and we obtain a more manageable: 1 c = 1 S/T. With regard to square A this formula means that the area is c = 1 and the two sides are each 1, thus S X 1/T equal 1, as 1 X 1 = 1. If we now translate laterally the top of the square A along the parallel line to the base of A, by the rules of Euclidean geometry all the parallelograms A, B, C, D, etc…. which have the same base and the same height have the same area c = 1.

( Figure 12 )

Now however we see that the side 1/T of square A is becoming progressively longer and in parallelogram B , it is double the original length as T that used to be long 1 becomes T’ = 0.5, thus 1/0.5 = 2 = 1/T’ while S’ becomes the height of the base 1/T’ and it is half of S. ( “c” is still 1, because 0.5 X 1/0.5 = 1 )This means that if T was originally one year, T’ is now only half year, so in the parallelogram B, time has lengthened. Repeating this operation for all the other parallelograms we will have that for parallelogram C, 1/T’’ has become four times longer than 1/T or T’’ is equal to 0.25 and 1/0.25 = 4, while S’’ the new height of parallelogram C is only long 0.25. Thus for parallelogram C, one original year of A has become only one quarter, only three months. But c = 1 even for parallelogram C, because 0.25 X 1/0.25 is still 1. A person living on square A, sees however a different time on his clock than a person living on parallelogram C and length of the space has shortened four times for him. Continuing the same procedure for all the parallelogram up to infinity, and knowing that for Euclid two parallel lines may meet at infinity, when the length 1/T becomes infinite, T = 0, it means that for a person living on parallelogram “infinite”, the time has become infinite. While for square A one year had passed, for parallelogram “infinite”, zero years had passed. The time has been still. Now let’s look at what happened to the space S for the parallelogram “infinite”. The length S has become zero length, but 0 Space X 1/0 Time = 1 c, therefore the speed of light is still the same. An object occupying zero space is the photon, so if a particle should travel at the speed of light its spatial dimensions should be zero. Let’s review what we have done: to allow the speed of light to remain the same we have changed time and space, like if light was a “special substance“ that cannot be modified. We made light the only “absolute” entity that exists in the Universe. We will see later why it has to be that way. On figure 13 we can plot, starting from the origin O, the progressive lengths of: 1/T, 1/T’, 1/T’’, 1/T’’’ etc. and we will obtain that a curve linking these lengths together is an hyperbola that will progressively approach the line at 45 degrees of the speed of light, without ever reaching it, as no object can travel at the speed of light, except one of zero dimensions like the photon. ( Fig. 13 )

3- The mass of the tachyons is negative because they travel faster than light. A money capital can be used to explain the problem of a negative mass. I can have a large capital in dollars or not even one single dollar. Example: one million $ or zero $. Zero dollars have no physical reality, they only serve to signify that I am “broke”. But I can also have negative money, i.e. a debt, such as a mortgage of one hundred thousand dollars: -100,000 $. But sooner or later I will have to pay my debt with the bank with real U.S. dollars, otherwise I'll face either seizure of the house or the jail. So even a negative capital has real meaning in the physical world. The same phenomenon can be thought valid for the concept of mass: the mass is after all a weight, an inertia dependent on the gravity field. But there may be a negative mass, i.e. the opposite of gravity, which has an equal and opposite force in the opposite direction to gravity. We may call this force: force of expansion. While gravity tends to gather the matter in one point, the expansion tends to expand it out in space. Now the theory of relativity and those of quantum mechanics and of the strings of necessity and for the sake of completeness must also consider the existence of particles with negative mass to formulate laws generalized enough to be applicable to nature. In other words, what happens to particles with mass that is below zero, that is that have imaginary mass, m = square root of -1, which is the imaginary value “i”? This happens when in the relativistic equation correcting the mass of a particle for its speed the ratio v/c is bigger than 1:

m m = o and the mass becomes negative . 2  v  1−    c 

There is a very useful math based on imaginary numbers, so this is far from being science fiction: the imaginary numbers are actual numbers used to calculate certain physical phenomena, for example in electromagnetism. Well, according to this math, the tachyon is a particle that can exist in the field of reality. It has a mass m = square root of -1, i.e. an imaginary mass. We saw that outside of the cone of light movement is impossible because time must be still, and if there were movement it would happen at a speed higher than light in violation of relativity. But this is true for particles with mass of magnitude between 0 + to infinity. We will see now that the mathematics of the tachyon foresee that this particle with negative imaginary mass can exist but always has to move between a minimum speed equal to that of light, below which it can never travel, and a maximum speed which is infinite. Figure 16 represents the curve of space-time of the tachyon, which is also a hyperbola as in the case of the particles with mass (Fig.9), but this time the curve is inside the space between the F line describing the speed of the photon and the axis X of space, i.e. inside the area of space where the time for particles with mass is motionless. Segment O-X0 represents the distance of space covered by the tachyon with time T = 0, i.e. with time still and therefore at infinite speed. The segment O-X1 is covered by the tachyon in time T1, then in this case for the tachyon time is not stopped, but it allows the tachyon to travel at a speed much greater than that of light. For the segments O-X2 and O- X3, we see that the speed of the tachyon decreases gradually without falling below that of light. With time still, this particle with negative mass, has only a spatial reality and travels at infinite speed on the plane of action of God. Then it allows God to instantly transmit His orders to the initial logon, that is located on the plane of creation at the point O, from the bubbles of time that exist on the plane of creation. But there is more. The tachyons would allow God to communicate with His infinite substance instantly. Otherwise there would be areas of the infinite Substance unattainable by the Logos of God. Fig.16

4- Creation of mass from pure energy. The diagrams of Feynman show that an excited photon can disappear to produce either a quark, an electron and a neutrino or an anti-quark, a positron and a anti- neutrino. But the quarks are the building blocks of all the stable constituents of the atoms, such as Protons and Neutrons: it follows that pure energy can create mass, exactly like Einstein had foreseen. Two high energy photons colliding can produce also a couple of W- bosons, very massive particles ( their mass is about eighty times the mass of the Proton ) that can decay to produce either a quark, a charged electron and a neutrino or an anti-quark, a positron and a anti-neutrino.

