nothing mined

So you’re immortal?

Apparently so.

You er… don’t seem too happy about it.

No more than you seem happy about being mortal.

?

Flip sides of a coin.

Huh?

Mathematically, one cannot be more than the other, or better.

Mathematically.

Yep.

But if you’re immortal you get to live forever.

Yes.

Well surely that has to be better?

You'd imagine so, but you’re not being mathematical, are you?

How do you mean?

I don’t mean. There’s nothing average about what I’m saying. Either you’re able to think mathematically or you’re not.

Well, apparently, I’m not – as I personally think immortality vastly superior to death.

They why do you imagine you were unwise enough to choose the latter.

Choose? It was forced upon me. Rules of the game.

Yes, this is the problem trying to conduct a rational conversation with a non-mathematical. Try to consider the relationship between 1 and 0. Which would you rather be?

1 of course.

Which only goes to show that there’s no point continuing this discussion.

But surely 1 is better.

Surely?

Yes – because it’s infinitely more than 0, isn’t it. It’s something or someone. It’s complete. It can be used with other “ones” to make a bigger whole, a greater number. It is the building block of infinity.

Oh dear.

You don’t agree?

Agree?

Well you can’t deny that we start as one cell which then divides again and again – and sooner or later we reach the present trillion plus state of affairs – which is another “one”, is it not, one body, one mind.

You’re absolutely right.

So that just goes to show that one is better than zero – life is better than not being alive.

Er…

You see – my mathematics is infallible. Now we can move on to something more challenging.

Like where 1 would be if zero was somehow removed.

Huh?

Well, what happens to one when zero is removed? Any idea?

Nothing whatsoever. 1 is like a tree or a house. Zero is like an empty space. You can have a tree or a house standing alone, surrounded by zero, or you can remove that zero, so to speak, although, in fact, nothing is being removed – we’re just introducing something in place of nought – and now your tree has another one growing alongside it, your house has another in close proximity, or even semi-detached – which is a bit like the cell division model.

So now you have two trees or two houses, but you have done nothing to explain what happens if you removed zero from the equation, or from the picture.

That’s because it isn’t an equation. It’s not like E = mc², is it?

Not exactly, and yet the number 1 is an equation nonetheless.

Huh? How?

Because 1 is impossible and meaningless, mathematically, without its corresponding zero. You can’t create something from nothing, can you, but you can separate the two for a time by inserting yourself between them, for a lifespan. In this way you create what appears to be a one sided equation, which naturally, you don’t consider an equation at all. You merely assume that things are things, that 1 is 1, irrespective of nought, and nothing I say will convince you otherwise.

I don’t see why.

I know, and I don’t see how you can see why, because to do so you’d have to realise that mortality and immortality are no more different than one and nought.

Of course they’re different.

Precisely – for you to think otherwise would involve a completely different way of perceiving things – a completely different way of seeing reality. It would abrogate your contract with matter in general, provoking a constitutional crisis or what scientists call a phase transition.

Perceiving things? Constitutional crisis? Phase transition? I thought you said we were being mathematical.

I did. We are.

Then stick to maths. The maths is really very simple. I can have one carrot without needing a corresponding zero carrot to hold it in place.

Yes. That’s how it seems – but can you have one carrot without the notion, or the understanding, of zero?

I don’t see why it’s such an important issue.

Yes, I know, but if you look at the shape of these numbers you might begin to see.

The shape? What’s that got to do with the price of cheese? The shape is purely coincidental.

So you have been led to believe – and yet I’d suggest that it is not.

You think the shape is important?

I think you can learn something by looking carefully at the shape of one and zero.

This is ridiculous. I’ve been looking at these numbers all my life and all I can say is that they’re easily distinguishable, like all the other numbers, and the letters too. Were they not we’d have difficulties using them, so really this is hardly surprising.

You see, no matter how hard I try to introduce an alternative perspective, your mind already has things nicely settled and understood – making it impossible to share any insight with you.

Insight? You’re not my guru Pi. I just like chatting with you, though God knows why.

Yes. But you were asking me about immortality, and I was endeavouring to share why immortality is really no different, no better than mortality.

I don’t see how you’re going to succeed. It’s like telling me a limitless bank balance is no better than an account with a single dollar in it.

Ah – but what if immortality or infinity is closer to being zero than a huge number?

I don’t see how it can be.

