At the end of summer a hardwood tree stands in the forest completely filled with green leaves. As autumn progresses and the weather gets cooler, the green leaves slowly turn to red. Does the green disappear into nothing, and does the red appear from nothing? This cannot be possible because any "thing" like "green"never disappears into nothing, and any "thing" like "red" never appears from nothing. Why?
The laws of physics clearly show that information can never be destroyed. How then do the leaves of the tree change from green to red?
The only known entity that can cause green and red to appear as "green" and "red" is consciousness. Information cannot be destroyed because consciousness has locked in "green" and "red" as being eternal and unchanging appearances. Red and green as frequencies of light are not "red" and "green" as appearances. An appearance is a type of information that cannot be destroyed. If all this is true, then how does the tree change from green to red?
We can understand how the tree changes color if we accept the premise that not only "green" and "red" but all other basic concepts of consciousness such as "change" itself, as well as "less" and "more," are eternal and unchanging appearances. We must also accept the premise that appearances are also a type of information that cannot be destroyed. To consciousness, "change" is an unchanging idea that always indicates any set of systems of appearances or ideas each one of which exists as one particular system at one moment but can become a different system in the next moment. Each moment, and the systems within it, remain eternal and unchanging; but the next moment can cause a slightly different set of systems which are also eternal and unchanging appearances.
The tree changes, not directly from green to red, but from one unchanging system to another from moment to moment. At any one moment, the tree consists of many coherent systems of appearances such as "alive," "green," "hard," (the wood) "soft," (the leaves) and so forth. In the next moment, most of these systems remain the same, such as "alive" and "hard;" but the next moment may also bring in a slightly different system in that the "green leaves" become "less green" and "more red." Of course, these changes require complicated chemical changes at the cell level, but these are also unchanging systems from moment to moment. For the sake of simplicity, we will stick to the systems of "less green" and "more red." The conclusions will be the same.
From moment to moment, the systems of the tree called "less green" and "more red" appear to change the leaves from green to red. Actually, "green" being an eternal and unchanging appearance, never changes, and neither does "red." Consciousness insures that they remain the same forever. That which actually happens is that from moment to moment different unchanging systems appear in which a "less" is subtracted and a "more" is added to the total set of systems which is the tree. "Green" does not disappear into nothing and "red" does not appear from nothing. "Green" and "red," as well as "less" and "more," are eternal and unchanging appearances and ideas in consciousness.
This description seems to indicate that reality is like a film rolling through a projector projecting a moving image onto a screen. The only difference is that each individual picture in reality actually constitutes a moment of time with its own set of eternal and unchanging systems. In reality, as long as each picture remains eternal, nothing ever changes. On the other hand, "change" is itself an eternal and unchanging idea for the pictures as they move.
This condition brings another set of ideas to mind. Since man's consciousness is finite and all appearances and ideas must be eternal and unchanging, then who made this movie and who is running this projector? There has to be an eternal God who is creating all this.
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