5- The sum of infinite zeros is = 1. In his study of the strange properties of the infinity Cantor utilized the Cartesian coordinates to identify the series of geometric points that constitute a straight line, and, putting in correspondence every point of the straight line with the point of a plane he discovered that there are as many points in the plane as there are in the straight line. Furthermore, adopting a similar procedure, he arrived at the shocking conclusion that the number of the points of a straight line is equal to that contained in a three- dimensional space or into a multidimensional space. Every continuous space, being it a straight line or a plane or a space of n- dimensions, has as many points as those contained in the continuous straight line. Unfortunately however, as soon enough realized Cantor, these spaces are impossible to count. For years Cantor made a terrible mental effort to count the continuous space, up to the point of having to be admitted several times to a Mental Institution as insane, but he never succeeded. ( Amir D. Aczel, The mystery of the Alef ) As far as I am concerned, without trying to overcome what is impossible, I tried my hand at the task of counting the logons starting, not from the continuous infinite that is impossible to count, but from a simpler form of infinite which is easier to count, that is from the infinite set of the natural numbers and of the rational numbers that form the fractions filling the space between the natural numbers. Cantor called this type of infinite Aleph(zero) to indicate that it is the simpler type of infinite set and the only one really easy to understand. Not only the natural numbers 0, 1, 2, 3,…etc.. are easily counted but even the rational numbers, that is the fractions comprised between two consecutive natural numbers, are easily counted even if they are infinite, as Cantor demonstrated. Between zero and 1 there is the infinite series of the fractions 1/n, i.e. 1/1; 1/2; 1/3; …..1/100; becoming smaller and smaller until reaching zero when n = infinity. Starting from the theorem of Bolzano-Weierstrass that states that any infinite succession in a limited space contains an accumulation point ( example: the succession of the points 1/n, for n = 1, 2, 3, …and so on until infinity, converges to the point of accumulation 0 ), I started asking the question of how I could count the logons of the plane of God, the infinite plane that intersects the origin of the Universe at time zero, that is the plane of action of God at the time of creation. Bolzano was one of the first mathematicians that made a serious effort to understand the problem of the infinity. Among other things he had discovered a mysterious and rather embarrassing property of the infinity: a close interval of numbers, containing its extremes, like for example the interval between 0 and 1, will contain as many numbers as they are contained in any other close interval, independently of the size of that interval. This theorem was utilized fifty years later by Cantor to generalize the concept and to extend it to any continuous space of n dimensions ( Amir D. Aczel, The mystery of the Alef ). Bolzano demonstrated therefore that the interval between 0 and 2 contains the same number of numbers as the interval between 0 and 1 or that between 0 and 78 and that these intervals have the same accumulation point, that is the 0. By studying the diagrams shown by Aczel to illustrate this theorem I however noticed that there was a difference in the velocity of accumulation towards the point of accumulation zero of the various intervals. In fact 1/n approaches zero, for n = 2, much faster than 2/n or 3/n, since if we indicate the points 0, 1, 2, 3, on the same straight line, we will see that 1/2 is at the distance 0.5 from zero while 2/2 is found at a the double distance 1 and 3/2 is at the treble distance 1.5 from zero for the same fraction`s ratio 2. I thought therefore that I could use this property of the series converging to zero to count the logons, starting from point zero, the origin of the Cartesian axes, which in the case of the Universe is also the origin of the Big Bang. The theorem of Cantor allowed me to utilize for simplicity the straight line that starts from 0 along the X axis and continues all the way to the infinite, since it contains as many points as the infinite space. The theorem of Bolzano- Weierstrass allowed me to accumulate towards the zero of the origin all the points of the series 1/n, 2/n, 3/n...up to the infinity where we will find infinity/infinity. The numerators of the series are 1, 2, 3, ... infinite, allow me to count the points of accumulations 0 of the denominators. The definition given to the logon that describes it as a dimensionless point 0+, without spatial dimension but characterized by “existence”, implies that the succession of logons on the X axis must be a continuous succession of zeros in contact with their immediate neighbours without leaving any empty spaces. At the other end of the X axis, at the infinite, infinite/infinite is not zero , but since by mathematical logics a number divided by itself is equal to 1, the number suddenly and strangely becomes 1, therefore the sum of the infinite zeros of the succession converges to 1 at the infinity. The infinity however is not divisible by any number because it remains always infinite. Only when divided by itself the result is not infinite, because it becomes equal to 1. So an infinite sum of zeros converges to 1 at the infinite!

6- Explanation of the equations of Leo . Not everybody accepts that 1/0 = infinite, because they consider the result as indeterminate, but if we accept the theorem of Bolzano-Weierstrass of the converging series we have that 1/n = 0 for n tending to infinity, therefore we can write 1/infinite = 0 and its reciprocal must be also true, i.e. 1/0 = infinite.

I also mentioned that at the velocity of light: infinite X 0 = 1, which contradicts that a number multiplied by zero should be zero. But we have to analyze the problem in terms of Cantor, and infinite is a strange number, so we have the following equation in which both sides are equal to 1:

Infinite/ infinite = infinite X 0, which seems to contradict mathematical logic.

However if we multiply both members for infinite we obtain: Infinite = infinite X infinite (infinite X 0), and substituting 1 with (infinite X 0) we obtain that : infinite = infinite x infinite (which is perfectly true for Cantor and for one of his theorems).

It is due to the funny mathematics of God!

7- Gravity theory. The logons are moved by the blue mass from their position of rest and their inertia causes them to react by pushing the mass to regain their position of rest. They act therefore like a gravitational force.

