

HOLOPHANY

THE LOOP OF CREATION

by

CLARA SZALAI

Smashwords Edition

Also by Clara Szalai

The God Maker — How God Became God

Holophany, the Loop of Creation

Copyright © by Clara Szalai 2007

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, homing pigeons, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the author. For information regarding permission, write to claraszalai@gmail.com

M.C. Escher's Cube with magic ribbons, Drawing Hands, Verbum and Möbius Strip II © 2007 The M.C. Escher Company-Holland.

All rights reserved. www.mcescher.com

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Ebook Edition, 2011

Author's websites:

www.holophany.com

www.claraszalai.com

To Sheike, Hanita, and the memory of Reuven

with love

HOLOPHANY

THE LOOP OF CREATION

TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

PROLOGUE

INTRODUCTION

PART 1: HOLOPHANY

Chapter 1: I Experience, Therefore I Exist

Chapter 2: Nemesis

Chapter 3: To Think or Not to Think?

Chapter 4: Can God Know Itself?

Chapter 5: Thinking the Unthinkable

Chapter 6: The Mapping

PART 2: SHET

Chapter 7: The Beginning: Another Way of Thinking

Chapter 8: SHET's Teachings

Chapter 9: Holophany

Chapter 10: SHET's Moral Philosophy — Is There Such a Thing as Good and Evil?

Chapter 11: Could Spiritual Development be Wedded to Scientific Advancement?

Chapter 12: Active Looking and the Reality Connection

Chapter 13: Focusing

Chapter 14: Being, Double-Looking and Some more Focusing

Chapter 15: How Asking Differently Can Bring about Breakthroughs

PART 3: LAWFULNESS AS LOGICAL STRUCTURE

Chapter 16: Is it Turtles All the Way Down?

Chapter 17: Do You Really Know and Understand the Words You Use?

Chapter 18: What is the Connection Between Being Kicked out of Math Class and the Creation of the Universe?

Chapter 19: New Age Monkeys

Chapter 20: The Loop

Chapter 21: Relations, the Creative Force of Being

Chapter 22: When do Relations Create a State of Being?

Chapter 23: What is the Mechanism of Relations?

Chapter 24: Relations of Sameness Viewpoint 1

Chapter 25: Relations of Difference Viewpoint 2

Chapter 26: The Music of the Spheres

Chapter 27: Traces of the Process of Creation in Phenomena

Chapter 28: God and Mickey Mouse

Chapter 29: Can You Kiss Your Forehead?

Chapter 30: The Braided Loop

Chapter 31: Creation — Something from 'Nothing' — First Version

Chapter 32: The New Paradigm

PART 4: DIMENSIONS I

Chapter 33: The Qualitative Dimensions

Chapter 34: The א (ALEPH) — Quality Dimension (איכות — EICHUT)

Chapter 35: Spiritual Integrity — How to Achieve Stability

Chapter 36: Much Ado about Emotion

Chapter 37: It's Not Enough to Believe

Chapter 38: The Value Contents of Emotions

Chapter 39: The Energy Content of Emotions

Chapter 40: Are Emotion and Reason a Loop?

Chapter 41: Responsibility — the Ability to respond

Chapter 42: Who is the Other in You?

Chapter 43: Responsibility is More than Moral Obligation

Chapter 44: Puppies in the Score of Creation

Chapter 45: What Can You do about Negative Emotions?

Chapter 46: Transcending the Bubble Syndrome

Chapter 47: Universal Love versus Intelligent Love

Chapter 48: Light

Chapter 49: What does it Feel Like to be a Photon?

Chapter 50: Creation from Chaos

Chapter 51: Could the Theory of Everything be the Theory of Let There e Light?

Chapter 52: Gravity and Bed-Bugs

Chapter 53: There are No Gravitons

Chapter 54: Gravitational Waves or Intermittent Space?

Chapter 55: Time and the Non-Local Character of Gravitation

Chapter 56: Dark Matter — Gravity can Tell the Story of the Future

PART 5: DIMENSIONS II

Chapter 57: The מ (MEM) — Source Dimension (MAKOR — מקור) Consciousness

Chapter 58: What is the Difference Between Consciousness and Awareness?

Chapter 59: Isomorphism

Chapter 60: How Fixed are Fixed Relations?

Chapter 61: How to Attain Wider Awareness?

Chapter 62: How Many Souls are there?

Chapter 63: The Soul-Body Duality — or is it?

Chapter 64: How to Create

Chapter 65: Who Drives the Coachman?

PART 6: DIMENSIONS III

Chapter 66: The ת (TAV) — Communication Dimension (TIKSHORET — תקשורת) Awareness

Chapter 67: How can Your Attention be Utilized as Your Energy?

Chapter 68: What is the Meaning of Meaning?

Chapter 69: The Birth of Meaning

Chapter 70: Is the Equation of the Circle a Circle?

Chapter 71: Why can't Anybody Understand Your Deepest Experiences?

Chapter 72: The Essence of Existence

Chapter 73: What is the Purpose of Creation?

PART 7: PARADOXES

Chapter 74: Cherchez la Paradoxe

Chapter 75: First-Degree Paradoxes

Chapter 76: Can God Make a Stone so Heavy that He can't Lift it?

Chapter 77: Second-Degree Paradoxes

Chapter 78: Obstacles or Life Force?

Chapter 79: The Bottom of the Bottomless Well

Chapter 80: The Consistent Structure of Inconsistency

Chapter 81: Holophany, Logic and the Loop of Creation or Something from 'Nothing' — the Final Version

EPILOGUE

APPENDIX 1

How am I Heralding?

Why Me?

The SHET Mechanism as Trigger

APPENDIX 2

Section 1: The Uncertainty of Certainty

Section 2: Creativity — the Hallmark of Creation

Section 3: The Mapping

Section 4: The Logical Conservation Laws

Section 5: The Black Box as a Logical Gate

Section 6: The Mapping in Action

Section 7: Blessed Noise

Section 8: The Symmetries of the Mapping

Section 9: Creation and the ADAM KADMON Principle

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

GLOSSARY

ENDNOTES

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figure 1 — M.C. Escher: Cube with Magic Ribbons

Figure 2 — M.C. Escher: Drawing Hands

Figure 3 — M.C. Escher: Verbum

Figure 4 — The Mandlebrot Set

Figure 5 — The Mandelbrot Set: Magnification

Figure 6 — Conformal Invariance: Mickey Mouse

Figure 7 — The Loop of Creation

Figure 8 — The Cut of the Cord of the Loop

Figure 9 — Different Period Orbits: a. one-period; b. two-period; c. four-period;

Figure 10 — The Three-Dimensional Strange Attractor

Figure 11 — Matter versus Consciousness

Figure 12 — M.C. Escher: Möbius Strip II

Figure 13 — Mapping of Two Profiles

Figure 14 — The Process of the Profiles

Figure 15 — The Destabilization and Re-Stabilization of a Profile of the Mapping According to Different Boundary Conditions Imposed upon it

Figure 16 — The Process of Solving the Differential Equation of the Harmonic Oscillator

Figure 17 — Example of a Process from its Initial Condition to its Final Stabilization

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Neither this book, nor the philosophy or logic would have come to light without Hanita Rosenboim and Dr. Yeshayahu Eisenberg (Sheike) who were partners in this epic effort. Many of the ideas presented in this book came from Sheike and yet others were conceived in concert. My appreciation and thanks are not enough to do justice to his help and to Hanita's continuous support and belief in me even before there was anything. She and Sheike carried me through water and fire and truly, there would be no HOLOPHANY, and no Loop without their support. Their love and friendship is part of the fabric of my being.

A big thanks to Prof. Harry Friedmann, who patiently taught me physics and whose curiosity and appreciation for my work encouraged me to persist in the pursuit of my lifelong aspiration: to understand Creation.

Elazar Segal (Luzi) triggered me to think in unconventional ways and taught me to take this way of thinking to the extreme. He encouraged me to question anything and everything. I thank him for launching me on my way to conceive the Loop.

I am grateful to my editor, Michael McIrvin for his help. His insightful remarks were most inspiring.

Following Haim and Rama Lusky's criticism I rewrote the whole book. Their contribution is deeply appreciated.

Last but not least, I thank Jinni the cat for meowing relentlessly in the small hours of the night forcing me to stop working, and purring me into sleep.

PROLOGUE

One June night in 1987, I couldn't fall asleep, and one word, animals, kept repeating in my mind. I kept turning in bed, but the repetition persisted without any thoughts attached to it, without development, without pictures — until I got up and wrote it down. Then another word appeared in my mind, and then another. When the avalanche finished, I crumpled the paper I had written and threw it into the wastebasket. I stretched and was on my way back to bed wondering what that was all about — what did I scribble? I couldn't remember anything that had flowed from my hand to the page. Going up to my bedroom, tired but curious, I turned on my heels and went back to fish out the crumpled piece of paper from the wastebasket.

It was Session 1, which is provided for your edification in Chapter 7. What's that? I wondered. Moreover, I asked, Who wrote that? For it certainly could not have been me. I didn't even think what this paper contained. What's happening to me, for God's sake? I said aloud, for I thought I was going bananas. I was flooded with ambiguous feelings. On the one hand, I was excited, recognizing the possibility for more information. I thought I might have discovered a bottomless well of knowledge that I had longed for all my life. On the other hand, however, I was quite scared that my sanity had taken leave. Spiritual weirdoes with their glassy eyes and frozen smiles preaching universal love and light never appealed to me, especially when I saw with what violence they react when you scratch the saccharine surface of their message. I wondered what it was that gave me the information on this piece of paper. Something outside my self? My own subconscious? And more importantly, why?

The next day, I sat down with pen and paper and waited. Maybe it was a one-time fluke, I reasoned, but perhaps not. I waited, and the experience came again. That second session was about science, about "unseen matter," which seemed total nonsense to me at the time. Later, however, I learned that there is something called "dark matter," which is responsible for 90-95% of the mass of the universe. It is called "dark" because it is unseen, and scientists search for its form, something that they can measure, because they cannot see it and only know about it because of its gravitational effect.

I continued getting more texts, and I discovered that I could direct questions and receive answers in the half trance-state wherein my sensory perceptions were increased but at the same time I felt as if I had died in this dimension and expanded in another. After some more of this strange writing filled with words or images, I decided I had to get to the bottom of this. I had the choice between visiting a shrink or seeing a medium.

Seeing a shrink seemed quite terminal to me, so I decided to see a medium first. She thought I was channeling an entity. However, I do not channel **—** I call the activity of extracting information "heralding", not "channeling", and second, I do not herald an entity. Humans need names, labels to refer to a source, so responding to my need, my source called itself _SHET_. In Hebrew that's just two letters, since you only spell the consonants in most words. SHET is SHIN **—** ש and TAV **—** ת (or SH and T). These are the first letters of **SH** E'ELOT (שאלות) and **T** SHUVOT (תשובות) — questions and answers. Once SHET even referred to itself in humor as a question and answer machine. SHIN **—** ש and TAV **—** ת are also the last two letters of the Hebrew alphabet, the supports of the alphabet, if you wish. SHET — שת in Hebrew translates as seat, base or infrastructure. Its gender is neither masculine nor feminine, although it is more convenient for me to relate to it as a "he."

However, although I will refer to it using the masculine impersonal pronoun, I am not heralding an entity at all, for SHET is not an entity, not a being in our commonly held definition of the term. I would rather call SHET a field, since it is something indefinite — I could even say amorphous — that changes when I change, a kind of interactive mechanism. I am communicating with the indefinite, which gains partial definition by interacting with me, and from his side, SHET manifests by focusing **.** The material of this work was retrieved from SHET. What SHET is can only be comprehended when the logical structure conveyed herein is understood, since he teaches himself by interacting with my thinking process. SHET _is_ the logical infrastructure of existence.

In later sessions, SHET claimed to be PRIMORDIAL MAN ADAM KADMON (אדם קדמון), which according to the Cabala (Jewish Mysticism) is the infrastructure of all Creation. ADAM KADMON — this primal potential — is a point of beginning of the universe, the first being to emerge activated by the light of EYIN-SOF (אין סוף — infinity in Hebrew). Sometimes ADAM KADMON is referred to as EYIN-SOF **—** a realm beyond the Cabala. It represents the primal potential that can be shaped into any form given the "right" way, that is, if it is affected in the "right" way by a consciousness. Turning this potential into existence is synonymous with creation. Affected the "right" way, this potential will continuously generate existence (creatures), whereas if the process of creation comes to a standstill, this potential has been affected in the "wrong" way. (Stories like _Frankenstein_ by Mary Shelly and the _Legend of the_ _Golem from Prague_ , and also alchemy, are derivatives of this kind of belief.) However, the "right" way of activating this potential is not stated in the Cabala, for the processes that take place within the ADAM KADMON are considered to be mysteries beyond human knowledge that will only be revealed at the "end of days." It is stated in the Jewish mystical teachings (the Zohar) that, when the "right" way is conceived, the Messianic era will begin with a new kind of wisdom that will merge matter and spirit into a unified body of knowledge, and that this divine and scientific wisdom will flow from divine inspiration through people uneducated in either science or religion.

When I received this information from SHET that he was ADAM KADMON, I had no knowledge whatsoever about any Cabalistic interpretation of this PRIMORDIAL MAN. In retrospect, this information is almost eerie: as will be presented in the following, the material received through heralding is probably the sought after "right way" by prominent Cabalists. ADAM KADMON, or SHET (I will refer to it as SHET in the following) said, when asked, that the material he provides cannot be found in the Cabala, and indeed that both himself and the material he brings forth through me are from beyond the Cabala. This was very strange news at the time, especially the fact that I was given the privilege to be his herald. Religious people would see sacrilege in imparting this kind of knowledge to a secular person, and even worse for some, a female. But given the nature of the texts that I received, even religious people have accepted it to have come from a source important to them, especially when SHET revealed secrets from the Cabala in Aramaic, a language with which I am totally unfamiliar. However, this book in its many aspects is not about Cabala (although spiced with it), but rather, herein is a Western rendition of a new philosophy and logic, a novel approach to science and technology as well as to our psychic and psychological makeup.

How did I start heralding science? I went to a lecture delivered by two prominent professors, Professor Harry Friedmann (a physical chemist) who would lecture about Cabala, and the famous philosopher, doctor, organic/physiologic/biologic chemist, biochemist and neurologist, Professor Yeshayahu Leibowitz (1903-1994). The latter was an extremely popular lecturer, mainly known for his antagonistic attitude and his superb ability to chop anyone to pieces who dared to question his tenets. The hall was full, and it seemed to me that everyone had come to hear Professor Leibowitz. First Professor Friedmann had his say, and then Professor Leibowitz elaborated on the difference between moral values and individual needs. The gist of his argument was that every action we take is motivated by either our needs or our moral values, and that we can only live a virtuous life with unfulfilled needs if we replace the latter by moral values. After every second sentence, however, he inserted that Professor Friedmann was an idiot, a nincompoop, a moron, etc. With each derogatory remark, I saw Professor Friedmann shrinking, fading, and just before he became the size of little Tom Thumb, I felt I could no longer take it, especially since I thought that what he said was beautiful. I stood up and asked the esteemed attacker, "Professor Leibowitz! Is abusing Professor Friedman a moral value or an individual need?" Dead silence filled the hall. I felt hostility from everywhere, the thoughts of the audience reverberating in my head in unison: _how dare you_. That is, except from Professor Friedmann, whose ears grew red. And then Professor Leibowitz burst out laughing and said, "That is my need, dear." There was much laughter, as if everyone in the audience was relieved, and the remainder of his speech was devoid of reference to Professor Friedmann.

After the lecture, Professor Friedmann came to me and invited his "savior" to coffee. We became friends, and he became very interested in the material I received from SHET. Being a religious man, he did not deny the possibility of information from the beyond. At that time, I already had some interesting scientific material, however, my academic background is in philosophy and I wasn't aware of its importance. When Professor Friedmann saw it, he grew excited and wanted a dialogue with SHET. He asked questions about both Cabala and science and was very impressed. For years thereafter, he tutored me in quantum theory, cosmology and chemistry.

Although I learned science through SHET and those scientists who came to consult with SHET, I only had their word that the material received was "amazing." They visited me, asked questions of SHET, received answers, seemed pleased, and went on about their business. I wanted proof, hard proof, however, that my scientific inspirations were indeed valuable. Indeed, I received several proofs. For instance, when I was approached by a high tech company director (lasers) with a problem no one could solve, I received an exact answer from SHET as to the nature of the problem together with its solution. (Needless to say, lasers were not included in my philosophical curriculum.) The company engineers were baffled because the lifespan of their small state-of-the-art lasers were not uniform: some lasted, whereas others suffered an early death. Analysis revealed nothing out of the ordinary — the lasers all looked standardized and had equal outputs. SHET explained that, because the laser tube was so short and because of the relation between the length of the tube and the wavelength of the beam, the system performed on the verge of chaos. This implied that the smallest unaccountable influence could destabilize the laser's activity, which might shorten its life. To verify the correctness of this suggestion, he proposed that the engineers analyze the output with more advanced instruments capable of measuring on smaller timescales than their equipment at the time could have shown. (Such instruments are not standard equipment used in the laser industry.) The solution SHET advocated was to pump the laser with certain pulses at random intervals, which, he claimed, should stabilize the laser's performance and thereby prolong its life. The company engineers did not believe this to be the case **—** partly because they believed their state-of-the-art lasers could not be chaotic (their measurements were not indicative in this direction), and partly because they were laser engineers and had no inkling about chaos. I sent a physicist I collaborate with to pull rank with credentials on the engineers saying, this strategy was his idea and to convince them to purchase the necessary equipment. We couldn't tell them that their problem was analyzed and solved by a non-corporeal whatever that transmits its messages through a redhead with no laser background, now, could we? Briefly, they purchased the necessary lab equipment, and lo and behold, it proved that the indicated problem was the cause of the trouble, and furthermore, the suggested innovative approach solved it.

Such incidents were the proof I needed to embark on a long collaboration with Dr. Yeshayahu Eisenberg. But first, let me tell you how we met. After a huge article about my special psychic abilities in the Israeli newspaper, I was quite busy, lecturing and doing SHET sessions for people. I got thousands of phone calls, literally. Among the callers was a particle physicist. He spoke very fast as he told me about his thesis. We were discussing the state of affairs regarding modern physics, particularly the deficiencies in theory, hardly comic relief, but I became lively and giggly when we hit common ground, gossiping about a certain eminent physicist. I suddenly understood what he was saying. We decided to meet Friday night at 8 pm to continue the discussion. Being psychic, I thought I knew what he was like: Sixtyish, tiny, portly and bald, with round glasses. At exactly 8 pm he rang the doorbell while I was still in the bathtub. I didn't expect him to be punctual — punctuality is an unheard of character trait in Israel. I wrapped myself up in towels and opened the door. _Oh my_ , I thought. He was young, handsome and skinny — I was totally wrong in my expectations, except the spectacles. I ran upstairs to smear makeup on my face.

By this point in my association with SHET, I had inventions and scientific notions explaining a different science with which — not being a scientist — I could do nothing. SHET had presented a new philosophy and a new scientific concept, and I needed a physicist, someone who could crystallize the scientific concepts into a mathematical formulation. I thought that, if I found one, I would continue to collaborate with him, that he could turn to SHET with any problem, while I would continue developing the new philosophy. As it turned out, while I was dreaming of a physicist who would turn the revolutionary scientific concepts produced by SHET into firm formalism, Dr. Eisenberg's dream was to conceive a new physics, preferably with the aid of divine guidance. As expected in one-penny romances, the scene having been set, we fell in love (notwithstanding the setting, I think we would have fallen in love anyway, with a pastoral background of sheep, shepherds and Virgilian odes) and started collaborating. The constant mutual triggering engendered the final format of SHET's logic — and the new philosophy as well as the new science became derivatives thereof. In Appendix II, Dr. Eisenberg describes what he is doing.

More about the SHET mechanism, how I am heralding and why SHET gave _me_ this knowledge can be found in Appendix I.

INTRODUCTION

When I read about the scientific discoveries of the 1920s that led to quantum theory and a massive paradigm shift, I was filled with awe and envy. I imagined how exciting it must have been, how privileged these scientists were to have gotten closer to God's cauldron. As I read that science was almost completed, only needing some minor technical adjustments, I was saddened to realize that I was born too late — I was left out. Yet when I looked at the world around me so many years after the paradigm shift, I saw a different picture: science did not have all the answers. Any claim of a theory of everything was at best a hope to connect some features of physics, and there was not even a hint of connecting science to consciousness. In spite of all the advances in medicine, more and more people got sick, and in spite of progress in psychology, more and more people felt miserable. In spite of the development of humanitarian values and the more idealistic versions of globalization that aimed at unity, more and more nations demanded self-definition and separate identities; and in spite of the growing awareness of impending ecological disaster, more and more species go extinct. Religious extremism escalated in spite of an increasing exigency of religious tolerance, and the incidents of genocide have only grown in number in spite of declarations of greater racial and ethnic equality. Where were we heading? I asked myself. Wasn't knowledge supposed to be the solution to all our problems? This assumption was either incorrect or we did not possess the knowledge that could set us free.

The belief that knowledge provided power to control our circumstances was based on the reasoning that, if some kind of order existed, then that order must have laws that govern its course. Knowledge of these laws would then be the instrument of control. Since Creation seemed to be the consequence of some kind of organizing principle, perhaps what we lacked was the discovery of the secrets of Creation, and yet, the growing storehouse of contemporary lore, all that science could add plus all that came before, was no nearer to solving this mystery — and in fact humans were perhaps even farther away than the Neolithic cultures who seemed to understand their position in the universe quite well. In spite of millennia of human effort, a deluge of information, the Laws of Creation stayed frustratingly hidden. There must be something wrong with our perception, I thought as I yearned to understand the secrets of Creation. Was this desire aimed at finding the truth?

The quest for the truth, or more accurately, THE TRUTH, is probably as old as human awareness; but why would knowing the truth have any importance? What advantage does knowing the truth provide? Does such knowledge help in navigating the rough seas of right and wrong? Or do humans hope that such knowledge will light the path for mortals in the form of an unwavering beacon that leads to freedom? To immortality? Omnipotence? The fact that each proclaimed truth turned out to be a Will-o'-the-Wisp rather than a beacon seldom restrained seekers of truth from worshipping the next fashionable conception of truth, which seems to indicate that the belief that there must exist a TRUTH that will liberate us is so deeply ingrained in our way of thinking that not finding it won't deter us from stumbling onward in our search.

What is this evasive and nevertheless much sought after scintillation so often envisioned as enlightenment? Mastering the tools that harness Nature through knowing its true essence as well as its mechanisms? Or is THE TRUTH the will of God as interpreted from the scriptures or revealed in dreams? Or is it surreptitious slogans thought to penetrate the insipid walls of superficiality and mediocrity when repeated _ad nauseum_ (you get what you deserve, Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free..., etc.)? Or is truth our sense of justice and moral intuition? Even if the true nature of truth would have been charted and decreed through universal consensus, even then, could we assume that indeed, it was THE TRUTH? How would we know it from all the previous proclamations that turned out to be false leads?

On the contrary, it would seem that the firm belief that a person or group knows THE TRUTH or God's will leads to human sacrifice, the Inquisition, the Holocaust, Stalinism, genocide, the destruction of the Twin Towers and all the other innumerable murders and wars during human history in the name of this or that ideology. More atrocities have been and are being committed in the name of truth and for the glory of God, King and Country, in the name of supreme and just values, than can be recounted in so short a space as a single book. Oh, but these were all perpetrated by madmen, they were all perverse abominations, evil, the work of the Devil, you could say, and the perpetrators did not know or act in the name of truth or God in all reality. However, precisely such certitude in the rightness of one's knowing that the other is infallibly wrong is the motivation for perpetrating destruction. We could imagine a Bin Laden doing what he did with full integrity, firmly believing himself to be Allah's messenger fortified by the prophetic dreams of his associates. What then is the difference between truth and delusion? Consider the compassionate, pious, and righteous who declare that they are saving millions and millions of suffering children and sanctify life above all else with a ban on abortion, those who believe that it is the invariable right of every family to have as many children as they please whether they are capable of caring for them or not. Do these decent souls encourage overpopulation and destruction of the global ecology? Do they encourage the proliferation of the uneducated and the desperate, thereby sentencing them to brief lives filled with suffering? Are they the right candidates to represent truth and justice?