And there’s the rub.

Yes?

Yes, for you understand infinity or immortality as a much, much bigger version of your one – a version so vast it seems to go on forever.

That sounds fairly sensible. How else would you describe immortality?

I think you can guess.

No – you can’t mean zero?

Why not?

Because zero means no life, no carrot, no tree, no house, not anything. That’s the opposite of infinity, the opposite of immortality.

So it seems, until you see the spinning wheel in the numeral, until you embrace infinity existentially.

Existentially? How can I do that?

Well, you need to embrace it with more than your mind. If you only use your mind then it’s merely theoretical or abstract. If, on the other hand, you embrace it existentially – then you can start to know what your mind can’t possibly understand.

Know what my mind can’t understand. I don’t see what you mean.

Of course.

You’re contradicting yourself.

Am I?

Yes. You only really know something if you’re able to understand it.

Do you?

Yes. It should be obvious.

Do you really know you’re alive?

Yes.

Do you understand this?

I

Can you really explain how or why you’re alive, or what it means to be alive?

Not exactly.

But you know you’re alive. You know you are you – and not me, or not a computer-generated mind.

I think so.

Think so? You’re not sure?

I know, I know – just, I don’t really understand.

Well, there you go. There’s direct knowledge, direct knowing – and then there’s understanding – but our understanding might change regularly when new information comes to light.

Isn’t the same true of knowledge?

Yes, if you use the word that way – but I’m using it specifically in terms of knowing – which is more an experience, an awareness – it’s something fundamental.

Oh.

Precisely – Oh.

What do you mean “precisely”? What’s precise about me saying Oh?

Because the Oh – like the Om or the zero is not merely coincidence. It’s the number of knowing, the number of not-finite thing or things, not-finite span or period of time.

You mean my “Oh” is equivalent to zero?

Yes. That is correct.

But… this is so strange.

Yes, I know.

And you actually said it’s a number.

Correct.

You called it “the number of knowing”

And “the number of not-finite thing or things”

Isn’t that the same as saying “the number of nothing”?

It might be, or, it might not. It depends how you understand, or, apprehend these words. I was fairly careful to avoid saying “nothing”, because our rational mind – the mind responsible for processing and understanding, immediately discounts and ignores anything described as “nothing”, in the same way it discounts or ignores any thing described as zero.

With good reason. For what’s there to gain in considering a zero thing.

Or a zero point.

Or a zero point?

Well, I rather thought you might have figured it out by now.

Er… I’m a bit slow when it comes to zeros.

Evidently. But I can give you a clue.

Ok, fire ahead.

You embrace it, existentially.

I think you already said that a minute ago – and it failed to ring any bells.

Because thinking it achieves nothing.

But how can I embrace something like zero or infinity – if I can’t think it mentally. It’s a tautology.

So it might seem, yet if what I’m saying is true, then there’s an interesting implication that you might want to consider.

The implication that existence is both.

Oh well done – that was sharp of you.

You mean to say that existence is both zero and one? But if that’s the case, how come I can’t think zeros?

Fascinating, isn’t it.

I’m not sure I’d go that far.

Fascinating to see the limitations of the rational mind.

Er…

It’s like a computer which uses ones and zeros in its basic processing – yet can only consider ones or things within the operating system.

Look – I don’t have a problem considering zeros, Ok, I just have a problem considering them as you want me to. I don’t see how they can equate.

Which is precisely why I advised you to consider them existentially.

But how does one do that? We are thinking minds, not thinking bodies.

Ah… what makes you so sure?

Well I for one tend not to have conversations with my feet or toes.

Me neither, and yet as long as you rely exclusively on the rational mind to do the thinking for you, you’ll be trapped in an essentially two-dimensional reality.

Oh – it’s two dimensional is it now?

Apparently so, as long as you’re thinking things without reference to zero or nought.

This is just absurd. We’re getting nowhere. I see no way how I can possibly understand your illogicality.

Don’t you mean irrationality?

Yes, I suppose I do, but it doesn’t alter the fact that I can’t understand it.

Naturally, unless you’re willing to bite the bullet and consider the nature of things.

The nature of things? Now you’re making this sound like a philosophy class.

Oh dear – I hope not.

As I understand it – you’re of the opinion that things are both positive and not. Is that right?

Yes – both positive and nought.

So not and nought are synonyms?

More or less.

