Dear John, In Kabbalah letters are numbers and vice versa.
Regarding your question of what is the meaning of the Name of God, if you ask me, I think it is meaningless. It is pure, full presence. It is up to us to predicate something out of it and to turn it meaningful. Due to its claim of totality, the Name of God is also absurd. It is one thing and it's opposite at the same time. I am not sure how this relates to the multiverse. I think its infinite possibilities of predication and meaningfulness could be the linguistic expression of all possible universes. Someone more daring (Derrida?) would say that they ARE all possible universes. > Is God a product of numbers, or are numbers product of God? What answer would you like the most? I guess it depends on what kind of God you believe in, if you believe in God at all. I -although very un-Jewish- do not believe in a personal God, though I clearly see the virtues of a personal relationship with God. I think there are ways to scape the either/or trap. God and numbers (and letters) could be one and the same thing: God - the Number of God - the Name of God. I don't have an answer, I just hope I can offer you more alternatives -and in this way escape the excruciating dilemma ;) > How does my question relate to Kabbalah? I consider 'mysticism' a subchapter > of our ignorance: once we learn the explanation it ceases to be mystical. Notwithstanding your definition, more and more I tend to think that breakthroughs in science are based on irrational intuitions proved by rational methods. Kabbalists and other mystics had the insights and their own set of tools to proof their point (their own experiences, for instance). They were similar to modern day physicists in the sense that they needed a creative spark to come to their hypothesis. Their ways depart when it comes to the method of proving these hypotheses correct. My question is if they meet again, somewhere, when it comes to reach conclusions. For me it is rather telling that kabbalistic ideas (probably from Sefer Yetzirah, maybe from Abulafia) influenced Borges and that through Borges they shaped ideas of the multiverse or the Library of Mendel, as described in Daniel Dennet's book "Darwin's dangerous idea". With your help maybe we can bring this fruitful cooperation one step further! > So is there a 'definition' below ( 22^22 ! ) letters long? There is a shorter definition, if you take only the 22 letters of the alphabet and consider each one of them a different Name of God. If you want even a shorter one, what about this: 0 and 1. Yours truly, R. Rabbit -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-l...@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.