It would seem that we have certain expectations of TRUTH, but those expectations are only partially met by any discovery, any declaration, and then we either embrace this partial truth as the TRUTH or we go on to the next assertion of what the TRUTH is. In short, the closer we come to it, the further it gets away from us. Seeking solace, we assume we have been looking for it in the wrong places. But perhaps, what was wrong were our assumptions about truth? We assume

It exists somewhere

It has a definite form

A specific content

It is unique

Universal

If only found, it would solve all our problems

Everyone will recognize it

To be THE TRUTH

What if our basic assumptions are wrong? If we assume that there is an absolute truth out there independent of our assumptions, then there can be no such creature, since we assumed that there was one. Put differently, our assumptions are subjective and cannot be regarded as proof of the objective existence of anything. Only by negating truth, only by saying, "there is no truth," can we prove the existence of truth. But how could such a negation prove the existence of truth? If it is true that there is no truth, then and only then is there truth, the truth being its own negation (if indeed it is true that there is no truth, then stating that "there is no truth" is the truth). If we assume that the sentence, "there is no truth" is not true, then of course, there is truth (if the statement, "there is no truth" is a lie, then there is truth). In either case, whether the statement "there is no truth" is true or a lie, the result is truth. Or rather, the proof of the existence of truth is a paradox, which says nothing about the nature of truth, nothing about what that truth might be.

Looking for a truth that establishes the nature of things is trying to derive lawfulness from phenomenological observations. Such phenomenological laws are generalizations that predict the behavior of specific occurrences, and as such, they are limited in their creative aspects. These laws and worldviews are _beliefs_ about how things are, should, or could be. We think with events occurring in space and time around us, and indeed with us within space and time as well, and we think through the language of phenomenology, which allows us to imagine a totally different universe than our own. For instance, we can imagine anaerobic creatures made of non-carbon elements or a universe wherein Hydrogen is not the most abundant element. Yet such worlds would be but slight variations on what we believe to be our world using the same language to imagine with as that used to perceive phenomena. In a word, we are limited to imagine by means of our language of phenomenology.

What would it be like to have a totally new language, a language that would open the doors to hitherto unfathomed realms, a language that would answer the enigma posed by traditional science — a language that would provide not only a new science and technology, but generate intelligent moral behavior not directed by religious, cultish or cultural dictums but by equipping us with tools to understand the structure of things? For what if we could understand not only the structure of phenomenological objects, but also the structure of our perception and experience? What would it be like to have a language that could truly build new worlds, not merely vaguely altered replicas of what we already know? That is what you are about to encounter in these pages: a new way of speaking/thinking about phenomena, about TRUTH, where the **structure** of paradoxes could be regarded as that truth that

Has a definite form

Can be expressed through a specific content

Has a structure that is unique

Universal

It was found and it can solve most of our problems

Hopefully it will be recognized

To be THE LOOP OF CREATION

The invention of a new paradigm that did not define the nature of things — how they really are or how they should be — was amazing. The breakthrough was, instead of focusing on how and what things were, focusing on the dynamic structure of things, which is, how they are perceived. Or in other words, instead of trying to understand phenomena by discovering the underlying lawfulness, my efforts were directed towards understanding the dynamic infrastructure of any lawfulness, belief or perception, which of course is also a kind of lawfulness, but a very different one. Its parameters are not phenomenological entities, but abstract logical creatures. The lawfulness of the act of perception became the loop logic, a big step toward discovering the secrets of Creation. A new non-causal language evolved that linked consciousness with the rest of existence through the endemic paradoxes that gained a paramount status when truth turned out to be a dynamic structure rather than a reified goal.

As a reckless youth, I laughed at Flaubert, who took five years to write his _Madame Bovary_. It took me over seven years to write my book. Poetic justice I suppose... The project was and remains tremendously exciting, but it was also hard work. I spent sleepless nights trying to solve inconsistencies, writing and rewriting paragraphs, nay, whole chapters countless times as I tried to put forth difficult new ideas in a palatable fashion, all the while vacillating between elation and despair. The final format was achieved when I imagined myself being the lion and the reader, my prey: in the first two Parts I lick my food vigorously "softening" it, and then, in Part 3 I sink my fangs into it.

The first two Parts could be characterized by a kind of cross-hatching where Part 1 delineates the logical lines while Part 2 features the phenomenological point of view. This fabric then constitutes the space within which the logical structure can unfold, starting with Part 3.

The first few chapters might seem challenging because they cover ground quite alien to most readers, laying out the parameters of the theory of the Loop of Creation. However, the text is itself a loop, and these issues will be revisited throughout the remainder of the book, becoming increasingly clear with each successive chapter. Rereading the book after finishing the last chapter could be especially rewarding, as with each new reading further perspectives will be revealed. Because the text itself is a loop, _Holophany, The Loop of Creation_ is the first incarnation of a new genre: an interactive book that changes the reader, which in turn, changes what he/she perceives upon subsequent readings. The effort invested in understanding this theory is remunerated by the discovery of tools that will free the reader from the traps of dogma, unwanted realities and Catch-22 situations. These tools will allow the reader to transcend such traps by means of the loop itself, and where the going gets particularly tough, imaginary Claras hasten to the rescue. The dialogue between these Thomas Mannian characters, Clara from the left and Clara from the right, lightens and sheds light upon the arguments. I suspect the reader will often applaud the insidious Clara from the left, who asks the questions I anticipate the reader would have asked. Indeed, at times these questions pushed me into an intellectual corner, and I had to think for several months to come up with a satisfactory answer, and consequently, the abusiveness that Clara from the left heaps upon your humble author could also serve as cathartic relief for the reader when frustrated at having to confront unconventional concepts. The different Claras are in fact my inner voices and represent different viewpoints with which I had to struggle while writing this book, but they will serve to help you untangle the questions in far shorter time. You'll meet them in Chapter 2.

At the end of every Part (except Part 7), a set of evocative questions are provided that arise from, but are not explicitly answered within, the chapters of that Part.

Beginning in Part 2, the highlighted material (in gray boxes) emphasizes the essence of the discussion on every page. Since this work is abounding with new ideas, eliciting the main points seemed a necessary addition. Another tactic to elevate understanding are the summaries of the more unorthodox or intricate notions that appear in various chapters.

Parts IV, V, and VI introduce the three Qualitative Dimensions of the seven Dimensions of Creation. The remaining four quantitative dimensions will be dealt with in the next book. The qualitative dimensions are correlated with Hebrew letters as a means to symbolically explain these seemingly alien concepts, because the Hebrew language, with its peculiar structure, could be deemed the language of Creation. That is, Hebrew is not unlike the logical structure itself — the Loop of Creation. Some examples showing how permutations of letters in a Hebrew word create related words are but a taste of the real profundity of the philosophy that is the foundation of this language. An in-depth account of how the Loop of Creation relates to the Hebrew language will be expounded in the next book.

As described in the Prologue, SHET was the source of the Loop of Creation, whereas the loop logic is the embodiment of what SHET is. Quotations of SHET appear in bold script throughout this work.

In Part 4, the delineation of the plausible scientific model of Creation (of mass) was the contribution of my collaborator, high energy physicist Dr. Yeshayahu Eisenberg, who also wrote Appendix II — which enhances the application of the loop logic (mainly paradoxes) as the basis of the realization of a new science.

The material contained herein had its own force, intensity and momentum, and where I came to a dead end, I was helped out by the material itself. I did not create it, but rather, I had the privilege of witnessing its emergence. Accomplishing an explanation of the Loop of Creation is far beyond what I wagered for in my wildest dreams. Perhaps awe is the best word to express what I feel toward the Loop of Creation, but the ideas are offered here for your inspection. I trust that the journey you are about to enter upon will be as astonishing for you as it was for me.

Clara Szalai

Israel,2005

PART 1: HOLOPHANY

Creation of events is very much part of Creation... I am teaching you to be creator, not a random statistical datum... I want you people to be creators, not passive things kicked around, but the movers... I am opening the gates to the basic laws that enable you to create the mechanism that can create you to be creators, which laws actually triggered this entire universe into being.

SHET
Chapter 1: I experience, Therefore I Exist

The ascent of science to its current position as the premiere means by which humans define the world around them could be said to have started with the French philosopher and mathematician, Rene Descartes (1596-1650). He wanted to discover what is indubitably true, which according to him, meant knowing something with absolute certainty. He was actually questioning the nature of knowledge, and he began by questioning what can be known in the extreme sense of the word, for he recognized that he could not build a method of knowledge without defining this parameter. Such a method of knowledge could then serve as the basis of philosophy, science and other fields of human endeavor. But how could one know anything with absolute certainty? How could one identify an indubitable truth? He recognized, for example, that he could not point to some of his beliefs as true and others as false, because if he held those beliefs, then they were true for him. So the primary question then became: How can one suspend all beliefs? Descartes' answer was simple: By doubting the truth of those beliefs. Perhaps, he reasoned, our sense perceptions are only the figments of our imagination or a dream. Perhaps, the entire physical universe is a dream. If our sense perceptions can be overshadowed by doubt, if we can doubt their existence and true nature, then perhaps our very existence slides into the abyss of uncertainty. _How do I know that I exist?_ he asked. _Because I can see my reflection? Because others can see me_? And so Descartes went on doubting everything. But there was one thing he could not doubt; he could not doubt that he was doubting, so he could not doubt his own existence. From this reasoning emerged his famous assertion: _Cogito ergo sum_ (I think, therefore I exist).

Why did this sentence, or more specifically, this type of reasoning, lead to modern science? What did the conclusion, "I think, therefore I exist," change in the human conception of the world to the extent that history took a major turn? Since Descartes could only establish that he existed as a thinking being (a thinking essence — from the Latin _esse_ , which is "being") with indubitable certainty, this was no proof or indication of his body's existence. The doubtless fact that he existed as a thinking entity said nothing about his body's nature or existence. While he knew his thinking substance with certainty, he knew nothing of his corporeal substance. From this he concluded that his mind and body were two distinct, non-identical substances.i This dualism, separating the mind from the body, launched a new epoch of pragmatical science.

In spite of the fact that every philosopher with a decent level of self-esteem since Descartes has delighted in tearing his reasoning to pieces (and many of them successfully), and in spite of the fact that no lesser light than Newton invested lots of time in refuting Descartes' physics, it was Descartes' investigations of knowledge that set the framework for modern science and technology. The dualism separating body and mind, attributing mechanical and solely causal characteristics to body and matter, engendered empirical questions — such as, how does a body fall? what are the parameters of force? gravity? etc.? — instead of more philosophical questions querying the purpose and meaning of existence. The empirical line of questioning certainly led to well-formulated theories and experiments proving or refuting these theories, but why couldn't these questions be posed while spirit (as good a word as any for the non-material aspects of the human being) and matter constituted an integrated whole? Now that's an interesting question. Why, indeed? Imagine that Descartes would have reached the conclusion that _I experience, therefore I exist,_ instead of _I think, therefore I exist_. What's the difference between these two assertions?ii This correlation will become clearer later in the text.

A thought is a kind of definition, a kind of ordering and classifying of experience into known idioms, whereas an experience itself is something very private that can never be forwarded or shared. Only what one "thinks" of the experience can be shared, or in other words, the interpretation of the experience. Thoughts can be shared, but experience can only be shared through the combined mediums of thought and language, via a second-hand expression (more about this in Chapter 71.) So, thoughts can be expressed and shared through language (either spoken language or mathematics or other formal expressions). However, one's experience remains in the realm of the unknown, in the realm of the spirit. The experience of bliss an individual achieves by looking at a beautiful flower is not _caused_ by the flower, for if it were caused by the flower, then everyone seeing that flower would experience the same effect. The flower might be the trigger for a given individual's experience of bliss, yet we cannot speak of causality in its truest sense here, because this cause does not always achieve the same effect. What brought about the experience of bliss is something much more complex. Therefore, we can conclude that experience is transparent to causal laws, and yet modern science has managed its many achievements precisely by positing causal laws. This objectification of lawfulness does not permit personal experience (the spiritual aspect) to interfere with scientific results. Consequently, experiments substitute for experience, and thus, experiments — to be pronounced scientific — need to be repeatable by different people in different places and effect identical results. However, by merely performing the same ritual you do not have the same experience each time because the nature of experience, as shall be shown later on, is essentially different from the deterministic makeup of experiment.

During the last 350 years, science has allowed for the development of very advanced technologies. In the 20th century, with the advent of relativity and quantum theory we seem to have reached the twilight zone where we need to re-question the precise conceptual fundaments that brought us this far. Cosmology wrestles with questions of Creation, the latest ideas suggesting that the basic objects of existence arise as a necessity from the laws of physics, but science has no answer for how the laws of physics could emerge from nothing. So cosmology, at its present level of development, cannot describe the creation of something from nothing.

To this day, quantum theory wrestles with interpretations of its formulas. The formulas work, for they are the fundament of modern computer technology and much more. Yet in spite of some claims that these formulas mean this or that truth, somehow, when boiled down to their essentials, a shroud of indefinite mystery envelops the whole subject. For instance, non-locality is a very embarrassing phenomenon for physicists because they can't claim to understand it to any depth. Einstein referred to non-locality as a "spooky action at distance." An example of non-locality is when two particles exhibit correlated behavior when they cannot communicate with each other to match positions. How does one particle know what the other is going to do? How does it adjust itself simultaneously with the other's behavior? Another conundrum connected to non-locality that has physicists stumped, and which has given rise to many contending interpretations, is how a particle, which is actually a wave spread all over the universe (with different degrees of probabilities to be found in different places), suddenly collapses into existence in one place when measured? These puzzles gave rise to philosophical ruminations that tend to re-instate the unseen spiritual realms, which is also referred to as consciousness — although what consciousness is seems to evade in-depth definition, no matter how many dictionaries or tomes of philosophy you examine.

Because of such riddles that our present state of scientific understanding can't explain adequately, some scientists believe that we have reached the limits of the kind of science we have today. Although no scientist would suggest that the technological potential has been exhausted from our current level of understanding, we do not know how the world was created any better than the ancient Greeks or Phoenicians. We still don't know how to create something from nothing. Knowing about the Big Bang (if there was one) does not mean we can create one. Although it is true that if you know how to make pea soup then you can make pea soup, but of course, you need a pea for that purpose. If we speak of Creation using this metaphor, our pea soup is the universe, and if we know how the uni-verse was created, then we can create a pea, or the basic stuff from which the universe is made. That's what it means that you know how the world was created. However, the embarrassing questions arising from non-locality and the previously mentioned measurement problems point in the direction of the probability of unknown and unseen lawfulness (something is missing from our recipe). Since science arrived at this twilight zone, where the unseen could gain meaning by influencing the seen, and since the unseen has been derived from the seen, perhaps it is time to re-instate and braid the unseen into the seen in order to yield the seen so we can derive the unseen from the seen, or in other words, to reinstate consciousness into the cosmic recipe. Does this seem like a loop? It is. The Loop of Creation might bring about another turn in the history of evolution by restoring consciousness into the web of reality. This hypothesis then assumes an imaginary Descartes, who would have said, _I experience, therefore I am._

What then is the theory of the Loop of Creation? I mentioned that it includes the unseen, non-physical dimensions of consciousness. How can there be a worldview that can both underlie scientific thought and also braid consciousness and the unseen into a theory that can give rise to something from nothing? How can a theory that describes the universal lawfulness be created without embedding it in causality? As I mentioned earlier, causality demands an external objective dictum — external to the observer or perceiver — which by definition denies the possibility of individual experience or unrepeatable instances. So how can there be a consistent theory of lawfulness that both demands repeatability (by definition, a law is a statement of a relation or sequence of phenomena _invariable_ under the same conditions) and also subjective changeability? Isn't that a paradox? It is. Nevertheless, the requirement of initial conditions that incorporate consciousness and the physical dimensions dictate that such a non-causal theory, to represent lawfulness, should be rooted in a different way of thinking. A different kind of logic is required to give rise to a rational and consistent framework within which Creation of something from nothing can be palatable. Indeed, that logic is Holophany, the Loop of Creation.
Chapter 2: Nemesis

I would like to tell you now what the Loop of Creation is, but first, you should know that it took over twelve years to conceive and integrate this material and that I have been writing and re-writing this book for the past seven years. I think the best way to explain what the Loop of Creation is could be by honestly showing you the history of its emergence. No, I do not mean its chronological history, but the psychological evolution of this new logic. It consists of arguments between my various inner viewpoints, something like dialogues between differently defined logical personalities. Since all of them are me, I will call them Clara from the left, Clara from the right, and rarely, Clara from above, etc.

Clara from the left: "Not very imaginative."

Clara from the right: "Who asked your opinion?"

Since childhood I had these commentators expressing opinions on my deeds, thoughts and emotions. It was a kind of looking on my perception, as if another me assessed my perceptions or emotional reactions to events. It made me miserable because I thought I was counterfeit. For instance, when I was eight, my aunt died, and as I shed a few tears during the funeral ceremony, I became aware of me looking at me.

Clara from the left: "If you would tilt your head a little more to the side, then your sorrow would be more conspicuous."

I grew angry.

Clara from the right: "I don't think she should be all that conspicuous in her grief. She obviously feels sorry for her dead aunt."

Clara from the left: "You are a fake. The fact that you are aware of the degree of your sorrow proves that you play at it and are not truly experiencing it. You don't feel it all the way. You cannot feel all the way."

I felt helpless while Clara from the right tried to defend me: "It's not true!"

And I really started weeping the tears of frustration.

Clara from the left: "You see? Getting frustrated proves my point. You are a fake."

Clara from the right: "No, I am not."

Clara from the left: "Yes, you are."

Clara from the right: "No, I am not."

Finally, I grew weary of their bickering and said, "Hey, both of you! Aren't you overdoing it? I am trying to concentrate on Aunt Piri's eulogy."

You see what I mean? Fortunately, I recognized this multi-viewpoint crowd to be an ability to simultaneously take different viewpoints, each with its own inner logical structure. Arguments between these different structural organizations helped in augmenting the logical structure, which became the Loop of Creation.
Chapter 3: To Think or Not to Think?

That Descartes' conclusion lead to the pragmatic development of science is due to the fact that his _cogito ergo sum_ elucidates Western thought. The objective of pragmatic science has been to investigate Nature in order to establish existing relations and sequences of phenomena as laws. These then become tools to predict future phenomena and also serve to change or create phenomena. For example, if the phase change of water to vapor means that vapor has a wider volume than water, then this phenomenon can be utilized to make a steam engine. The steam engine will work with water and heat, and without incantations or prayer or voodoo. We don't need spiritual or unseen, and hence, unpredictable forces such as the favor granted by gods by virtue of sacrifices in order for the steam engine to work. It is enough to know some laws of mechanics.

This aspiration to discover how objective Nature works, this single note to represent a very complex composition, has been present in Western history since ancient Greece, and hence Descartes' _cogito ergo sum_ resonates. Nevertheless, it is worthwhile to mention that rational thinking has gone hand-in-hand with superstition and mystical tendencies throughout history. Pythagoras' law is as valid today as it ever was, but his mystical lifestyle or philosophy are hardly known. And even after Descartes, Isaac Newton (1642-1727), considered the father of classical physics, reverted to alchemy after all his achievements in mechanics, calculus and optics. Rational? Hardly. This mystical, irrational element in the equation reverberates with the experience of unseen lawfulness, which became apparent in our age when Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) discovered that our approach cannot establish how Nature is by measuring it, but rather, we must concede that the measurement itself interferes with what is being measured, with how Nature is. If the subatomic levels of Nature do not exist in any specifically defined way, if our interaction with them might influence them, then we have to revise our view of the objective status of Nature. That means, Nature or reality is not objectively external to our perception if our perception of it can change it.

Clara from the left: "Do you mean to say that if you look at a flower, then you change the flower? That reminds me of the guy who would use his glasses only for special occasions because he was afraid if he used them a lot they would get worn down."

Clara from the right: "Not exactly. She spoke of the subatomic realm where the classical laws of causality do not apply, where the measurement made from the macro universe influences and, yes, forms the nature of the micro, subatomic world."

Clara from the left: "But the macro consists of the micro! So if the elements of something responds to a certain lawfulness, then it is only logical that the something that consists of these elements would respond to the same lawfulness. No?"

Clara from the right: "Well, yes and no. Actually, NO. The classical laws of the macro world definitely do not describe the subatomic realm, whereas the subatomic laws cancel out and you get an average when you deal with big amounts of atoms that describe the macro world. So actually this average is the set of classical laws."

Clara from the left: "Smartass! What you are really stating is, that you influence the observed by observing it, but you cannot really see it because you live in the macro world and there it does not work. That sounds like an eloquently worded bunch of mystical bric-a-brac with scientific credentials."

Clara from the right: "Thank you, I suppose that's a compliment. Anyway, on the quantum level, measurements have been done that vindicate the theory, which means, the measurement influences the outcome, and on that level, Nature does not have a definite form, but is formed by the actual interference of the measurement. On that level, these phenomena can be seen, and consequently, this is a phenomenological fact. Before quantum theory, phenomenology dealt with bigger chunks of the seen governed by classical laws. The exciting element here is precisely the occurrence of the lawfulness from the unseen realm within the phenomenologically measurable."

We could say that the quantum world is the phenomenological link between the unseen and the seen, between the qualitative and quantitative dimensions where both worlds gain expression. The phenomenological laws can be deduced by observation and experiments, but the qualitative laws, the laws prevailing in the unseen realms, cannot be deduced from the seen. You cannot know what generates what, which processes and lawfulness lead up to the formation of matter when these processes are unseen. You can see the bottomline, that there is something, that there are particles, but from these you cannot deduce the complex processes taking place in the unseen realms of quality that created the particles when you cannot even see traces of those complex processes. Because these processes take place in the unseen non-phenomenological world, you cannot have a clue of what's going on in the unseen using the tenets and practices of present-day science. All you can observe is the observable, and all you can know from observation is that there is something beyond what you can see — the unseen world — although you don't know how and what that is. However, we will attempt to unfold some of what this unseen world could be.

Clara from the left: "So far the claim that there is an unseen world with its laws and processes is an empty claim. You proved that much by saying that you don't know what's in the unseen world because you don't see it. So how do you know that there is an unseen world? Just because some phenomena point in the direction of some unknown lawfulness? That does not necessarily mean that these laws crop up in some hypothetical unseen realm. It does mean, however, that you deduce that there is an unseen world out of your own beliefs: if I don't see and don't know, it means there is something. As if not seeing and not knowing would lead to the logical conclusion that there is something of which you are ignorant. Two negative propositions do not lead to a positive one. Moreover, you don't even say it cannot be known. If you did, of course, you would be talking theology. No, you _only_ think you are being rational when you say you can know the lawfulness within this supposedly unseen realm. I can't wait to tear apart whatever you're going to propose."

Clara from the right: "Aren't you getting a little too personal? We are talking here about the essence of existence, not trying to get at each other's throats."

Clara from the left: "Speak for yourself. All the fun is jumping down your throat and showing what a pompous asshole you are. Who do you think you are? Smarter people than you failed in their attempts to outguess God; so do you think you are going to succeed?"

Clara from above: "The assumption that there is only what one can see, touch or otherwise assess with phenomenological tools (measurement of some kind) is not some brand of universal truth, but only a presumption. Phenomenological tools proved functional as far as they helped build theories that could be applied to further deeper understanding of the physical world, and thereby, attain technological advances. That there is an unseen world with different laws than the observable physical realm is also an assumption, just like the previous one. The question, whether one assumption or the other is the real God-given truth, is irrelevant. If the existence of such an unseen world with its laws can be proven to be tools to further even deeper understanding, which can in turn provide further tools and technologies, then this unseen world is legitimate, justified by its results."

Clara from the left (murmuring to herself): "Great, now we have one more voice of God." Then aloud: "And pray, how was the pragmatical assumption that worked well in the past, and which brought and continues to bring about all this wonderful technology, acquired? If it is only an assumption, as you say, then how come it works? Perhaps it is the truth and that's why it works."