The inertial pressure decreases with the inverse square of the distance from the centre of the mass. When two masses are involved, the two cones of certainty around them react with each other decreasing the pressure between them, because between them the pressure acts in opposite directions. This fact is causing a vacuum that attracts the two masses to each other with a force that increases with the inverse of the square of the distance between the centers of the two masses. Compare this effect with Newton`s law of universal gravitation and you will see that they are the same. In my case G is the “inertia”.

Note: According to the law of universal gravitation, the attractive force (F) between two bodies is proportional to the product of their masses (m1 and m2), and inversely proportional to the square of the distance (r) between them:

The constant of proportionality, G, is the gravitational constant.

The Kabbalah of the Talmud of Scicli

After writing their book : the Talmud of Scicli, the two authors continued to argue about the validity of the concepts expressed in the book in a typical Talmudist fashion.

Leo told Jacob :” For the scientist, mathematics is a guarantee of accuracy and objectivity. It is also surprisingly the language of nature itself. No one who is totally ignorant of mathematics can grasp the full meaning of the natural order that is intertwined so deeply into the fabric of physical reality.”( Leo was quoting Paul Davies :the Mind of God.) In other words Leo was telling Jacob : “ Davies is repeating the concept already expressed by Maimonides that before hoping to understand Creation you must build a solid scientific basis.” And Jacob told Leo: “ Science alone cannot solve the problem. The complex world of the mind needs to be analyzed in detail using philosophy.”

In reality this discussion was unnecessary, because their book implied that something besides the substance made of logons must have existed before the Universe. “A Divine Mind must have controlled Creation and must have made the laws of Nature.”

Paul Davies in his book: the mind of God, expresses the concept: "I believe that the proposals of these laws of the initial conditions strongly support the Platonic idea that the laws are" out there "and transcend the physical universe. It is sometimes argued that the laws of physics have originated with the Universe. If so, then such laws could not explain the origin of the universe, because the laws would not have existed as long as the universe has not existed. "

It was clear that their book must now be analyzed and explained using the methods of the Cabalists, to define each definition in detail, to split each concept in four, to analyze each assumption explaining each letter of the alphabet. In other words it was necessary to write the Kabbalah of the Talmud of Scicli.

Quotation of Borges about definitions

Jorge Luis Borges in his book Labyrinths, Avatars ( Reincarnations ) of the Tortoise writes :

Sextus Empiricus argues …. that definitions are in vain, since one will have to define each of the words used and then define the definition. One thousand six hundred years later, Byron, in the dedication to Don Juan, will write of Coleridge: “ I wish he would explain his Explanation.”

Citation of Borges about the Cabalists

According to Léon Bloy: “Every man is on Earth to symbolize something he is ignorant of, and to realize a particle or a mountain of the invisible materials that will serve to build the City of God.” And again according to Bloy : “ History is an immense liturgical text where the jotas and the dots are worth no less than the entire verses and chapters, but the importance of one and the other is indeterminable and profoundly hidden.”

Borges in his essay : the Mirror of Enigmas, ventures to judge the above statement verisimilar and perhaps inevitable within the Christian doctrine. Bloy ( Borges repeats ) did no more than apply to the whole of creation the method which the Jewish Cabalists applied to the Scriptures. They thought that a work dictated by the Holy Spirit was an absolute text: in other words, a text in which the collaboration of chance was calculable as zero. This portentous premise of a book impenetrable to contingency, of a book which is a mechanism of infinite purposes, moved them to permute the scriptural words, add up the numerical value of the letters, consider their form, observe the small letters and capitals, seek acrostics and anagrams and perform other exegetical rigors which it is not difficult to ridicule. Their excuse is that nothing can be contingent in the work of an infinite mind.

Clearly Borges thinks that the Cabalists have pushed their method too far.

Leo told Jacob: “After spending years studying the Kabbalah I have come to admit that I agree entirely with Borges’ analysis of the methods of the Cabalists. They do exactly the same work that the Astrologists do when they interpret the movements of the stars to predict human destiny. Granted that the Bible represents the revelation and that it was revealed to the Jews with the Hebrew alphabet but expecting that each single letter of the alphabet and its permutations or numerical values have a meaning regardless of their position in the text is expecting too much from the basic intention of the Holy Spirit. The Cabalists, by confusing the complicated issue to decipher the message of the Holy Spirit, ridicule themselves in the face of an honest scientific truth. Therefore in the explanations that follow I will try to avoid the mistakes of the Cabalists and give only the necessary definitions that are needed to explain the theories.” Here are Leo’s explanations.

The Academy of Scicli Dear Jacob,

As you very well know we have created the Academy of Scicli. We are few Cabalists, mostly people completely devoid of religious culture and even less of scientific indoctrination and knowledge, getting together to drink Nero d’Avola and grill sausage. The Cabalists are thus unbiased and have the advantage to see the problems through the inspiration of wine. Kabbalah means "tradition" passed from hand to hand and from mouth to mouth from ancient times to the present day. The Academy was confronted immediately with the problem of how to reconcile the "tradition" based on old ideas with modern science, of which they knew nothing. The solution was to change the Kabbalah, creating a New Kabbalah, which takes into account the recent discoveries in physics and mathematics suggested by me. I am of course the leader of the Academy. The basis of the study was : the Talmud of Scicli, which, according to the Academy, replaces the Bible as a book "revealed." The new symbol of divinity became the tetrahedron, as the primordial solid, the smallest Platonic solid and the basis of the organic life. The tetrahedron was also the symbol of the Tetragrammaton, and the symbol of the activated and quantized logons. It was the symbol of the Being, the symbol of the Present. A second symbol, in addition to the present, that is the Being, or the Eheye, was the Ψ, the symbol of the future, which was the unexpected probability used by God for all the events of the potential probability space. After a few glasses of wine, all the members of the Academy agreed that all that made sense. Pantheism states that YHWH and Ψ are the same substance, and that God has not unlimited powers because He does not control the odds of probability. God is not omnipotent in the future, but only in the present. This was of course decided by God to avoid cheating and interfering with the Laws of Probability and with the freedom that He had given to man to determine his future.

Having said this as an introduction, the following pages are a summary of the main results of the work of the Academy.

