Tag Archives: I and thou

Reality, Relativity and Relationship

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What is real? Is there purpose? Are God and Science in opposition?

I want to argue that the answer to these questions lies in the space between – each of us; rather than within matter or within our individual egos. It is within connection rather than the nodes that information and meaning arises. We need to move beyond the sterility of atheism and its opposition to spirituality and seek truth within the links and reflections between traditions of thought. We should also reconsider the insights of thinkers dismissed by logical positivism. Clearly technological innovation has a material facet. It works – though Quantum Mechanics can’t explain how or why. Yet, the internet and self-learning algorithms may in the process of forming a kind of physical nervous system—part of a universe becoming aware of itself. Our imminent, and perhaps immanent, future may reveal that none of us is alone, and that what we see and touch is just one expression of something larger. Perhaps infinitely so. We may – in these particular bodies – be about to discover that we are not separate beings, but have always been part of one another; and of the whole conscious universe.

The Relational Bridge: Relativity, Quantum Physics, Buber and Merleau-Ponty

It is within relationship that we must look for answers—understood simultaneously as relativity, entanglement, embodied phenomenon, and dialogue

Einstein’s Relativity: Space, time, mass, and energy lose their Newtonian status as fixed, absolute background properties. They exist, deform, and take on identity only in relation to observers and other frames of reference.

Buber’s I-Thou: Translates this physical intuition directly into human ontology. An isolated, self-contained object (I-It) is a mechanical abstraction. True existence and genuine encountering occur strictly in the dynamic, unobjectified space between entities.

Bohm’s Implicate Order: Extends quantum entanglement to show that subatomic particles are not separate billiard balls colliding in a void. Instead, what we perceive as separate material objects in the Explicate Order (the classical materialist view) are merely localized, folded ripples in an unbroken, undivided ocean of movement—the Implicate Order.

Merleau-Ponty’s Chaire (The Flesh): Solves the Cartesian divide between body and world through the phenomenology of perception. Merleau-Ponty demonstrates that reality is composed of a continuous, sensible fabric—the Flesh of the World (la chair)—that bridges the visible (physical matter/body) and the invisible (meaning/consciousness). Perception is not a mind analyzing an external object; it is the world perceiving itself through the embodied subject.

Meaning, purpose, and physical properties do not reside inside isolated components; they emerge strictly through interaction.

The 1970s Blindspot & The Dogma of Mechanical Reductionism

I studied evolutionary biology in the 1970s. The years since have demonstrated how little we know; but my goodness we were arrogant. Science had killed the need for God.This was the era of the gene-centered models popularized by Richard Dawkins and E. O. Wilson. They provided mathematical clarity for specific population dynamics, but they suffered from an overarching philosophical mistake: confusing a biological mechanism for the total nature of reality.

The whole basis of thought has evolved (alas Dawkins hasn’t caught up).

  • 1970s Reductionist Model: Genes & Particles > Consciousness (an Accidental Illusion)
  • 2020’s Relational / Panpsychist Model: Intrinsic Experience & Fields link Matter, Life, and Awareness

By reducing human consciousness to an evolutionary illusion generated by “selfish genes,” 1970s sociobiology relied on 19th-century mechanical determinism while ignoring quantum non-locality, panpsychism, systems ecology, and the observer problem.

Teilhard de Chardin, Imanishi, and the AI Substrate

It is a striking irony of modern science that figures dismissed by mainstream atheism paved the way for understanding contemporary technology:

  • Kinji Imanishi’s Sumiwake: Demonstrates that living ecosystems self-organize through habitat segregation and species co-existence rather than pure Darwinian warfare.
  • Teilhard de Chardin’s Evolutionary Vector: Traced the cosmic arc from Geosphere to Biosphere to Noosphere (planetary mind) toward an ultimate point of convergence.
  • Artificial Intelligence as Infrastructure: Machine learning neural networks aggregate, process, and compress collective human thought into an interactive global matrix. AI acts as the physical substrate realizing Teilhard’s Noosphere—a planetary central nervous system.

4. Is Reality Evolving or Is Awareness Emerging?

The distinction between physical evolution and emerging awareness dissolves when viewed through a panpsychist or relational lens:

  1. In classical materialism: Physical matter randomly evolves, and subjective awareness accidentally pops up at the very end. There is possibly no purpose to existence.
  2. In a panpsychist / relational framework: Consciousness is a fundamental property of matter. Physical evolution is simply awareness structuring itself into higher levels of complexity to reflect upon its own nature. There is most probably purpose to existence.

