Viewing prophecy through the eyes of a computer geek

[gav]

After decades in the Information Technology space and grappling for many years as a solution architect with Information Architecture and the like, I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

Even more intriguing is that these patterns run true from Genesis to Revelation and are perpetuated into modern revelation as well.

Anybody interested in exploring some of these?

It may get a tad technical but this perspective delivers some completely new insights on some of the most enigmatic passages of scripture.

[OGHoosier]

28 minutes ago, gav said:

After decades in the Information Technology space and grappling for many years as a solution architect with Information Architecture and the like, I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

Even more intriguing is that these patterns run true from Genesis to Revelation and are perpetuated into modern revelation as well.

Anybody interested in exploring some of these?

It may get a tad technical but this perspective delivers some completely new insights on some of the most enigmatic passages of scripture.

I am nowhere near the Information Technology space and thus would approach the conversation from the position of an utter and absolute novice, but I would be interested.

[teddyaware]

8 hours ago, gav said:

After decades in the Information Technology space and grappling for many years as a solution architect with Information Architecture and the like, I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

Even more intriguing is that these patterns run true from Genesis to Revelation and are perpetuated into modern revelation as well.

Anybody interested in exploring some of these?

It may get a tad technical but this perspective delivers some completely new insights on some of the most enigmatic passages of scripture.

Perhaps it might be said that McConkie’s recurrent three pillars of eternity — the creation, the fall and the atonement — occurring in repealed cycles throughout eternity in “one eternal round” fits into the very architecture of eternal reality and truth? Also, could the never ending pride cycle of 1) righteousness and its attendant prosperity, 2) pride and its attendant descent into wickedness, 3) divine disapproval and its attendant punishments, 4) followed by broken-hearted repentance and its attendant forgiveness and redemption, also be inevitable recurrent themes within the matrix of God’s eternal  I.T. architecture?

Edited November 20, 2022 by teddyaware

[sunstoned]

16 hours ago, gav said:

After decades in the Information Technology space and grappling for many years as a solution architect with Information Architecture and the like, I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

Even more intriguing is that these patterns run true from Genesis to Revelation and are perpetuated into modern revelation as well.

Anybody interested in exploring some of these?

It may get a tad technical but this perspective delivers some completely new insights on some of the most enigmatic passages of scripture.

I would be interested in this topic.  

[Okrahomer]

18 hours ago, gav said:

I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

I’m no mathematician or computer geek, but this book published in 1970 might be of interest to you.  The author (Albert Roustit) is a French musician who studied at the Sorbonne.  He had become fascinated with recurring mathematical patterns in music.  His analysis of these patterns viewed through the lens of musical evolution led him to conclude that “the last days” began some time between the years 1798 and 1844.  You can read a bit more about him here.

Edited November 21, 2022 by Okrahomer
Correct the link

[gav]

15 hours ago, Okrahomer said:

I’m no mathematician or computer geek, but this book published in 1970 might be of interest to you.  The author (Albert Roustit) is a French musician who studied at the Sorbonne.  He had become fascinated with recurring mathematical patterns in music.  His analysis of these patterns viewed through the lens of musical evolution led him to conclude that “the last days” began some time between the years 1798 and 1844.  You can read a bit more about him here.

Very interesting you mention that, and thanks for the link. In Music an octave typically has 12 notes and that is based on the interplay of frequencies of sound waves in air. White light, when split into the colours of the rainbow, science has chosen to divide into 7 colours. 7 and 12 are very significantly utilised in the scriptures and form part of the numeric patterns, but I digress into the weeds without the necessary foundation in place. We will get there soon in this exploration.

Edited November 21, 2022 by gav
punctuation

[gav]

On 11/20/2022 at 8:15 AM, OGHoosier said:

I am nowhere near the Information Technology space and thus would approach the conversation from the position of an utter and absolute novice, but I would be interested.

Not to worry, we all deal with this type of thing everyday. IT practitioners have just turned it into a formalised disciple and wrapped jargon around it.