Scientific citations

Let us start with a few fundamental scientific citations:

“You have to take into account, doing science, the fundamentally quantum nature of the world and hence its intrinsic indeterminism. Any candidate for a theory of everything must incorporate this principle .... A single subatomic event, for example, is able to produce a genetic mutation that can alter the course of evolution”. So the great scientist Paul Davies expresses in his book: The Mind of God, the concept that the “quantum probability” must be taken into account when formulating theories of the Universe. “The belief that God is completely outside of time became part of the theoretical principles of many of the early Christian philosophers such as Augustine, Boethius and Anselm who started a tradition that continues today. Like Plato and Plotinus before him, Augustine puts God in the realm of eternity, "high above the time because it is a present without end."”In His life time does not pass, but rather, God perceives all time simultaneously.” Thus, according to what Paul Davies writes in his book: The mysteries of time, God was conceived by the ancient philosophers. Paul Davis (ibid.) describes very well in a concise manner the concept that the initial singularity must have been a Logon saying, "You cannot go beyond the space-time singularity, any more than we cannot continue a cone beyond its summit. " In other words you cannot go beyond the initial zero so it is clear that the best definition of the initial Logon is: the beginning of the cone of certainty of the universe event in space-time. For this reason his space- time dimensions must be zero. This does not exclude however its physical reality, since we suppose that it exists. But surrounding the first Logon there must be infinite space-time to avoid an empty nothingness. The truth therefore must be: “Something , ( space-time or the substance of God ) must have existed before the universe.”

What follows is a list of definitions taken from the Talmud of Scicli or clarified by the Academy.

Pantheism

Pantheism means that God is everything. According to the definition of Spinoza: the Substance of God is everything that to exist does not need anything else besides itself. Substance shall include all Being, that is, everything that exists. (Pantheism of Spinoza). The substance exists, is unique, and it is infinite because nothing can limit it and as a result of its existence it can occupy the entire space available that is infinite. So there is only one substance for Spinoza: God. The idea of pantheism is very old and dates back to the ancient Greek philosophers. It is also clearly expressed in the Gnostic Gospel (non-canonical) of Thomas, according to which Jesus said, "If those who lead you say: The kingdom is in heaven ...... instead I say: The Kingdom is within you and outside of you ... ( v.. 3) " Then, according to Thomas, Jesus adds this explanation: "I am the light that dominates all things. I am Everything. From me all came and to me everything comes. Split a piece of wood and I am there. Lift a stone and you will find me down there ... (v. 77) " Even St. Paul had a pantheist concept of God when he said that God is all in all, but it is Spinoza who gave the best definition of God: Not only Spinoza's God is all in all, (a concept which restricts the definition only to the spiritual sphere ) but is all in everything (definition which includes all matter, or Deus sive Natura ). According to pantheism God is thus the Being, the Existence and His Substance includes everything, not just the Universe but also the Space and Time that are endless. The Talmud of Scicli, gives a clear explanation of pantheism introducing the concept of logon, the atom of space-time, which constitutes the substance of God. The logons fill all the space-time available without leaving any gaps forming the substance of God, which is also the Kingdom of God where everything that can happen happens according to the laws of probability. So the substance of God is His body and the energy of the substance generates the Logos, the divine thought or mind. Here's how Melli defines the substance: "Before everything was created, there was, in my opinion, only the substance of God that was infinite. For me, the substance is made of an infinite number of logons, (the name comes from the word Logos, the Divine Mind of the Gospel of St. John) and the Universe must have started from a logon, an infinitesimal imaginary particle of zero mass and zero size, however possessing potential energy. The logons are the smallest part of the Being and in a state of rest they fill up all the space, forming a continuous substance made of particles of size zero. Think of a gas or a crystal. Among the molecules of the gas or between the atoms of the crystal there must be something to fill the empty space: this is the substance made of logons .... Since the first particles that God created were the photons of light, it is more than possible that He used the logons to create light and that a logon is equivalent to an inactive photon, the quantum of light, as explained by this formula : Logon= Potential Photon “ The book then defines the meaning of probability as follows: "The infinite space that existed before the Universe, is filled with nothing else but logons, which form the substance of God, and it is also the field of probability, since in it and only in it occurs every event possible, since God is omnipotent ... “ Therefore, God is the God of the probability Ψ and His total probability is certainty, that is 1 ( one ). (The Greek letter Ψ represents the probability of quantum mechanics which, according to the author, regulates not only the behaviour of quantum particles, but also the very life of men and everything that happens in the universe.)

Bereshit

To begin with, we must define what is meant by "beginning." For me, the leader of the Academy and the one that supplies sausages and wine to the Cabalists, it has to start with the concept of zero ( physical ) that is the beginning of a cone of certainty. If I am resting my finger on the edge of this table, the table begins from my finger, but does not include my finger. My finger represents the point where the table is zero, but there is no doubt that the table begins from there, that is from a zero. At the "bereshit" on the one hand there was the potential Substance, on the other hand there was the Creation that began from a point that was of zero size and from a time that was time zero. Paul Davies writes in his book: the Mind of God on page 106: "the laws that govern the transformation (i.e. the creation) must pre-exist the Universe."

I think that the important laws are only three: 1 - The inertia of the Being (which can only “be” and every point of an infinite being is its center ) . 2 - The transformation of Potential Energy into Kinetic Energy .

3 - The probability of occurrence of future events, Ψ. Since no one who is completely unfamiliar with mathematics can grasp the full meaning of the natural order, we are forced to discuss some of the fundamental concepts of mathematics, using the logic of Bertrand Russell. The concepts to be analyzed are the theorem of continuum, that of the infinite, of zero and of one. All this is summarized in the equations of Brahmagupta that we will discuss in detail below.