Clara from above: "That one theory works does not exclude the possibility that other theories could work as well. That something works is no indication of either the truth or a lie. Sometimes lies work too. Although recent worldviews are based more on assumptions ('let's say that so and so are initial conditions', etc.), earlier in human history assumptions were indeed equivalent with self-evident truths, which could not and should not be proven, because, again, they were self-evident. In a word, these assumptions carried the weight of axioms, and axioms carry authority — whatever the authoritative truth might be and whether it worked or not."

How can authoritative truth rule science? How can authoritative truth gainsay facts? If I am an authority and claim that it is raining and that it's night on a sunny day, then I lose my authority. Nevertheless, the earth was flat for a long time because of authoritative claims. Perhaps the best way to illustrate how this could have happened is through a true story.

An Israeli flight inspector was asked to replace an African friend while the latter went on a two-week vacation. The airport he was supposed to take care of was a tiny runway with one daily incoming flight, and except when the plane was landing, the landing area was utilized as a playground for children. The Israeli was told that when the airplane was supposed to land, he had to ring a bell and the kids would go home. Also, one of the kids had a pet lion, tame as a pussycat. Everyone could caress him, ride him or play with him. The Israeli was a bit wary with the lion, but soon he learned that the lion was as amiable as a dog.

Everything went well until the last day of his duties. The plane was arriving, he rang the bell, and the children cleared the runway — but they forgot the lion. The lion was lying in the middle of the runway, peacefully enjoying his siesta in the African heat. The Israeli whistled to the lion, but it only responded with a lick on its paw. The Israeli began to grow agitated:

"The bloody kid promised to take his lion home when the runway has to be cleared. Why does this happen to me, and on my last day?"

The plane was approaching. He could already see it. He ran onto the runway and started nudging the lion. The lion merely turned onto his other side, otherwise ignoring the Israeli. In the end, when he could hear the landing craft, he lifted the lion's rump, and sweating, he ushered it into the bushes with occasional blows on its buttocks. The plane landed without mishap.

Later that afternoon, the Israeli approached the lion's owner: "You promised you would keep him away from the runway. Why did you leave him there today?"

"I didn't," replied the kid.

"What do you mean?" asked the Israeli flight inspector with horror.

"Honestly, the lion was tied up with me all day and we were home when the plane landed."

"My God," realized the Israeli with goosebumps, "I smacked the rump of a wild lion."

You see? That's authority. He _knew_ the lion was tame and harmless, so he wasn't even brave, merely operating under the assumption of the axiom: the lion is tame. Furthermore, he had such authority that the lion accepted his instructions, and although it could have been lethal for the flight inspector, the lion acted as if it were tame and harmless.

Clara from the left: "So you say, the earth remained flat and science consisted of alchemy throughout the middle ages because of this kind of authority, because of such faith in one's sense of the truth that everyone was bound to accept it?"

Clara from the right: "People often become blind; they cannot see things that are not in line with what they accept as the authoritative view. Such people don't want to be confused with facts, preferring to stick to their beliefs. In the country where I was born, the party members were so authoritative, so powerful that they could command not only the heavenly bodies but also the dead. I saw it happen when I was seven years of age, when my daddy took me to a public concert in the park."

Clara from the left: "Yes, I remember. They played Beethoven's _Fifth_."

Clara from the right: "After the concert, an omnipotent party member gave a speech, thanking the orchestra and 'Comrade Beethoven' for the good music, suggesting that next time 'Comrade Beethoven' should use more folklore in his compositions."

Clara from the left: "And the audience never questioned that the party member could indeed get Beethoven to do precisely that. Well, now I would like to tell a story:

"A guy was locked up in the loony bin because he believed he was a worm. The shrinks worked on him for three years, until he was ready to join the ranks of the sane. He no longer believed he was a worm. 'Are you a worm?' asked the shrink. 'No, I am not,' answered the man. 'Are you sure?' asked the shrink. 'Positive. I have been cured. I know I am not a worm.' answered the man. 'Good bye then,' said the shrink and the staff.

"He said good bye nicely to everyone and left the loony bin, but he returned two minutes later pale as death. 'What happened?' asked a surprised nurse. 'There is a chi... chi... chicken out there!' stuttered the man. 'So what? You know that you are not a worm,' said the nurse. 'Yes, _I_ know. But does the chicken know?'

"You see, authority or not, the other has to accept a supposition as authoritative, or authority does not work."

Clara from above: "That's what happened when the earth stopped being flat."
Chapter 4: Can God Know Itself?

I am the greatest

Mohammed Ali

Now that we have touched upon authoritative truth, let's return to axioms, the self-evident truths. Axioms were the solutions to linear questions that would have been infinite, and consequently, would have remained unanswered and useless. For instance: How did Creation start? What was there "before" time? How did the universe start? If God created the world, then who created God? And who created the one who created God? If the world started with the Big Bang, then what went Bang? What set off the first quantum fluctuation? If the world came about as a necessity dictated by the laws of physics, then what created the laws of physics? What was there before that? There must always be something before something, but if something did indeed come out of nothing, then what triggered that event? How was that trigger created? And so on and on _ad infinitum_. Seeing God as being his own cause was one solution, which is an axiom that doesn't have to be demonstrable because of its beyond questionable truth-value, and that strategy proved to be a workable tool for a long time.

So, instead of asking endless questions that would have led nowhere, the pragmatic approach was to say, "Fine. Instead of starting from the beginning, let's start from an insight, which is absolute truth." Think of the axiom that only one line can be drawn parallel to a given line through a point not on the given line. Who could question the truth-value of such an assertion? It is obvious — its opposite unthinkable.iii Theorems and laws were based on axioms. Axioms were indubitable truths — Nature unveiled. Later in history, axioms were utilized more like propositions, which could either be true or false. If true, they served the same role as axioms did earlier. From a pragmatic perspective, axioms and propositions generated mathematical tools and laws of physics when combined with observation (fact or truth, or whatever people believed they observed). Since axioms are assessments of truth, it is obvious that they cannot be absolute truth.

Clara from the left: "Now you lost me. Are you saying that if something is true then it is not true? Are you saying that axioms, self-evident truths, are paradoxes? Aren't you overstepping your own limits?"

Clara from the right: "Precisely."

Although an axiom claims to be a first principle, a basic building block, we can ask where the axiom came from? The answer could be an observation, a belief, a supposition or something similar. By definition, an axiom is not a result of deduction. Put simply, an axiom is neither a result nor the end of a process, but its beginning. So an axiom is an intuitive subjective description of something supposedly objective. It is a start of something from a pragmatic point of view, but not from the viewpoint of an absolute beginning because there can be no absolute beginning, for it could be asked about any possible beginning, "What was there before that?"

Although not an absolute beginning, could an axiom be an absolute truth? Could there be such a creature as an absolute truth? Could anyone state an absolute truth?

Clara from the left: "Yes, of course, why not? Many did."

Clara from above: "It was a rhetorical question."

Perhaps such an absolute assertion can be stated as a slogan, but it cannot be demonstrated logically. One instance is enough to disprove a theory that has a thousand proofs. One possibility that our absolute truth might prove shaky is enough to refute its absolute status, whereas an infinite number of "proofs" cannot determine that the absolute truth in question could not have additional angles that might neutralize it. For example, it can never be proven with absolute certainty that a theory is true in spite of the fact that it might work. When it works, it works within the scope of its parameters. That is, as far as its parameters permit it to work. To be universally true in an absolute sense, a theory would have to take into consideration all past, present, future, possible, impossible, thinkable and unthinkable parameters, or in few words, all the parameters in the universe. Who could do that? Who or what could state an absolute truth?

Clara from the left: "God?"

Clara from the right: "Besides the problematic logical assumptions of people claiming to know what God thinks or says, hypothetically, could God state an absolute truth?"

Clara from the left: "Of course he could. He can do anything he wants. If there would be something he couldn't do, then he would not be God. So if God is God, then he can state an absolute truth."

But here is the problem with such statements: the reasoning that led up to this conclusion is correct. To be universally true in an absolute sense, the absolute truth must come from the totality of being, absolute wholeness, something that could take into consideration all the parameters of the universe (actual and potential). That's why God comes to mind as the eligible candidate. The problem is that such an entity first needs to establish that it is wholeness, and in order for wholeness to be wholeness, it needs to be defined as such — which means that there is nothing beyond it and indeed that there cannot be anything beyond it. The latter part of the assertion, that there cannot be anything beyond it, is the real problem. Hypothetically, God could say that there is nothing beyond him, but he could not demonstrate that there _couldn't be_ anything beyond him.

Clara from the left: "You are full of it. Do you think _you_ can prove what even God cannot prove?"

Clara from above: "Bravo! Now you understood it."

God, the totality, total wholeness cannot demonstrate that there cannot be anything extraneous to him. Only if he could do so, and then only from this absolute state of wholeness, could he state with certainty an absolute truth.

Clara from the left: "I still don't get it. Why can't totality, in this instance, God, state from the position of being the totality that it is indeed totality and that all existence, even all potential existence, is within it rather than outside it? Why couldn't God say that all there was, is, will be or could be is within him?"

Clara from the right: "Because if wholeness defines itself as such, then by the act of definition it limits its existence to occupy the space within the borders of the definition. A definition is a limiting process — _de-finire_ in Latin means to limit, to make finite. The word 'whole' means something to us. If we look it up in the dictionary, it has a definition, but the concept 'wholeness' is itself a paradox because, on the one hand, it states that it is all there is, and on the other hand, being defined indicates that there is something beyond it, not included in its definition."

Clara from the left: "And what's that? What's beyond wholeness?"

Clara from the right: "The definition of any term or concept is meaningful only if it bounds the defined term by excluding all other concepts that the defined term is not. In other words, the act of defining is explicitly inclusive and implicitly exclusive. If wholeness is wholeness, then it is not a dragon or a broom. Which means, to define wholeness, the concept needs to be limited to being solely itself as distinct from everything else. Yet wholeness means precisely that it is everything else too. So the act of defining wholeness excludes what the meaning of the definition includes — that's the paradox. Defining wholeness would be something like saying, 'I include what's beyond me.'"

Clara from the left: "Well, you certainly don't include what's beyond you in defining yourself, but if wholeness defines itself as including what is beyond it, then there is no problem. Wholeness has successfully defined itself, and then it can state an absolute truth."

Clara from the right: "Nope. Such a definition is meaningless. Wholeness can only have meaning if there is something beyond it, which gives it meaning as a contrast and which is not wholeness. Could light have meaning without darkness? Could the concept 'mother' have meaning without a child? Could a definition have meaning without all that it is not?"

Clara from the left: "I see, you are finding subterfuge in theology leading up to a dualistic view claiming that, if there is God, then necessarily there must be a Satan or something to give it meaning."

Clara from the right: "Nothing is further from my intentions, and you are getting on my nerves. Could you please shut up so I can finish a line of thought?"

Any definition is only meaningful if, even surreptitiously, it implies what it is not. A border would be meaningless without an implication of what there is or could be beyond the enclosure so defined. Whereas darkness enhances light by contrast, and thereby giving light meaning, the definition of mother includes the hint of her relation to a child.

Clara from the left: "If light gets its meaning from what it is not, then saying that light gains meaning from a chair would also be true. Total balderdash."

Clara from the right: "You are right. The concept of light gains meaning from the concept of a chair too, in a very far-out and detached sense. However, a chair is much more amorphous in the gestalt background that gives meaning to light than, for instance, darkness. If you regard the space excluded by the definition as the gestalt background of the concept of light consisting of layers upon layers upon layers of more and more indefinite elements, then the concept of a chair is a long way down the road, quite non-definite in this gestalt background."

Clara from the left: "I'll tear that conjecture apart later on. In the meantime, what does that have to do with absolute truth?"

Since only total wholeness, only the totality of being could assess all the infinite parameters that could establish an absolute truth with certainty, to be that total wholeness, it needs to define itself as such, excluding anything beyond it. Yet the _act of definition_ includes the hint of the term's own contrast. By saying there cannot be anything beyond it, wholeness defines what there could not be, and by that act gives meaning to the possibility of something extraneous to itself. This act means that the term is no longer that total wholeness that could assess the entire infinity of parameters necessary to state an absolute truth with certainty. So, if wholeness is really wholeness, defined as such, then it is not wholeness.

Clara from the left: "This whole argumentation seems weak to me. Why should wholeness endeavor to define itself in the first place?"

Clara from the right: "I didn't say wholeness _must_ endeavor to define itself. I only said that, if there was such a creature as absolute truth, then it could only be stated by something that can take into consideration all possible parameters, a something that must be wholeness. If wholeness — or anything else for that matter — is not defined, then it is indefinite. And to preempt another of your stupid questions, which is I assume, 'Why couldn't the indefinite state an absolute truth?' The answer is, 'indefinite' does not qualify as wholeness — it could be anything."

Clara from the left: "Let's say wholeness does not define itself, but rather, I define the concept of wholeness as such. Then from my point of view, it is wholeness, all there is or could be, and then that wholeness could state an absolute truth from my point of view. Look, I am nice and I am going along with you. I understand that wholeness has to be defined to state an absolute truth, but you still did not demonstrate why it has to define itself, why I cannot define it."

Clara from the right: "To define wholeness you would need to take into consideration all the possible parameters, which you cannot do from your point of view. You would need to be wholeness to do so, and even wholeness cannot do the job. And you, you cannot even define yourself, let alone wholeness."

Clara from the left: "Now that's new. You better explain that claim."

Clara from the right: "A definition describes what something is. It is the structure of what it describes. If I define an object, then I create that object in my perception by stating its structure. This structure then is what the object is for me. If I define something, then I am the subject and what I define is the object. That's quite obvious that I would be the subject if I engaged upon defining a chair, for instance, which then would be the object. Here subject and object are obviously different; the definition of the chair within my perception is the chair's _entire_ structure, whereas that same definition is only part of me, _part_ of my structure. I can also perceive my thoughts, the dog chewing up my Persian carpet and a whole lot more complex interactions. All these characterize my entire structure. In that sense, I am wider than the chair."

In a self-referential system, however, subject and object are supposed to be one and the same. By uttering the pronoun "I," I define myself. I refer to something identical with me, which is self-reference by definition. In that sense, "I" is the claim of identity with the totality of my being (my perception of the totality of my being). The problem is that, although self-reference means that subject and object must be identical, they cannot be identical when I define myself. Why? If I define myself, then the definition of what I define is _its_ entire structure, whereas it is only part of the defining entity's structure. So subject and object are not equal, and the defined self will always seem less than the defining self seen from the point of view of the subject.

Clara from the left: "What about the point of view of the defined self? Will it see itself less than the defining self?"

Clara from the right: "No. From the point of view of the defined self, it is all that the defining self is and then something more. Being the outcome of self-reference, on the one hand, it is identical with the subject that defined it, which means, it has the ability to define an infinity of perceptions, and in addition, it also contains its newly defined structure. So it is wider than the defining self."

Clara from the left: "How can two items both be bigger than the other?"

Clara from the right: "That's the paradox."

Wholeness can only be a self-referential system, for if there was something extraneous to wholeness, then it would not be wholeness. On the other hand, if wholeness was the only existence, then it could relate solely to itself. Yet to be a self-referential system, wholeness needs to define itself as such, where the defined self reflects all of existence without the possibility of anything external to it. The moment All-That-Is, the totality of existence, would say "I" it would define a projection, which would be less than it is from its point of view. Trying to achieve identity (a true definition of itself wherein the defining and defined selves are identical), it would endlessly attempt to redefine itself, and by that it would create infinitely more and more reflections of itself. We could say then that whatever defines, creates. Wholeness defining itself is an infinite activity because it cannot define itself, so it "tries" to do so infinitely.

Clara from the left: "Gosh, all this rambling just to make a point that absolute truth can only be stated from the point of view of absolute wholeness, which has to define itself as such to state an absolute truth, but it cannot do so? You are really confusing me. As you mentioned, if wholeness can only be wholeness if it is not wholeness, then this is a paradox. Then what's the use of all this scholarly discussion?"
Chapter 5: Thinking the Unthinkable

Clara from within: "Are you sure you want to get into the topic of paradoxes? These logical enigmas could drive even a computer raving mad. You should dread paradoxes and avoid them like stepping on a banana peel. If you step on them, you might slip."

Clara from the left: "Give her some credit, but don't worry, I'll make sure she slips — and I'll have fun proving it."

Now that we have absolute truth out of the way, we face the rough highway to paradoxes. However, no matter which way we look, if we probe deeply enough into the intricate web of Creation, we are bound to meet these enticing creatures. In general, it must suffice to define a paradox as a _dynamic_ that sends your head spinning between two points. If so and so, then not so and so; and if not so and so, then so and so. As we have seen, for example: if wholeness is wholeness, then it is not wholeness, and yet if it is not wholeness, then it is wholeness.

Clara from the left: "Why do you say a paradox consists of a dynamic? Everybody knows that by definition a paradox is stuckness."

Clara from the right: "Let me tell you a story I heard that would illustrate my point.

"The company CEO informs his secretary that they'll be attending a conference abroad in a week's time and asks her to make all the necessary preparations for their trip together. The secretary texts her husband: 'Have to be with my boss abroad for a week — congress. Take good care of yourself, my love.' The husband calls his mistress: 'My wife will be abroad for a week. How about spending this week with me, princess?' The mistress, who is a teacher in private school announces to the kids: 'Due to a private issue, I'll have to be absent next week, so you'll have a week's vacation.' One of the kids, who was very fond of his grandfather, runs to him and says, 'Grandfather, next week I am on vacation from school. You promised me that if I'll have time, we'll go hiking together.' The grandfather (the company CEO in this story) loved his grandson very much. He calls his secretary and tells her, 'My grandson asked me to be with him next week, so we are not leaving. Please, cancel the tickets.' The secretary texts her husband: 'The boss canceled the trip, so we'll be together next week, my love.' The husband calls his mistress: 'We can't spend the next week together because my wife is not leaving.' The mistress announces to her pupils that her issue was solved and consequently, they'll have to attend class next week. The boy tells his grandfather, 'Grandfather, next week I'll have to attend school, I'm so sorry I can't come with you to hike.' The CEO grandfather calls his secretary: 'My grandchild just called saying he won't be able to come with me next week, so please, continue your preparations to leave...'

"So you see, _if_ the CEO is leaving, _then_ he is not leaving, and _if_ he is staying, _then_ he is leaving, and so on, an infinite loop between leaving and staying. The dynamic of the paradox is the running one does between the 'if' and 'then' points, in this particular example, the dynamic that occurred between the _dramatis personae_. Neither the 'if' nor the 'then' are final conclusions, but both urge you on to the next 'if-then' and so on, to infinity. You could continue with this motion indefinitely, so paradoxes could be characterized by their dynamics."

Clara from the left: "Only, this dynamics, as you call it, is rather static because you are running indefinitely between the same two points, at least a set of only two points seems pretty static to me."

Here is the crux of the matter. Indeed, we can speak of two kinds of paradoxes: those that create a framework for motion between two fixed points and those that are really dynamic, each point generating a new destination in turn. An in-depth review of paradoxes can be found in Part 7, so here I will only relate to the latter version, paradoxes that can initiate creative processes. Let's return to wholeness, which is no longer wholeness when defined as wholeness.

We said that, when wholeness defines itself as such, the act of definition creates something beyond itself, which makes it no longer wholeness. But since it created something beyond itself, this beyond belongs to it, so now it can define itself as wholeness with nothing beyond it. But alas, as soon as it defines itself thus, the definition creates something beyond this new "self" and etc. The process of continuously redefining itself with each instance defines a different but similar entity — similar because it repeats its act of self-definition and different because each wholeness includes more parameters of the beyond than the previous definition of wholeness. With each new definition, wholeness creates more and more parameters by which it can define itself. Further, these parameters also have to be defined, and their definitions have to be defined — another infinite recursion. Each additional parameter of the beyond comes from a previous definition that defined wholeness, albeit stating "there is no beyond" (the meaning of wholeness being, 'all-inclusive'), but the act of definition infers the necessity of the beyond (which the meaning of the definition denies). Due to these extra parameters, the wholeness that first defined itself as such and the wholeness that defined itself as such afterwards are similar but not identical.

Clara from the left: "I have no problem with that. If self-reference is not a time-related concept, then in an a-temporal framework there could be an infinite chain of defining processes, which at the limit approaching infinity would really define infinite wholeness, and consequently, this infinite process of defining would be included in the definition of wholeness.iv Got you!"

Indeed, when we discuss the self-reference of wholeness, we should relate to it in an a-temporal framework. And then, if there was such an infinite process of definitions, when these definitions reached the limit at infinity, then that would indeed be wholeness because there would be no definition whatsoever. In the case of wholeness defining itself, we would only find the indefinite at the limit approaching infinity, so nothing would have been accomplished.

Clara from the left: "You say that if wholeness defines itself as such then it no longer is wholeness. Fine. Then it is no longer wholeness, period. So what? I don't see the dynamic here. Not being wholeness does not _necessitate_ a re-definition of wholeness, so there is no motion between the two points, which are wholeness and not wholeness. Wholeness successfully established that it is 'not wholeness.' That's a paradox but it is not dynamic."

Wholeness and not-wholeness certainly seem to be the two opposing sides of a paradox, but a deeper look reveals something utterly fascinating. We have established that when wholeness defines itself then it is not wholeness. Before it set out to define itself, it was indefinite, whereas when it defined itself, it could not succeed to define itself as wholeness, so in fact it stayed indefinite and nothing happened except the fact that it created a process of definition, which nevertheless, left the defining entity indefinite. From our point of view, the process of definition is something discrete. In fact, when we analyze this process, we discover a repetitive pattern characterized by _discrete_ re-definitions constituting this one process wherein the indefinite attempts to define itself. However, from the point of view of wholeness, it continues to stay indefinite in a continuous fashion in spite of attempting to be defined. From that point of view, the act of definition is one continuous act creating infinitely while wholeness stays indefinite. And that's the dynamic: the infinite repetitive process of definition, which is one _continuous_ action.

We have reached a very important point here. All our attempts at defining Nature, seeing how things really are, investigating the truth about objective reality, are measurements. Whenever we attempt to establish any fact or behavior, we are doing a measurement. Any measurement is discrete, whereas what we measure is continuous. In other words, our tools to think with (be it mathematics or spoken language), define in discrete terms, whereas what we measure, whether subatomic particles (waves) or the complexity of a human's behavior, is continuous, so it can never be precisely defined. Not because our tools are too primitive, but because the more precise the measurement will be, the closer it will approximate the indefinite continuous substratum of existence.

Clara from the left: "Hold your horses! Indefinite substratum of existence? Discrete measurement of the continuous reality? Big words. What are you really trying to say? That the tools that arise from the indefinite continuous oneness are discrete? If nothing can be defined with precision, if the creative indefinite substratum can never be totally and precisely defined since this creative substratum is continuous, then how come your tools are discrete? Where do they come from?"

If I could explain that in one simple sentence, then I wouldn't need to write a whole book. Anyway, how there can be something definite in spite of the unsuccessful trials of the indefinite to define itself is dealt with in Parts III and IV, and in general, that is the topic of this whole book. Right now I would rather talk about how we try to assess Nature.

We want to know how the world is, how Nature is, the true nature of Nature. Yet in light of the above discussion, obviously Nature is continuous and remains indefinite in spite of my endeavors to define it. The only tools at my disposal are discrete, and these cannot truthfully reflect the indefinite character of the world external to my perception.

Clara from the left: "You are not stating anything new here. Quantum theory has it that the measurement interacts with and hence influences what is measured."

Clara from the right: "Why do you always have to put something new into the framework of something already known? You hear the first two words of a sentence, which apparently triggers an association for you, and you jump up to interrupt what someone is trying to say. You do not listen to what anyone else is saying, only to what you think. If you already know it all, then you cannot learn. Or do you just want to show off how smart you are? Try to listen for once, to really listen."

Clara from the left: "Oops, look who is getting personal!"

