This is why, for me, the mystic number is 2.
The Question of Meaning
“Meaning is the essential feature of consciousness…” David Bohm
The first question for me is this: “Is there meaning?” This is, of course, just another way of phrasing “Why?” or “Is there purpose at all?” Surely this underlies all of living for each of us. Sometimes we confront it; sometimes we avoid it — but it is always there. Since we are inside existence, and have no rational external reference point, there can be no purely rational answer. Personally, though, it seems obvious to me that the answer is yes; but that is, in the end, an article of faith, albeit one underpinned by all of the extraordinary “coincidences” in physics that make life possible.
Let’s then take the existence of meaning as a truth. Where does it lie?
Meaning Beyond the Ego
“The dust inbreathed was a house, the wall, the wainscot, and the mouse” T. S. Eliot
It seems to me that purpose is not to be found in what Freud thought of as the “self” or Ego. This is entirely different from Jung’s definition of Self — which is much more interesting. “I”, that is, all of our “I”s, will dissolve as bodies die. At that point, their molecules will be taken up into infinite new forms, just as the body I currently inhabit is made up of atoms that have been part of infinite others — including all of those I have known: my mother, father, brothers, wife, and so on.
Nor do I believe that meaning lies solely within the material world. In fact, the more science uncovers of the “how” of quantum mechanics, the less concrete materiality really appears.
It seems to me that the frantic search for meaning within things — dialectical materialism — is a dead end, or at least a distraction. On the other hand, the material world must surely be a part of meaning. But part of what?
Meaning as Part of a Whole
“We are one, after all, you and I, together we suffer, together exist, and forever will recreate each other” Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Part of a whole. All is one. Indeed, that is what “universe” means: one thing. Another way of looking at it could be that meaning is found in process — the flow of matter and energy. Perhaps: “the whole flow of energy and matter.” How, though, do we break that down into something we can get our arms around, or understand?
Maybe another way of looking at it is that the material is part of something else, partnered with… mind? Spirit? Antimatter?
Relation as the Site of Meaning
“The relation to the Thou is direct. No system of ideas, no foreknowledge, and no fancy intervene between I and Thou. The memory itself is transformed, as it plunges out of its isolation into the unity of the whole” Martin Buber
That, for me, is where Martin Buber and David Bohm come in. They each talk about meaning as lying within “relation” or “dialogue”: what lies “between”. Buber’s amazing semi-poetic meditation, I and Thou (Ich und Du), has been transformative for me. I would encourage everyone to read at least the first two pages, where he defines the “primary words” as I-It and I-Thou, as opposed to I, Thou, or It alone.
I therefore have two building blocks in my search. First: there is meaning. Second: the place to look for it is relationship.
Why Two Matters
“Without Contraries is no progression. Attraction and Repulsion, Reason and Energy, Love and Hate, are necessary to Human existence” William Blake
And that is where number arises for me. If meaning lies in relation, then relation requires more than undivided oneness. It requires distinction, edge, and encounter: something that can meet something other than itself.
My daughter, as a teenager, told me she thought that an incredibly important concept was “boundary”, and I have been assimilating that ever since. Without boundary, nothing can be known. You need the “other” to understand yourself.
I wrote this some years ago.
“From zero to hero, the world is born with the appearance of 1. The archetypal boundary is right there in the change from nothing to all. But one is one, and all alone, and ever more shall be so. From 1 to 2, consciousness is possible: granularity and separation. We can understand existence because we have edge: a within and a without. Quantum mechanics shows that everything exists only as a cloud of possibility — until observed. It is the act of knowing that crystallises reality out of potential. Deliberately to mix language: it is witness that causes wavefunction collapse. It is consciousness that creates reality, and that is only possible when edge is born with the advent of the number 2. Duality appears to be a fundamental property of existence. Energy is the flip side of matter (E=mc²); everything is wave and particle simultaneously. Yin is nothing without yang. Ich and Du embrace, and the world unfolds.”
That is why, for me, the “mystic number” is 2. With it comes a consciousness of existence, and the possibility of relation and dialogue, which Buber and Bohm so eloquently place at the core of meaning.
So I return to the first question: is there meaning? For me, yes. It is not found in the isolated self, nor in material things alone, but in relation. And relation becomes possible only where there is boundary, distinction, and encounter.
That is why, for me, the mystic number is 2.