ABOUT MYSELF and the writing of 

THE INTELLIGENCE FACTOR

I was raised in Salt Lake City, Utah, at the foot of the majestic Rocky Mountains.  It would only take a matter of minutes to be at the top of a 10,000 ft. peak in one of the most beautiful mountains ranges in the whole world. People from around the globe would travel here to go mountain biking, hiking, fishing and hunting.  I had a neighbor come up with the slogan “Ski Utah, the Best Snow on Earth,” which attracted millions to the slopes for skiing. I think she won some money or a prize for it. My family loved the mountains. Sometimes we would pack the horses and travel back into a wilderness area and stay for a few days.  There was nothing quite like flicking a fishing line into an icy cold mountain lake or stream and watch the bobber float across the rippling crystal clear water and see a fish rise for your homemade fly.  The excitement was indescribable as the fish took the line and you set the hook and started reeling it in.  Mind you, the fish weren’t large but they were just enough to fill a pan with a flavor and aroma that was heavenly.  A little butter, lemon pepper and salt were all you needed to have an epicurean feast from the very best that this life had to offer.  Each day we would mount our horses and ride the few hours up to a new lake and fill our creoles with fish and then ride back down the trail to camp, all the time anticipating that succulent flavor of the high mountain rainbow trout.  It was always fun challenging each other as to who would catch the most or the largest fish of the day.  It really didn’t matter, for it was just a game that we played.  As we rode along the trail we would often see a deer feeding in the tall grass at the edge of a meadow and catch a glimpse of her newborn fawn suckling from her belly.  On rare occasions we would see a black bear and her cubs. The mother bear would push the cubs ahead and off the trail trying to protect them, she being fearful of us, if you can imagine that?  On other occasions we would get to see a Moose. Now these were majestic animals. Two thousand pounds of flesh, which it seemed, weren’t afraid of anything on this earth.  They would slowly raise their heads from off the bottom of the stream as we approached, with a little moss and water dripping from their noses. They would only give us a momentary glance to make sure that we didn’t approach to close.  Sometimes they would snort and warn us that we were now entering into their territory.  One of my favorite things to do was ride our horses high on the mountainside until it became too difficult for them to travel and then we would tie them up and proceed by foot climbing over the rough terrain of huge boulders, along the crags and crevices to the top of the highest peak that we could find.  There we would feel like we had scaled Mount Everest, an accomplishment that only a few on Earth had ever experienced. Often we could see peaks in the other states of Wyoming and Colorado.  The view was spectacular.  It was especially enjoyable to be there very early in the morning as the sun climbed heavenward.  It was truly a time when we felt near to God, a time of reflection and pondering.  The question would enter my mind. What was reality? Was this great beauty and balance of nature created or an act of mere accident? Or was this adventure only a dream that I had created in my mind?  Everything seemed to be so perfectly aligned and balanced in nature that this beautiful world of ours couldn’t possibly have come by accident. The revolutions and rotations of the earth were so perfectly timed and balanced with the sun, that if it was off just a fraction we would be consumed by fire or frozen and forgotten. It was all so perfectly organized.  I remembered the theories taught in school of evolution and that all this was possibly caused by a big explosion in space.  That to me just didn’t seem to coincide with what I was seeing before my eyes. I couldn’t believe that the millions of people who had lived upon the earth and the millions living here now, evolved.  I thought there have got to be answers. There have got to be answers that would meld science and religion together, for truly God works within natural laws, and if we understood those laws we would understand the truths of religion and the truths of science are one in the same.  The way that one thinks when you get to a place like the one we found on this high mountain peak is so different than at home in the city. In the mountains it was easy to contemplate God and his existence. I’ve often thought that it was because there is so much negative energy in the city that it is hard to find thoughts about anything spiritual. Yet there on the mountain the negativity was gone and you found spirit. All wants and needs were seemingly taken care of.  I no longer desired anything. I was not hungry, cold, wet or tired. I no longer was in contention with man, animal nor machine. I had no need for money, and job was the farthest thing from my mind. As long as the butter and lemon pepper held out for the fish, and the mountain stream continued flowing, I had no need to worry about food nor water to nourish my body. I often took along a good book to read, that would stimulate my mind with uplifting ideas and thoughts. My boys and daughter would take afternoon naps while I would read. My body didn’t need as much rest as their growing bodies did. The companionship of my lovely wife completed me in all other ways. I have always felt loved, never alone, afraid or intellectually wanting.