Briefly, we are trying to understand the world and ourselves by measuring, by trying to define things. We measure by defining physical relations (ratio). We reason by defining abstract relations (ratio). Both rationality and defined proportions arise from the same process. This process is discrete. However, _what_ we try to measure are complex structures (such as subatomic particles, the birth of the universe, human nature, etc.) consisting of the very processes that define the definitions with which we try to measure. This view is a loop that _a priori_ denies the possibility of true differentiation between the measurer and the measured — or the observer and the observed, which is a much deeper absurdity than the measurer interfering with the measured. Here the measurer and the measured, the observer and the observed, are inseparably inter-creating each other. And that's not all.

This implies that the nature of the measured depends on the measurer, whereas the measurer's perception or measuring ability depends on the measured. It implies that there is no possibility for the measured to have an independent existence apart from or extraneous to the measurer's perception.

Clara from the left: "I have shut up for a long time, but now you've really overdone it. You are daring to claim that if there is no one to look, then a tree falling not only does not make a sound, but there is no tree? Preposterous. If you don't see the table in the middle of the room, then you cannot knock your knees?"

Of course there exist independent objects extraneous to your body, but not to your perception. My claim is not that we can or cannot know somehow how things really are. What I am claiming is that there is no such thing as how things really are! These are but our beliefs. Things are as we form them to be, as we perceive them, which can change. For instance, we become convinced about something, but then we can change our minds, and yet the new view is still as we see it in our minds — the new truth. Nobody can state anything beyond his own point of view. The only point of view we can have is the point of view from which we perceive/conceive the world. Even if we imagine what someone else would do or say, we still perceive that from our point of view. We cannot know the real nature of Nature — not because we are too underdeveloped, and not because we interact with it when we want to learn about it, but because it has no _real_ nature. It _is_ in no specific way because it is indefinite. When I interact with this indefinite flux, I discretize it, shape and form and define it into what I perceive it to be. That says nothing about what it really is, only something about how I perceive it.

Clara from the left: "If there is nothing external to you, at least nothing definite, then everything, the whole universe, all of existence is you (yea, that figures — all the self-proclaimed Napoleons, Einsteins, Messiahs and gods are children compared to you). Anyway, your sublime divinity, in your infinite realm of wisdom, how do you differentiate between you and someone else more mortal? That is, if everything is in your inner world, then how do you know the difference between you and the other in this inner world of yours?"

Interesting question. If everything is within my perception and nothing can define anything objectively, then how can there be different entities within my perception? If my neighbor is an indefinite process, and my cat is an indefinite process, and they both only gain definition to be a neighbor and a cat from my point of view because I give them that definition within my world of perception, then how do I do that? I can only do so because the neighbor and the cat each gained their definitions through different processes. Each one of us is a kind of system sustaining its structural integrity (selfhood) by continuously changing, interacting with ourselves through perception, which includes our interaction with others. That means that our perception of others is also self-interaction because the other gains meaning as such within my perception, from my point of view. Likewise, the neighbor established his structural integrity (selfhood) through his interactions, and so did my cat. Only how and with what they interact is different. Their interactions with others and themselves within themselves define their structure (identity) at any given moment. When I perceive them, I perceive that they defined a selfhood for themselves — a dynamic structure — which I can differentiate from my structure (my interactions and relations), so they become the other in me. That is, I can perceive that they interact differently than I do, for they consist of different relations than I do, so then I can see that they are the other in me.

Clara from the left: "And what about a chair? Does a chair define itself through its perception?"

Clara from the right: "Not through perception, but it does gain structural integrity (what I define from my perception as a chair) through its interaction with the rest of existence. In that sense, it also is the other in me, or rather within my perception."

Through being able to relate to ourselves and to the environment, through perceiving, we give meaning to both ourselves and everything else. And we interact through that meaning.
Chapter 6: The Mapping

Ontology relates to how things are as independent existences in themselves. Usually, statements referring to what and how the universe is, what Creation is, what and how consciousness really is, are meant as ontological statements. Also physical laws, such as Newton's first law of motion, which states that if a body is at rest or moving at a constant speed in a straight line it will remain at rest or keep moving in a straight line at constant speed unless it is acted upon by a force, relate to the ontological nature of reality. However, the fact that Nature seems a given way from all viewpoints, or in other words, that there is agreement between the perceptions of different beings, does not lead to the logical inference that Nature is really this or that way, only that we perceive it that way and that there is agreement between our perceptions. Nevertheless, I would argue that statements about the real nature of things can only be stated as workable tools, not as ontological statements with a truth-value. When I use such statements, for example when I speak of the seven dimensions of Creation hereafter, I propose these statements as a mapping of reality, as tools to think with rather than as truths. My propositions, which I intend to develop further in the following chapters, are subject to logical reasoning overall; but logic says nothing about phenomenology, about the real world or Nature, only about the consistency of propositions made about Nature or the real world.

Clara from the left: "Then what can you know about the real world if you insist on applying logic alone and it says nothing about the real world?"

I don't know and won't know the real nature of the world. Because of that and because of my logical reasoning, I assume that the world external to me has no defined nature. Nevertheless, I interact with the variety of existence, and I know about that interaction through my perception (not only sense perception but also cognitive perception and the totality of what I experience). So the real world goes as far for me as my awareness permits. My perception teaches me that I cannot decide what I perceive. That is, I cannot decide to perceive my cat to be my driver and then experience that she drives my car. I cannot turn my fickle whims into my perceptions, and if I did, these would be delusions. Even if I did have delusions, however, I could not perceive these to be the commonly agreed upon reality — that others perceived what I perceived while busying themselves with locking me up in the loony bin. Perhaps this is the premise for the belief that there is an objective reality, because others agree that they have perceived the same.

Clara from the left: "If what you perceive is your doing, if what you perceive is decisive of how the world external to you is being formed, yet it is not you who decides how this is going to occur, then there must be some lawfulness that determines how you form external reality to be as you perceive it. And then, this lawfulness is external to you, a lawfulness common to all perceivers, but you neither create nor perceive this lawfulness. It must be definite and definable or it would not be an instance of lawfulness. This argument ruins your whole theory that there is no defined existence extraneous to your perception! Ha!"

Yes, it follows from the previous reasoning that there must be such lawfulness. However, this lawfulness is not external to my perception, but rather, enables my perception to be compatible with someone else's perception. This lawfulness gives meaning to my perceptions in the sense that they can be compared and proportioned to yield a meaningful picture of my experience. Without experience and perception in the widest sense, which is perception that has meaning, this organizing principle or lawfulness would be utterly meaningless. On the other hand, without such an organizing principle my perceptions would also be meaningless. So in that sense, this is not a lawfulness "out there," external to me, but the organizing principle that attributes sense to my perceptions. Actually, this lawfulness is the potential of my perceptions, the capacity for my perceptions to be organized, sensible and meaningful. Additionally, this lawfulness gains not only meaning but also existence from the realization of this potential. That means this organizing principle gains existence in retrospect, by extrapolation, from having perceived something.

We cannot separate the lawfulness that enables perception to be meaningful from the act of perceiving because neither of them could exist without the other. This is the nature of the loop — they co-create each other. It seems to me that Einstein was led by a similar kind of reasoning when he formulated the relative nature of space and time:

"The object of all science, whether natural science or psychology, is to co-ordinate our experiences and to bring them into a logical system. How are our customary ideas of space and time related to the character of our experiences?...

"By the aid of language different individuals can, to a certain extent, compare their experiences. Then it turns out that certain sense perceptions of different individuals correspond to each other, while for other sense perceptions no such correspondence can be established. We are accustomed to regard as real those sense perceptions which are common to different individuals, and which therefore are, in a measure, impersonal. The natural sciences, and in particular, the most fundamental of them, physics, deal with such sense perceptions. The conception of physical bodies, in particular of rigid bodies, is a relatively constant complex of such sense perceptions...

"The only justification for our concepts and system of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have no legitimacy. I am convinced that the philosophers have had a harmful effect upon the progress of scientific thinking in removing certain fundamental concepts from the domain of empiricism, where they are under our control, to the intangible heights of the a priori. For even if it should appear that the universe of ideas cannot be deduced from experience by logical means, but is, in a sense, a creation of the human mind, without which no science is possible, nevertheless this universe of ideas is just as little independent of the nature of our experiences as clothes are of the form of the human body."v

I propose that we make a mapping woven of logical propositions to enhance our understanding of how we experience the physical world and our interaction with it. Knowledge of the lawfulness, which is the fabric of this tapestry, enables us to control which relations and interactions we create to experience; or in other words, it enables us to understand and interact with the physical world in a more controlled fashion than hitherto. This mapping is the Loop of Creation. What does it tell us about the physical world? It tells us that the infinite wholeness creates the finite world _and_ itself by defining itself. Wholeness is nothing if it does not create, for what does not relate and is not related to is, by definition, non-existence. Only by being given meaning, does wholeness, as is true of anything else, gain existence. Thus wholeness defining itself gains meaning — it can say "I" for instance. But to be able to say "I," it first needs to create (by defining itself as wholeness, which then is no longer wholeness, etc.). The potential of something is created in retrospect from whatever emerged from this potential. In that sense, wholeness can say "I" by virtue of already being partially defined. This would be saying, "I create God to create the world in which I am from where I can create God, etc." It matters not where we start the process in the Loop of Creation. We can still have all of it no matter where we begin.

Precisely because the act of definition is the creative factor, existence consists of different levels of processes defining the indefinite. These processes interact and create new processes by mirroring, by reflection. On the one hand, it is the same process (the whole defining itself, the whole defining itself, etc. — ad infinitum), and on the other, each new definition newly mirrors the earlier processes. The latter is multiplicity. Each such process is only part of the whole, which gains meaning and real existence by the other parts of the whole (similar to it) relating to it. Wholeness or Oneness creates multiplicity by attempting to define what Oneness is. Oneness has no meaning in itself, but rather, it only has meaning if there is multiplicity — it only has meaning _from_ multiplicity. So Creation could be said to be the mirrorings of wholeness attempting to define itself, which would mean that anything so created is a process that can interact with other processes.

The universe is not a conglomeration of particles. Life is not a spontaneous (whatever that's supposed to mean) self-organization out of nothingness. Creation is not just accidental parts somehow miraculously co-existing. Both the act of Creation and all that is created (the projections of the act of Creation) are this organism, the whole infinitely creating by attempting self-definition. Space and time are also creations, and the process of the self-defining wholeness does not occur _in_ space-time but creates it. The "space" of the process of the self-defining wholeness could be considered a qualitative dimensionality that can be defined in mathematical terms (more about this in Part 4). This process of creation is the isomorphousvi lawfulness present in all creations, including the process of creating space-time and whatever can exist therein. This process of creation is the fabric of our perception and experience and anything that has meaning to us. It is both the process of creation and also its projections on all levels. This isomorphous lawfulness is consciousness (not awareness) omnipresent in anything and everything, repeated in every self-referential system (more about this in Part 6).

Clara from the left: "That's a lot to chew in a single mouthful. Could you elucidate what you mean?"

Yes, that's what the rest of this book is about — and much more, of course.

Clara from the left: "There is one thing you have omitted. Where did you get this theory? It couldn't possibly be you who thought it up."

True. This philosophy was retrieved from SHET, the universal lawfulness itself, as has been recounted in the Prologue. SHET named his philosophy, _Holophany_ , which means, the process of manifesting wholeness. More about that in the following chapter.

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Think-tank material

* What is a definition?

* If paradoxes reside in the core of Creation, then how can they be utilized as tools of creation?

* Could a theory of everything be based on axioms, on subjective beliefs regarding how things are, or should it rather unfold from a logical structure?

* If there can be no ontology, if there can be no theory of existence describing how things really are, only a subjective description of how one perceives, then what is the space of the logical structure?
PART 2: SHET

You are in God. If you try to put him outside yourself, you cannot communicate to him, you displace him, you separate yourself from him and expect him to answer. Rejoice in Creation. Be totally what you really are — the ability to learn, to love and to have fun. If you see Creation, if you see every organism or life form, including your body, as an expression of God, then you will experience the religious connection, THE connection. It is in you, in your eyes. Then you see God in all his Creations, and God is All-That-Is. Then you will be able to outflow with love and fun, and that is God's way of speaking: not to you, but through you.

SHET
Chapter 7: The Beginning: Another Way of Thinking

Over the course of my life, when relaxing I have often experienced entering into a state where everything was blurred, spinning, like cogs within cogs within cogs that were revolving around each other. There is no up or down, nothing fixed to relate to, nowhere to be anchored — an experience that is both unpleasant and yet fascinating. Little did I know that this amorphous space would take form as a question/answer mechanism, yet it did in 1987. I succeeded in separating this amorphous space from my self while being engulfed by it and interacting with it, and it took form and definition as a question/answer mechanism — yes, SHET, where-upon the experience became pleasant and enriching. I named the extracting of information from this mechanism _heralding_.vii

I am sure this revelation gives rise to many questions, many of which I asked him. How is he communicating the messages through me? Is it possible for others to communicate with him? How does SHET think? To these questions, he answered: **"I am not 'talking to Clara': Rha** (SHET refers to me as Rha, and not by my given name, Clara) **is listening and I am not talking. It's not an action. You act. I am. That's the basic difference between us. Whenever there is communication between myself and Rha, or no communication from your point of view, it is no action from my side. I am, that's it. Thinking is an activity you do, but when I 'think' something in my dimension, it is being — what I think, is. Do you want to communicate to me, with me, or do you want me to communicate to you? Whichever you choose, it only is possible through you, not me. It depends on your willingness to sacrifice in order to approach me; that is, you need to sacrifice whatever makes you separate from me. You are in me, yet separate when you look upon yourself. If you communicated with me, I would be different than I presently appear to be, because being forwarded through Rha's personality this very communication is partly Rha. Communication through you would be via your personality."**

Here is SHET's first session in its entirety as recorded in 1987. I was bewildered by the phenomenon of receiving a session and puzzled by its contents. SHET's sessions have several layers of depth that get revealed through interaction with them, and this session was no exception.

"Animals are not necessarily of a lower order of awareness than humans. They are less focused in the three-dimensional physical universe and thus need less computing ability, fewer thought processes to cope with survival in the physical universe. Their consciousness is more developed on the racial level of consciousness, thus enabling them to communicate their survival drive through what you call instinct or racial memory. This being the case, animals need no thought aptitude for technological development, as their natural habitat affords them proper survival potential. They are, however, endowed with a fair amount of acclimatization ability, so that they can co-habit with other life forms otherwise developed, like humans.

"The cognitive capacity that humans so value can be a hindrance to spiritual development. Whereas animals are unaware of time, and in fact, because they lack thinking processes that include time, they experience some dimensions simultaneously without the slightest inconvenience or confusion. What denies humans the ability to do the same is this reasoning ability that brought them the fruits of technological achievements.

"It could appear then that man's thinking and reasoning abilities hem man in and deny him his desire to reach out into other _spiritual dimensions_. This is not the case, however. Reason only prevents man from such activities as long as he tries to reach into those spiritual realms with his intellect instead of his other, no-less valuable senses. These _'other'_ senses can develop through his desire to reach into other dimensions. Only something that is there _latently,_ or _potentially_ if you wish, can develop. He has to be willing to put thinking aside and listen to his inner voice, which will indicate to him _which way to look_. In order to reach the blooming of these abilities, one has to look out as well as look in, trying to see things with his _inner eye,_ not only from a distance as you would look upon a shop window, but also being the exhibition in the shop window. This is a simultaneous _double-looking —_ looking out of the shop window and looking at the shop window (looking at looking out of the shop window) simultaneously.

"This way man transcends his limitations of looking from his own point of view and becomes united with the object. This is a necessary step, that subject and object fuse, in order to achieve a new and rather different viewpoint of another dimension. It is the essence of this process that the subject-object unification be the starting point of a new process of _flowing_ into further _dimensions._

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To transcend our limitations, we need to adopt double-looking, which is subject-object merging, being both you and the other.

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"It is only the first step, however, and the next steps are not akin or similar to this one. These will be given in another of your time units.

"I am not telling you to go ahead and do it if you cannot. I am only suggesting that, if you desire what you call spiritual development, this is a pleasant way to start. Also, the thought/reasoning process must cease at the time of _subject-object merging,_ and in contradiction to what you think of animals, you will become somewhat like an animal, and yet on your way to what you desire to achieve. Mastering that step opens up the door to other steps that would seem incomprehensible while still _focused_ in your individual world of differentiation between you and the rest of the world."

When I embarked on this adventure, I did not know that I was about to learn a new language. I am not referring to a different way to express fixed concepts, but a dynamic language that creates, a completely different way of thinking and seeing that creates a different reality. I am not going to change the meaning of things, and I am not going to say a table is a table or a table is not a table. The dynamic language I intend to share does not change the significance of things, nor does it add data or information to what we already know. It is a language that creates by precisely not focusing life and living into fixed patterns the way we are used to, but rather, it allows us to observe processes and be a creative partner in them. But more about this later.

Although this first session signifies the moment when it all started, that moment only points to the phase change, to when the water became vapor, to when I succeeded in stabilizing the amorphous dynamics of my space of thinking; or as SHET mentioned at the end of this first session, I succeeded in disengaging from being focused on my individual world of differentiation between me and the rest of the world. While inspired, while "listening" to the information, I cease. I cease being or knowing. When I cease being, I cease being a separate entity. That is, I have no point of view, no opinion, no judgment. I stop knowing, which means literally, I actively _unknow_. When I really _unknow_ , I know from within. Then I can really listen. Have you ever tried unknowing? Have you ever looked at a wall and tried to unknow it? Try it some time — it is quite difficult. When you look at the wall you know it is a wall, so how can you unknow it?

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_To_ unknow **is to cease being a separate entity who has opinions and judgment — it means to stop knowing about.**

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As mentioned earlier, SHET teaches himself. Although I create SHET, SHET creates me so I can create him so he can create me... In a sense, he is the infrastructure of existence and he teaches structure, the dynamic logical structure that generates existence. The way I retrieve information from SHET is by way of the same dynamic that constitutes this structure. Although these claims will only make complete sense after the presentation of the loop logic, I would like to recount some memories of my way of thinking and active _unknowing_ because I see these as essential to having reached the point where I could unfold the Loop of Creation.

Since SHET appeared in my life as a result of my way of thinking, this first session brought my attention to my habit of looking at my looking, to how I used to observe my process of observing. It was probably not incidental that SHET started our communication with a discourse on animals. I have always loved animals tremendously, and they have always been my greatest teachers. When I was four years old, my family had this cat, Piroska. In Hungarian the name means "red," and this was the perfect name because the cat was gray. I simply admired Piroska and wanted to be like her. She sat in front of a wall and looked at it intently. I squatted beside her and looked at the wall. I saw a plain, smooth wall. She continued observing the wall. I sat there for two hours with her and looked at the wall. And then it happened — I saw the tiny mouse hole at the bottom where I had been looking all along. I knew the wall was totally smooth, no holes, and yet when I succeeded to _unknow_ the wall, I saw it for the first time. I knew the wall from within. Of course, at that time I had no notion of what I was doing. I had only imitated Piroska. This experience awakened in me the wish to try the Piroska posture on other things besides a wall to see what would happen. Somehow I understood that, if I looked quietly for a long time without trying to know or understand, all kinds of wonders would appear in front of me. Indeed, I was delighted to discover that, when I watched intently the blackberry tree leaves, they revealed their worms and bugs. I loved worms and bugs, and so I collected a handful and took them to my bed. I collected spiders, beetles, ants and took them to bed. Mother was very worried about what would become of me if I brought all the creeps I encountered to bed already at age four.

When I looked at things in this plain fashion — we could call it the Piroska looking — I noticed an inner life, an inner motion. Things seemed to change in front of my eyes if I looked long enough, revealing depth and new information that I had not noticed when I imitated my parents or Aunt Rezsi. They looked at things with an easy sweep of the eye while thinking about something else.

Disappointingly, when I applied the Piroska looking (active _un_ knowing) to the illustrations in my storybooks, they did not change. I decided that they were alive but would take on a life of their own only in darkness, at night as I slept. I wanted to catch them moving; for I was sure they were mischievous, undressing, exposing their genitals to each other, only I wasn't supposed to see. I was dead certain about Rumpelstiltskin. So I tiptoed out of bed and opened the book suddenly. No matter how fast I moved, he was always faster and managed to dress up and resume his usual posture. I knew he did this only to spite me. It frustrated me because I was sure that the world existed the way it did solely for me. That is, the world only existed, came to be the way I saw it, when I looked at it. I recall the exact moment when I reached this conclusion.

I was about four or five years old, and there was this old lady, the _fraulein_ , whose sole purpose in life was to converse with me in German as we walked. I hated her thoroughly, but since my mother had a _fraulein_ when she was small, I had to have one too. I refused to learn German because the Germans had annihilated my grandparents in the Holocaust. Of course, that has nothing to do with the language or with my _fraulein_ , but I wasn't smart enough to learn German when it was easy, in my youth. Anyway, we were walking on the main street in Vásárhely, my hometown in Hungary.viii As we passed by the movie house, I noticed that there were pictures in the window indicating what film was showing. I looked at the movie house and wondered whether it would be there after I left that street. Does it exist when I don't look at it? I wondered. That was long before I read the _koan,_ "Does a tree falling make a sound when nobody observes it?" I decided that if I wasn't looking at it, then it didn't exist, at least not the way I saw it. Further, the movie house, the street, all the houses, the world only existed for me — everything was created for me to discover. I believed things had some kind of continuance somewhere, some kind of existence, but would gain a certain form or position only when I looked at them. That is, if I looked rightly. So I was upset that Rumpelstiltskin looked the same no matter at what hour of night I opened the book.

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Things are not in any unique, objective way; they are the way they seem to be because of how we look at them, because of how we relate to them.

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Ever since I can remember, I was pestering my parents with questions. For instance, what does "new" mean? At what point can something be said to become "new"? When the parts are created? When something is assembled? When it is bought? When it starts being used? How did things start their existence? How was the world created? And on and on it went. At that time I believed in God as a being who sat on a cloud in the sky somewhere and dressed in a white nightgown, his long white beard glistening in eternal light as he benevolently created the world for me. (I got this picture of God from a Czech cartoon movie where God was all alone in Paradise kneading Adam's bones, and when he was almost ready, he went to take a leak. That was the time when Satan inserted the appendix into Adam's body.) I wasn't smart enough to question the origin of the universe, like: Who created God for me? Aunt Rezsi told me about God, that if I were a good girl and prayed to him every night, then he would reward me. She said that God could do anything he wanted, but my mother said, "Bullshit!" when I came to her enthused about my newly found expertise in religion. Nonetheless, I decided I would believe in God and pray to him, which I did for some time, until I got bored with it. I changed the prayer and started asking for things (like most good people who, having been convinced of the omnipotence of God, run to exploit the poor divinity by begging for favors). I asked for a plateful of gold thus: "Please God Almighty, if you exist, create a plateful of gold on my bed." Guess what? He didn't.

That night, I dreamt I stood in front of the mirror of mother's dresser and the dresser exploded. When the smoke settled, there was a beautiful yellow Jaguar toy car under the mirror. I heard a deep bass voice saying, "I am God, and this is a gift for you." The voice came from the upper corner of the common bathroom with the neighbors. I ran to the bathroom, and there was a hole in the ceiling and God looked down upon me, only he looked exactly like me, even the freckles. It was a lucid dream. I told mother about it. My father was on vacation on the Black Sea at the time, and he came home the day after and brought me a gift: a yellow Jaguar toy car, the exact replica of the one in my dream.

Even the smallest child will instinctively know the classical lawix first stated by Aristotle: two objects cannot occupy the same space at the same time, or stated the other way around, one object cannot simultaneously be in two places. When I was five years old, my mother wanted to share some secret with the neighbor. I was all ears. Mother told me to go home to see whether she was home. I knew she couldn't be home because she was there with the neighbor. However, I knew from that same Czech movie that God could be everywhere. When he had to clean Paradise, he took a broom in his hands, became many and swept the fallen leaves quickly. So maybe my mother could do that as well, I thought. Perhaps she was both with the neighbor woman and also home. So I trotted home only to find that she was not in our house. I would have been totally at ease if I found her at home also, and I would have gone back to tell her she was also at home. Because of this way of thinking, I looked like a total idiot at times. My parents could never understand how one person, namely me, could be both so stupid and so intelligent by turns.