From subatomic wave-particle duality to ecological interdependence, and from Martin Buber’s human encounters to the global AI network, existence is not a collection of isolated particles fighting for survival. It is an undivided reality waking up to itself. Something that most likely has a purpose and direction.

I am with de Chardin. I speaking personally. I believe that the force that propels evolution is Love. A personal love that sustains us and all-that-is. My enquiry has brought me back to Christianity.

Reading List 

1. Classical Evolution, Heredity & Sociobiology

  • Charles Darwin On the Origin of Species (1859) – The foundational text of modern evolutionary biology and natural selection The Descent of Man (1871) – Extends evolutionary theory and sexual selection directly to human origins and morality.
  • Alfred Russel Wallace Darwinism: An Exposition of the Theory of Natural Selection (1889) – Wallace’s comprehensive overview of natural selection, detailing where his views aligned with and diverged from Darwin’s.
  • Gregor Mendel Experiments in Plant Hybridization (1866) – The foundational paper establishing the discrete physical laws of genetic inheritance.
  • Richard Dawkins The Selfish Gene (1976) – Popularized the gene-centered view of evolution and introduced the concept of the meme. The Blind Watchmaker (1986) – A defense of cumulative natural selection against teleological arguments for design. The God Delusion (2006) – The flagship text of “New Atheism,” arguing against supernatural belief from a strictly mechanical evolutionary perspective.
  • E. O. (Edward O.) Wilson Sociobiology: The New Synthesis (1975) – Synthesized animal behavior and genetics to found sociobiology. On Human Nature (1978) – Applied sociobiological principles to human culture, ethics, and religious behavior.
  • Robert Trivers Natural Selection and Social Theory: Selected Papers of Robert Trivers (2002) – Collects his groundbreaking 1970s papers on reciprocal altruism, parental investment, and parent-offspring conflict.
  • Stephen Jay Gould The Structure of Evolutionary Theory (2002) – Gould’s masterwork critiquing hyper-adaptationism and presenting punctuated equilibrium. Rocks of Ages (1999) – Introduces NOMA (Non-Overlapping Magisteria) regarding science and religion.
  • Richard Lewontin The Triple Helix: Gene, Organism, and Environment (2000) – A critique of genetic determinism, emphasizing the reciprocal interaction between organisms and their environments.

2. Relational Physics & Quantum Mechanics

  • Albert Einstein Relativity: The Special and the General Theory (1916) – Einstein’s accessible explanation of how space, time, mass, and gravity form a relative continuum.
  • Louis de Broglie Researches on the Quantum Theory (1924 Doctoral Thesis) – The original formulation of wave-particle duality for matter.
  • Niels Bohr Atomic Theory and the Description of Nature (1934) – Collects Bohr’s early writings framing the Copenhagen interpretation and quantum complementarity.
  • David Bohm Wholeness and the Implicate Order (1980) – Outlines the undivided holomovement, connecting quantum entanglement, non-locality, and consciousness. The Undivided Universe (with Basil Hiley, 1993) – An ontological interpretation of quantum theory.

3. Relational Philosophy & Phenomenology

  • Martin Buber I and Thou (Ich und Du, 1923) – The foundational text on relational ontology, distinguishing I-Thou encounter from I-It objectification.
  • Maurice Merleau-Ponty Phenomenology of Perception (1945) – Demonstrates that consciousness is embodied and rooted in perceptual engagement with the world. The Visible and the Invisible (1964, Published posthumously) – Introduces his ultimate concept of “The Flesh of the World” (la chair).

4. Systems Ecology, Biosphere & Gaia Theory

  • Kinji Imanishi The World of Living Things (Seibutsu no Sekai, 1941) – The foundation of Japanese ecology, introducing habitat segregation (sumiwake) and species co-existence over individual warfare.
  • Vladimir I. Vernadsky The Biosphere (1926) – The landmark scientific work demonstrating that living matter is a primary geochemical force transforming Earth.
  • James Lovelock Gaia: A New Look at Life on Earth (1979) – Formulates the hypothesis that Earth acts as a self-regulating super-organism.
  • Lynn Margulis Symbiotic Planet: A New Look at Evolution (1998) – Outlines symbiogenesis, arguing that cooperation and cellular fusion (endosymbiosis) drive biological innovation.

