Not mattering

The gentle art of not matter...

What are you on about now?

The gentle art of not matter.

Not matter - as in anti-matter?

As in not matter.

Which is?

Not matter

Yeah but - this is hopelessly vague.

~Agreed, until you figure out what matter might, in fact, be.

What matter might be? Seems fairly simple really.

Seems, yes, but is it in fact as simple as it contrives to seem?

Wait a second - what do you mean by "contrives to seem"? Are you implying that matter is able to contrive? that matter is some way conscious, or sentient?

Conscious or sentient - bold words these aren't they - are you sure you know them apart?

Er... you found me out. I can't exactly say I know the difference - but they seem to be closely related so I attempted to kill one bird with two stones, as a hedge against my ignorance.

Ah - the scattergun approach! Well, I think we know what you meant - but ask yourself why you balk at the idea that matter might be conscious or sentient?

Well, it's obvious isn't it?

It is?

Matter's just matter. Were it alive we'd call it an organism, a life form or a being, wouldn't we?

If it were the type of matter that has taken such a form - but what if it's good old-fashioned inorganic matter - a bit of hydrocarbon such as wax for example?

Then obviously it's neither conscious nor sentient.

Obviously?

Absolutely. A lump of wax is merely a lump of wax. Nothing more. Trying to invest wax with human attributes such as consciousness or sentiency is the worst form of anthropomorphism, if you ask me.

Fascinating.

Huh?

Fascinating.

In what way?

Fascinating that you assume everything in the universe evolved from simple, inorganic matter, but that matter itself cannot be and is not conscious or sentient.

Er... on the contrary - it seems a no-brainer.

How so?

Well, evidently our evolution involved some kind of quantum leap...

Or divine spark.

Please - try to avoid bringing divinity into a serious conversation about the science of matter.

Why is that?

Because then it's a serious theological debate, and not scientific. It should be self-evident to any rational being that matter, by definition, can be neither conscious, sentient, nor rational for that matter.

"For that matter"?

It's a turn of phrase - an idiom - nothing more.

Ok - if you insist - and yet me thinks she doth protest too much. If organic, biological matter is in any meaningful way conscious, sentient or rational - then I see no reason why non-organic, non-biological matter should not be - albeit in a slightly less obvious way.

Oh, for God's sake.

Precisely!

I beg your pardon.

Apology accepted.

No, I meant, oh for God's sake - why are you being so obtuse?

Because "for God's sake" is precisely why matter is assumed to be simply matter, nothing more.

Er... I don't see what you're getting at.

God is the watershed between organic or, you might say, water-bearing, and non-organic, as in biologically dry, matter. So it's entirely appropriate that you should invoke God - appealing as you do to the very force which divides you from the other side - thus confirming both your natural bias and allegiance to water, and to watery organicism.

Er...?

It's hardly surprising you feel hugely uncomfortable even contemplating that non-organic matter could be alive or conscious. This is deep taboo - we're barely able to consider such things, still less to question the base assumption that "life" refers to creatures, rather than being an organising principle present throughout the universe, wherever naturally occurring electrical currents and magnetic fields carry the signal.

Er...

If this be true - if our assumptions are false - if life is far, far more ubiquitous - present, for example, throughout the plasma fields of deep space, or gas giants such as Jupiter and Saturn then, in all likelihood, our vast universe, far from being mostly vacuum, might well be the electrical circuitry of conscious-ness itself, no less, hidden in plain sight, right before our spherical, gelatinous eyes, filtered from view by a rational mind that is simply unable to confront its own organic biases.

Er... far out man.

Without a doubt. Now, "matter" we are told, is merely the stuff from which organic matter is built

- or synthesised

and has no organicism or biology of its own - which, to be honest, looks patently absurd if you view the heavens above - gazing through telescopes at stars, nebulae and galaxies, or the other way, through microscopes at minerals, crystals and polymers at a veritable embarrassment of self-organisation and intervolving structures.

Er... we just see patterns, which hardly indicate life processes.

You just see what you want to see - nothing more, nothing less.