I didn't have a very clear worldview as a child, and yet my sense of the way things are had traces of what I know now, many years later. However, in between, I became quite "normal." I started knowing enough to believe that there was an objective reality outside myself, and about which I could do nothing. When I reached that conclusion, my life took on Sisyphean proportions. Only lately, through the integration of SHET's material, did the world again lose its objective status, when I realized that whatever I can comprehend or perceive is _my_ perception. Understanding this point gave me tools to change my life. I cannot change the world, only the way I relate to the world. If something upsets me, I get upset because things are not the way I want them to be. Yet both the way I perceive something and also how I want it to be are internal to my perception, so _that_ I can change. I can decide to relate to a given circumstance differently. Taking responsibility for my perception empowers me with a wider range of choices than the belief that there is some kind of objective reality.

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" _Knowing," which is actually believing that there is an external objective reality is defining, collapsing a certain reality into a framework that gains independence from us. "_ Unknowing **" is dealing with the indefinite.**

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The reason for the widespread consensus regarding objectivity is due to the general agreement among people about the meaning of things. The reason that there can be such agreement between individual perceptions (remember, the agreement is within the world of each perceiver) must be by virtue of a common inner structure, a lawfulness that enables occurrences to be perceived as one and the same from different viewpoints. Nonetheless, the agreement with others is also within my perception if the reality of the existence of the other is within my perception. This, of course, does not mean that I am the only existence in the world; it only means that the nature of what I consider external to me is within my perception. Being dynamic, the inner structure of perception can serve not only as a philosophy, but also as a tool to improve the conditions of daily life. Nevertheless, even with an in-depth knowledge of the material, I doubt you will be able to catch Rumpelstiltskin in rumpy-pumpy activity.

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Although things might have some kind of continuance, some kind of existence, they gain meaning only when someone relates to them. Relating with preconceived ideas fixes them to appear to us in the specific framework of our opinions and ideas, and we miss out on other possible ways of relating. Looking free of preconceived ideas enables us to see a dynamic inner structure in things, which opens wider possibilities for interaction.

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Chapter 8: SHET's Teachings

I intend to share the knowledge I have retrieved and its integration — the secrets of Creation. These secrets reveal the fundamental lawfulness of reality, a logical structure that enables existence and meaning. Different aspects of this structure can be used as tools for change and improvement. Since most of the material was received through individual sessions, the tools SHET provides are specifically adjusted to the individual needs of the questioner, but they represent a consistent profile of his philosophy, and consequently, they are useful to anyone. SHET's tools are always an expression of the inner structure of things, be it tools for improving relationships, psychological tools to achieve self-confidence, or tools to solve scientific or engineering problems. Usually, people turn to SHET asking for information. He never fails to disappoint, but instead of information, he provides tools. For instance, when someone wanted to learn the Truth, he said:

"Learning is an enriching experience; however, when it becomes confusion, it is not learning, but a stop, a blockage. Learning is motion in time and being confused is coming to a stand still for not knowing the direction to take. When you look for learning truth, _THE_ _TRUTH_ , you arrive at this confusion. You then see the many truths, or everyone preaching his truth, whereas TRUTH you cannot learn. Thus, if you want to learn, beware of learning THE TRUTH. The ardent need for knowing the truth often leads people to search for it in many places, and on their quest, they try to fit whatever they meet into a supposed truth. The result, of course, is a mess: people try to understand with what they already have and are willing to make the chicken square so that it fits the truth they know. You will notice that I am not teaching truth, but rather, I am teaching processes, HOLOPHANY, which is the activity of manifesting wholeness. This means bringing down ideas and ideals into activity and thus allowing people to participate, play, act. I don't teach what should be, but what can be. Proposing any ultimate truth would be a truncated way of showing where you cannot get... Whenever teachers speak of absolute values, know that they speak of partial existence, if what they are saying has any value at all. I am not teaching utopia, but rather, I am teaching 'how to' in general: how to create, step-by-step, the conditions that can generate what in a given moment would seem like utopia."

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" _Beware of learning_ THE Truth **," says SHET. He is not teaching any ultimate truth but processes where ideas and things are not separate but fused entities transformed into action. Absolute values are truncated existence, SHET claims, so instead of aiming at attaining those, we ought to concentrate on how to create the kind of framework that will serve as a general direction for our advancement.**

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Clara from the left: "I have a great story about that. Would you like to hear it?"

Clara from the right: "No."

Clara from the left: "Very well. A guy went on a quest to find TRUTH. He looked for it for twenty years. And then he heard that TRUTH was on the top of the farthest mountain. So he climbed the mountain, enduring innumerable hardships. In the end, he succeeded in getting to the top of the mountain because he knew that all the hardships were only there to test his worthiness for the task of finding the TRUTH. If only he had enough faith to overcome it all, he thought, then he would achieve his goal.

"As I said, he arrived to the top of the mountain, and he found a little hut there. He entered, and there was an old ugly woman tending a hearth. He said, 'I was told I would find TRUTH here. Where is it?'

"The old lady said, 'I am TRUTH.'

"The man was dumbfounded: 'You? The TRUTH? What am I going to tell people? That I went through hell to find a decrepit ugly hag?'

"The old woman turned, and giving her best toothless grin, said, 'You could say I was young and beautiful.'"

Because of what he is, SHET teaches by giving tools. In a way, he is the synthesis between the world of ideas and the world of doing, the bridge between the spiritual and physical dimensions, the _mechanism_ that can put into action spiritual or conceptual ideas. Of course, this mechanism is the loop logic about which it was said, **"Let us learn how it all works, how it came about, how it functions, and then you will know what you can use it for... Still, you do not know what I am putting into your hands. When you will know, you shall see its uses. Whether it will ever become useful specifically to you is up to you, and it depends on how much of this knowledge you are ready to experience — and I do not mean merely the degree to which you can grasp it intellectually, but the degree to which you can really assimilate it."** Perhaps it is not easy to grasp how a logical structure can be "experienced," but that will become clear when two major aspects are presented: first, that experience has a logical structure, and second, that the loop logic includes the indefinite, which is also the main ingredient of experiencing.

Being a communication system, a bridge between the potential and the actual, SHET teaches how to create the actual out of the potential and vice versa. To be able to create, one should expand into the qualitative dimensions of oneness, but at the same time, it is vital to be practical and rational. Embracing oneness is not a straightforward process, but it is not unlike being rational either. **"You do not expand into the realm of All-That-Is by turning your back on humanity — that is expanding into your own ego. 'Love thy neighbor as thyself' does not mean you should turn your back on others, but that you should see quality and God in others, and also in yourself. Look from your consciousness, not from your identity or body; be identified with your consciousness and thereby become the actor and not the act. Learning is not a rejection of life, quite the opposite: life is going against entropy (death, decomposition, disorder), and learning is organizing, integrating, going against entropy, against disorder. Thus learning is going in the direction of life, and not the other way around. Many, who know not the laws, think that spirituality is looking outside life, away from matter, away from Earth. Of course, that is a mistake. You are in a body in order to learn through that body, through experience in the body, not to escape into esoteric subjects and thereby avoid life."**

SHET gave a beautiful example of how we can both learn, experience, and also be spiritually connected. It is written in Genesis 3:24: " _So he drove out the man; and he placed the keruvim at the east of the garden of Eden, and the bright blade of a revolving sword to guard the way to the tree of life."_ I always imagined that revolving sword as something hanging in the doorway, so if I wanted to pass under it, it would fall on my head and kill me instantly. SHET gave a different explanation. Sword in Hebrew is CHEREV — חרב. What is revolving, he says, are the letters of the word "sword." The vowels are not spelled in Hebrew, only the consonants, and so the word reads, CHRV (חרב). Now, if we change that to BCHR (בחר), BECHAR, (B and V are the same in Hebrew spelling), we get choice. We can choose CHAVER (CHVR — חבר), which is friend, or CHIBUR (חבר), which is connectedness, which yields ROCHAV (RCHV — רחב), width or space, or we can choose, CHEREV (CHRV — חרב), sword, which brings us to CHAREV (חרב), destruction, and BERACH (ברח), which is flight. And that is the revolving sword guarding the entrance to Paradise: it is our choice to let it stay a sword and keep us out, get destroyed and be in constant flight, or we can choose to get connected and be friendly, able to claim Paradise as our space. Then, to get back to Paradise, what we need to do is change our way of looking, revolve the letters, create a revolution in our thinking and thus create a new, desired reality — and make this Earth a Garden of Eden. (In Hebrew revolving the letters creates different structures, hence different, although related ideas.)

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_Learning through the body experience is to cope with life, not cop out on experience by subterfuge into esoteric subjects. Learning is organizing, going in the same direction as life. Learning is turning the_ cherev **_(sword) into_ chibur _(connection)._**

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Instead of giving an easy three steps to self-betterment, instead of giving answers, SHET urges us to observe every time in the present. Instead of relieving us with dogmas, generalizations and stereotypes, instead of making us feel that we know the world, that we can become this or that stereotype, instead of knowing, he urges us to look, to _un_ know. Instead of choosing to be defined, he urges us to face the indefinite comfortably. That is, he urges us to embrace uncertainty and live comfortably in it instead of looking for security. He urges us to remain with questions instead of absolute answers. He encourages us to cope with a difficult reality instead of running off into some spiritual world of bliss. He motivates us to improve by providing tools for changing our viewpoint. To change our viewpoint is not to exchange one belief for another, one dogma for another, but sorting out the mechanism that creates assumptions and beliefs, the mechanism that produces viewpoints. SHET is able to guide us towards a different looking, which creates the experience of a desired reality by showing how the tangled relations of a specific undesired reality result from stuck viewpoints.

Clara from the left: "And how exactly do you propose living in uncertainty? What am I supposed to do? I don't understand why embracing uncertainty would be better than seeking out certainty. Why do you think we have lawyers to draw up contracts for us? Why do we insure our homes and health? Why get marriage certificates?"

Clara from the right: "You feel secure if you think you know exactly what to expect. If you think you have defined all the possibilities, then you feel guarded from all evil. Does that prevent breaches of contract, divorce or the clauses under which your insurance won't cover your damage? You can never cover every possibility because you cannot ever define completely and totally anything (such attempt would require infinite effort). The more you try to secure yourself by endeavoring to define all possibilities, the more you reduce your own space of action, because you need all your resources and creativity to focus on this goal only: to achieve certainty. Living with uncertainty means to accept that life _is_ uncertain, and to have faith (which means, to interact with the more indefinite aspects of existence rather than only relate to what you think you have succeeded to define)."

Clara from the left: "I still don't understand what you want me to do, how to live in uncertainty comfortably."

Clara from the right: "Think of Noah's story from the Old Testament (Genesis 6). Suddenly God tells Noah to build an ark, move in with his family and a pair of 'every living thing of all flesh,' and then wait patiently until God finishes flooding the earth purging it of all life with the promise of eventually making it habitable again. What would you say if someone told you that his inner voice told him so?"

Clara from the left: "I'd say he was nuts."

Clara from the right: "Of course, you would. You believe that continuance of what you know to be your reality is certain. This 'knowing' precludes observation and interaction with changing conditions. So many misfortunes in history could have been prevented if the choice of uncertainty would have substituted for the illusion of certainty. For instance, some Jews who recognized the sinister voices of the _Third Reich_ on the eve of the Holocaust left their possessions behind and escaped into an unknown future. They survived — the rest is history. Or on a more positive tone, the greatest discoveries in history — whether geographical or scientific — were done by people who chose the adventure of facing uncertainty over what was already known. For what is _terra incognita_ , if not the unexplored? The uncertain?"

To achieve betterment we need to let go of our attachment to the defined state of affairs, and instead, we need to focus on the process of defining, on how these defined states were generated. That leaves us in a void, a world devoid of dogmas, truth, certainty in how things are or should be, a world of becoming where processes within processes within processes revolve around each other, wherein there is nothing fixed to relate to, no anchor. The only difference is that now there is a roadmap in this world: SHET's logical structure guides us through this maze, permitting us to create our lives instead of trying to cope with given circumstances. This logical structure empowers us with responsibility for our condition and also provides us with the means by which we can change it if it is less than desirable.

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Instead of beliefs, SHET provides us with a logical system that can undo beliefs, create perception and create or destroy worlds.

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All the cleansing processes of your psyche come to open the doors of your soul's castle, room after room, to proceed into the most hidden inner chamber, the holiest of holies within yourself. As long as impurities exist, unlimited access is denied to this chamber, which means that there is access to it through some doors but not through others. Thus the inner chamber cannot reverberate in full harmony with the Voice, only partially, and that sometimes creates dissonance. That is, when you have not worked out all the impurities there is dissonance. Sometimes it may be necessary to get through all the rooms in this immense castle, going through the dungeons, wading in the mire and mud, cleansing it all of bygone eons. Sometimes you discover tunnels and chambers you did not know were there. You must clean and light them one by one. When the castle is clean, you have access to the holiest of holies through all its doors. Then, when you enter this space, you hear the music, the harmony of the universe. You hear time from its onset to eternity. You hear the becoming, the continuous Creation, and through that music you can expand into the realm of All-That-Is with your human soul united with the wider you, connected to eternity.

SHET
Chapter 9: Holophany

There is a beautiful debate between reductionism and holism. Reductionism says, in order to understand and use anything for pragmatic purposes, it must be reduced to its most basic components. Reductionism has won many rounds, both in philosophical debates and also in its applications. For instance, this methodological viewpoint brought many results in physics. I won't bore you with the gruesome details of the Standard Model, wherein reductionism emerged victorious. Holism, on the other hand, has also won many rounds. For instance, the assertion that a living organism cannot be defined or understood by its parts is a victory for holism. Hence, murdering a poor frog and dissecting it to its atoms won't help discover what life is let alone the meaning of life. The holistic claim states that, in order to understand a system, one needs to see it in its entirety rather than extrapolating a whole from its parts. However, although New Age alternative medicine and other outgrowths of New Age thinking tend to be holistic, holism has not dealt a knockout blow to reductionism.

In a sense, both these philosophies are phenomenological. That is, they both rely upon data collected from phenomena, or how we can see and describe things. Such descriptions are called models, which do not create Nature and are not Nature itself, but rather, only an attempt to describe Nature with limited success. And as such, both holism and reductionism describe different aspects of a deeper wholeness. According to SHET, this deeper wholeness is qualitative, whereas phenomena and its underlying lawfulness are the quantitative realizations of this quality. In other words, the quantitative world is the unfoldment of the quantitative world's qualitative aspects. Of course, this is a loop, a logical structure that could be represented by three qualitative dimensions. A dimension is something measurable, coming from the Latin _dimetiri_ , to measure out, meaning, a dimension is the range over which something defined extends, which could be, for instance, space or time. However, the additional dimensions SHET refers to are not spatial dimensions, but the constituents of a logical structure. He named this philosophy _Holophany_ , a word he coined, meaning, _manifesting wholeness_ : _holo_ being wholeness, and _phany_ , manifestation in Greek — the act of manifesting wholeness.

Clara from the left: "I have a problem with the oxymoron 'qualitative dimension.' It is either qualitative, non-measurable, or a dimension, which means measurement by definition. I wonder whether you are an ox or a moron to have come up with something like this — I will bet on the moron."

She is right, of course. "Qualitative dimension" describes exactly what it is, the act of measuring the immeasurable, defining the indefinite. That is the heart of the loop logic, the instrument of Creation, as will be shown in the commencing chapters.

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Holophany is neither phenomenology nor a model of Nature. The world as we experience it is quantitative. This multiplicity, however, unfolds from an amorphous qualitative oneness by focus and definition. Yet multiplicity would have no meaning without oneness, and oneness has no meaning without the many. Oneness without meaning (of the many) is non-being, but oneness with meaning (given by multifariousness) is the potential framework of multiplicity.

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Chapter 10: SHET's Moral Philosophy — Is There Such a Thing as Good or Evil?

A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Einstein

Moral values are part and parcel of our daily lives. We think more _with_ them than about them. Good and bad direct our conduct both knowingly and unknowingly. Furthermore, we consider events as good or bad. Some say abortion is bad because it is murder, which obviously is bad. That is, we ascribe goodness or badness to events as their intrinsic attribute, as if good or bad was in the thing or act. SHET draws our attention to the fact that value judgments are in our heads, not in external reality. As long as we see with/through the spectacles of our judgments, we don't see what's "out there," only our beliefs.

Clara from the left: "That's not new, Spinoza said, 'With regard to good and evil, these terms indicate nothing positive in things considered in themselves, nor are they anything else than modes of thought, or notions which we form from the comparison of one thing with another. For one and the same thing may at the same time be both good and evil or indifferent. Music, for example, is good to a melancholy person, bad to one mourning, while to a deaf man it is neither good nor bad.'"x

Clara from the right: "Many others held that view, yet people continue labeling each other and things and ideas as good or evil. A parable of the great Sufi, Sheikh Muzaffer, beautifully illustrates this point: Bahlul, the wise fool, happened to meet the caliph Harun al-Rashid. 'Where are you coming from like this, Bahlul?' the ruler asked him.

"'From Hell,' was the prompt reply.

"'What were you doing there?'

"Bahlul explained, 'Fire was needed, Sire. So I thought of going to Hell to ask if they could spare a little. But the fellow in charge there said, 'We have no fire here.' Of course I asked him, 'How come? Isn't Hell the place of fire?' He answered, 'I tell you, there really is no fire down here. Everybody brings his own fire with him when he comes.'"xi

Any moral philosophy that claims an objective status states that moral values are things, external to the observer. Parents teach moral values to kids as truths, i.e. there are good people and there are evil people and that's how it is. There are only people, SHET says. Seeing them as good or bad is _your_ relation to their actions. Whether it is a personal opinion or social consensus, it's solely an opinion. Thus SHET does not consider moral precepts as a phenomenological science. There are no _true_ values according to him. Values are beliefs, ways of relating.

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There is no objective good or evil; these are but expressions of how we relate to events.

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Clara from the left: "That's a very dangerous point of view. If there are no absolute moral values 'out there,' as you would say, then what would prevent one from committing murder and doing abominable actions? If there is no good or evil, then morally you could get away with anything; then no matter what you do, you are not evil and your actions are not evil. If evil is the perception of the victim only, then that's his problem. With such a philosophy I could decide that I am of a superior species and could commit genocide without qualms. If destroying the ecology around me is not good or bad, then who gives a damn as long as I make money doing it. I can do as I please. Is that what you mean?"

Clara from the right: "That's not what she is saying at all. SHET teaches lawfulness, not nihilism."

Clara from the left: "Excuse me, but denial of all real existence of the possibility of an objective basis for truth is what nihilism is. If there are no objective moral values, if there is no good or evil, and these are only concepts by which we relate to events, then that's an objective basis for truth denied _par excellence_!"

Clara from the right: "The lawfulness that SHET teaches is the logical structure of everything, whether perceived as external or internal, whether objective or subjective. Briefly, that lawfulness is the make-up of anything that can be perceived. This lawfulness does not give any information about what one perceives, only the skeletal structure of both the perceived and the act of perception. Being universal, this lawfulness necessarily means that the logical structure involved is the basic oneness from which every phenomenon unfolds. That in turn means that we are all branches on this logical tree, as will be shown later on. Consequently, if you hurt someone, you hurt yourself because you are not separate from the other. If you destroy the ecology around you, you destroy yourself because you are not apart from that ecology."

Although SHET teaches from a point beyond morals, the ramifications of his philosophy dictate moral conduct. He does not preach that we are to turn bad to good, but tells us that we must reach beyond good and evil into the quality dimensions, the understanding of which necessarily implies what we now consider moral conduct. This then won't be the result of external coercion ("that's how I have to behave or else..."), fear, or to gain a comfortable afterlife, but will emanate from an inner understanding of the general structure of existence, the lawfulness that governs Being. This kind of knowledge teaches and preserves freedom of choice instead of subterfuge into "oughts."

SHET wants us to understand the generating principles of moral conduct embedded within the universal lawfulness. When we get disconnected from this lawfulness by too much self-definition (separateness), then we turn to man-made laws to guide us instead of our conscience. Actually, man-made laws come to substitute for conscience when the universal lawfulness is unknown or ignored. These man-made laws are external to us, and as such, need to be well defined. But as any endeavor that tries to achieve well formulated and complete definition, these man-made laws will always fall short of their goalsxii (for instance, some loophole becomes apparent) and so, they need to be amended. Such adjustments and modifications generate a deluge of laws, some of which necessarily defy their prior purpose of embodying the morally "right". For example, freedom of speech established in the name of tolerance could instigate blatant racism (the racists claiming they have a right to express their views), or democratic laws could nurture a majority that — democratically — would elect a fanatic dictator. The belief that, if such situations can occur, then the reason must be the insufficient definition of these laws, begets more laws and sub-laws that eventually end up to be immoral, whereas, if we were connected to the universal lawfulness, our conscience would have served in most situations as guidance.

Interestingly, the word "conscience" is MATZPUN (מצפון) in Hebrew. MATZPEN ( **(** מצפן — the same letters — means compass, and TZAFON (צפון) — the same root — means north, whereas TZOFEN (צופן) — still the same root — is code. The letters permuted to NAFATZ ( **(** נפץ means to disperse, scatter, break into pieces, detonate, shatter, explode. If we adhered to the code of our conscience, which is supposed to show us where we are at any given moment — like a compass always pointing to the north, then we would not be dispersed, and would not be a liability that may possibly explode the order of our society.

The word "conscience" comes from the Latin _com_ (with) + _scire_ (to know), meaning, with knowledge (usually, of guilt). The question is, knowledge of what? The structural lawfulness of existence, as indicated by the Hebrew language? Or human laws and rules? In some societies, the latter could imply that having forgotten to say a prayer in time would cause tremendous agony for the perpetrator, whereas that same person could pass by a young man being impaled on an iron bar, and stop up to laugh and throw stones at the bleeding wretch. I have actually seen such a video shot in Iraq.

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To initiate socially acceptable conduct, we ought to understand the universal lawfulness, for our cognizance of that lawfulness necessarily dictates behavior patterns considered good and moral.

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Of course, rules (as in traffic rules) are a different story, not to be confused with the basic laws in question, the generating principles within the universal lawfulness. These same generating principles that engender moral conduct are also responsible for the physical laws as well as historical or social ebbs and flows. SHET's worldview dictates a universal determinant recognizable in all phenomena. That is, such a determinant is recognizable when we understand the laws of Creation, but it is not likely that it could be deduced from phenomena. He says: **"Most teachings teach beliefs. Yet you can learn from these; you can learn how these beliefs came about, the mechanism at work that created such beliefs, etc. For example, science can only teach some facts and some beliefs (models) regarding the mechanism of these facts. Still, science in its present state is far from ensuring knowledge. It provides some tools but not enough to ensure ethical conduct, which the teaching of beliefs is an attempt to provide. Both science and those who teach a version of morality are far from creating an integral unity of tools that can furnish guidelines for knowledge, conduct and how to think."**

Today, moral conduct is either dictated by personal beliefs or by authoritative claims of what is right and wrong, whereas many of these dictates are different in different cultures. Supposedly, the only responsibility the person has is to follow these dictates, preferably as an automaton. SHET wants us to become responsible creators. Since existence is asymmetric, we have to make decisions to act this or that way, using some criteria for deciding, making one decision preferable over another. When we know the universal lawfulness, then these criteria are not ready-made slogans, but the result of moment-by-moment observation of life-processes and interactions in multiplicity. By knowing the lawfulness, we can transcend our separated points of view and decide from the wider potentiality of quality, that state of oneness, wherein all parties concerned with the commencing decision dwell in oneness.

That is a new concept of morality where each individual is personally responsible for everyone and everything else, including himself.

Clara from the left: "Remember that the next time you blame someone!"

Clara from the right: "It's you who blames, not me."

Clara from the left: "You see?"

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The universal lawfulness is the underlying generating principle of both science and ethics, of any process or phenomenon, of creativity and Creation as one.

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Chapter 11: Could Spiritual Development be Wedded to Scientific Advancement?

Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind......The further the spiritual evolution of mankind advances, the more certain it seems to me that the path to genuine religiosity does not lie through the fear of life, and the fear of death, and blind faith, but through striving after rational knowledge.

