Books by Juan Valdez
Homo Mysticus: ex machina
Homo mysticus is a book about the science of mysticism, seen through the lens of ancient cosmogony and sacred geometry. This book connects the spiritual and the otherworldly to the practical and tangible in a refreshingly down-to-earth way. This book is a must-read for anyone interested in the subjects of both mysticism and science.
Metaphysics Reconsidered: A Gnostic Reading of Kant.
This work sits at the tail end of a progression of studies into theology, mysticism, and philosophy which reaches its apex here philosophically. It builds off of the understanding of the (shared) foundations of theological, mystical, and philosophical knowledge from antiquity that we explore in Theology Reconsidered and Homo Mysticus that have supported the development of advanced societies throughout human history, and conjoins this knowledge with more modern conceptions of the world as reflected in scientific disciplines such as physics, psychology, and biology to establish a new system of metaphysics, a postmodern system of metaphysics, which accounts for philosophical skepticism as well as physical materialism and has both a psychological as well as physical element to it—the world as it appears and the world as itis in Kantian terms.
IRA: Idealogical Reference Architecture
an epistemological interpretation of quantum mechanics
With this work we introduce a system of idealogical metaphysics which is primarily born out of an epistemological interpretation of Quantum Mechanics (QM). Our interpretive stance follows a long line of consciousness (what we call mind) based interpretations, or explanations, for the of the so-called measurement problem in QM, a position held by physicists (and mathematicians) such as von Neumann (1932), Wigner (1963, 1967), Bohm (1980, 1993), Stapp (2001, 2009, 2011), Manousakis (2006), Blaha (2009), and Pradhan (2012) among others. Given this perspective, we conceive of the measurement problem to be a function of the boundary condition between mind and matter itself, a condition we wish to shed light on by abstracting the problem of measurement itself out of physics proper and (more directly) into the domain of philosophy explicitly using modern conceptions of epistemology and information theory, as well as quantum measurement theory, to construct a system of metaphysics, based upon knowledge and information processing and theory, that sheds light on the relationship between mind and matter generally.
Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics Kindle Edition
The science of our modern age is able to neither address nor solve our current global problems. Author Juan Valdez believes we should study humanity’s ancient wisdom and philosophy texts to develop a new intellectual paradigm that can respond and support our current needs.
Eurasian Philosophy and Quantum Metaphysics (Theology Reconsidered) is an in-depth study of the origins and meanings of ancient philosophies before they were fractured into mythology and religions and attacked by modern science. Beginning with creation mythology in Eurasia through the development of philosophical thought, to the Scientific Revolution to our own modern Quantum Era, the progression – and abandonment – of ancient wisdom is carefully studied. Valdez reviews and analyzes the ancient texts themselves to understand what they truly say and not what later historians have said about them. The Indo-Aryan Vedas, the Torah, Rene Descartes’ Discourse on the Method and Principles of Philosophy, Neils Bohr’s Atomic Theory, and more, are all respectfully and critically assessed.
The Seeker: Chasing Ghosts Kindle Edition
The poems in this section of the work are related to and describe the first stage of the life of the seeker, the experience of love and loss (mostly in terms of romantic love) and the experience and truth that underlies these experiences as well as the notion of change and rebirth that are ultimately connected to and provide the philosophical and metaphysical basis for coming to an understanding of these experiences beyond a superficial basis. For as we come into this world, crying, blind, and no doubt frightened, we are forced quite dramatically and suddenly to transition from our utter and complete dependence upon our mother to independent entities in our own right.
Theology Reconsidered: Volume I: Mythos and Logos
When looking at the first mythological and philosophical works from antiquity, it is very easy to get lost in the “facts” surrounding these ancient works and lose sight of their true meaning and import to the people and cultures within which these works emerged from and out of. Much of the modern academic and scholarly literature concerning these ancient “theo-philosophical” works falls into this category. To a large extent, the purpose of this work is to try and “recover” said meanings of these ancient works as much as possible, and to look at them within a much broader theological, mythological and philosophical narrative that we find throughout Eurasia in the first millennium BCE, the so-called “Axial Age” of modern man.
Theology Reconsidered Volume II: An Ontological Perspective
When looking at the first mythological and philosophical works from antiquity, it is very easy to get lost in the “facts” surrounding these ancient works and lose sight of their true meaning and import to the people and cultures within which these works emerged from and out of. Much of the modern academic and scholarly literature concerning these ancient “theophilosophical” works falls into this category. To a large extent, the purpose of this work is to try and “recover” said meanings of these ancient works as much as possible, and to look at them within a much broader theological, mythological and philosophical narrative that we find throughout Eurasia in the first millennium BCE, the so-called “Axial Age” of modern man.
Philosophy in Antiquity: The Greeks
This work looks at the main themes, concepts and lead figures of the Hellenic philosophical tradition that not only influenced the Greek and then Latin world in antiquity, but also had a lasting influence on intellectual and theological development in the West right up until the Age of Enlightenment. To this end, the focus is on the Socratic tradition, through Plato and then Aristotle, and then the Stoic tradition whose strong imprint can be found on early Christianity, representing the core seed of Western theological evolution via Judaism, Christianity and then Islam.
Philosophy in Antiquity: The Far East
One of the unique attributes of the Chinese philosophical tradition is its lack of focus on what we would call in the West “theological” concerns, i.e. issues related to how the universe was created (cosmology) and what divine forces if any preside over it. While even in the theo-philosophical systems of Plato and Aristotle we find a rejection of mythology and the realm of the gods as simply matters of faith or speculation, Aristotle’s prime mover and Plato’s demiurge still play a fundamental metaphysical role in each of their respective philosophical systems, even if they are not front and center so to speak. In the Chinese tradition however, while we see an implicit theological stance per se in the role of Heaven (Shangdi/Tian), we do not find it dealt with specifically or directly in the works of the philosophers themselves, outside of an occasional appeal to the divine as a benchmark of world and natural order. In other words, the existence of Heaven is not denied per se but it takes on the form of a more “naturalist” view as the philosophical systems mature in the classical period.
The Snow Cone Diaries: A Philosopher’s Guide to the Information Age
The content in this work is fiction, fiction in the sense that the main character through which the eyes of this metaphysical and philosophical journey is viewed, Charlie, is not a real character, nor are his counterparts and foils through which he explores various topics such as love, the meaning of existence or the origins of the cosmos and how our understanding of these abstract ideas have evolved since the dawn of civilization. But like any work of fiction, the characters do have some basis in real experience, from which of course nothing can be created.
The intent of the work is to explore the foundations and evolution of knowledge and the boundaries between reason and faith, boundaries which from the authors perspective are not quite as clear as some might have us believe. And the point of going through the exercise, the purpose as it were, is not only for the author to come to a better understanding of how all our modern branches of science hang together, how they have come to be given their socio-political and historical context, but also for others to share in his journey and perhaps learn something along the way.