5. Mind, Noosphere & Panpsychism

  • Pierre Teilhard de Chardin The Phenomenon of Man (1955) – Traces evolution from the Geosphere through the Biosphere to the Noosphere and the Omega Point. The Future of Man (1964) – Essays exploring global interconnectedness and technological integration.
  • Édouard Le Roy The Origin of Human Life and the Evolution of Mind (1928) – Early philosophical lectures co-formulating the concept of the Noosphere alongside Vernadsky and Teilhard.
  • Philip Goff Galileo’s Error: Foundations for a New Science of Consciousness (2019) – A defense of panpsychism as the solution to the hard problem of consciousness. Why? The Purpose of the Universe (2023) – Argues for teleology and purpose in the cosmos beyond traditional monotheism or materialist reductionism.

6. Quantum Brain Theory, Morphic Fields & Unorthodox Mechanics

  • Roger Penrose The Emperor’s New Mind (1989) – Argues that non-computable physics and quantum mechanics are required to explain human consciousness, ruling out classical AI consciousness. Shadows of the Mind (1994) – Expands on Orch-OR (Orchestrated Objective Reduction) in microtubules alongside Stuart Hameroff.
  • Rupert Sheldrake A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Formative Causation (1981) – Introduces morphic resonance and non-physical structural fields. The Science Delusion / Science Set Free (2012) – A critique of the ten core dogmas of modern scientific materialism.

7. Artificial Intelligence, Digital Infrastructure & Systems Theory

  • Alan Turing “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” (1950, Paper in Mind) – Formulates the Turing Test and the foundations of AI philosophy.
  • Stuart Russell & Peter Norvig Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (4th Edition, 2020) – The definitive textbook covering classical AI, deep learning, and probabilistic reasoning.
  • Nick Bostrom Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies (2014) – Examines the trajectory toward artificial general intelligence and collective planetary cognition.
  • Francis Heylighen “Return to the Noosphere: The Emergence of the Global Brain” (2016, Academic Monograph) – Synthesizes digital networks, AI, and systems theory with Teilhard de Chardin’s vision of planetary consciousness.

Ai? That’s just it.

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Machine Learning: Intelligence Without Consciousness

Machine learning displays intelligence in the sense that it applies reason. It is not, however, truly artificial: it arose naturally as an extension of human thought. Nor is it conscious—and, according to Roger Penrose, it cannot logically become so.

Machine learning is a tool, capable of either empowering or destroying. Yet rationality without feeling or relationship is pure I–It: concrete, isolated, and empty. “I-It” is a term used by Martin Buber to describe one mode of being in the world.

Martin Buber: Meaning Through Relationship

The essence of Martin Buber’s philosophy is that meaning arises through relationship. He distinguishes between two fundamental modes:

  • I–Thou (Ich–Du): an authentic encounter in which each participant remains open to the other.
  • I–It (Ich–Es): an instrumental mode of relating in which the other is reduced to an object or projection.

From I–Thou springs the creative potential of existence: something new emerges in every encounter between the two poles of relationship. Buber calls this process “dialogue”. It begins as an attitude—a choice about how to be and how to exist—and unfolds in the “between” (Buber’s Zwischen), where relationship opens onto new depths and possibilities.

I–It is the opposite. Because it focuses on something concrete and clearly defined, it can feel productive. Yet this apparent clarity reveals the trap: instead of meeting the other, one relates to a projection. In this sense, I–It is fundamentally narcissistic and becomes the essence of loneliness.

Gadamer, Bohm, and Genuine Dialogue

Hans-Georg Gadamer developed Buber’s insight by describing genuine dialogue as a “fusion of horizons”. When conversation gives equal priority to attentive listening and clear expression, perspectives can merge, broaden, and create new understanding.

David Bohm’s work reflects a similar vision. He grounds dialogue in physics, offering both a quantum-mechanical perspective and a connection with Eastern philosophy. Across these approaches, genuine conversation becomes a creative encounter with possibilities that extend beyond either participant’s original viewpoint.

Have a look at..