It was always sad when the adventure came to an end. With every item that we packed for the return trip it would seem to increase the anxiety building within us. Tempers began to swell and irritation between siblings flared almost like spontaneous combustion. The tension seemed to increase with the change in temperature as we descended down the mountain toward the city in which we lived. The once and briefly found spirituality that accompanied us in the mountains was now almost gone and the emergence of a separate group of individuals unfolded. I found myself wanting to say, “Children, if you don’t stop this bickering right now I am going to turn this vehicle around and head back up to the mountains.” To which I could imagine the response being, a loud cheer and joyful eruption of emotion from the back seat, and this was just not possible, for tomorrow, I had to be at work and they in school, and mom needed to bake something for a needy neighbor, and then there were the animals that a nephew had been taking care in our absence and he needed to be paid and so on and so forth. It was good however to hold the thought of that possibility for even a few minutes longer. The horses even seemed to sense the disturbance in the force. They began to rock the horse trailer back and forth being irritated by something. We pulled over to a gas station to fill up and check the horses. All was fine with them yet they seemed to be telling me the same message. “Don’t take us back to the stall with the dry feed and stale water, flies and stench. We loved it in the mountains, we want to go back, and we don’t want to go home.”

The negative energy of the city seemed almost to swallow us up as soon as we entered it. A woman cut me off with her car and then flipped me off as though it were my fault she had almost gotten hit by me. I saw a man leaning into the passenger side window of a stopped vehicle and emerging with some little package of a white substance that could have been powdered sugar but more likely drugs. He slipped it into his pocket and looked around to see if anyone had been watching. He noticed me looking at him yet didn’t seem to be threatened by what I was seeing. I stopped at a cross walk and waited for a couple that walked in front of our vehicle who were so obese that time seemed to pass in slow motion as they crossed the street. While almost out of nowhere a jogger sped by, full of energy and looking at his watch as if to say he were late for something of great importance. A man in a Turban was walking a dog from Mexico while holding hands with an Oriental woman. As we pulled up to the next light a man in an old worn out army jacket held a sign, “War Vet, Need money to get back home.” It reminded me of a TV program I once saw when a reporter followed one of these street professionals from his street position to a location around a corner and a brand new vehicle in which he threw his sign and drove off to a not so deprived home and neighborhood. I didn’t know if this individual was honestly in need or was a scam artist preying on the innocent. I drove by quickly trying not to look him in the eye, to give the message that I didn’t want to deal with this right now.  On the next corner there was a man with a shopping cart going through the garbage of a local convenience store. Now there was someone who truly seemed to be in need. During our return journey I was keenly aware of all the different kinds of people. They were all sizes and shapes. They were a world of different faces, colors and nationalities, religions and cultures. 

  As I reflected on their faces they all seemed to be saying the same kind of things. I really don’t know why I am here. I am hot tired and irritated and I would much rather be up fishing in the mountains than down here having to contend with this life. I paused at a street light and closed my eyes. It seemed but a second, only to be awakened by my children with embarrassment in their voices, “Dad the light is green, people are looking.”  We drove on towards home. I began thinking of my life, and the experiences that I have had. There were some obvious pleasures that I remembered that translated into unpleasant memories and triggered my guilty conscience. I wondered how many people walk about with guilt hanging over their heads, remembering things that they have or haven’t done. Religion imposes this guilt upon us. I believe that is why so many turn away from religion. Perhaps it is because they didn’t want to feel guilty anymore. Then there are the victims of the world. Whatever the world has dealt them they feel that it is unfair and they remain angry and victimized their whole lives. Everyday is their personal fight against this self imposed foe.