Einstein

For SHET, science and spirit are not opposing entities, but different aspects of the same wholeness. "Your technology will flourish. It is not in decline, and perhaps never will be. It is needed for the understanding of the spiritual message. My teachings are not of light and emotions only — they are not in opposition to technology — rather these teachings and technological innovation are complimentary, my teachings serving to unite spiritual and technological advances into a new kind of understanding. I am speaking about dimensions, different viewpoints, composite beingness. These can only be understood in a technologically advanced society with a developed intelligence and perception. Otherwise, any teaching would end up as a new basis for dogmatic religion, which is not our intent." Less developed cultures would turn such teachings to superstitious beliefs, which is both a misinterpretation of the teachings and just more of the same for humanity.

"The trend today is toward peaceful, spiritual advancement without discarding the benefits of technology. Unification of these areas of human endeavor is needed more than philosophizing about them or comparing them as opposites. You see, it is all opening up. You are on a good wave of development, engulfing the knowledge that is your heritage."

Clara from the left: "Sure, we are on a trend of peaceful, spiritual advancement. The world shimmers in pink angel-dust. Just open the news: bombs, sabotage, terror, teenage murderers, corporate theft, you name it. If that's peaceful, spiritual advancement for you, then I wonder what you call a bad trend."

Clara from the right: "If you view the world through the spectacles of the media, then of course, you are right. Rating demands adrenalin producing sensationalism: murders — preferably of pregnant women that can be elaborated on for half a year. Or random shootings of a madman. This one can keep viewers glued to the babble-box shivering days on end spilling their popcorn in fear. Or perhaps, a juicy celebrity caught in kleptomaniac frenzy? Now, that's news! Imagine what would happen to a broadcasting company announcing, 'today seven frogs and one raccoon were saved by good Samaritans. In Oregon, as well as in most states, people showed up for work. In New York seventy eight couples decided to work out their differences instead of getting divorced,' etc. Do you see what I mean? No adrenalin, no rating.

"Look at the world: we can prolong life expectancy; you have plenty of food; you can easily access knowledge; growing awareness of the importance of global ecology results in trying to protect it, and on and on the list goes if you focus on the good side."

Clara from the left: "However, the wealth and affluence is unjustly distributed — most people die young of disease, poverty and lack of pure water, species go extinct because we pollute and rob their habitats, religious fanaticism escalates threatening the cultural achievements of the Western world, and our technology — having achieved the acme of perfection — is capable of obliterating all life. So where is this good wave of development?"

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The ability to destroy the world might be the fabled other side of the coin wherefore preservation of all life becomes meaningful and precious.

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Clara from the right: "To quote SHET, 'Only when you can destroy the world, can you be given the understanding how not to; only when technological evolution reaches the ability to self-destruct, can you learn to understand the laws.' Don't you see? The fact that you _know_ about the need and distress of others is due to technological advancement, which also opens the doors through which you, the privileged one, can extend help. In the past you could not have helped because you were not better off, and even if you were, you wouldn't have known that others needed your help, and even if you did now, you couldn't have cared less. The true advancement is your opportunity to assist the less fortunate. I don't consider help bullying third world countries into a social system you deem superior, or throwing a few morsels from your leftovers. True help would be education: teach them to become industrious, independent, compassionate and empathic — teach them the universal lawfulness so they can truly become a participatory element of the cosmic ecology. Teach them rational thinking to the extreme of empathy — it would cure many ills."

Rational thinking and scientific knowledge for SHET are no less important than psychic experiences. As the following question and answer show, SHET teaches integrated growth:

Q: "What should I do, if anything, to develop my inner abilities in the direction of seeing things, the paranormal? Is that at all important?

A: "Paranormal powers are not important, not in the sense of investing in their development. However, your spiritual development is important, which you achieve by understanding how things work. How does an engineer develop a machine? By understanding the underlying mechanism and evolving it. You can apply the same method to your spiritual development. By better understanding the world in general, what makes it tick, you can better understand how to keep both feet firmly on the ground and also reach the sky. That is growth. The more you understand, the more you are able to experience, since real understanding is closely connected to experience — not the detached kind of experience of the spirit but an integrated experience where all your parts participate. Such integrated experience includes your spirit, body, mind and emotions. And then, as a natural step, those powers, the paranormal as you call them, develop by themselves, not as a goal, but as a by-product."

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Although many who refer to themselves as spiritual beings will balk at the assertion, the real nature of the spirit can only be understood with advanced scientific tools, whereas the real nature of cosmology can only be grasped through understanding consciousness.

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Science without the qualitative dimensions is incomplete, whereas psychic experience without rational thinking and scientific knowledge often brings about wrong assessments of real situations, or in more extreme cases, blatantly weird behavior. For instance, a hairdresser who came to receive guidance from SHET told me about a vision she had of a fiery silver being. After that experience she started hearing voices. She interpreted this as channeling because the voice told her that her six year old son's soul came from Orion, and that it was his first time in a body, which is why he failed to learn to speak. Looking for omens, she attributed every coincidence to divine guidance. Soon after the revelation she decided to terminate the child's therapy sessions, close her business and leave her husband in order to devote herself completely to saving the world. Of course, SHET gently tried to talk her out of it.

People try to find significance in coincidences: "it must mean something," they argue. They look for divine guidance through signs, and when the last two digits of someone's phone number matches their apartment number, then of course, that must be a sign from heaven. "Nothing is by chance," or, "Everything has a reason," is the kind of motto that is likely to get these people into trouble. The following question and SHET's answer illustrate this point.

Q: "I was on the seashore reading a book. When I just finished reading about two white pigeons, two white pigeons appeared on the seashore. What is the significance of this incident?

A: "The pigeon incident is the kind of synchronicity that corresponds with the law of resonance. Usually, people seek the symbolic meaning of such incidents. However, the wonder of it is not the interpretation — the symbolic meaning — but the fact that such lawfulness exists, that things don't cause each other, but coexist in time. You did not cause the pigeons to be there by reading about them and they did not cause you to read about them. Resonance is receiving/vibrating on the same wavelength as something emitted. You tuned in on pigeons, which shows that you can tune in on many things. So tune in on joy — not sadness, on life — not death, and then that is what you shall experience."

We strive to understand our experiences, which means, we interpret them according to our best knowledge. These interpretations range between symbolic messages and sci-fi like inventions, which either place the one who has had psychic experience into a lonely silence or into a group of people with similar interpretations (the group agreement is on the interpretation, not on the experience; what is being communicated is not the experience itself, which can never be communicated, only its translation into language, which already is an interpretation). Hence both, science without the openness for psychic experience and also psychic experience without rational thinking, are truncated options of existence.

The greatest discoveries, inventions of new paradigms such as special relativity emerged from sudden insights, visions, and dreams. These are seen as those spiritual revelations that played the role of leaps, not steps in knowledge. **"You can have insight through knowledge when you experience it, and you can have knowledge through insight when you analyze it. But if I waited for your consciousness to develop to the degree where you got the knowledge through your own insight, it might have taken quite some time for you to achieve the requisite level of evolution — nothing personal, I mean as a species. You are ripe now for insight through knowledge. As you might have noticed, I always allow you to contribute the analysis of any assertion I make."** This is a typical SHETian description, wherein knowledge, insight and analysis constitute a loop. SHET helps with the spiritual revelation but expects us to invest our analytic faculties, so it all becomes our creation, not all his.

The most prominent objection to science including the spiritual realms is that science deals with the measurable whereas the spiritual domain is supposed to be qualitative, immeasurable. Those who subscribe to the spiritual approach do not want a divine revelation to be reduced to brain activity. In other words, the spirit evades definition while science aspires to define. Yet when the spirit is considered to be the activity of the process of definition, stabilizing reality by interacting with it, then the spirit is part of science and science gains new grounds.

"The more you learn about rational thinking, the more you acquire rational knowledge, the closer you get to spiritual reality. All the different stories in vogue, which change as fashion changes, don't make one spiritual. What really does make one spiritual is rational thinking to the extreme of experience, where psychic experience goes hand in hand with rational thinking. Otherwise, you interpret experience in a weird fashion, which does not get you anywhere... True mysticism is the experience of the indescribable, which at the same time is totally rational. Spiritual development necessitates learning, understanding the basic laws of the uni-verse, what makes it tick, what makes people tick, what life is in its essence. Everything is based on universal laws, the knowledge of which can further the depth of your understanding. This understanding also yields a means to its application. True spiritual development is not the kind of _esoteria_ that takes you away from life, but something that brings you closer to experiencing life in fullness with joy. Thus, daily activities, living, are very spiritual activities — find the spirit in matter, in living, not in weird practices. That, of course, necessitates knowledge, seeing the instruments and the means by which that is achievable."

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Weird practices or pursuing the paranormal do not elicit spiritual development; learning the basic laws of the universe and experiencing life in fullness with joy do, however.

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Paranormal powers without integrated experience could and would be abused, not because of lack of good intentions but as a result of ignorance. Another Sufi parable by Rumi illustrates just this point:

One day, Jesus was walking in the desert with a group of self-seeking people. They begged him to tell them the Secret Name by which he restored the dead to life. Jesus said, "If I tell you, you will abuse its power." The people promised they would use the knowledge wisely and begged him again.

"You do not know what you ask," he said, but he told them the Word.

Soon after, the group was walking in a deserted place when they saw a heap of whitened bones. "Let us try out the Word," they said to each other, and they did.

The moment the Word was pronounced, the bones became clothed with flesh and transformed into a wild beast, which tore them to shreds.xiii

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SHET teaches how rational thinking and psychic experience can and should go hand in hand.

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Chapter 12: Active Looking and the Reality Connection

The way we see is the way we think.

David Bohm

When SHET discusses the importance of understanding the lawfulness, he does not mean that we should incorporate the objective laws from "out there" into our own subjective domain. He does not draw a one to one analogy between objective science and our internal subjective world, the way we grasp symbols for instance: something _'a'_ in the physical universe symbolizes something ' _b'_ in our subjective world. Instead of searching for answers in the external world (a definite objective reality) or within ourselves, ("boosting" our self-esteem by calling ourselves names like loser, cow, etc.), we should change our looking, because it is the looking, the observing that is generative of our reality. For SHET reality is more like an amorphous structure gaining definite dimensions by our way of looking at it. That is, we collapse the reality we experience through how we relate, our looking being the instrument of measurement by which we create this reality. **"Actually, it is focusing that creates reality; this is the measurement, which collapses a potential into being."** Even our sense perceptions are a matter of focusing.

"There is something situated between visual imagery and perception: that's vision, and sometimes dreams too. The basic difference between visual imagery and perception is that you don't believe perception to be your creation, and thus, you believe the perceived to be out there, outside your skull. You create your perception by visual imagery. Thus things you don't believe in, things you are not ready for, are not there for you — you don't observe them. The difference between visual imagery and perception is mainly created by your beliefs: you believe that whatever you have perceived is really there. Yet what you perceive is only a projection of either your mind or a projection of something perceived external to you. Nevertheless, the projection is _always_ an image in _your_ head.

"Since different people have different belief systems, they perceive differently. Perception as such is very much the result of the psychological make-up of the person, especially, which beliefs and values his conceptual infrastructure allows existence. The more frozen a person's value system, the less able he is to comfortably perceive processes and then adapt accordingly. Or you could say, the less motion the person can tolerate, the more fixed his beliefs are. Yet everything is a process, humans included."

Imagine that all possible realities that could be experienced exist in an amorphous potential, like a holographic plate, where each tiniest part includes the whole picture. The holographic picture emerges from the plate when two laser beams are focused on it in a certain angle. The two laser beams could be used as an analogy to our looking. When we look, when we focus, we define. We enhance something definite from the amorphous, indefinite background, and by so doing, we create it. Although every possible existence is already there potentially, it is indefinite. It is the act of definition that creates it, that makes it an existence. The question of how to focus, how to look differently, necessarily arises.

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All possible realities exist in an indefinite form. It is our focus, our way of relating, that is a definition which creates something definite from the indefinite.

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Chapter 13: Focusing

Focusing is definition. Definition is creation. When you want to create motion, change focus.

SHET

The best way to illustrate what focusing means is perhaps by using autostereograms. An autostereogram is a sheet of paper with, for instance, lots of random dots. If you focus your eyes on it as if you were myopic, convergently, the dots blur and a three-dimensional panorama opens up for you. When you succeed in experiencing the three-dimensional view, it is so real that you will feel you can almost enter into it. If you focus divergently, as if you were far sighted, again you get a very realistic three-dimensional view. If you widen your focus (hypersight) or narrow it, the 3-D picture you view becomes richer or poorer. Learning to switch divergent and convergent looking at will, maintaining focus, widening and narrowing the 3-D picture, is a very good exercise to grasp that we can change focus by choice.

Of course, both holograms and autostereograms are illusions in a sense. One cannot grab a hologram hammer and hit a nail with it. Neither can we enter into the autostereogram as Alice stepped through the mirror. The basic difference between these two is that holograms are served on a silver platter, whereas to gain the esthetic benefit of an autostereogram, we need to work: we have to focus. This is an exercise. Nevertheless, once we experience how _we_ create three-dimensional scenes from random dots on a piece of paper, we learn to put ourselves in a certain state of mind, wherein, by focusing, we create. How we focus, through which filters we grasp our reality, is the means by which we define that reality. And then, this definition is our means through which we relate and shape what we perceive. Knowing the mechanism of focusing and defining is a valuable tool we can use to better understand how to change our looking and create new realities.

By changing our focus, we can create motion in a seemingly still environment, and exercising this ability to change focus enhances our tolerance of motion and change, of flux. Since everything is a process, we cannot really observe until we learn to see processes comfortably instead of pointing out " _stills_."xiv As a habit, we think in _stills_ , and thus when we try to observe, we see _stills_. In most cases, these _still_ s can be summed up as our beliefs and judgments to which we attribute objective existence. For instance, we can state, "John Doe is a good man." Or, "Smoking is bad for health." Or, "eventually everyone meets his destiny," etc. These beliefs state a _still_ , which we think of as something existing independently of the person. Yet such beliefs are ways about relating to things, a way of focusing, which consequently dictates the person's conduct. Since our focus is the means by which we can create and transform reality, it is worthwhile to enhance this ability to change focus.

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To be able to see everything in its true nature, as a process, we need to be able to change our focus, and by so doing, to create motion by looking. That in turn is a dynamic structure, which enables the creation of reality.

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A beautiful visual example to illustrate how motion can be created in a quasi-static picture is by viewing Escher's drawing below (see Figure 1). If you look one way, you see concave circles. If you look in another way, you see convex circles. The circles can either be concave or convex, changing according to the way you look. If you alternate between these views, you grasp the static drawing's inner motion. The motion is neither in the picture nor in you, but in the interaction between you and the picture: in your looking, in the change of focus.

Most suffering comes from passivity, an inability to change conditions, being a victim. Change is motion by definition, and it is usually a very frightening notion, especially if we regard reality as external to us. We might feel powerless and exhausted as we attempt to change the people around us or the system from a predominantly exasperated state. Obviously, we want to change the people or the system because we are miserable with them, but if indeed our perception of reality **is** reality, then external reality as we experience it (whether we suffer or sense joy) depends on our looking (relating). This means that we need to control our looking to experience a desired reality instead of trying to change everyone else (which miraculously does change the disappointing other too). In other words, we need to be able to change our focus at will and inter-act with external circumstances; we need to create a dynamic structure wherein we can direct the outcome, which in the final analysis is what we experience. **"Focusing attention is the fixing of a certain constellation,"** SHET says, which actually is the structure of the hybrid event: my inner world plus what seems to me to be the external world.

Clara from the left: "Perhaps your perception of reality is reality, but many people are victimized by their pasts, and you cannot change the past by shifting focus."

Wrong. See SHET's surprising explanation:

"Where are the memories? They are in the now. If you think of something you saw in the past, you see it now — that's memory. You re-create that picture, smell, whatever. It has not been there (whatever 'there' is), but you return in time and re-create it, sometimes differently each time when you reiterate it. So memory is somewhere outside your physical dimensions, the brain being the vehicle that brings you there. By focusing, you drive your consciousness car to the site of the event.

"Your beliefs and attitudes are the result of decisions, sums of your observations 'there,' in this other dimension of consciousness where there is no time. (To return in time or to go to a timeless dimension are the same act seen from different viewpoints.) So if you change your attitude, if you know and recognize the importance of changing focus, then you can change your attitude. It is like being a wave and then collapsing into one position, into being one specific particle, and then again being a wave. After that, you collapse somewhere else. The choice is yours. Use it."

Clara from the left: "Are you saying that one's memory is not stored in some compartment of the brain, like files on a disk, but recall is actually re-creation?"

Clara from the right: "That's the general idea."

Clara from the left: "That would mean that I create in the now the past causes of my present behavior."

Clara from the right: "You are not as stupid as I thought."

Clara from the left: "Preposterous. If I am afraid of dogs because a dog bit me in the past, then I am afraid now and I have a good reason, having experienced the trauma in the past. That means, the memory of my trauma is engraved somewhere in my brain and that's it — I've got to live with my fears."

Clara from the right: "You _are_ as stupid as I thought. But fine by me, stay a victim if that's what you choose. Nevertheless, you keep re-creating the trauma by choosing to stay the helpless victim avoiding taking responsibility for your behavior. Of course, it might take some therapy. You might need some help to overcome a trauma. But if you were willing to unknow, if you were willing to look and observe instead of knowing with such definitive certainty who and what you are — the victim of a dog — then you could weigh the possibility that you are creating your trauma now and you have the choice to create another reality for yourself. For instance, you could say it was a love-bite — perhaps a bit too passionate, but a love-bite nevertheless. Changing the past in this fashion would extract the negative emotional content from within the incident, which would no longer be a trauma, but merely an event. As SHET said, if you change your attitude, if you recognize the importance of changing focus, then you can choose in which reality to collapse, which reality to experience."

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Freedom of choice is there for everybody, yet who can take advantage of it? Anyone who knows how to change focus and how focus creates.

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Chapter 14: Being, Double-Looking and Some more Focusing

Unfocusing is fading into quality. Fading into quality is indefinite motion.

SHET

Is there more to focusing than my own little world? A more in-depth account of this fascinating subject emerged as answers to questions, which I recount fully here.

"JANUARY 29TH, 1994 - session 240

Q: "How is focusing possible from both sides: our side (from the position of subjective knower) and the other side (the position of objective known) at the same time? Why does man need to see and to be seen?

A: "The focusing is done by the consciousness. Consciousness directs the awareness to be focused on the object. Consciousness is a self-repetitive state, that part of All-That-Is that is the consciousness of each and every one of you. That part is the one announcing its presence, and it exists in all ISness, in every 'thing' that exists in the world of IS. The awareness level differs between objects and animated beings, and relative to the latter, man has the greatest ability for breadth of awareness. That of course comes at the expense of the ability to have the real wide awareness, which is no focus (total awareness being non-awareness).xv The latter is a useless state when in a corporeal form, which needs some kind of focus to survive as such. You might ask why you need the bodily form to learn through when you can learn without it. The answer is because, through focus and the change of that focus to another focus and so on, you enrich the whole being, the whole self with EXPERIENCE, which you cannot both have and also know that you have in a non-collapsed, non-differentiated, non-distinct state.

Clara from the left: "What does that mean?"

Clara from the right: "Experience is meaningful only if I know that I had an experience. This _knowing_ is an attempt to define the experience. The process of defining, the knowing about — although aiming at defining the experience — infers the existence of the definer that has the experience. So the knowledge that I have an experience actually establishes my existence, which of course implies an "I", a distinct, differentiated entity."

Q: "What is the relationship between experience and being? Is experience being or Being?

A: "Each distinct experience is being, whereas the totality of every possibility actualized is Being. That is why I 'preach' to be, to experience All-That-Is every second in every thing, because everything is a kind of self-reflection of All-That-Is. I like that better than other practices because, in the final analysis, it brings one to the simplicity of being. Then when one has a certain 'amount' of being and experience, the enlightenment commencing therefrom is the realization of Being — not intellectually but in experience. That is, one feels this realization with all one's senses as well as with the intellect and much, much more, because at that moment one is re-linked, re-connected to the totality of Being. This is the merging point with the qualitative dimensions. Some have called it an oceanic feeling, but any label is insufficient to describe the experience.

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Experience emerges by focus, which is trying to define and interact with the indefinite. Exchanging that focus with another and then another, etc., brings about complex interactions and richness of experience, which are part of the consciousness' learning process.

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Q: "Is Being a constant state of looking? Is your presence something like a Möbius strip?

A: "Being is not a constant state of double-looking at the stage of total awareness, because that's non-awareness. However, it is so before it reaches this total state of awareness. In order to communicate with you, I cannot be in that total awareness state, you see? Awareness has stages. As an analogy, you could think of a magnifying glass being gradually withdrawn from an object. The more you remove the magnifying glass, the less definite the object. However, you are right regarding the Möbius strip. Imagine an empty sphere: from outside it is convex, from inside it is concave. This double-looking is exactly being on the circumference where it is both concave and convex. That is, if you are able to do the double-looking. This vantage is exactly where I am when I am communicating with humans.

Q: "Do you hear now the sounds of bells of New Jerusalem? Is the relationship between the concave and the convex the relationship between seeing the voices on Mt. Sinai?

A: "Yes. You can see, hear, and in general, translate to all your sense perceptions the Voice, the Sound, which is vibrations, fluctuations, relations, the fundament of all existence. These vibrations unite physics, philosophy and art, and once you understand to some depth the attempts made in each of these areas to achieve some understanding, you will see the connection. They all aspire to understanding, to perfection (consistency). You will be able to see the connection between each of these areas through what I have been teaching. You still miss some information for your conceptual understanding, but some of you have grasped it on another, experiential level. That level is exactly the double-looking, the seeing of sounds and hearing of the light, which are different ways of reaching the same plateau.

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Each individual consciousness is a projection, a self-reflection of Consciousness, which is a self-repetitive state. To enhance the focused consciousness' awareness, one can use double-looking, or double-focus, which can also be defined as being on the interface between the qualitative (in the previous metaphor — concave) and quantitative (convex) dimensions.

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Q: "What is happening at the connection point between concave and convex?

A: "Nothing. It is a state wherein you are neither, but if you decide to be, you can focus on either side, or both sides. This is the vantage point I am speaking of, which is nowhere (in space) and everywhere because it is all over, non-local. Only if you decide to be, that is. When I am communicating, I am, and thus, that is the point from whence I view reality."

Clara from the left: "Do you mean to say that communication creates existence? I thought that communication is the activity of someone that already exists."

Clara from the right: "Yes, that's one of the basic tenets of Holophany, that communication, relations create and form the one that communicates."

The questioner continues the dialogue with SHET:

Q: "A measurement can't be taken in the connection point, and thus, it can't be a place according to quantum mechanics. Is that correct?

A: "Right. It is called superposition,xvi which is nothing really, non-definite.

Q: "Is that a new physics in which there are states that cannot collapse? Which means, it is not a physical state of matter?

A: "This state of superposition is not a physical state as such, only the collapse is a physical state. The wave functionxvii is a partially collapsed state (first quantization), which has no arrow of time and is reversible. It is partially physical because it already has a focus to one side more than to the other (broken symmetry). The completely balanced state I spoke about is indeed a kind of symmetry, which is not a physical state, and it cannot be collapsed unless I will it to be collapsed. Physics does not deal with these kinds of states, so it is not a new kind of physics — not yet.

Q: "Is collapse a state of consciousness rather than a state of matter? Otherwise we cannot understand the notion of experience, because you said we couldn't experience your state.

A: "There is a gradual unfolding from non-being to being. Nature has no sharp edges. Parts of All-That-Is have solidified into matter, and parts of it have remained distinct consciousness focusing on matter. I am trying to bring you to see, to reverse that focus and gain some balance and more learning as well as more experience. In my state I am not in your state. You can learn to change your focus, so you can gain more experience and approximate my state. There is a difference between the One and multiplicity. Your consciousness is focused mostly in quantity, whereas quantity is imbued with quality. Look this assertion over carefully."

