Merry math ;-)

What do you mean – nothing?

Just what I said.

But, that’s ridiculous.

I know, mate, it’s bloody ridiculous if you ask me, but there’s nothing I can do about it.

Of course there is. You can recalculate whatever it was you were working on.

Don’t you think I’ve already tried?

Evidently not hard enough.

I’m not sure I care to. I kind of feel intuitively that this is the right answer. I’d rather accept it or learn to work with it.

Would you now?

Yeah. I guess that’s the only way we’re going to evolve as a people.

Evolve? You call this evolution. This is madness. Sheer utter insanity.

Yes.

And that’s all you’ve got to say on the matter.

Yes. There’s nothing more to say, unless you’re willing to explore the implications with curiosity and slow-burn excitement.

Curiosity? Excitement? You’ve just damned the whole of physical reality, mathematically proving it amounts to zero, and you expect me to be...

No expectations whatsoever. You can freak out, or you can be calm and curious. It’s entirely up to you. If, as I suspect, the evolution of the human race depends upon a greater awareness of zero sum matter – then what at first shout looks apocalyptic is actually going to birth a renaissance.

A renaissance? Are you out of your mind? The whole of material reality amounts to the sum total of zero, you state, and you think that’s a cause for celebration?

Well how else are we to move beyond the “more matter” paradigm that we’re currently in? “The universe is expanding” they keep on saying. Expanding, I ask – relative to what? Who or what is it that’s able to see the universe expanding?

What on earth has the universe expanding to do with your monstrous computation of zero sum matter?

Isn’t it clear? If it’s a zero sum game – material expansion is only possible if there’s an equal and opposite contraction underway. You can grow the matter side of the equation only by shifting resources from the other side – which must be non-matter.

You mean “anti-matter”?

No – I don’t. What’s the point using a term to describe something no one understands? Has anyone encountered anti-matter? Is it going to improve our lives, make us happier, save the planet from human predation? It’s an interesting concept, but it’s a mind concept. It has no deep basis in our conscious-awareness. If we want to evolve as a human race, we have to stop tinkering with matter and accept that matter is only one side of the ledger in a zero sum game. It’s the side that seems to be controlling us at present, because it’s the side that the mind seems happiest to work with. It doesn’t require deep, heartfelt consideration. It doesn’t require us to ask the big, searching questions such as “who am I” and “what’s my place in all this”?

Because we already know the answer to these questions! We are humans and we live on Earth, in a spiral arm of the Milky Way.

Yes, but these are just names, and they are losing value each day as our Earth resource is being depleted in every way conceivable. The only way it isn’t being depleted is in terms of conscious-awareness.

What do you mean?

Well, in terms of conscious-awareness we’re going through a renaissance.

We are?

Yes – more than seven billion people are becoming aware of the fact that we’re all closely connected, living on a planet that is a critically finite resource, now on the brink of extinction.

I don’t see why that should trigger a renaissance?

Because we have to face the simple fact of matter.

Which fact of matter are you referring to?

The only fact of matter that really matters...

Well, go on, spit it out.

I already did... conscious-awareness is hyper-sensitive to fundamental paradoxes or inconsistencies. Here we are – 7.4 billion people facing extinction within a hundred years or so – if things continue on the present trajectory. 7.4 billion people start to become aware of their critical interconnectedness – as weather patterns change, as pollution from one country affects another, as imports, exports, migration and innovations sweep across the planet without regard for national boundaries. 7.4 billion people asking the simple question individually, collectively – what’s the point of it all if we can do nothing to save the planet, to avert this impending slow-motion train crash? 7.4 billion people finding no answers to defuse the ticking time-bomb, other than burying their head in the sand or praying for a miracle.

And why do you assume there is an answer? Why can’t you accept that we’re probably doomed?

Because I’ve done the math.

What do you mean? What’s math got to do with the end of civilisation on Earth?

0=1.

That says nothing to me.

It’s a zero sum game.

Nothing whatsoever.

“Tis no matter” to quote Shakespeare.

So now you’re being facetious. Is that the best you can do?

Oh no, I can do better, but how would you recognise better if you’re locked in the old paradigm? How can I share the beauty of creation if you insist that matter is the fundamental measurement of what is?

Share? Who says you need to share the beauty of creation with me? I’m quite able to appreciate it. I’m no less distraught that it seems to be coming apart at the seams here on Earth, for humanity at least.

Yes, it seems to be, and yet, as the material situation worsens, as the universe appears to continue expanding, we are nevertheless going through a quantum shift in our conscious-awareness. The internet is a material representation of what’s going on. Look at the exponential increase in data transfer over the last twenty years. What do you think is happening behind the scenes, so to speak, in the other internet?

What other internet?

Well, if you can run with my assertion, just suspend your disbelief long enough to have some fun with it, you’ll realise that anything material can only exist as a 3D representation of that which simply is.