The unpacking was and is always the most unpleasant thing that one has to do after a pleasurable vacation. It seemed to signify that it is over and reality must unfortunately begin again. One of the boys noticed a new truck in the neighbors’ driveway and asked if we could get one of those. My wife reminded me that we need a new shutter on the house which the last storm had so rudely stripped off the upper floor window. The lawn was so long that we would all have to take turns pushing the old mower through it, adjusting it first on the highest setting and eventually lowering it after several passes in order for the motor to keep running. There were thirty messages of importance on the voice mail, sixty others from solicitors, and one from my mother saying that Dad needed to be driven to the VA Hospital for new glasses the day we got back. We were with out a doubt back to reality. Or was it? Or did I make up this whole adventure with my family?

This got me to thinking, what is reality anyway? If this urban life is what reality is all about, then what was it up there on the mountain? For both worlds are not even similarly related. One seemed even a bit surreal. The life in the city was the reality that we spend most of our time in and therefore must be the real one, yet it was obviously not the most pleasant one. I could do without the pain and suffering that came from working with others, the pressures of work and the stress of daily road traffic, and running here and there for whatever the reasons. Often my wife and I would go to movies to receive relief from these pressures. Going to the movies has been our favorite thing to do, if it were not for going out to eat. The movies seemed to take us away from this urban reality and engage us in adventures of a different source.  Adventure movies or Science Fiction were favorites, for they often would expand the imagination to include a feasible yet imaginary existence outside of reality. Were we living in a giant computer generated matrix, and being used somehow as energy cells, fueling some robotics or artificial intelligence? Was and is our universe based on some molecular structure and so small that it hangs around a cat’s neck inside a little bell? To you science fiction buffs you will understand what I have been talking about.

So what does this all mean? The story that I have just related to you about the spiritual mountain and the urban life is for me a metaphor of our lives. The world up on the mountain represents the spiritual world of religion and depiction of the spiritual nature of man. It is based on peace, faith, hope, charity and a reliance on God. The urban existence represents the temporal or natural world and the carnal and physical nature of man. It is based on fact, science, and relies on self with an absence of God. There are some that feel comfortable in one of the realities but not in both. For me they are both my reality and are a compound. Neither exists without the other, just as one can’t experience peace without turmoil nor love without hate, the spiritual does not exist without the natural.

 Following my High School graduation I had the good fortune of attending the University of Utah to further my education. In my studies at the University, I discovered that there was a world much different than the one that I had experienced.  In my religion and philosophy classes I learned theories about deity.  In my science and math classes I learned about theories, probabilities and the absence of deity.  Many of the theories were provable through experimentation while most were merely theories of what the possibilities might be.  During the religious institute classes I was simply asked to have faith in God and religion, and that I would know in my heart if it were true. The more I studied the more I became confused and doubted myself and my feelings. So much time was devoted to the proving of one or the disproving of the other that I, frankly for a time, was disenchanted with both.

Then I came to my great epiphany. There is in reality a perfect harmony between all things.  I discovered that the truths of Science and Religion were the same. In my mind at least there is this beautiful harmony or compound of the two. I no longer see the battle between them that has existed throughout my life and for that matter all history. There is this beautiful peace and tranquility in my mind. I feel the spirit trying to tell me that it is ok to believe in science and my natural mind trying to tell me that it is ok to believe in religion. Everything Spiritual is and can be explained scientifically and everything Scientific is and can be explained spiritually. Of course there have been inconsistencies for neither side would nor could give me all the truth. There are discrepancies and unsolved mysteries in the Bible AND in Science. Religion purposefully gives partial truth in order that man may use his faith, and science purposefully ignores the truths about a supreme being and his contact with man on the earth in order to prove evolved man is supreme and needs only self and facts, not faith. Yet there seems to be this peaceful coexistence emerging every where I turned. I discovered that all truths remain as truths from generation to generation, or for that matter, from eternity to eternity. Truths don’t change, only the understanding of man changes and with that understanding or view do truths appear to transform. Take for example how Newton’s truths have changed from his time until present. For hundreds of years his teachings of gravity ruled until Einstein came along and changed them.  Einstein’s teachings or beliefs are now being changed with the String Theory. Misconceptions of truth, caused by ignorance, ego, wants and desires have caused man to defile the truths and live lives of self imposed perplexity. Through some investigation and study I have come to conclusions that have helped me in my life, and I know that they will bring some understanding and peace into your lives. In this work I will attempt to unify science and religion through my theory called “The Intelligence Factor”. To understand this one must understand what is “Intelligence,” and I am not talking about intellect alone.