Mathematics of God

God, in all religions, is always associated with the concept of infinity and infinity is in turn closely associated with the concept of zero. According to John D. Barrow, in his Book: Pi in the Sky, he writes that the great Indian mathematician Brahmagupta in the sixth century AD faced for the first time the problem of division by zero. According to others, in the twelfth century it was instead Bhaskara, another Indian mathematician to use the division by zero as a means to define the Infinite. According to John D. Barrow in another of his books: The Infinite, on page 31, he attributes the authorship of the equations:

1/ = 0 and

to Brahmagupta who wrote them in 628 AD, without worrying of the philosophical implications of concepts such as zero and infinity. From the point of view of classical mathematics a number divided by zero forms an indeterminate result. Instead, in the mathematics of the mathematical theory of limits this operation is possible and legitimate. There are however particular mathematical structures within which the division by zero could be defined in a consistent way (for example, the Riemann sphere).

Proof We have seen that 0 is an accumulation point of the series 1 / n as n tends to infinity. That is: Lim of 1 / n as n goes to infinity = 0 then we can write

1/ = 0 and its reciprocal

These are the equations of Brahmagupta.

We also said that the mathematical logic implies that 0/0 = 1, and then we can take the value 0 as

1/ = 0

and then write

1/ divided by 1/ = 1 and since the two infinities cancel each other we would have 1 = 1, which is the proof that 0/0 = 1

But someone might say that 2/ = 0 and also 3/ = 0 and so on and so this equation, as the Norwegian mathematician Abel said, is "devilishly indeterminate" because all the numbers divided by infinity are zero (except the infinite , which when divided by infinity makes 1). But if we apply to 2/ = 0 the same treatment used for 0/0 = 1 we can write 2/ divided by 2/ = 1, but then, once the infinite disappear what remains is only 2/2 which is 1. And since also 3/3 makes also one, with this trick we see that there is consistency in the statement that this is true for every number and Abel should sleep quietly in his grave. The “diabolical uncertainty” no longer exists. Now we look at another aspect of the equation of Brahmagupta that binds it to the theory of relativity of Einstein. From the equation above : 1/ = 0 which we have shown to be true for all numbers except (for / = 1 ) we can derive the equation that explains the reciprocal effects over space and time of the speed of light: x 0 = 1 which is obviously true, however we should try to understand what it really means. A multiplication is a shortcut to the mathematical sum of numbers equal to each other, example: 2 x 4 = 8 equals 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8, i.e. four times two is equal to eight. Then x 0 = 1 means 0 + 0 + 0 + .... to infinity = 1 This concept is demonstrated with the theorem of Bolzano-Weierstrass of the sum of the points of accumulation to the zero of the series:

1/n + 2/n + 3/n + ….. /n = 1 for n increasing to , which means that:

0 + 0 + 0 + ….. / = 1

Since between a zero and the next zero there is neither distance nor free space, with this method you can count to infinity using the numbers of the numerator and the sum of all the infinite zero is equal to 1. The implication is that counting all the logons of the substance of God, you get to 1, i.e. the unity of God. God is One.

Explanation

The three numbers 0, 1 and are connected in the equation of Brahmagupta. 0 and are the limits of all the positive numbers and 1 is the sum of all the infinite zeros. These are the mathematics of God. Let us now analyze the three sacred numbers. Zero 1 - Zero. The zero can be defined in physics as the beginning of the cone of certainty of an event in space-time ( see definition of cone of certainty in the Talmud of Scicli ).. The zero is the essential absolute unity as it is not made up of parts, is equal to itself, also when squared and is also equal to its opposite (0 squared = 0; - or + 0 is equal to 0) and starting from zero can be built all the natural numbers, in that the sum of infinite zero is equal to the unity ( x 0 = 1) and from the unit can be constructed all natural numbers adding 1to form the 2 and so on. 2 - Logon. The zero in physics is the Logon, defined in the Talmud of Scicli as the atom of space-time and equivalent to an inactive photon, according to the formula: Logon = rest mass of the photon. The logon is equivalent to the concept of monad of Leibniz, but while the monad had only one reality in space, the Logon (zero physical value) has a reality in space-time as well in terms of energy as it also has zero mass when it is at rest and a potential energy provided by the inertia of the infinite space.

Note: In the Talmud of Scicli we had used the symbol 0 + to describe the physical zero, that is, the Logon, that is the smallest part of the Being which is part of reality, and different from nothing. Now I learn from Leon Lederman, the great Nobel physicist, that zero is the only number that with the sign + or - is always equal to itself. (Example +1 is different from -1 and +2 is different from -2 etc. ..). This fact gives to the zero an outstanding physical stability: it is what it takes to be the building brick upon which the structure of the Universe rests, as well as the theoretical basis of the mathematics of Cantor and Peano. (Note that if you look at the Occam's razor, the cut is zero and that zero, that is unique and equal to itself, divides a line into two parts, or a space in two faces, one looking toward +, and one looking towards - and this is important in physics as well in theology. One 1 - One is a unit but also a totality and a uniqueness. 2 - A unit can be unique and indivisible but can also be constituted by parts. The parts that make up the One range from zero (Logone) to infinity (En Sof) 3 - The parts of the En Sof, the infinite substance of God, are in contact with each other without leaving gaps, for this reason all together they make up the Unity of God 4 - The Logon is an example of a One that has no parts. God is the example of the One who has infinite parts.

Infinity 1 - The infinity is a sphere whose radius is infinite. 2 - Each point ( logon ) of it is the center of the sphere, since it is equally distant from the circumference, whose curvature is flat and is never reached. 3 - Each logon of the infinity is subject to the "inertia" that makes it maintain its spatial position of rest with respect to the circumference of the infinity. 4 - It makes no sense the movement of the logon up or down or sideways because all the rays of reference of its coordinates are always the same, that is infinite. The logon is therefore still in the infinite space. 5 - If there happens a "bubble of time" caused by an explosion inside the space-time, the logons may move laterally inside the bubble of time and so a "kinetic Universe" may be created in the infinite space. All logons moved from the bubble of time exert pressure on the inertial bubble of time which in the past has been called "gravity" and now we know that it is a phenomenon due to the inertial pressure of the logons.