So you mean there must be another internet behind the physical 3D version?

Must be – yes, in the same way there must be another Earth, another Universe behind the physical 3D representation. When scientists bang their heads together and start talking about dark matter or anti matter – they are getting close to acknowledging the other side of things, though they’re still hung up on “matter”.

So what are you saying?

Conscious-awareness is exploding. It’s going viral. It’s transmuting. It’s shifting so much it makes it look like the universe is expanding – which is of course absurd if you think about it. But it stops being absurd when we recognise that this process is shifting the nature of reality – not just the nature of matter.

The nature of reality?

Precisely. As conscious-awareness shifts, expands or accelerates, that’s like raising the temperature. Ice starts to melt. So does steel. Things that were locked rigid since the last ice age start to flow.

What do you mean the last ice age? That ended 5 thousand years ago with sea levels rising and...

I mean the ice age when our conscious-awareness dipped down into the mostly matter paradigm. Within that paradigm we collectively were unable to think in terms of anything other than the need to accumulate, refine and develop matter, with a few rare exceptions. Prior to that, we were able to think in completely different terms. Our conscious-awareness was comfortable dealing with non-matter – what you might loosely refer to as energy, for want of a better term, though I’d prefer not to.

So, you’re saying people were able to work directly with energy – that they didn’t need to handle matter as we do, to build bridges, houses, paint or move around?

Yes, evidently so.

Why evidently?

Because the mostly-matter paradigm is the base line. You can only sink into it from a higher level, and either die off or rise back out of it. Sinking into it wasn’t necessarily an accident, a mistake or a catastrophe. It may well have been intentional. It enabled us to establish a zero point. Essentially, by taking ourselves collectively to the point of extinction we have created a not-that mark in the near infinite field of conscious-awareness. The not-that mark, at great cost has made it possible for us come as close as is humanly possible to establishing a finite in what is, to all intents and purposes, infinite conscious-awareness. It’s a bit like a comet flying closer and closer to the sun. Either it crashes into the sun and dies, as often happens, or it can fly incredibly close and sling shot back into the infinity of space. It’s not-that encounter with the sun is both its greatest danger and greatest potential.

So you’re saying we’ve been playing chicken with the sun, so to speak, in order to set up a great flight into the infinite.

Yes and no. Remember, these words are merely an illustration of what is incredibly simple.

Incredibly simple for whom?

For all of us, if we’re willing to face what is.

Which is what?

Not “what” at all. “What” is your mind’s attempt to pin it down in the 3D material representation. Remember, the 3D representation is no more than an illustration, a metaphor – not “it” at all.

So what is “it”?

It is what is. We already know what is; already have direct access to what is individually and collectively via the conscious-awareness – it’s just we’re part lazy, part fearful, part resistant to letting go of the mostly matter paradigm. But that’s where the end of matter comes in.

The end of matter?

Well yes, isn’t that what the pending apocalypse is pointing to – as far as humanity is concerned?

Well, I don’t like to think in those terms.

Ok – just do the math. The data’s out there. Don’t take my word for it.

Ok, ok. So what’s the end of matter pointing to?

The renaissance of our conscious-awareness – as we realise we can no longer hold ourselves in the “what is what” construct.

Construct?

Yes, a kind of mind box that only allows us to think in terms of “what matters” as opposed to “what is”.

Ok, then won’t you answer for once and for all – what is what?

It is I am.

Oh God.

Yes, pretty close. It is I am – you cannot separate yourself from whatever you are observing or considering, because ultimately and in truth, all-is in the same way that I-am. Thus it is I am – One, if you like.

Why the capital O? Are you making One the new God.

No – just differentiating One from one.

And how are the two different?

One is the singularity; the whole; the completeness of Is – that which is – whereas one is the adjective – one chicken, one egg, one loaf of bread, or the one in conventional math that likes to pretend that things add up to something more than zero – that conscious-awareness is not a part of the equation.

And you don’t like conventional math?

Why not? It’s great for counting money, bricks, hens or eggs. It’s also a beautiful form of mental exercise and expression – like poetry. Ultimately it leads back to 0=1 – and the apparent contradiction is only a contradiction as long as the mathematician refuses to engage that which is – i.e. his or her conscious-awareness.

And when he or she does – you think the contradiction magically disappears?

Yes. It does – I am.

One – I suppose I should say.

Thank you. That was great spirited of you to join in like that.

My pleasure. It’s a mind bender, for sure, but if light travels in circles given enough space, then I suppose I’ll have to accept that the mind’s logic is going to have to embrace the seeming non-linearity of 0=1.

And a beautiful, dare I say, magical paradigm shift for starship Earth and her reawakening humanity.

Beam me up Scottie. If you’re right about the zero sum nature of matter, then it’s gonna be quite a ride.

You bet your life it is.