Martin Buber – “Ich und Du” (I and Thou)

Hans-Georg Gadamer – “Warheit und Methode” (Truth and Method)

David Bohm – “On Dialogue”, “ Wholeness and the Implicate Order”, “The Undivided Universe: an Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory”, “The Ending of Time”, “On Creativity”

Sir Roger Penrose – “Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness”, “Consciousness and the Laws of Physics”, “The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics”

 

 

Have a look at..

Martin Buber – “Ich und Du” (I and Thou)

Hans-Georg Gadamer – “Warheit und Methode” (Truth and Method)

David Bohm – “On Dialogue”, “ Wholeness and the Implicate Order”, “The Undivided Universe: an Ontological Interpretation of Quantum Theory”, “The Ending of Time”, “On Creativity”

Sir Roger Penrose – “Shadows of the Mind: A Search for the Missing Science of Consciousness”, “Consciousness and the Laws of Physics”, “The Emperor’s New Mind: Concerning Computers, Minds, and the Laws of Physics”

“A Pulse in the Eternal Mind, no Less”

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(Rupert Brooke, The Soldier)

It feels as if we are approaching a huge change to humanity. To those of us who are children of the 60’s this may just be “the dawning of the age of the Aquarius”.  Aquarius . Let the Sunshine In  Transformation. I believe so, and argue for that below.

But,

It feels like we’re rushing toward extinction. After all this is what confronts us:

 Environmental devastation: A crisis most feel powerless to stop, thwarted by greed, nationalism, and predatory capitalism.  

 Erosion of community: Natural, face-to-face human connection is increasingly interrupted and mediated by apps and social media.  

Spiritual vacuum: Materialism has become our de facto religion, while traditional faiths—which explicitly call for love and forgiveness—are routinely distorted by politicians.  

Existential technological risk: Human egotism has already driven leaders to terrible actions, yet a coldly rational, potent AI that cares nothing for the planet could simply extinguish us all.  

Yet,

These dangers may simply be the birth pangs of a new stage in the evolution of consciousness—an emergency giving way to glory. Perhaps we are in the throes of an emergence, something akin to the Age of Aquarius!  

This is the future that evolutionary biologist Pierre Teilhard de Chardin predicted half a century ago. For him, the universe has always been conscious, with matter and spirit acting as the inner and outer layers of reality. He traced this accretion from uncoordinated plasma after the Big Bang, through quarks, atoms, and molecules, driving chemistry toward the birth of life and biological evolution. Self-awareness arrived with Homo sapiens, and with it, the agglomeration of ideas into a web of knowledge no longer strictly bound by biology.  

What gives evolution its impetus and purpose? Teilhard believed that the underlying reality is the force of love—what Dylan Thomas called the “green fuse that drives the flower.” It is a love that leads to integration rather than fragmentation and loneliness.  

Teilhard would surely have recognized the grave dangers of AI. However, these threats primarily concern the human species within its current physical incarnation. In common with most deep thinkers, he believed in our transcendental coexistence within “all that is.” He saw within evolution the inevitability of consciousness becoming fully aware of itself. At each stage, humanity crosses thresholds: from the physical to the chemical, and from the chemical to the biosphere. We are now crossing into the evolution of pure ideas within the noosphere, leading toward an ultimate, blinding flash of awareness: the realisation of consciousness and God. This is my hope and belief.  

This entire discussion is teleological; it speaks to purpose. So much of the modern world is devoted to the physical questions of “How?” rather than “Why?” and “Whither?” To move beyond mere mechanics and ask why we are here naturally connects us to Eastern rather than Western patterns of thought—traditions that have deeply inspired thinkers such as Carl Jung, Martin Buber, David Bohm, and Philip Goff.  

Is this teleological view consistent with the determinism of physical theories of the universe, such as Tim Palmer’s Rational Quantum Mechanics and block universe, or Milo Wolff’s Wave Theory? Perhaps by exploring the role of underlying quantum structures and wave mechanics, we might begin to bridge the gap between physical determinism and cosmic purpose—ultimately understanding both the Why and How of existence.

I am probably having a conversation with myself, but it helps to write it down. I’d be delighted if someone were to challenge or add to these inquiries?

Alternative Zionism

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I believe that the current state of Israel is a tragedy that could have been avoided; and a wasted opportunity.There was (and is?) an alternative. This was set out by Martin Buber, whose book “I and Thou” set up the Philosophy of Relation. He opposed the views of Weizmann and Ben Gurion. Essentially his vision was for the cooperative development of respectful, peaceful, equal and creative society between Jews and Arabs.