Paradoxes of the Infinite

By discussing the paradoxes of the infinite, we discuss the paradoxes of God, that are many, and we try to clarify them. Any space which is not infinite, if it is a sphere or a Platonic solid or any closed solid without any particular geometric shape, has a centre and only one centre that we call barycentre. The infinite Substance , on the other hand, has infinitely many centres, since each point of the infinite space is the centre of the space, being equidistant from each point of its peripheral edge which is located at the infinity. The distance AB is shortened as you move away from it towards the infinite and the result is that eventually you perceive only a point. Thus, the perception of a distance depends on the point of observation. Even for the time the same rule applies. Every moment is the centre of an infinite amount of time that goes from + to - infinite, that is, from the infinite past to the infinite future. If time is defined as the measure of the movement from A to B, if we observe this movement from an observation point at an infinite distance, the time seems to have stopped there, because the distance AB is perceived to be equal to 0. It follows that God, who is infinite, sees things differently from us. His viewing angle is located at the infinite and for him perhaps, distances, volumes and times are all equal to zero. Perhaps this is why He seems to ignore us. For God we are all logons. It’s useless to pray, the best thing we can do is to sing the praises of the Lord and sing the “Berakhot” where He is praised for having created the wine that we drink.

The problem of the “continuum”

“In his speech on the properties of Ether in 1924 Einstein concludes: “….in theoretical physics we could not do without ether, that is the continuum possessing physical properties: the general relativity…..excludes an immediate interaction at a distance; every theory of action by proximity requires continuous fields, and hence the existence of an “ether”. The above is what we wrote in the Talmud of Scicli. Before analyzing the infinite we have to understand what is meant by "continuum". As we can see from the quotation above, Einstein had a very clear concept of continuum. If the Divine Substance was made up of parts, between part A and part B, regardless of how close they would be, there would always be an empty space. If we by Substance meant the Being, between A and B there would be non-being, i.e. nothing. But as the non-being does not exist, the substance must represent a continuum. Only the space-time can be continuous, all the rest is formed by parts that are not continuous but admit voids between them (which however are filled by space-time). Continuous Space-time shall mean a transparent substance, homogeneous, undifferentiated, indistinct from its parts because it doesn’t consists of parts. So it means a Unit. Only space-time when is subdivided into parts leaves no empty spaces, but between an atom of space-time, that is between a Logon, and its subsequent there is always space-time. Hence. when we make the sum of zero-dimensional logons, as we have shown previously, we arrive at a maximum of 1, i.e. a whole continuum. There are many types of countable infinity as demonstrated by Cantor, but only the space-time is really an infinite continuous and countable only with the Unit, with 1. The axiom of continuity of Cantor says that a set is compact and continuous when taking two points A and B, you can always find a distance “epsilon” small as you wish between them that contains infinitely many elements a, a1, a2 etc ..., of the set. This axiom is perplexing because it explains absolutely nothing other than between A and B there is always something without end. For this reason Cantor was never able to count the continuous infinite. This something that remains always in physics is the space-time, and we are interested only in physics, as the Divine Substance is, by definition, the Being, something that exists and that is not an abstract mathematical concept. The definition of Logon, as a particle without dimension, implies that the logons fill the space without leaving gaps between them. Because between a logon and his succession which is in contact with it, there exist no “ epsilon” because the distance is zero.. According to Russell, in his book, The principles of mathematics, the axiom of continuity may be stated (see p. 598) as follows: "All the points on a line are the limits of series of rational numbers and all series of rational numbers have limits. " This statement of the great Russell confirms the validity of my hypothesis of the convergence of all rational numbers to zero when divided by infinity in order to obtain the sum of all the infinite zeros = 1, which perfectly explains the continuity.. Russell on page 620 of the same book concludes by saying that the space is composed of points. Each point has existence and I would add that it is the center of Space. So we explained the continuity, the fact that the space is constituted by a compact continuity of points of size zero, leaving no gaps between them. Their sum is 1, that is, the unit of the substance of God

Number Theory

While for Pythagoras the "monad" ( the number one) was interpreted both as the generator of all the other numbers, as well as the idea of the metaphysical unit at the origin of creation, for me the fundamental unit of mathematics is the zero, i.e. the Logon. The One is the sum of all the infinite zeros of which is made the substance and it represents the Unity of God. To understand the concept of "continuous space" we must try to get rid of the prejudices inherent in our human nature, which are therefore part of our physicality. We can only think in terms of "quanta." For us, if on a line we follow a point with another point as its immediate successor, regardless how close together are the two points, between them there must always be a "quantum" of space that must be divisible by two, to infinity. We cannot conceive the concept of “continuum”, if the Substance that we analyze consists of parts, because between the parts there will always be some space. But if, for example, to a zero on a straight line we follow consecutively another zero at a zero distance between the two, as the second zero coincides exactly with the previous zero and the distance between the two zeros does not exist, we have created a "continuous space “ that can be extended to the whole line up to infinity. In practice, however, this way of reasoning does not work, except to explain the essence of the continuum. Making the Substance equal to the Space, we avoided the problem of dividing it until it becomes zero. Regardless how small is the distance between two points, it will always contain space, i.e. logons of space-time in contact among them, as the zeros in the example discussed above. When "something happens" the space wakes up and the potential logons become kinetic logons and become quantized occupying the vertices of tetrahedrons of space-time. The distance between two kinetic logons is h , the Planck constant, and the space assumes a configuration compatible with the quantum theory. The equation of Brahmagupta is the one that is best suited to mathematically explain God. Regarding the Logon, the most valid explanation of the Logon is given by what happens in a black hole, because if a photon falls into a black hole, it becomes a Logon. (Not only the photon, but all the particles become logons!)

So you can understand what is the rest mass of the photon and its size at rest, when it is stationary: the Logon is the mass, size and time at rest of the photon, and we can study it into a black hole ( if we could enter into it and come back to tell what we saw in it ).