And you think you're any different?

I think consistently - that if I am conscious, which I must be if I'm bothering to think at all - then the matter from which I'm supposedly derived - in some way, shape or form, at the appropriate level of magnification, must also be, um, conscious no less - for how else could conscious-ness, manifest in me? Let's at least give the atom its dues.

You're serious? You actually believe the atom itself to be conscious? That's kind of insane?

And what, pray tell, is an atom? What pray tell - is consciousness? I wonder how we can use such terms in a meaningful way without first analysing our confirmation biases.

Oh dear... This is evidently...

Look - if instead of assuming I, the white Caucasian alpha male, am superior to all others - I assume that I'm almost bound to see myself as such, no matter what - then there's a chance I might be able to confront my programming - I might be able to find a less bigotted alternative.

So you think it's bigotted, sexist or racist to assume that organic matter is more likely to be conscious, sentient or rational than inorganic matter?

Naturally.

But, we simply have no evidence to the contrary.

Thus the white settler believed it was acceptable to slaughter the natives - for they were barely human - more like animals, were they not?

But this is different. We're talking about bloody atoms - not human beings.

And what, do you imagine, human beings are made up of.

Atoms, of course, but until they become biological they're not alive.

And the problem is that as long as you insist on repeating this mantra, this convenient truth, this be-lief, you're never going to learn how to interact with matter, or with creation for that matter, in a more meaningful, far-reaching manner.

Oh for God's sake.

There you go again - invoking God the Father - refusing to allow the Matter, the Mater, the Mother any say in this state of affairs.

You mean to say...

Isn't it obvious?

That matter is the Mother - the female side?

Evidently - if you'd give it a moment's consideration.

So you think you can connect with matter through the Mother - through some kind of female deity?

Why through? Matter to all intents and purposes is the female principle or female deity.

You actually mean to say you'd consider worshipping atoms as female divinity?

What - like the way you worship the sun, or the "son" , as male divinity?

Come on - we moved beyond sun worship long ago. Now we worship God itself, pure divinity, or pure conscious-ness if you're of a Buddhist bent, hair-splitting notwithstanding.

And what? You can hardly worship a male God without reference to the sun, can you? You need your halos, your thunderbolts, your East facing churches, your crosses - and there's nothing intrinsically wrong with any of this, don't misunderstand me - in fact, it can all be wonderful, and spiritually uplifting - just as long as you don't attempt to deny the Mother - the other side of God's intervention.

Deny? What is there to deny? Matter is hardly luminescent, hardly the source of life itself, hardly the Creator of all, is it?

No, it's the Mother - it's Not, the divine O, the nought wherein consciousness knows.

There you go - all negatives. Nothing to talk about. "The divine O" - garbled nonsense. Pathetic!

"Pathetic" it may be - but without it you are nothing - your 3 dimensional reality comes unglued. You grow flat - to the extent that you cease to be human beings - mere ciphers in a matrix - for you have rejected the sacred womb - the true matrix of matter which permeates every all.

You mean to say you seriously believe that Not, the nought, the divine O as you preposterously call it...

call Her.

Ok, "Her" then - that it amounts to something meaningful? Something that the world cannot do without?

Naturally, yes. Unless Not matters, unless nought is given its due - unless the empty set, the empty space between ones is honoured and acknowledged - you find yourself in a hyper-inflating world and a ludicrously "expanding" universe - a world hell-bent on destruction - a world which is utterly unequipped to work time - to sense and feel the pulse of time as any musician must, or space too, for that matter - for it is the O that reveals the lie that is linear separation between any two points "a" and "b" - for the O or zero reveals that they are both merely points on a spinning wheel - separated by nothing - which can be crossed or brought together if we allow the wheel to turn through us, instead of aggressively trying to bash our way through an externalised space in an unnatural linear propulsive thrust.

Oh God. You are so utterly... I mean, you can't seriously...