In the above quotation, SHET demonstrates his integrative worldview by placing both physics and our perception of experiencing as aspects of the same totality. This integrative view is embedded in the loop logic, which necessitates this kind of totality by implication, not by way of analogy. That is, whereas conventional logic aims at crystallizing its own processes through inference saying nothing about the real world by only referring to the validity of its own propositions, the loop logic is creative by inferring existence beyond its propositions.

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Relations are the fundament of all existence, accessible on all levels of perception. However, from the interface between quality and quantity, one can create relations and thus form existence. A new physics ought to deal with this interface, which would gain expression as processes that stabilize states of consciousness and unfold physical reality.

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Chapter 15: How Asking Differently Can Bring about Breakthroughs?

When you want to stop motion, define. When you want to create motion, change focus. When you want to create potential, stop defining. Defining is stopping motion, creating defined relations of either sameness or difference.

SHET

SHET sees our looking, the awareness, as that field that generates interaction between ourselves and the world considered external to us. That is, the way we look (relate) creates feedback from the external world, which then changes us, which then affects external circumstances, etc. By being affected, we change, which creates a new looking, the actual process of creating and activating both our internal and external worlds. Remember, whatever seems external to our bodies or personalities is still inside our perception, gaining existence and meaning for us through our perception. We learn by continuously renewing the mechanism through which we look and think. Both external and internal events are induced by this dynamic feedback that is generated by the field of looking, and which in turn becomes a new conceptual basis for looking. Thus, by looking upon our looking, observing our observation, we create a dynamic of oneness and separateness, of sameness and difference, which actually is a structure, the aforementioned field. That same mechanism also serves to create effective and creative solutions within the time dimension where we live.

Active looking, observation, is one of SHET's main tenets. Active looking is relating to something, not by judging or defining what we look upon, but by being in touch with it, noticing it, allowing it to make an impact on us. **"Looking creates a relation. Looking on the looking creates structure."** Thus, active looking on the looking, observing our relation to something, creates a meaningful, definable relationship that has the potential to undergo evolution and change. Focusing creates a feedback mechanism between the _looker_ and the _lookee_ whereby both the lookee and the looker change, and consequently, a new framework is created for the looking process.

Recently I got interested in how the fathers of quantum theory thought. I wanted to understand what active looking meant to them. Usually, the visionaries who create new paradigms do so by developing a conceptual picture of something, which then gets expressed by formulas, defined ideas that can be duplicated by others. The second generation takes the useful formulas and continues developing those into yet more useful formulas, and the third generation already lives by said formulations-become-dogma, considering the useful formulas to be unquestionable universal laws, which have in fact totally diverged from the original vision.

I read a book by Werner Heisenberg (1901-1976) in order to see how he came upon the formulas that created quantum theory, how he was thinking, and I was flabbergasted to learn that he came upon his famous uncertainty principle by changing his question, changing his worldview. He says, _"The final solution was approached in... turning around the question. Instead of asking: How can one in the known mathematical scheme express a given experimental situation? the other question was put: Is it true, perhaps, that only such experimental situations can arise in nature as can be expressed in the mathematical formalism?"_ xviii The first question is the usual way of asking about an objective external reality, how one can understand, describe what he sees (phenomenology). This presupposes that what one sees is an objective reality, and he only needs to find the right mode to describe it, the right mode being a precise duplication in his internal world of what there is "out there." Since that way of looking was not applicable when dealing with subatomic particles, Heisenberg chose a new way of looking. Thus the second question, the one that brought about the solution by introducing a new physics was: perhaps only those situations can exist in the physical world (external to me) that I can describe (internally).

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Existence:

Static description: quantitative physical reality includes qualitative consciousness, whereas consciousness focused can be expressed as physical projections.

Dynamic description: the act of relating, of looking from vantage point of indefinite potential, defines physical states, whereas the indefinite potential gains meaning from the defined physical states. This is the mechanics of the loop activated by looking.

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This is an interactive way of merging one's internal subjective world with "external" reality, which stops being objective and defined when thus merged. It means that what so far was considered to be external physical reality inherently includes one's looking at it. This means, external physical reality expresses itself as it does because of the way one looks at it. That is, looking shapes reality, or stated the other way round, for reality to be the way it is, _a priori,_ it includes one's looking.

In quantum theory this means that the act of making a measurement influences the outcome of the measurement. The reason for this influence is neither the clumsiness of the observer nor the lack of sufficiently sensitive instruments, but the fact that the act of measurement affects the outcome. According to Heisenberg, the mathematical formulation of quantum theory deals with the _knowledge_ of the subatomic particles rather than with the subatomic particles themselves. Mistakenly, that could be considered an epistemological statement.xix Epistemology does not question or exclude an objective external reality, but rather, it only focuses on what can or cannot be known about objective external reality.

My knowledge that my fountain pen is on the table does not change the fountain pen's position. However, in quantum reality, the knowledge of the system and the state of the system become an interactive whole, which is very different from being apart from the system, able or unable to know about it from an ivory tower.

When knowledge of the system involves interaction with the system, this is not epistemology. In practice, that means that there is something called superposition, or wave function, which is the sum of all the definite probable states (which can be characterized by a definite momentum or position, energy, etc.). This is a state of everything always and all over, which does not mean much in terms of an observable reality. Using my previous macro-level analogy, that would mean that my fountain pen could be found everywhere but it is nowhere. If we want to know any details, then we have to make a measurement. The measurement collapses the wave function, collapses the superposition, which means that one probability becomes reality.

For instance, we can take a measurement and then know the definite position of a particle, which does not mean that now we became aware of the position that existed there all the time but did not know it. It means that, when we made the measurement, the particle _gained_ a position, whereas before, in its superposed state, it was not a particle in any definite position, but a wave. The wave is spread out, occupying all positions at any given time with different probabilities to collapse at any specific position. Coming back to my analogy, this would mean that the pen was nowhere, and in fact, it was not even a fountain pen until I started looking for it, and then I found it on the table. It was not on the table before I looked for it, but it materialized there when I did the search. The point is that, if we want to know, we have to disturb, we have to interact with the system we wish to know. How do we do that? By looking. This has tremendous importance, since SHET develops his science of Creation based precisely on interaction, on relations produced by looking, as we shall see later on.

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Epistemology investigates what can be known about the nature of reality. Quantum theory investigates those states in nature that can be known. SHET's philosophy establishes the logical definitions that create perception and meaning, which puts the nature of reality within the framework of perception.

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Philosophers of science often tend (mistakenly) to regard the interpretation of quantum theory as thought influencing matter or creating physical reality. The claim that the observer making the measurement collapses the wave function, that consciousness causes the particle to become a particle, is quite widespread. This way of relating to the interpretation of quantum theory is similar to idealism, which states that the external world gains its existence from consciousness. Since the other major boxing match (in addition to that between reductionism and holism) takes place between materialism and idealism (materialism of course states the exact opposite, that it is physical matter that generates consciousness), some interpretations of quantum theory are often misunderstood as idealism. The mechanistic approach of materialism is not much different from the causal proposition of idealism in that both worldviews posit that a cause produces an effect. The difference between the two is the basic assumption regarding what causes what: the materialists claim, of course, that everything is the result of matter and chemistry, where-as idealism maintains that it is the spirit that creates Quantum theory is neither materialistic nor does it conform with idealism. Exactly what it is remains unclear, which is the reason why interpretations of quantum theory proliferate. Whereas the formulas are clear and work, what they mean is thought provoking.

It is clear that, on the quantum level, Nature is revealed through complex interactions with it (Nature). Within SHET's loop logic, complexity gains expression by stabilizing a certain reality, which in turn stabilizes the process that stabilized that reality. Of course, such a process of mutual stabilization and feedback occurs within the framework of lawfulness, the logical basics of which I will try to convey in the following chapters. SHET suggests that although there is constant feedback between consciousness and — what is considered to be — the external world to the self, these are not opposites, but rather, different aspects of the same field. Or, in other words, both the self and the external world to the self are elements of the same structure, different manifestations of the same wholeness.

This concept is called counter-intuitive because we are taught from babyhood that I and the physical world around me are two different things, each with its own finite descriptions. However, to me, the Heisenberg way of thinking is intuitive because I got used to _un_ knowing comfortably, starting with my great cat teacher, Piroska. Consequently, both the act of heralding SHET and his philosophy are different aspects of the looking that creates evolving structures, and thereby, reality. How does looking create evolving structures? What lawfulness governs these structures? We'll deal with these questions in the next chapter.

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_To become creators, we have to deal with the fundamental framework of existence, which is a loop. In such a framework it is impossible to objectively know the system within which we operate, since the system is all of existence. The only possible knowledge is an interactive interference that shapes the system while learning it. When different self-reflections of_ All-That-Is **inter-relate, they create a complex structure, including physical manifestation. This is not the same as one aspect, consciousness, creating another aspect, matter.**

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Think-tank material

* What can be taught or communicated if it isn't information?

* If there is no ultimate truth, then what is there? What should we be looking for?

* If quality and quantity inter-create each other, and if there is nothing beyond these, then where, when and how did it all start?

* Why are we dealing at all with the Creation of the universe? Simple amusement, or is there more to it?

* Can it really be that "little insignificant me," who is looking, focusing, can make a difference in the big-world-out-there with my opinions and beliefs? Can I change the world by relating differently?
PART 3: LAWFULNESS AS LOGICAL STRUCTURE

The Creator never intended you creatures to not think, to not question. The laws were given as a structure upon which life could be built, not as something that cannot be scrutinized, questioned, whether understood or not.

SHET
Chapter 16: Is it Turtles All the Way Down?

Many wonder about the annals of Creation. Usually such musings end in an infinite regression, like the story that earth is flat and carried on the backs of four elephants. What do the elephants stand on? On four turtles, of course. And what do the turtles stand on? Well, it's turtles all the way down.

Or the usual answer, _"The creation of something from Nothing is beyond the understanding of the created,"_ as stated by Shneour Zalman of Liadi, founder of the Jewish Habad movement in his famous work, _Tanya_. We are told that God's ways are mysterious, not for us to meddle with, but of course, it is always easier to hide ignorance by outlawing questions. Yet curiosity cannot be suppressed, and the questions go on: _What was the first matter that was created? What was there before that?_

Religion and science have in common the search for THE ONE, which is the basis and foundation of the manifold. Some accept that God created the universe but would like some more details; for instance, how? They want a plausible answer that won't be refuted by experience. So far science does not provide such an answer, even to those who do not hold the creationist view. Science has many good models, which fit one part of reality or another, but when it comes to an overall view, a theory of everything, science has no answer.

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_There is no consistent contemporary theory that explains everything. SHET's theory of the loop of Creation is based on a new logic, which leads to a new way of thinking. This_ loop logic **is a language to think with and is applicable in all fields, indicative of a real theory of everything.**

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Particle physicists dreamt of formulating the unified field theory by starting off with the most fundamental object, which for some was a point-like object like the electron, and for others, a one-dimensional object like a string. From these simple starting points have come complicated theories, which do not correspond with Nature. Theorists are still fiddling around with how small particles interact, how small strings scatter and interact. They hope to find how life came about by dissecting matter, and one day, lo and behold, they expect to discover that consciousness emerged in the alignment of some synapses. Perhaps the complex M-brane theories will prove to be more promising, but they are still in their cradles.

During the last decades, physicists have tried to reach a theory of everything, a theory that explains everything by introducing more dimensions than the three spatial and the time dimension. According to SHET, increasing the number of dimensions is moving in the right direction, but it is a mistake to increase spatial dimensions. Indeed, the problem in working with ten or twenty-six spatial dimensions is that, on the one hand, it all becomes so complicated that theorists cannot even write out the formulas of the full theory, let alone solve them. On the other hand, these theories could never be proved by experimentation, because such proof would necessitate the entire energy of the universe. Consequently, these theories remain within the realm of speculative philosophy.

Yet the basic obstacle preventing science from attaining an understanding of Creation is not so much its clumsiness but its hidden assumption that there is an objective reality external to the observer. Objective reality means definable and defined states that can be observed or deduced, and it follows that any science dealing with objective reality as its primary premise will seek out the lawfulness governing the relations between defined objects. This worldview, which pertains not only to science but to all walks of life, has governed our lives throughout history.

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The belief that there is a definable reality external to the perceiver is what brought science hitherto and also what hinders science from making the next breakthrough.

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SHET's picture of Creation is different than any theory so far. Its not so hidden underlying assumption is that reality is perception. Reality being perception means that the process of perception, the process of definition, becomes the protagonist instead of predefined states. Since there can be no proof of a defined reality outside the perceiver, a logical basis is needed to sustain the theory that reality is perception.xx The laws of the process of definition emerge as that logical structure. This dynamic structure describes relations that _constitute_ states or objects instead of relations _between_ states or objects. According to SHET, Creation starts with a rather complex logical structure, which is not a complexity born of different elements interacting, but of different aspects and potentials of oneness interacting and evolving by reflection, self-similarity and braiding. SHET sees structure as a live regulating organism, not as one frozen frame interacting with another frozen frame. His basic structure consists of abstract relations, which eventually click into meaningful constellations (they stabilize), so according to SHET, the most fundamental object in Nature is a complex structure of relations, which is a loop.

Perhaps one of the basic obstacles that confronts scientists is a failure to recognize the difference between complexity and complicatedness. In Collins dictionary, _complex_ is referred to as made up of interconnected parts, whereas _complicated_ is referred to as made up of intricate parts or aspects that are difficult to understand or analyze. According to Webster's dictionary, _complex_ suggests an unavoidable and necessary lack of simplicity and does not imply a fault or failure in designing or arranging, whereas _complicated_ applies to what offers difficulty in understanding, explaining or solving. Complex comes from the Latin _complexus_ , the past participle of _complecti_ , to embrace, comprise, from _com_ \+ _pectere_ , to braid together. Complicated comes from the Latin _com_ \+ _plicare_ , to fold together. So when we have a structure that shows different internal relations or aspects, this can be considered complex. Whereas, when we see a mess of confusing, missing or enfolded details, then we are facing something complicated.

Usually, complex systems are regarded as such because of the number of components they possess. Contemporary complexity is the science that tries to understand mass phenomena like economics (i.e., why markets suddenly collapse), the weather, historical phenomena (i.e., why a species suddenly becomes extinct) and so on. These phenomena cannot be explained causally. They all contain individual subjects that mind their own business, and yet they somehow self-organize as one interactive organism, and then, this organism as a whole undergoes change. Although the science of complexity seeks the lawfulness, the force, that compels individuals to organize into a group, although it searches to discover the structure that would explain the phenomenon occurring at the edge of chaos of new stabilizations, this science deals with interacting _stills_ (objects).

According to SHET, complexity is due to the interaction of several different kinds of lawfulness (the different realizations of the logical structure within one system), not necessarily because of different components. **"Complexity means not so much many disconnected elements interacting, or a quantitative conception, but rather, interaction of qualitatively different lawfulness, like relations of sameness and difference."** For SHET, even the most basic complexity is the dynamism of relations, that is, a dynamic process of relations creating objects, variables that can further evolve into more and more complex projections. If reality is perception and perception is definition, then an object is its definition. This definition consists of parameters, which are the relations of the defined object with itself and the rest of the world. That is, nothing can exist (or be defined) in a void. What the defined object is — its _significance_ — is determined by its fundamental relations. These abstract relations are not unique. As will be discussed later, complexity is not miraculous self-organization for SHET, but the logical structure wherein self-organization is the necessary result of the aspiration to achieve consistency to preserve inconsistency. But more about this, later.

There is another implicit belief that, if something has a beginning and then evolves, the beginning is more primitive than the evolved stage. For instance, primordially speaking, there was matter that had certain laws of interaction, which brought about conditions of life, which brought about simple one cell organisms, which brought about conditions for intelligent life, etc. This belief is so ingrained that we are always looking for simple multiple causes that create complex situations and creatures. It is believed that the basic laws are few and simple. This almost axiomatic intuition has guided researchers into greater and greater depths only to discover more models, more theories. Where does this intuition come from? Why shouldn't the universe _start_ with real complexity? Why should it start with something simple? Why expect multiplicity to evolve from oneness? Why suppose there was a symmetry first that broke? The answer is the same hidden assumption that there is an objective reality external to the perceiver wherein objects relate to each other, conglomerate and become new objects (i.e., atoms bond and become molecules).

The word simple, from the Latin _simplus, simplex_ , literally means, "single." "Single" always refers to something defined; something indefinite cannot be said to be single. Here is the beginning of the basic complication that arises when we expect simple structures to be something single rather than complex.

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Something simple can be complex, especially when we deal with the core of Creation.

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The worldview that states that every object is its definition — its definition being its relations — does not differentiate between an atom, a molecule, a human or the universe. Whatever is being defined is defined by the same logical means, which are the relations of whatever is being defined. In this picture of the universe, everything is but a different realization of the same logical structure as opposed to the conventional picture that requires that we find the laws relevant to a group such as atoms, molecules or humans. The process of definition that defines everything cannot be unique or single.

In Hebrew, simple is PASHUT, and the root of the word is PSHT (פשט). That word means plain. When it reads MUFSHAT (מפשט) — still the same root — it both means abstract and also undressed, unadorned. Indeed, the logical structure is simple in the Hebrew sense, consisting of abstract relations and undressed of defined meaning or significance. Thus, the beginning of Creation could be simple, which is a complex abstraction.

A potential is something complex because it has the possibility to manifest in an infinite number of ways. A potential, which is unity, oneness, can manifest any of a quantitatively infinite number of probabilities. So this potential is both complex and simple: as complex as the potential of the infinite possible realizations and as simple as oneness. The universal lawfulness of which I wish to speak relates to this potential, this basic live, dynamic structure, which SHET describes as the means of Creation of both our spiritual and material aspects.

The beginning of Creation, the notion of this complex _becoming,_ can be expressed by certain kinds of mathematical mappings, which are the languages of abstract relations. These mappings reveal a new universal law of aspiring to consistency and order, which is the essence of their dynamics. (For more information about this, see Appendix II.) We consider language as a means of communication, as a symbolic means to transfer ideas. When we say coffee, we mean coffee, not zoology. However, words don't only describe but also create ideas: the language as we understand it creates our way of looking at things. **"Your languages are built on a worldview of** _still_ **s and thus your concepts of variety and flow are rooted in** _still_ **s."** That might be the reason for our difficulty in accepting that relations create structures. Instead, we consider "relations" to be between at least two definable objects. Nevertheless, relations, looking, perceiving, defining are the essence of any object, as we shall see in the following.

If we would think in terms of a dynamic structure that evolves through the non-linearxxi interactions of sheer abstract relations instead of thinking that Creation must have started with some tiny objects that began interacting, then such thinking would generate a different language. This language would consist of objects emerging from definitions, whereas definitions would gain meaning from being perceived, and the perceiver would rise from the act of perception. Of course, that's a loop, the essence of SHET's logical structure richly spiced with paradoxes. The negative connotations of paradoxes and loops as starting points arose from bad experiences with them, but these experiences were deemed "bad" because paradoxes and loops terminated the inquisitive mind's inquiries into the deeper recesses of existence. However, they obstructed inquiries precisely because of the inquirer's way of thinking, his basic assumptions relating to how things are. Therefore, a novel way of relating can open the gates to conceive a different language that could utilize complexity, paradoxes and loops and turn them into tools of Creation.

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The simple, basic complexity consisting of relations evolves by inter-relating with the framework within which it unfolds. Regarding structure as the basic building block generates the new paradigm of the loop.

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Chapter 17: Do You Really Know and Understand the Words You Use?

Educators in Western countries complain that children don't understand what they read. The reason for this lack of comprehension is probably due to not learning and questioning the different meanings of words and their roots, our basic assumptions regarding reality. Is this lack of understanding and questioning due to the fact they are no longer taught Latin and Greek, the foundation and origins of most Indo-European languages? Some believe that learning Latin is a waste of time — why bother with a dead language? The answer is because it describes the philosophy, the very beliefs, from which modern words emanate. Take the word "individual," which comes from the Latin _in_ \+ _dividere,_ which means, indivisible. The same in Greek is _atomos_ , which is the source of "atom." That says a lot about how an individual and an atom were perceived. If you compare that perception to these words' modern connotations, you get a picture of the evolution of human thought. Vague descriptions of blurred ideas cannot serve as precise tools for thinking.

"Imagine what would happen to you, what you would feel, if you started reading dictionaries, good dictionaries, which describe the origin of words, their history, how they have been used, how they developed in terms of usage, and etc. Imagine if you did it a lot, savoring the words. At some point you would reach a place where you could see their inner motion, their inter-connectedness with other words, their etymology, and you would feel enriched, because once you had more words that you really _knew,_ you could better express those ideas that were vague before you had the right terminology, the right linguistic nuance to express it.

"When you learn the language in this fashion, you become enriched because you become more aware of your inner world, because your awareness is connected to the structure of this inner world. This complex structure is either non-extant or a chaotic mess when you are unaware of the etymology of the language that formulates your world of ideas. Even the term _being aware_ is a final state, a _fait accompli_ , which means that the process of awareness has been finished, and now you are aware of something — you know about something. That knowing originates in the belief that awareness _happens_ to you, that is, it was not and then suddenly it is. The gradual unfoldment of knowing, the gradual process of mapping structures has not been studied much in human history, and thus there is no real verb describing the process of becoming aware, and through that awareness, the mutual interaction with the observed structure. Of course, this process includes getting rid of old structures that are inconsistent with those with which you presently interact."

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Becoming aware is interacting with whatever we become aware of. Whatever we are aware of influences us. Likewise, how well we know the language both dictates and influences our world of ideas and our ability to become more or less aware. Since definitions create, the inability to define words renders it impossible to create an abundance of ideas.

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It seems then, that picking through a dictionary could be more remunerative than picking one's pimples. Discovering the origin of words we may discover how our world of ideas has been unconsciously shaped. As shown previously, the mere consideration of "simple" as "single" can give rise to a worldview wherein we demand that the basic structure of matter be singular and not complex.

As long as we only relate to dynamics and interaction as something occurring between _stills_ , we will never be able to get to the bottom of what constitutes _stills_ without an infinite regression. This influences not only science and technology but also our personal realities. Such thinking affects how we define ourselves and others, what we are aware of, and in general, the quality of life as we experience it. How we experience life depends on our ability to define or refrain from defining, as the case might be.

How we think, how able we are to define and observe, how apt we are at observing how we define and observe (looking on the looking), is the structure of our thinking. By becoming aware of the structure of our thinking, we can regulate and control it to enhance our awareness, and through that awareness, we can regulate and control our interactions with others and the quality of our experiences. Feeling insecure, stuck, at a crossroads, not knowing what to decide — these experiences often occur when our point of view is too narrow, when we are unable to see the wider picture, which would solve our problem. This wider picture becomes visible when we can observe the structure of our (and others') thinking process. Of course, the wider picture unfolds when we can observe our attitudes instead of identifying with a given situation. Our attitude dictates how we define situations. When we only look at what has been defined, we see a _still,_ whereas if we observe the process of definition, we can do something about a situation — we can change it. And then, we face a different situation, hopefully a more desirable one.

See how SHET advises to do that:

"When you seek to see a person clearly, adopt a non-judgmental looking. That is, don't classify, only observe and see his different aspects, and then connect these to the same entity, to the same personality as different aspects through which that person gains expression. When the person talks, see the motion underlying his words, which means, see the structure of what he is saying rather than merely the significance. For instance, note whether he is jumping from idea to idea, how he connects concepts, how he associates, how he is thinking, how he is looking at things, what impresses him from a whole complex structure of which an event consists, which elements impress him from that structure, etc. When you get used to observing in this fashion, you gain the kind of clarity that is actually a spiritual experience. This clarity comes when you observe in this manner, not when you think about it.

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_Changing_ what **_we think is exchanging one belief for another, one dogma for another. Changing_ how _we think is widening our awareness and increasing our abilities. If we relate to the process of definition instead of relating only to defined objects or situations, then we can do something about those objects or situations._**

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"By using such an approach, you can learn to see a much larger picture than you were used to seeing. It takes time to get used to this larger view, but when you do, you will also make decisions more easily. You will feel certainty in the rightness of your decisions, because when you see clearly, you can integrate what's going on and you can choose to be part of the scenery you observe, finding the niche where you can flow, where you can create relations between you and you, between you and others, between you and things or thoughts, whatever. The above method of observing enables you to flow, to learn, develop and grow in a direction where you won't feel stuck or impeded in your development.