To paraphrase Buddha, “One must have the right mind and the right view, in order to produce the right behavior.” If one were coming from a mind of ignorance, coupled with the wrong perspective, the possibility for one to behave right would be impossible. Right behavior can only be attained if one were to have the right view and right mind. Scientists behave in their way because they disallow religious teachings, and Religionists behave in their way by disallowing scientific knowledge. Neither behavior being right for both reject truths found in the other. I do believe that it is easier for a spiritual person however, to accept scientific information, than it is for a scientist to accept ideas of deity, thus making it harder for men of science to come to this unification which I have been searching for.

How then can one know what reality is if one comes from a false premise and erroneous perspective? The question becomes what are the truths that would embrace both? I began by looking at both sides and trying to determine what the truths were. I had a deep belief that there is a God and that the truths stated in the Bible were true and yet one could not deny the truths that were being discovered by Science. Dinosaurs did roam the earth and it did seem that the earth was older than a few thousand years. I decided to start with the premise that there are truths on both sides. The confusion was how to recognize the truth. I was familiar with the scripture that “and the truth shall set you free,” and what I needed most was that freedom or peace within my mind. My thought was to accept it all, both science and religion, and try merging or unifying both. What were the truths that both had in common? It was important for me to not discard anything but go with it all and try to make it fit rather than try to prove it doesn’t. In order to find what I was looking for I had to go to the very BASICS of both science and religion and there I found the truth that would explain everything to me. I began with researching the very being of man, which included God, and who he is, was and has become. I researched evolution and found few answers there but I found the most answers in Particle Science. In the fall of 2003 my father came up with an idea that the science of String Theory could possibly describe for us the connection of both Science and Religion. I discovered that the basics of both were similar. Both believe that everything is made up of two particles.  My book “Intelligence Factor” will explain for you THE link between science and religion, the true nature of man, where we came from, why we are here, and where we are going. It will only give a brief explanation as to the evolution of the earth and its’ creation and plan for there are numerous writings that will do that for you.

As you will discover, I come from a rich LDS influence and am aware of some of the conflicts that have existed between the scientific community within and without the church and the pure believers that live by faith alone, past and present. I won’t attempt to address any more issues other than the principle one outlined for you in this introduction. I attempt to present only a theory to you and insert a little Mormon doctrine for your education, so that you can view an abundant number of similarities between String Theory and LDS doctrine. It is my theory alone and I will not try to convert you to it as absolute truth nor believe it to be one hundred percent doctrine. I will use quotes from church leaders and scriptural records as found in the LDS church, and make an honest effort to tell you what has or has not been revealed to the body of the church.

The unification of the ethereal and the substantive comes to us through the teachings of the LDS prophets and the physics of string theory and quantum mechanics. So let us begin. The fundamentals of “Intelligence Theory” are this: There are two elements, taught to us in religion, that have always existed and which cannot be annihilated; “INTELLIGENCE” which is the energy of LIGHT (Synonyms: Light, Spirit, Life, Intelligence, or things that act,) and MATTER, (which are things to be acted upon). Science describes these same particles as ENERGY particles (bosons) and MATTER particles (fermions). There is also the principle of TRUTH, which has always existed and which are the LAWS OF EXISTENCE, or the activity of or laws of action between particles. Included within this is the law of opposition, which states that there must be opposition in all things otherwise there can be no existence. This is known as the non-duality of nature, and that “INTELLIGENCE,” has within it an opposition force and cannot exist without it, and that when linked with “MATTER,” create a compound and are within everything in the universe. “All things are circumscribed into this one great whole.” This is the link that unifies and binds Science and Religion together forever. You will learn that everything Spiritual can be explained in Scientific terms and everything Scientific is likewise Spiritual.