But if that were so – we should be able to un-thing things. We should be able to make them disappear.

Have you ever tried?

Not really. It seems like a waste of time when they’re so evidently real.

Well, on the other side of the river of thoughts you call “mind” there are things which haven’t yet been mined.

Uh?

Your mind is a kind of processor which mines things – making them real and tangible here in 3D reality.

Oh God. This is too much to bear. No – it – is – not!

In other words, your mind dips into the waters of infinity and extracts things which it’s able to recognise, which it’s able to discern and perceive, because they correspond with its current awareness of what matters. In doing so it correlates them with your own positive mortality.

Uh?

It’s a correlation. It’s like saying – if I am mortal and living in a finite reality, then let these things be proof of this, let them matter correspondingly. And amazingly, they’re happy to oblige.

You mean that things just jump out of infinity in order to please me?

Yes, in a manner of speaking, that’s a fair description of what actually happens. Things oblige because they get to ride on your coattails – they get to experience a moment of reality that you’re creating – they get to merge with the mind or body that you are finiting.

Oh dear. That makes no sense at all. How can you say they “merge” with the mind or body I’m finiting? My car doesn’t merge with me. Nor my house. Nor the book I’m reading. I just hold them or use them and then let them go. Besides, they’re still there, whether I hold them or not.

Yes, yes, I know – but we’re speaking mathematically, remember, and on the other side of that river are corresponding things unmined – or no-things.

Oh.

So for every house, car, or book, there’s a zero which is actually heavier or emptier than it would have been, had you not extracted by mining the house, car or book from infinity.

How can something be heavier or emptier than zero? That’s ridiculous.

I know, and yet that’s how I have to describe it – it’s a bit tricky putting this into words – as you can see.

Heavier or emptier than zero would be minus one, minus two, minus three.

Correct – except that minus is a mined concept. Minus is no different from plus on the other side of the river, in infinity. That why I refer to it as zero.

Oh. So it’s a zero which, from our perspective is the minus x equivalent of any thing we have here.

Yes.

And what does that give us.

It should give us nought – if the two are combined.

But how can they be – if they’re on opposite sides of the river?

Well, that’s a good question.

Is there an answer?

Oh yes, there’s always an answer, if you’re ready to know it.

Ah – there’s your tricksy “know” again.

Yes.

So to know it I have to experience it, existentially.

Yes.

But why?

Because your very existence is part of the equation, is it not? 

Huh?

You’re not just body and mind, are you. You’re a kind of blockchain ledger – to use the latest concept – a record of everything you’ve thought, said and done. A living, breathing, constantly updating experience library – just like the blockchain. So you have to factor yourself into the equation, and only when you do that do you get the entire picture – only then do you access zero.

Oh.

It sounds kind of impossible, I know, but the key is wanting it, daring it, being willing to feel it and experience it. In short, you need to intend it purposely.

And that’s all it takes?

All? That is all there is, in fact.

Huh?

Once you intend to experience things in their entirety, your zero and one come into easy proximity, conjunction, or alignment. At that point 0=1, it is i am

Oh

At that point you simply know what is, regardless.

…

At that point you no longer need to focus on things, for you’re no longer standing on the edge of the river sifting the sand of time for nuggets of gold, mining matter from the waters of infinity

…

At that point you are one with all – and zero is the wheel, the circle, the toroidal field, without beginning or end – the infinity that is, no less, immortality when expressed bodily, if you so desire.

So that’s where you are?

That’s where we all are, in a sense.

Except most of us are mortal – stuffing our mind’s pockets with things.

Up to a point – but in actual fact we are artists and engineers of the blockchain human-experience work in progress, which is crunching numbers and testing the relationship between 0 and 1 in every conceivable way, shape and form, just in case we can find an anomaly, just in case we can find life hidden somewhere in the seemingly random code.

Life?

Yes. Didn’t you realise?

?

We’re searching for life, for the entire universe is a single organism, a single process that can and does generate life, in spite of immortality, in spite of matter and things and nought.

Then what is life?

What do you imagine it to be?

I don’t know.

That’s a good start. Now ask it – the great all that is which you are part of – the mass of things – the quantum stream – the universe – what is life

What is life?

Good

What is life?

Good

What is life?

Here it comes

It is i am

Excellent

Coherence

Indeed

0=1

Absolutely

Oh

Mmm