Relativity of Time

Jacob, this story is from you and from the ancient wisdom of Israel and the Middle East :

A man had lent money to a friend. Seeing that the time passed and the friend didn’t return the money to him, one day he went to his house and asked him, "When will you pay me?" The friend replied, "Come back tomorrow and I'll pay you!" The next day the man came by his friend to get paid but the friend said. "Why did you come today? I told you to come tomorrow! "

The members of the Academy liked your story and drank a toast to your health.

We can conceive the motion of a point in space-time as obviously continuous. (See definition of Russell on page 478-479) If the point is stationary in space his time is zero and the only continuous is the space, while we have to consider the time as only potential. Any movement of a point in a regime of T = 0 takes place at an infinite speed because every movement from S(0) to S(1) divided by zero occurs at infinite speed:

(S(1) - S(0)) / 0 = infinity

Along the horizontal line from – infinite to + infinite, the mass changes from negative mass = expansion of the expanding Universes ( tachyons ) to gravitational mass of the black holes ( logons ) because time is zero. The point where the time is zero and the mass is zero represents the photon, inside the kinetic Universe and the Logon in a black hole or in the cone of darkness outside the Universe. In the red area only particles with positive mass ( baryons ) can be created, and in the blue area only tachyons ( particles of expanding Universes ) can be created. Baryons can however expand into the blue area and tachyons can invade the red area. In reality tachyons can only be created by explosions happening in black holes or in the outer cone of light ( cone of darkness ) of the Universe where time is still. They are however free to travel inside the Universe, if they are created by the explosion within the cone of darkness or from a black hole within the Universe. The explosion must take place in absence of time. In the red space as soon as the movement occurs from S(0) to S(1) and time passes from T(0) to T(1) we can write the equation:

(S(1) - S(0)) / (T(1) - T(0)) = V (the motion expressed by a speed)

And here the movement causes positive gravitational mass to be formed.

The question is, if nothing moves, the space continues to make sense? Time certainly becomes zero, but the space continues to exist? The answer to this question is yes, because otherwise there would be nothing and nothing, by definition, does not exist. What exists is not the Nothing, but the One, the potential space whose totality is therefore One.

Matter

The motion creates matter, since the motion is energy (E) and energy is equivalent to mass (m) so that E = mc2 explains what is the matter. The matter can only exist in the bubbles of time, in the Universes, where the substance of God becomes kinetic. Outside of the Universes matter does not exist but only potential space- time exists. For Heisenberg and his uncertainty principle, even outside of the Universes there must be motion and vibration of the individual points in space that make it "alive" and that create the force of inertia. To turn into matter, however, this movement of the logons must obey the law of Einstein and take place at the speed of light squared c2

Vibrations lower than c2 only create inertia and gravity.

Theory of the soul

We said that the substance of God is what constitutes the whole Being. Everything that exists consists of logons that can be kinetic or potential. We speculated, because in truth we do not know whether our theory is true or false, that the logons allow God to think utilizing the energy of the ZPF ( i.e. the zero point field foreseen by quantum mechanics). How can God think? The logons, due to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, are never still but rotate about themselves when they are at rest or fluctuate between 0 and +1 and 0 and -1 and back to 0 again with a sine wave, when they are excited. So sometimes they are still and rotate and sometimes they vibrate and move up and down. Note: The quantum fluctuation explains the role of God as a filter of reality. The plane of God is the zero point and on this plane the time is zero. Everything that moves starts from 0 and fluctuates between +1 and back to 0 and -1, and so on, while God always remains still outside of time on the plane zero of the present.. If we assumed that this movement mechanism creates enough energy and an electro-magnetic field, i.e. the zero-point-energy of the ZPF field, it is possible that it will allow God to think. Certainly it will be a mechanism that has a different origin from that created by the neurons of the human brain. Because this mechanism is only speculative and unproven, despite the zero-point- energy is a concept accepted as a valid physical reality, we cannot help but hope that it is a true law of nature. The Uncertainty Principle that creates the ZPF is well documented and a true law of nature. Therefore the logons of the substance representing the photons at rest, i.e. representing the quanta of electromagnetic energy at rest, if they exist, must rotate or vibrate because of the Uncertainty Principle. This is the most likely mechanism that creates the field of the electromagnetic potential of the substance which we assume can generate the Logos. If the above is true then we can assume that the soul can think even when the brain dies. It will be another kind of thinking, more like a cosmic consciousness and an intelligence of mathematical nature, devoid of human prejudices, and similar to the intelligence of God, with which it is identified. The thought generated by the energy of the ZPF and therefore by the logons, is sent by God to the soul by means of tachyons, and also the soul is connected to God through the tachyons, and this process must be instantaneous.

