The Greatest Conceivable Adventures: From Mind to Reality

Welcome to my blog!

Hence, there is no doubt that there exists a being, than which nothing greater can be conceived, and it exists both in the understanding and in reality.

St. Anselm of Canterbury

Here’s my first blog post for you to chew on!  I used to blog ten years ago, but I got too busy with babies! Now, after having another five after the five I had before, I manage better to economize my time, finding small moments for some thoughts to share with you! I just published the novel, Little Red Riding Horse, at Lulu.com, and I couldn’t be more excited to share that with you too! My plan is to put excerpts here to tempt you to buy the book and at my YouTube channel TREE(3)Books where I might even read them to you out loud… It is a fun novel, a murder mystery—rather complicated at that!—and a novel about horses. You know how it is with dreams… My daughter dreamt about horses and to have one of her own (which incidentally, she now has!), and dreams are funny things… our minds create a hope with them, and, who knows, one day they might become reality…

I came up with the idea of TREE(3) Books in a roundabout way. I had wanted to make a blog and homepage to share a little of the amazing richness of my life with others, and we have three juniper trees on our farm. So, I thought, how about Three Trees? But then I indulged in a long and intricate conversation about mathematical logic with my husband, and he suggested: why not TREE(3) Books? And it was a winner!

TREE(3) is a mind-boggling number, too large to be thought (maybe) and longer than the time of the universe to write down!  For explorations in the fascinating world of the imagination, what better name than a number that extends beyond, beyond?!

If you want to explore this fascinating number more, here’s a link to a video about the number TREE(3).

I can’t help pairing it in my mind with St. Anselm of Canterbury’s ontological proof of God, which goes something like this if you ask Microsoft Copilot:

“Anselm’s argument is that the very concept of God implies His existence, as a God that does not exist would not be the greatest conceivable being.”

Ever since I was a little girl, I’ve done this mental thing to myself, to try to think as large a thought as possible and then think, “ah, but God knows more…” and “God is more…” When I learnt about the ontological proof of St. Anselm I loved it. The greatness of God utterly fascinates me! But the world of the imagination, even as fascinating and endless as it seems, is still very limited. So I found out when I tried to write stories unwisely without anchoring the plots in reality. Something of a transformation happened in my writing when I anchored the plots of my stories to my daughter, my son, my other daughter, and now, with the book that is currently in progress, another daughter. I began by observing them with all the love in my heart, paying attention to their personal preferences, dreams and hopes, good sides and bad sides, challenges and fears. And even then it would not have carried me through the drought of thought. Only when the respective books themselves became gifts to my children individually did the real magic happen. If I have learnt anything about writing, that would be it: write not only what you know, but to someone you know! You anchor your story to a real person and make that same story a gift to that person, and the story writes itself (well, almost). Persons are so much more than imagination! Persons are so much more than thoughts.

 

 

Here’s some more from Microsoft Copilot, if you are interested in St. Anselm’s Ontological Proof of God:

1. Concept of God: Begin by defining God as “that than which nothing greater can be conceived.” This is a pivotal concept for the entire argument.
2. Existence in the Understanding: Recognize that even the non-believer can understand this concept of God. Therefore, God exists in the understanding (in the mind).
3. Greater to Exist in Reality: Anselm contends that existing in reality is greater than existing solely in the understanding.
4. Assumption: Assume, for the sake of argument, that God exists only in the understanding and not in reality.
5. Contradiction: If God exists only in the understanding, then we can conceive of a being greater than God—one that exists both in the understanding and in reality.
6. Logical Conclusion: Since God is “that than which nothing greater can be conceived,” the assumption that God exists only in the understanding leads to a contradiction.
7. Existence in Reality: Therefore, God must exist in reality as well as in the understanding, since a being that exists in both is greater than one that exists only in the mind.
8. Necessity of God’s Existence: As God is the greatest conceivable being, it is necessary that God exists in reality; otherwise, the very concept of God would be incoherent.