In 1925 he co-founded Brith Shalom – The Covenant of Peace – which set out this vision. He fled Austria and Germany during the Nazi holocaust, but persisted with this message. In his 1947 tract “Questions and Answers. The Jewish Settlement of Palestine” he directly addressed the potential for conflict and advocated a path of peace, respect and deep listening. He deplored Jewish terrorism (for instance the attack on the King David Hotel). His vision was for restriction of Jewish immigration, a mutually interdependent society with a common economy for all – Arabs and Jew alike, and the creative growth of a new nation by the efforts and for the benefit of all.

He saw the land between the Jordan and the Mediterranean Sea as a melting pot. Where peoples and cultures could meet and thrive creatively. Where East, West, South and North could come together. A nexus. This view was perhaps natural to his family. They were Hasidic Jews from melting pot of the Polish-Lithuanian Common Wealth. The country that was once the largest in Europe and which stretched from the Baltic to the Black Sea with cultural centres in Poland and Ukraine.

A history of thought and listening and in many languages. Martin Buber spoke and read German, Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, English, French, Italian, Spanish, Latin, Greek and Dutch.

It is a tragedy for the world that this path was not followed.

Find out more about Martin Buber at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber




Dialogue, Love and Joy

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The great existentialist philosopher – Martin Buber – speaks about dialogue and distinguishes it from love. I have included some quotes at the end of this note from his 1929 essay “Zwiesprache” (Dialogue) below, together with a short note about Buber and Jesus.

Here is my thought

Genuine dialogue is about meeting, arising from mutual awareness. This can happen even as two stranges glance at each other in passing. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant by “Love thy neighbour as thyself”; that is, become as fully aware of and in sympathy with your neighbour as you are with yourself. This perhaps also applies to Jesus’ second injunction about how we should love God (with all our heart).

Are these two commandments a call to dialogue?; so that we become fully aware of, and turned toward our neighbour. This is something one could then practice, something similar to mindfulness. I have always wondered how you could just conjour up “love” as a feeling, an affect. There are so many of us now who do NOT love ourselves. How then can we ‘love another as ourself”?

Whereas perhaps we can more easily practice becoming fully aware of our neighbour. That might indeed be the road to love; a Love which is the joy that I believe underlies all creation.

As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says

“Joy is the infallible sign of the presence of God”.

Buber quotes

Three types of dialogue. In his 1929 essay Buber describes dialogue as genuine meeting with full awareness. He developed this later (I and Thou,1937) into a whole philosophy of relation; where all meaning is contained in the relationship between (zwischen) people and the “other”. Here is the first quote:

“There is genuine dialogue – no matter whether spoken or silent – where each of the participants really has in mind the other or others in their present and particular being and turns to them with the intention of establishing a living mutual relation between himself and them. There is technical dialogue, which is prompted solely by the need for objective understanding. And there is monologue disguised as dialogue, in which two or more men, meeting in space, speak each with himself in strangely tortuous and circuitous ways and yet imagine they have escaped the torment of being thrown back on their own resources.”

Dialogue and love. In the second quote he distinguishes between dialogue and love:

“I know no one in any time who has succeeded in loving every man he met. Even Jesus obviously loved of “sinners” only the loose, lovable sinners, sinners against the Law; not those who were settled and loyal to their inheritance and sinned against him and his message. Yet to the latter as to the former he stood in a direct relation. Dialogic is not be identified with love. But love without dialogic, without real outgoing to the other, reaching to the other, and company in with the other, the love remaining with itself – this is called Lucifer”

Buber, Zionism and Jesus. Buber was an intellectual Hasidic Jew. He was a lifelong Zionist, but who strongly disagreed with how the new state was constituted. He thus refused to become the first president of Israel. He “favored a binational state that encompassed and honored both Jewish and Arab ethnicities, and centred on mutual love and respect. He believed that Jesus was the greatest of all Jews and that his message was the flower of judaism. He describes Jesus thus:

“from my youth onwards I have found in Jesus my great brother”

T

The Dry Salvages

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2

This penultimate poem in TS Eliot’s Four Quartets points to meaning, that lies in “the intersection of timeless with time”. Most of us only glimpse this in fragments of epiphany. These are what Eliot calls “the moment in and out of time” such as “music heard so deeply that it is not heard at all, but you are the music while the music lasts”. These are the same flashes of insight to which Martin Buber refers in his 1937 book “Ich und Du” (I and Thou), where boundary dissolves and we feel joined to each other, nature or spirit.