ZPF and the mystery of space-time

Leo began to tell Jacob his dream: "More than a dream, it is once again a prophetic revelation. I opened a door of a huge spherical bubble made of a transparent ethereal substance of which I could only perceive the wall that stood before me. Once I was inside I could not see the ceiling or the side walls, much less the floor. I was like hanging in the air. Before me, sitting in front of a wooden desk, very simple indeed, such as the ones you buy at Ikea, there was an old bearded Jew with his head covered by a black yarmulke. The old man seemed to look for something in a huge open book open on the desk. I walked over and asked him what he was looking for. Without looking up from the book he said that he was not looking for anything, because it was impossible not to find something since the book contained everything. Then he added: "We try to find something that has been lost, but here there is everything, it is only just a matter to be able to find what you are looking for. My job is just to check and categorize, but it's a dead-end job, because here there is everything and the categories are endless. "Then I asked him what he meant by it all and the old man set a pair of short-sighted blue eyes in my direction, and looking surprised asked, "Who are you?" "I'm a character in a dream. Am I also in the book? "I replied. "Only if you're true, here there is only what is true. Books written, though never published, theories written, but never accepted, the events occurred, even if they have never had success or the desired result. The world of being is all here, written, catalogued, recorded automatically. All I do is checking and indexing by order of the Logos, blessed be His Name, but mine is an endless work, because I'm alone and the material is infinite. Fortunately time here is infinite! But the material to be catalogued is also infinite and on top of that every second new material arrives. But as I said the time is infinite and the Logos, blessed be His Name, is in no hurry, because He lives outside of time. "I was amazed and asked," So in your book, there is only the reality, not the dreams or the imagination. " The old man thought for a moment, stroking his beard, "That's another department, that of events desired or thought, but not put into practice. That is the realm of the imagination, which depends on the direct connection with the Logos, blessed be His Name, but that does not put into action logons, photons and therefore that is not recorded in the ZPF. " Leo knew what the ZPF that was, the "zero point field" where is created the “ zero-point energy”, but he asked the old man: "All real events are recorded in the ZPF, upon completion? " "What questions do you ask? Of course, all that happens is recorded and can be read in this book. Everything that happened in the past becomes history. Here is registered all the history. "Replied the old man with a voice slightly irritated by my utter ignorance. But I pressed him: "How can a book, although quite large, contain all that is happening or what has happened?" "Everything is recorded with logons of zero mass and zero size. There are infinite logons in the space of only one cubic centimetre. Registration is not a problem and everything can be extracted from this book, just write the title and author of the report or publication you are looking for, or try to describe the event and the year, the day and the minute at which it occurred. " "Can you see if you find my book: The Prophet of the Libyan Desert, in your book?" "Sure, what's your name? "" I told him my name and in a few seconds he found the book's title and the date of publication. "If you want to read it, go to that table over there, and you can read it on the screen." And with his finger he pointed to another desk a few hundred meters away from there, that I had not noticed before, and to a black leather armchair in which I could sit to read my book from the screen of some kind of TV. But instead of going to check my book I asked: "And the unwritten ideas, the thoughts and the products of imagination can be also checked and found?" "That's another department, we are concerned here only with what is registered in logons and photons, that is, in the ZPF reality. What you want is the department that deals with the tachyons , the department of imagination. However, of course, everything can be found and checked. If you want to see something only thought but never put in writing, you must contact the Department of Tachyons, down the hall to the right. " I looked in the direction indicated by the old man and in the fog far away I saw what looked like a desk similar to this one with another librarian like him, so I walked in that direction after saying goodbye and thanking the old Jew. Arrived there I found a younger librarian with a bushy black beard and a cute face and a friendly expression. He was wearing a white yarmulke, like the one worn in marriages, and his blue eyes were kind and friendly, "How may I help you?" Asked the young librarian, opening a big book on his desk. "I came to inform me. That book contains everything? " "Only the thoughts, dreams and imagination never written and never occurred," replied the young librarian smiling with pride. "It says here all that the mind has recorded in the divine Logos. I mean everything. "

"Do you have the book of Saro Iacono that has never been published: The fault is of the Innocents? "I asked the librarian. "The book was never written, and just thought? "" The book was written by hand with an unreadable calligraphy because Saro was illiterate and self-taught. "I specified. "Then you must go to my colleague who deals with the ZPF, because the book was written and so it has occupied a space-time position.

The mechanism to transmit human thought to the Divine Mind of the Logos, blessed be His Name, is based on particles of negative mass called Tachyons and basically is the same mechanism used by the Logos, blessed be His Name, to send His Divine messages to the Prophets or to his chosen people. These particles travel at infinite speed, as opposed to the photons that travel at the speed of light.

Here are just books conceived by the human mind such as: The Evil Comedy of Paul Sisini from Ferrara, conceived in his mind while he was drunk, or The Gerusalata Liberemme, a parody of the Gerusalemme Liberata, conceived by the Grand Master of the Order of the Bologna Bollard , Paris Del Bigio, while fighting in Vietnam. Both are in verse and a lot of fun to read. Then there is the poetry of the scurrilous Sicilian Ciccio u Stuortu, entitled The Ifigonia in Culide, an obvious parody of Ifigenia at Aulis of Euripides. This is the version not written but only verbally recited by Ciccio u Stuortu, because he was illiterate and could not write. There are others written by students at the University of Catania, but in that case you are supposed to ask my colleague at the ZPF department." replied the librarian. I was amazed by the fact that he had mentioned some characters known to me from the days of my youth, so I asked him the reason for that choice. "We are well organized here, in this book we read automatically the mind of the people and we know exactly who you are and what you think . I chose books at random from the list of characters that you surely knew, to make you understand our system better. "" Extraordinary " I said with admiration, and he limited himself to open his arms and smiled as if to say: we do what we can. I thanked the young librarian and went back to the first old librarian because I was curious to read the missing book of Saro Iacono, of which I knew only the first lines of the introduction. "Here it is ! " Said the old man with an air of triumph. "Have a seat over there to read it in peace.” The book of Saro Iacono was written with a childish calligraphy, like the one of young school children of the third or fourth grade, but it was readable.

It contained an introduction that I knew by heart, as it was the only part of it that was known to me and to my friends: "And the stars will continue to break down and fall into the bowels of the cosmos until of all the sounds will remain only the silence, the son of catastrophe. " The manuscript was divided into three chapters: Inferos, Purgas and Amoferas, that obviously meant Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, a subdivision that reminded me of Dante’s Divine Comedy. When I started reading I found out, to my great surprise, that the book consisted in fact of a literal translation of Dante’s masterpiece into the local Sicilian dialect, a word by word translation of every single verse and rime, a real masterpiece, a real forgery.

Quickly I leafed through the pages, and the only difference I found from the original Divine Comedy that I knew almost by heart, was at the end of the Amoferas, where a chapter by the title: the punishment of the Lamb, described the fact that Dante, instead of being rewarded for his effort, had been condemned by God to death upon completing his poem. He had been punished for his curiosity to discover the secrets of the Kingdom of God.

With this revelation, I woke up from my dream, happy to have found finally the truth about the book of Saro.”

Jacob had been silent all the time while Leo was talking and at the end he said only one word: “ Amazing ! “