 

For instance Information Architecture is like designing a restaurant menu. Starters, mains, dessert, drinks. All the like things are grouped together, then the order may be more or less standardised based on the order in which the courses are eaten. Finally the more standardised this is across restaurants around the world the easier it is for anybody to walk into a restaurant they have never been to before anywhere in the world and find pretty quickly what they may be looking for. If the menu deviates from this norm we may immediately feel something is off and have a hard time finding our favorites quickly.

That is the basics of information architecture -- Group related things and use common patterns so that people unfamiliar with the system can intuitively find what they are looking for. We use the outputs of information architecture on web sites everyday. Where the IA is good we find what we are looking for fast, when it's terrible we can barely find anything and leave in frustration. Same with books, reference materials etc.

The Scriptures have a definite information architecture but it's purpose seems to be to hide things in plain sight and only reward the diligent student(kind of like the parables).The most basic elements of this IA are Allusions/Cross References. By identifying allusions and cross references and following them we begin grouping like information together. Because they are not physically grouped but scattered throughout and only conceptually and thematically grouped, it take much more effort and study to get the whole enchilada. For the hardest of these, the "book" remains "sealed" until the thematic encoding is deciphered.

Edited November 21, 2022 by gav
grammar

[gav]

23 hours ago, teddyaware said:

Perhaps it might be said that McConkie’s recurrent three pillars of eternity — the creation, the fall and the atonement — occurring in repealed cycles throughout eternity in “one eternal round” fits into the very architecture of eternal reality and truth? Also, could the never ending pride cycle of 1) righteousness and its attendant prosperity, 2) pride and its attendant descent into wickedness, 3) divine disapproval and its attendant punishments, 4) followed by broken-hearted repentance and its attendant forgiveness and redemption, also be inevitable recurrent themes within the matrix of God’s eternal  I.T. architecture?

The three pillars form an integral part of these structures/patterns and the atonement naturally is central to everything. At least that is the way it looks from my vantage point but as we go along I would love for anybody to call me out if they think there is stretching of the logic, confirmation bias etc.

Speaking of God's matrix for this earth, it seems like the fabric is written into the very motions of the sun, moon, stars and earth which keep time; from the daily cycle, to very large astronomical cycles spanning thousands of years and all the others in between. The rise and fall of empires coincide with celestial clockwork and naturally themes of pride, prosperity, punishment, repentance, scattering and gathering form their own thematic sub-groupings.

Edited November 21, 2022 by gav
punctuation

[Okrahomer]

8 hours ago, gav said:

Very interesting you mention that, and thanks for the link. In Music an octave typically has 12 notes and that is based on the interplay of frequencies of sound waves in air. White light, when split into the colours of the rainbow, science has chosen to divide into 7 colours. 7 and 12 are very significantly utilised in the scriptures and form part of the numeric patterns, but I digress into the weeds without the necessary foundation in place. We will get there soon in this exploration.

If you have the chance to read the Roustit book, you'll encounter all of these ideas.  I read it at BYU ("when dinosaurs still ruled the earth") and probably did not understand a lot of it.  You will probably get all of it.  I still think it remarkable that he wrote it before he found the Church.

[gav]

 

Ok, so let's dive right in...

Why not start with analysing one of most highly speculated upon verses in all of scripture. Revelation 13:18

Quote

Here is wisdom.

Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast:

for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

The verse contains one, and only one simple instruction. In the KJV it is rendered count but Strong's Concordance expands that to enumeration in order to compute...

Quote

5585. ψηφίζω psephizo, psay-fid´-zo; from 5586; to use pebbles in enumeration, i.e. (generally) to compute: — count.

The Wikipedia definition of enumeration follows:

Quote

An enumeration is a complete, ordered listing of all the items in a collection. The term is commonly used in mathematics and computer science to refer to a listing of all of the elements of a set.

This is where my inner geek starts to kick in.

Strong's Concordance additionally relates this kind of enumeration with pebbles to searching for or to feel after, handle, touch.

Quote

5584. ψηλαφάω pselaphao, psay-laf-ah´-o; from the base of 5567 (compare 5586); to manipulate, i.e. verify by contact; figuratively, to search for: — feel after, handle, touch.

