“You can think of only one thing at a time!” (“Zeal Without Knowledge” Hugh Nibley Approaching Zion 1989 Deseret Book p.63). We are locked into a singularity of time and thought. Our minds are a single point of perception with time streaming quickly through and past us. Our brains, on the conscious level, process one thing at a time and we exist in an instant of time. In other words, our thoughts flow through our minds one minute piece at a time. Time streams past our consciousness one instant at a time. Each split second or instant passes and is lost forever leaving behind a memory that blurs and fades.
This is a fundamental limit on our ability to comprehend the world around us. In fact, can a mind that can only think of one thing at a time and is watching time stream past to be lost in the instant it is experienced really understand anything in a complex world – a world full of essentially infinite causes and infinite parts all acting and reacting against and with each other?
For example (if I correctly understood the Nova episode) weather prediction is essentially impossible beyond a day or two. This is in part because there is no means to track every molecule of air in the atmosphere and every influence on those molecules needed to predict the weather. In other words, to predict the weather, a computer would need to know the position of every molecule of air and every force or influence on those molecules simultaneously with absolute accuracy.
The world around may seem to be ruled by chance. It appears that way because our thoughts and experience of reality is singular. We can’t see all the interacting forces around us simultaneously. All of the billions of people deciding what to eat, spend or buy affecting the economy. The billions of people making decisions on how to act or respond that affect history. What if our brains could simultaneously comprehend and process the position and influence of billions, trillions, or an infinite number of elements on each other. If we could, we might accurately predict or even control these complex systems.
However, our human brains are simply not equipped to do anything like that. We are forced to build clever yet ultimately over-simplified models to try and help us understand and predict the infinitely complex reality around us.
God does not have this limit. He is not locked in a singularity but comprehends the infinite of the eternal now – all things are present before him. “Let us remember that quite peculiar to the genius of Mormonism is the doctrine of a God who could preoccupy himself with countless numbers of things: ‘The heavens, they are many, and they cannot be numbered unto man; but they are numbered unto me, for they are mine” (Moses 1:37) (Nibley p. 65). Further, God, “is the same which knoweth all things, for all things are present before mine eyes.” D&C 38:2. In other words, “all things are present with me, for I know them all.” (Moses 1:6). Nothing passes without His notice. (See Luke 12: 6-7).
This gives rise to two implications. (1) We ultimately do not understand or comprehend the world around us sufficiently to accurately decide the correct course to take on any given matter. Therefore, our choices may always go awry because we simply lack the ability to gain all of the understanding needed to make a right choice. We must rely on a more intelligent power. (2) This limitation is part of the unique test presented by mortal life. If allowed to only think one thought at a time how do we direct that thought? (See Nibley) With our finite mental capacities, we are in a position to choose our thoughts, whereas if we could think of infinite things simultaneously, there wouldn’t seem to be much room for choice.
(1) I believe the Holy Spirit is continuously prompting most people on the earth – even those who profess not to believe. Impressions and ideas come to us from the Spirit and seem to be part of our thought process. However, I believe God or the Spirit should be given credit for many if not most of the good ideas or right ideas we get. Thus, the Spirit strives with those billions of people as they make their innumerable decisions each day. Some accept the promptings of the spirit (either as being inspiration or the product of their own genius) and some reject them (discounting them is inaccurate or unfounded), therefore affecting the course of society and history for good and bad.
That is why the Book of Mormon expresses such a dour picture when the Holy Spirit withdraws from a people. “For the Spirit of the Lord will not always strive with man. And when the Spirit ceaseth to strive with man then cometh speedy destruction, and this grieveth my soul.” (2 Ne. 26:11. See also Moroni 8:28.) Once the spirit ceases to prompt, guide, inspire, and strive, with a society, they not only start to choose the self-destructive path of sin, they are left to try and make decisions based on their woefully inadequate mental faculties. Their actions go awry. They are collectively left to stumble in the dark of their limited comprehension with disastrous consequences.
(2) At some point, perhaps, this infinite mental capacity may be granted or restored to us. It has been provided, in part, to Moses in vision and apparently with the help of God’s power. “And it came to pass that Moses looked, and beheld the world upon which he was created; and Moses beheld the world and the ends thereof, and all the children of men which are, and which were created; of the same he greatly marveled and wondered.” (Moses 1:8) However, to behold all God’s works would require that the prophet behold all God’s glory which cannot be done and still remain in the flesh on the earth. (See Moses 1:4.)
We can’t do everything we would like, and we can’t really get our heads around it all. We are fundamentally limited and hindered in this life. As Nibley points out, we constantly are choosing what to put our minds on. Further, we are constantly choosing what to get done and not to do. What are we going to put first and always make time for? We have been stripped down to a singularity of thought in a singularity of time to see what we will choose to do, what will we put our minds on, and how will we act when we can only do one thing at a time. What will it matter how smart we are now if and when our full mental and conceptual (cognitive) powers are unleashed or restored – when we can finally get our heads around infinity and become infinite? What will matter is that we chose the right, that we directed our very limited thought processes on virtue and love, that we strove to help, enlighten, and ennoble others. What will matter is who we are and what we became through this life’s experiences.
If we are restored to or gain infinite mental capacities so we can fully grasp the infinite and really comprehend it, I think we would realize how absurdly meager even the smartest person’s mental capacities were in this life and realize what really mattered was how much we helped others and sacrificed ourselves for the benefit of others. How we sloughed off selfish preoccupations and looked to the needs and well-being of others as Christ did.