Reality and Joy

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All is not as it seems; in fact – better than we fear or even hope. Much. All the world’s a stage; a set to hold and enable connection. Reality is not within us – our self – but in relation. Which is itself movement, whence relationship arises.

It is our attachment to our unfertilised ego that binds and imprisons us. Sentenced thus to solitary confinement. Magic shimmers when synapses between us crackle with the vibrancy of what lies beyond.

Relation to, with, through. Nature, others, creativity, ideas. Anything in fact except the non-existent “I” (Ich-Es) and its bedfellow materialism; which is literally stuff and nonsense.

The language of love is movement and acceleration. Relationship is evanescent motion, choreographed by joy. The word existing beyond time.

Experience deceives. It is built from the the rubble of the dry concretised and digital past. It is history, always outmoded. As Eliot and Buber put it:

“In the act of experience Thou is far away” (Buber)

“In the knowledge derived from experience, the knowledge imposes a pattern and falsifies, for the pattern is new in every moment. And every moment is a new and shocking valuation of all we have been” (Eliot)

“just as prayer is not in time but time in prayer, sacrifice not in space but space in sacrifice, and to reverse the relation is to abolish reality.. I do not experience the man to whom I say Thou. But I take my stand in relation to him .. No deception penetrates here; here is the cradle of the Real Life” (Buber).

“At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, Except for the point, the still point,There would be no dance, and there is only the dance.” (Eliot)

The mystic number 2

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The first question for me is this. “Is there meaning?” This is of course just a way of phrasing – “Why?”, “Is there purpose at all?”. Surely, this underlies all of living for each of us. Sometimes we confront it, sometimes avoid it – but it’s always there. Since we are INSIDE existence, and have no rational external reference point, there can be no rational answer. Personally though, it seems obvious to me that the answer is yes; but that is in the end just an article of faith ( although underpinned by set of extraordinary “coincidences” in physics that make life possible).

Let then take the existence of meaning as a truth. Where does it lie?

It seems to me that purpose isn’t to be found in “self” – our obsession since Freud. At least not in a physical self. My body at death will dissolve and the 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 etc. (“ the dust inbreathed was a house, the wall the wainscot and the mouse”(Eliot)

I don’t believe that either that meaning lies solely within the material world. In fact the more that 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 – dialectic materialism – is a dead end or distraction. On the other hand the material world must surely be a part of meaning. But part of what?

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 in process – the flow of matter and energy. Perhaps – “the whole flow of energy and matter”. How though do we break that down to something we can get our arms around or understand?

Maybe another way of looking at it is that material is part as in partnered with.. (mind? Spirit? Antimatter?)

That, for me, is where Martin Buber and David Bohm come in. They each talk about meaning lie 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 2 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.

And that’s where number arises for me..

My daughter, as a teenager told me she thought that an incredibly important concept was “boundary”, and I’ve 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 without. Quantum mechanics shows that everything exists only as a cloud of possibility – until observed. It is the act of knowing that crystallises out reality from 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 that comes a consciousness of existence and the possibility of relation and dialogue which Buber and Bohm so eloquently place at the core of meaning.

I conclude then. There is meaning. It lies in relation, and boundary is key to that. Hence the importance of the number. 2

Lord, Lady, Sister, Brother

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Beloved, whose heart is heaven
Hallowed be thy pain
Our kingdom come
As will is one
On earth as it is in heaven
Give us today a body bred
From shriven trespasses forgiven

Surprising lilacs out of dead land
Redeeming deserts of isolation
Delivering us from evil.
Thy love is the kingdom, the power and our glory
Now and for ever

You show me Heaven

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A love letter

G and U and I my dear, I and G and thee,
He made you and I my dear, together to be we,
He and She is God my dear, one and one is three,
Who made the M and E my dear, and the timely C
Entangled N and T my dear, an angled entity,
you are all my world my dear, For God made you for me

Apparently a GUI is a General User Interface. Strikes me that’s our purpose, to be each a user interface, to reveal the rich love that is a God.

You, my sweet darlings are all, every one of you – my GodsUserInterface x