{"id":3744,"date":"2023-12-22T16:18:49","date_gmt":"2023-12-22T15:18:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/?p=3744"},"modified":"2026-06-01T16:12:31","modified_gmt":"2026-06-01T15:12:31","slug":"similarity-in-the-celestium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/2023\/12\/22\/similarity-in-the-celestium\/","title":{"rendered":"Similarity in the celestium"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

Today’s thoughts on similarity (inspired by Christmas friction):<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One of the diarists of the Salt Island Diaries<\/a>, Clara, describes her visits to a heavenly dream-world. That heaven is part of a larger celestium where awarenesses of every conceivable type exist. In the vastness of possibility, very similar things huddle together. Awarenesses that are attracted to similar awarenesses form poles of attraction<\/a>. These are heavens, for lack of a better term.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Awarenesses that are annoyed by similar awarenesses do not huddle together. They do not form heavens. However, they cannot escape each other: what it means to be in a reality is to share it with other awarenesses that are similar enough to perceive it the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Realities are shared, or they are not realities \u2014 the latter are madnesses. And if realities are shared by beings who frustrate each other, they are hells.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, there are always more potential hells than heavens. This is due to the fact that there are more ways for things to be dissimilar than similar, more ways to be disharmonious than harmonius. Two paintings can be identical in exactly one way, but they can be dissimilar in a nearly infinite number of ways. There is one way to assemble a given watch such that it works, a mind-boggling number of ways to assemble it such that it does not work. This only increases as complexity increases. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Therefore, any consciousness complicated enough to think about similarity is going to perceive much more disharmony in the celestium than harmony. That is logically unavoidable. Wherever there is complexity, there is dissimilarity, and there are simply more ways for dissimilarity to be disharmonious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is so much hell, there is a temptation to consider Hell the default condition. Heavens seem to be idealistic fantasies, incongruent with possibility, when they are, logically, merely rare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By visiting her heaven in dreams, Clara begins to understand her task in waking life. Nineteenth century New England is one of the many hells possible, but she understands that Heaven is not a holy place, it is holiness of attention.<\/a> Heaven may be practiced anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The principles of similarity are at work in Heaven as they are on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3913,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[108,121],"tags":[160],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3744"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5054,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3744\/revisions\/5054"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3744"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3744"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/earlywithdrawal.net\/tolton\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3744"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}