 

5585. ψηφίζω psephizo, psay-fid´-zo; from 5586; to use pebbles in enumeration, i.e. (generally) to compute: — count.

 

5586. ψῆφος psephos, psay´-fos; from the same as 5584; a pebble (as worn smooth by handling), i.e. (by implication, of use as a counter or ballot) a verdict (of acquittal) or ticket (of admission); a vote: — stone, voice.

So one way of interpreting the instruction in Revelation 13:18 is to "feel after" and search for some collections with ordered lists to enumerate in order to compute them.

Some possible other clues, from this verse, to these collections of items, that can be listed are:

• they relate to the beast 
• they relate to a man
• they relate to the number 666 

So, to sum up:

The instruction that is rendered count in this verse can be expanded to searching for at least two collections of items, one related to the beast and the other to a man which, once these items in these ordered lists are computed, also relate to the number 666.

But how do we know where to look for these collections of Items?

The verse contains at least one more clue and that relates to location.

John says "Here is wisdom".

Here... can be a statement about location but in that case it is relative to where you are. If you are located in the same place that the person making such a statement is then their "here" is the same as your "here". Otherwise their "here" is your "there".

Strong's concordance puts it thus:

Quote

5602. ὧδε hode, ho´-deh; from an adverb form of 3592; in this same spot, i.e. here or hither: — here, hither, (in) this place, there.

When in the scriptures we have a "here" that could also be a "there" we could be dealing with an allusion and we need to find its cross references. It's possible that the use of the related terms wisdom and understanding may be key words to where we could find these collections we need to enumerate.

From a basic analysis utilising every bit of the verse we now have a working hypothesis:

• search for the key words wisdom and understanding in close proximity
• look within the result set for collections of items
• especially ones relating to man and beast
• enumerate the lists and see how they tie back to anything we have uncovered in our analysis.
• hopefully these steps will produce something that confirms the hypothesis 
• otherwise back to the drawing boards. 

A keyword search produces the following occurrences per book:

Exodus (3)
Deuteronomy (1)
1 Kings (2)
1 Chronicles (1)
Job (7)
Psalm (2)
Proverbs (24)
Isaiah (2)
Jeremiah (1)
Ezekiel (1)
Daniel (6)

New Testament 
1 Corinthians (1)
Colossians (1)
Revelation (1)

 

Daniel stands out with exactly 6 occurrences, Job has 7 and Proverbs has 24, all the rest are relatively low. We will get to Job and Proverbs later.

For brevity's sake, let's focus on Daniel with its exactly six references for now, because some of the style and themes in Daniel have often been compared to the book of Revelation.

This is where I give you a chance to do some exploring for yourself before the spoilers.

1. Daniel has a dream related to the beast. A collection of four beast in fact. Enumerate that list and discover a pattern.
2. Nebuchadnezzar's dream is the image of a man, there is a list too. Enumerate the list and find a similar pattern to the one above.
3. Now also look for that pattern in Revelation 13:18
4. extra credit bonus, find the same pattern in the list of 6 references found in Daniel.
5. bonus clue... there are 6 cross references in Daniel. The number of the beast is 666

Have a crack at it...

 

 

Edited November 22, 2022 by gav
punctuation

[Stargazer]

On 11/20/2022 at 5:47 AM, gav said:

After decades in the Information Technology space and grappling for many years as a solution architect with Information Architecture and the like, I can't help but notice in the repeated numbers, structures, groupings and thematic imagery of apocalyptic prophecy, dreams, divine messages, visions etc. some very distinct patterns that we would recognise today as essential elements of an Information Architecture.

Even more intriguing is that these patterns run true from Genesis to Revelation and are perpetuated into modern revelation as well.

Anybody interested in exploring some of these?

It may get a tad technical but this perspective delivers some completely new insights on some of the most enigmatic passages of scripture.

As a retired computer geek I would find this interesting.

I wish I were smart enough to do a similar treatment on the topic of quantum physics in connection with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.