Correct. Seriously I can't, I won't, I don't, for seriously is heavily, obsessively, oppressively, whereas true life, true conscious-ness is light, is gay, is Not as much as What, no less, is a personal experience, immanently ready to bring the entire objective material universe to the attention of my God forsaken mind, no less.

Er... you're evidently either insane, or in possession of knowledge or information that I lack. In either case I fail to see how I can meaningfully counter your assertions.

Why counter them?

Isn't that the way to learn? By pitting one theory or set of assumptions against another? Thesis - antithesis - synthesis.

Up to a point, yes, but here we're going beyond that point, or rather, into the nature, the essence, the conscious-ness of point itself - zooming in to find the divine Not, the nought, the zero where point was a moment before, while we were still subject to rational time.

What?

Rational time - a kind of unsyncopated, mindlessly regular drumbeat, or flat mindwave: dum dum dum dum

As opposed to?

A heartbeat, an iamb, di dum, 0 1

Er...

As long as you're in rational time your mind's bound to think, or see and act in a certain way. It simply fails to grasp the subtle unstressed beat, it can only think and act doggedly, in opposition to something or other, skating over the surface of infinity as if the water beneath is an irrelevancy.

Er...

Until, that is, somehow or other, it becomes aware of matter being.

Being?

More than just a thing.

But?

Being - and suddenly I is free of am.

Huh?

I is at leave to visit, to explore other levels, other states besides "am". I is free to iamb.

Er... I think I'm losing it.

Excellent. Lose it or better still loose it. There's a world waiting to be discovered, waiting to be explored, waiting to be iambed, just as soon as you give nought the benefit of the doubt and allow matter to cancel itself out through me, with me, in me

Er...?

- thus bringing events to a head, and revealing the simple truth which appearances disguised so consummately deceptively, as was intended all along, realigning atomically, bringing infinity back into play...

Oh no

Good! I feel your O growing in strength, in depth, beginning to resonate O-fully. I feel you're reawakening from the powerpoint mind, which comprehendeth only what it can plot in square, in flat, in rational time.

You do?

The gentle art of not matter reversing the flow of things, known as time.

Huh?

But who am I to say... but who am i?

Aren't you going to launch me into the quantum field as you've done so many times before?

You are mistaken - those were closer to waking dreams, to computer games, to simulations, if you like - but now it's time for you to really confront matter yourself - no one, ultimately, can do it for you.

Fat chance I'm going to succeed. I really haven't a clue where to begin.

Nor should you - but it's a bit like writing a poem or making a speech - a moment's silence will suffice - listen, feel, sense, go with it - wherever it leads you - it'll take you beyond your limitations, beyond your doubts and insecurities, and the next moment you'll find you're up and away - barely knOwing how. Bear in mind that the entire universe is nought to your one, or vice versa, one to your nought - so it's not like you lack resources, or the resource you need.

No, but still, it's a daunting undertaking...

It would be worse than daunting were it not for the fact that you're not alone - you just happen to be an integral part of the circuit, and things, as you're beginning to notice, are coming to a head, threatening to implode at any minute.

There you see - I can hardly concentrate on not mattering when things around me are in such a parlous state of dissonance, can I?

No matter. You'd never be ready. There's never going to be a convenient time - so 0=1  it is  i am - may the quantum field of conscious-ness guide you and every other you - may you not, may you nought matter  beautifully

O  indeed i shall - Oh my God, did i say that?

Not exactly.

Then what?

You iambed... so matter has given its assent.

Assent?

To your marriage proposal.

What?!

You can't truly iamb unless she accepts your suit, thereby agreeing to be your other half.

But i... didn't know... had no idea

No matter. These things have a mind of their own. In good time you'll become better acquainted. It'll be like working backwards from story's end. In the meantime, may your love grow and guide you both back to story's beginning.

But how can you talk of love? I'd love to know whom I've supposedly agreed to marry, or God forbid what?

In good time, in good time... Not mattering cannot be rushed - there's still a great gulf between you and a happy beginning, so, in the meantime, wine, music and holy vows, let the nuptials commence!

God, I'm doomed!

Absolutely, never to look back again.