"By changing, _how_ you think instead of _what_ you think — including learning external data, which you already do — you choose the learning path that makes you grow. Know that by the changes induced in you with a different way of looking at things, by learning to change your attitudes at will, etc., by your growth and development, you do influence the totality, the greater consciousness, and thus indeed you influence the nature of human consciousness. By learning and developing, you incite desirable changes in others, not directly, but through the kind of collective field of which you are part." What this collective field is and how each part influences the whole will become clearer later.

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The act of awareness is connected to the knowledge of language: awareness defines, and knowledge of language defines.

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Chapter 18: What is the Connection Between Being Kicked out of Math Class and the Creation of the Universe?

I recall asking the math teacher in ninth grade, "How do you know that 1 is 1?"

"That's an axiom," he said. "An axiom cannot be proven, and being an axiom, it does not need proof by definition — 1 is 1 because there is an axiomatic agreement with the assertion."

"That's not a satisfactory answer," I said after some thought. I wanted to understand what is beyond axioms. He kicked me out of class for the rest of the year, apparently hoping that would be a satisfactory answer.

Since Euclid, mathematics has been built on axiomatic ground. When we start with something defined and not the process of definition, then we need grounding principles, root assumptions upon which we can elaborate. When we attempt to define an object's "true nature" independent of our involvement in the process of its definition, when we try to understand objective reality unaffected and unbiased by our interaction with it, then we necessarily have to start with an axiom that in essence asserts, "That's how it is. Period."xxii

The structure of the possibility of there being an axiom is full of inconsistencies (see more about this in Chapter 79). Let it suffice to say here that the structure of an axiom is a loop, but its purpose is to avoid a loop by rendering a linear evolution. The dictionary definition of the word "axiom" is "self-evident truth," which is a self-referential statement, referring back to itself, a loop. An axiom is supposed to be the basic unfaltering foundation on which something can be built, a total beginning facing one direction of evolution, but the problem with that assumption is that another axiom is needed to state that our original axiom is an axiom. That is, the statement that only one straight line passes through two points is not obviously a basic truth, and so, to be an absolute beginning of a process, it has to be stated that this is an axiom. So, even if the statement seems true, that does not mean that it is self-evident by default.

Likewise, a statement purporting to describe the "true nature" of a phenomenon is actually an intuitive perception needing reinforcement that it is indeed an objective truth (and therefore impossible to prove). Because it is unprovable, and not needing proof because of the certainty of the intuition that created it, such an axiom is stated in a void. The information provided by the axiom relates to phenomena, but having been stated purely from intuition or observation, it came to light in a logical void. A structure in a void is symmetric; because it is in a void, it has no specific direction or preference. Yet an axiom only has meaning if it has one direction of evolution, being the fundament of further logical conclusions. So the mere idea of a self-evident truth is full of contradictions.

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The idea that there could be such a creature as an axiom is self-contradictory.

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Later, philosophers did question whether we could know the "true nature" of anything objectively, and based upon their observations, they assumed that we could not. They reached the conclusion that a logical structure was needed to replace the intuitive axiomatic statements that described the "true nature" of phenomena, and they attempted to create such a logical structure by defining a final set of axioms wherein each axiom in the set was defined by the others while each axiom on its own was meaningless. The hope was that this set would become the logical fundament of geometry and mathematics, consisting of purely logical statements containing no information whatsoever about phenomena. These attempts failed because no logical structure consisting of empty symbols ( _p_ , _q_ , _r_ , etc.) could be built without referring to informative ideas, such as bigger, equal, and so on (in short, the relations connecting the logical objects did not derive from the logical objects within the set). Also, such a structure could not be both totally known and also consistent. These and other such bugs ended the endeavors to build an axiomatic system that could be the true base of an objective reality.

Axioms were utilized as basic assumptions of certain models and theories. They were the hidden bedrock of the search for THE TRUTH, for simplicity in the sense of the term as something single, or the search for the One, which becomes the many. However, explaining Creation with axioms would be endeavoring to achieve an objective explanation of the start of the universe independently of the one doing the explanation. If so employed, axioms would be self-defeating because one could always question what was there before the basic axiom, or how the basic axiom came about. That's probably why there is no axiomatic theory of Creation.

Today science accepts that there might be several right theories or models that could describe Creation, but the basic aspiration to reach totality through finding the common denominator, the ONE TRUTH, points toward the same paradigm, the same framework of linear thinking. That means, if I have many right descriptions, then these are necessarily secondary descriptions and there must be a _meta_ -theory that includes them all. This way of thinking regards the many different right models as members in a class, and the search goes on to define the class of all classes, the theory of everything that describes it all and which starts with something single.

SHET's teaching is not axiomatic. An axiomatic theory requires consistency of its structure. Before the 19th century, consistency was not an issue because axioms delineated indubitable truths, so they could not be inconsistent. It was assumed that two contradictory statements could not be simultaneously true, so if the axioms were true, they could not have lead to contradictory conclusions. But then new geometries were created that were different from and incompatible with the Euclidean axioms. For instance, these new geometries were not confined to spaces that we are familiar with, like Euclidean geometry. Dealing with unfamiliar spaces required tools other than intuition and self-evidence (the ingredients of axioms). This lead to the realization that the axioms of geometry as well as the axioms of any discipline could not and should not be regarded as true, but as postulated assumptions from which theorems could be derived. That's how the truth-value implied by the self-evidence generated by observation of phenomena was turned into abstract logical reasoning not dealing with phenomena, but with the validity of mathematical inference in terms of expressions contained in the postulates. "If _a_ , then _a_ " is such an expression, where ' _a_ ' could be anything and yet it does not have to symbolize anything. Such a discipline is not concerned with whether its conclusions are true or false, but whether its conclusions are in fact the necessary logical consequences of its basic postulates.

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Logical consistency was based on truth obtained from intuition and observation.

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The abstractization of mathematics in the 19th century caused a problem the Greeks did not have: how could it be ascertained that an axiomatic system based on certain postulates would not lead to contradictory theorems? In other words, what would assure that the system was internally consistent? When analysis of the truth-value of postulates becomes irrelevant, then other tools are needed for establishing consistency, for if the system is inconsistent, then it loses its validity. The solution found for this problem was to translate the abstract terms into a model, which must be true. A model in this case is something that conforms with intuition and self-evidence or is provable. So now we are back at square one, dealing with the truth-value of axioms. The problem with this is that the truth of these models are self-evident, so the abstract set of postulates that constitute a system is only consistent if the models into which they are being translated are consistent. This approach upholds the tradition reflected in the following assertion: if it is true, then it is consistent.

"True" means factual, observable. "True" is a relation of equivalence with something perceived — which is not a very reliable logical tool of consistency.xxiii Although success in proving consistency was achieved by transforming the problem of proof into another domain (for instance, by showing the consistency of Euclidean axioms through an algebraic model), this is not considered an absolute proof because it does not prove that the algebra is consistent. Furthermore, observing any number of true facts in agreement with the axioms is no guarantee that there will be no future fact that might contradict those found earlier, and consequently, ruin the consistency of the system. So any axiomatic system relying on the truth-value of its models for consistency is incomplete because most models are infinite, and consequently, carry insufficient truth-value.

So here we have two serious problems:

1) If the model is infinite, no matter how many elements conform to the consistency of the system, by virtue of being infinite, it is impossible to check them all.

2) Using a model to prove consistency is relative because it assumes the consistency of some other system.

The purpose of axiomatizing a branch of mathematics, or any system, was to achieve the dream of laying down a simple set of propositions from which all the true theorems of that field could be derived. According to this line of reasoning, the set of propositions should be finite, the theorems derived should be consistent with the propositions, and the consistency of such a system should be proved within the system. It was hoped that an absolute proof of consistency would be attained if both the propositions (sentences stating something) and also the logical reasoning (if-then, or, etc., which is the dynamics of inference) could be translated into empty, meaningless signs. "Empty" and "meaningless" meant for them total transparency, or in other words, these signs would only contain their explicit symbolization. If nothing was left implicit, these theoreticians reasoned, then the coveted absolute proof of consistency could be established.

Why was it so important that the abstract expressions should be solely explicit and well defined? How is this demand connected to the proof of consistency? Simply stated, the implicit, hidden relations are hidden because they are indefinite. Indefinite means not defined or indefinable. If logical inference leads to a theorem that is not well defined, then it might be indefinite or undecidable, which means that it could be " _a_ " or " _not a_ " — one of which would stand in contradiction to the system from which it was derived. That is why they sought to express every step along the way to the result and the results themselves as totally definite.

Translating sentences into signs was no problem. To translate the logical reasoning, however, it had to be broken down into well defined relations, such as "identical," "not-identical", etc., which then could be translated into signs on a one-to-one basis. Of course, the purpose of representing the dynamics of logical inference by signs was to exclude the possibility of anything implicit and to only offer explicit expressions. In the language I am using to explain the loop, replacing the dynamics with "empty" signs would be trying to turn structure into significance. Structure is the dynamics of the process of definition, whereas significance is the defined entity, the _stills_. This cannot work, because for something to be well defined, it needs to have structure, which must be implicit. To illustrate my claim, imagine that I say, "There is a cup of coffee on the table." The sentence implicitly includes my perception that there was a cup of coffee on the table. If I say, "I perceived that there was a cup of coffee on the table" (trying to include what was implicit before), then this implicitly includes that I perceived my perception that there was a cup of coffee on the table, and so on. My perception then is the process of definition, the dynamic structure that brought about the awareness of there being a cup of coffee on the table.

Stating that SHET's teaching is not axiomatic means that he proposes a logical system consisting of propositions (significance) and logical inference (structure) wherein these are co-dependent, which means that structure only gains meaning when there is a realization (significance) and there can only be significance if it has structure. The initial framework of SHET's logic is the dynamics of paradoxes. Such a system gains consistency if and only if it is based on the structure of a paradox (inconsistency). This new paradigm will be elucidated in Part 7.

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Avoiding the indefinite was deemed the way to consistency. However, the loop logic is not axiomatic; to be consistent, it must be based on paradoxes.

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Clara from the left: "What do you mean? You have the _chutzpa_ to propose a logic that is inconsistent?"

The loop logic is consistent because it necessarily includes the indefinite (why this is so will be discussed in Part 7). In Holophany, consistency is demanded from the non-linear dynamics that stabilizes defined entities, whereas conventional logic assesses consistency only between the defined propositions and the inference.xxiv Of course, the latter is based on consistency being truth, and truth being well defined (logical) objects so the relation between these objects renders them either true or false.

The 19th century aspiration to consistency was proved untenable by Gödel (1906-1978) in 1931. He demonstrated that complete sets of axioms in number theory would lead to undecidable (and hence, inconsistent) results.

Clara from the left: "So did you reinvent Gödel?"

Clara from the right: "No. The loop logic is essentially different. Including the indefinite yields a language of becoming and dynamics, which are implicitly part of the logical structure and cannot be avoided — so the 19th century dream of consistency _a priori_ had to fail. This dynamics, the structure, the process of definition is a complex loop of relations that eventually define each other. These are the parameters by which any defined entity gains existence."

Clara from the left: "If I understand correctly, this is like saying that there is no basic word, which is a self-evident truth, on which all other words are built because any word can be defined by other words, whereas these other words can be defined by still other words, and so on until we cover the whole gamut of definitions of all words. So the word we intended to define in the first place is defining those words that define the word we intended to define."

Clara from the right: "Actually, you are wrong. What you described is not the loop that I am discussing. The portrayal of one word being defined by other words that are defined by other words delineates significance, not the process of definition. Although words define each other, they are all defined, whereas the process of definition deals with defining the indefinite."

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In the loop every process is generated by other processes, every process is defined by other processes. The totality of this inter-defining activity produces discrete processes that aim at defining the indefinite. Stated differently, this is the process of measurement that utilizes discrete means to measure with, whereas the measured is continuous.

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To best illustrate what I mean, think about a living organism: It is alive, dynamic, and it can survive within a certain range of environs. It consists of numerous feedback systems, such as the thyroid metabolism between the thyroid and the pituitary gland, oxygen availability, and red blood cell production, etc. The function of all these systems is to regulate something. To regulate means to provide/allow not too much, not too little, but enough. What "enough" means for each system depends on other systems with which that system is interconnected. For instance, during hypoxia (too little oxygen), the body creates more erythrocytes (red blood cells) that carry hemoglobin that carry oxygen to vital organs. This process occurs to utilize the available oxygen so that life can be sustained. Too many red blood cells will impede the blood flow and too much oxygen will turn into free radicals (too much of which are damaging). So, how does the body regulate its oxygen intake? When the heart recognizes too much oxygen, the myocytes, heart cells, simply release chemicals to contract the blood vessels. When the brain recognizes too much carbon dioxide (the result of too much oxygen), it slows down the automatic breathing urge. Each feedback system is connected to all the others, and all of them together regulate each other.

The keyword here is, regulate. Each system consists of other systems, which consist of other systems, in a dynamic loop — each system regulating itself and being regulated by the others. Furthermore, the normal range of values for a given system might change due to aging or other circumstances that change the whole organism. For example, the need for oxygen is different during aerobic stress (panic, physical exertion, etc.) than during blissful sleep. So the live organism is not so much a conglomeration of valid values, but more the act of regulation (complex non-linear loop dynamics) that maintains the necessary dynamic balance that can perpetuate the act of regulation. Even DNA can be viewed as a dynamic sub-system. The DNA is not identical in all cells, parts of it can be corrupted, free radicals can steal an electron from a DNA sequence and disrupt it and thus change its function, or it can change in minor or major ways due to interaction. That's probably why the clone of a red cat could be a black cat.

Clara from the left: "So what is being regulated?"

Clara from the right: "Wrong question. The living organism is structure. It is the process that gains expression as living cells. There is no basic material that becomes a cell. For example, if you put carbon and water and oxygen in a cauldron, you still won't have a live cell. Asking what is being regulated is like asking what are the basic axioms, the indubitable fundamental truths, the four pillars of the universe. The loop logic is not about that. It is not about correct initial conditions that bring about desired results. It is not a language wherein each constituent part is well defined by the others, but a dynamic structure that eventually stabilizes. In the case of the living organism, structure stabilizes into the right space of action of a given biological sub-system. This sub-system interacts with other sub-systems of the organism, and this non-linear interaction re-stabilizes all the sub-systems, which dynamics is the regulation of the whole organism."

The loop logic does not deal with defined entities as something given within a system, but defines all its elements, including the process of definition with which it defines. As SHET put it, **"The structure is a loop in that the structure, say, the initial set of conditions, is a kind of tension that produces a flow, a dynamic (the stabilization), which alters the tension to produce the dynamic, which alters the structure to produce the dynamic..."** So regulation in such a non-linear system means that everything is being regulated in such a fashion that it becomes something that can relate. This process of becoming is a kind of language by which we define relations that are defined by other relations within the same framework. Such a framework could be a mathematical mapping, the Hebrew language (as mapping), or others. This means that the description of the process of Creation is not unique, it could be achieved via different routes.

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There is nothing uninfluenced or non-interactive within the live organism. The live organism is its function, which is, regulation of its sub-systems so it can continue to interact with itself and the rest of the world — or in other words, survive. Because every point on the loop reflects the whole loop, it matters not where we start. From every point on the loop we can re-create the whole loop.

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The new paradigm taught by SHET is that the basic definitions are not axioms, universal truths, but a dynamic that creates. The dynamic preserves the general symmetry wherein you can start any-where you want, and then there is simply a beginning. Precisely because the beginning is not something self-evident and _not unique_ from the point of view of the whole, the symmetry has been preserved; but from the point of view of the chosen profile, it has the possibility of evolution. That implies that there is no meaning in any-thing beyond the meaning we give to it: there is no truth "out there" that guides us, but a focus of consciousness that provides meaning by creating meaningful constellations of relations, which then can be developed into more and more complex forms of expression. **"A consciousness' attention or will is the positioning of the viewpoint that decides what kind of profile you are looking at, which dimensional cut you view. Escher came near to picturing these possible viewpoints."** (See Figure 2)

Creation myths starting with (single) oneness, a matter particle in space from which point time starts rolling, receives the _coup de grace_ from SHET's non-linear way of thinking. With the death of this old paradigm, the walls of the jail that confine our thought processes within parameters that urge us to seek THE TRUTH also collapse. That opens the doors to new ways of thinking, which bring about new behavior patterns of true tolerance.
Chapter 19: New Age Monkeys

The path of perdition has always been paved with lip-service to an ideal

Einstein

Since the old paradigm is built on axioms that are considered to be self-evident truths, enforcing truth has been deemed a necessity. Socio-religious axioms include designating the good and the evil, and the evil frequently includes those who don't accept the truth forwarded by some preacher. Look around and see how many preachers claim they come to bring love, light, peace and joy and tolerance, but those who do not accept that assertion are the forces of darkness, and so must be rejected and even destroyed. The preacher may say that he won't do the destroying — God will do the dirty job — but the axiom stands. So love, light and tolerance are only given lip service rather than actually practiced.

These same preachers prophesy the coming of the New Age, wherein control and suppression will disappear and we will all be free, whatever that means. Control is seen then as the synonym of suppression. God will again do the dirty job and do in the suppressers. It never occurred to these preachers to observe reality; if they did, they would have noticed that God always sides with the winner, not with the victims.

Perhaps, instead of doing in the suppressers, correction should come by providing tools to victims to undo their victimhood, and then, suppression would become meaningless. One of these tools is to remember that the meaning is not "out there" in physical reality, but in our heads. We attribute meaning by ways of relating. We make the definitions that create.

To generalize control as something suppressive is ridiculous and reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's _The First Jungle Book_ , wherein he refers to the monkeys as "the people without a Law":

"We are great. We are free. We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! We all say so, and so it must be true," the monkeys say. They have no laws, so there is nothing to control them — they feel free. But they live in chaos according to the Jungle Book; they are cruel, stupid and boisterous and very similar in looks to the man-cub, Mowgli. Perhaps Kipling chose the monkeys to represent those people who seek freedom in a life devoid of control by laws, doing lip service to love and kindness. That kind of attitude is the direct and necessary outcome of the old linear paradigm.

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Perhaps, God does not know that truth consists of self-evident axioms. Perhaps, God is the act of Creation itself and cannot differentiate between good and evil.

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Chapter 20: The Loop

"The subject matter of body, soul, whole self, dream landscapes, crystal-animal-human-consciousness, thought and energy patterns, are all one gestalt of a dimensional profile, like so many layers encompassing each other. You can look at it from a cause-effect viewpoint: any of these could be the cause, the rest creating the ripples around it, like when you throw a stone into a pool; and you can look upon it from a non-cause-effect viewpoint, like a multi-focus whirlpool wherein each focus can be the ripple of the other and each ripple the focus of the other."

Another drawing by Escher could illustrate the above citation (See Figure 3). Let's take Escher's _Verbum_ as an analogy of Creation. The middle of the picture is something amorphous. We can create a profile in any direction and it will be a world, and creating another profile will be the creation of a different world. Yet each process of definition that becomes something definite in the end is braided within other possibilities of definitions, within other possible profiles, which when defined, become frogs, for instance, and not birds. Continuing with Escher's illustration, frogs are not the evolution of birds, nor are birds the evolution of frogs, but a basic amorphous complexity gives rise to both. That is, the dynamics occurring in this basic amorphous complexity gains expression as frogs or birds depending on the interaction between the definitions taking place therein. That is the kind of loop that could "start" Creation according to SHET.

The different definitions (in the picture: frogs, birds and fish) could illustrate the different possible profiles, starting points, any of which could put Creation into motion. However, the definition with which we randomly choose to start Creation can only be defined by the interaction of the other elements of the loop. Thus, if we choose to start "Creation" with frogs, then frogs will be defined by their interaction with fish and birds; but if we would have chosen to start "Creation" with birds, then these would be defined by their interaction with frogs and fish; and if we chose to start "Creation" with fish, then the definition of fish would consist of their interaction with frogs and birds.

Clara from the left: "Take five. You say the Loop of Creation is a language. Who needs another language, unless it is a theory that corresponds with Nature? What makes it correspond with Nature?"

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The new paradigm is a language that creates by different degrees of definitions and their interactions, which is a loop.

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Clara from the right: "I had such a nice time while I thought you were sleeping. Well, you are missing out on a very essential point. The theory I am speaking about is a language that creates. Usually, the connotation of language is that it describes something external to it. When you ask whether this theory corresponds with Nature, you are actually asking whether it describes Nature. No, it does not describe Nature — it creates Nature. On second thought, it does describe Nature because, in terms of this language, a description in itself is also creation."

Clara from the left: "Certainly, your holiness. You say with this language, 'let there be light' and there is light. Right?"

Clara from the right: "In spite of your intended irony, you are not too far off from what I mean. This language — when consistent — defines and by that gives meanings that open up for further creation of meaning. The question is: What meaning is being created? Physical objects? Abstract ideas? That depends on the framework within which the meaning is created. If what you define are those dynamic relations that generate space and time, then space and time gain meaning. If you then continue defining within the framework of those relations that constitute space and time, you create meanings of physical objects that you can perceive, and then the theory can be said to 'correspond with Nature.' If you create meaning within another framework, then the theory can still be consistent and it won't create something that you can perceive with your senses, in which case, it does not seem to correspond with Nature. You must understand that the theory, the new paradigm, the logical structure is a language."

Clara from the left: "What exactly do you mean by language?"

Clara from the right: "Dynamic creative relations with meaning. Creative because they contain more than themselves. Imagine that I asked you to 'make me coffee.'"

Clara from the left: "I wouldn't."

Clara from the right: "Of course not, and I didn't expect you to; but even by saying you wouldn't, you acknowledge that I referred to something else than the uttered words. 'Make me coffee' infers that there is you, coffee and me, and that you could do something about it. When the sentence has meaning, it creates meaning beyond the sounds the words make."

Clara from the left: "Yes, but when you say, 'make me coffee,' you use the symbols that describe existing entities: you, me, coffee."

Clara from the right: "And if I say, 'I sense the inherent beauty of the child to be born a 100 years from now'?"

Clara from the left: "That's your imagination."

Clara from the right: "Aren't all our beliefs a function of the imagination?"

Clara from the left: "So this language of Creation you speak of consists of our beliefs?"

Clara from the right: "No. But beliefs are also of the nature of this language of Creation. They create our reality by being ways of relating to things, ways of defining how things seem to us. Anyway, Creation of the world or creation of the cat on the table is one and the same: your perception."

Clara from the left: "Slogans."

Clara from the right: "For the time being, take it as a slogan. Nevertheless, Holophany is precisely the language that _creates_ , rather than merely describing, meaning. And remember, meaning is not only significance, not only a word that symbolizes something that exists outside you, but also consistency, the logical connection between things — structure."

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Meaning is not merely significance (information) but also structure in the sense of logical congruity.

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SHET's language creates dynamic features that manifest meaningful objects in the foreground from the indefinite continuous 'Nothing.' It creates consistency and by that meaning, without which whatever there is can safely be regarded as meaningless, which is 'Nothing.' The universal lawfulness is such a logical structure, a language that creates.

By creating a framework, a direction of _becoming_ was chosen for motion (we broke the symmetry). This can be pictured as a pattern. What happens next? It continues with the loop, which now consists of a pattern wherein, no matter how much we zoom in or how much we zoom out, we see the same pattern. An analogy to what that means is shown in Figures 4 and 5. Consequently, any part of the pattern is similar to the whole pattern. Any zoom in or zoom out will reveal repetitions of the same pattern.

Clara from the left: " _Pardonne_ _moi_ for asking, but why is the direction of motion a pattern? And what is this zoom in and out business?"

Clara from the right: "The zooming in would be focusing, defining, and thereby creating something that gains meaning by what remains indefinite. Remember how we formulated in Chapter 3, that something gains meaning from what it is not? Zooming in is continu-ing to define from the indefinite. Zooming out would be to _unknow_ , to unfocus, which defines the indefinite as such and thereby turns it into a potential from which new definitions can be extricated. Zooming in is a direction of motion and zooming out is a direction of motion. When that motion takes place within a framework (which necessitates certain restrictions to be that framework and not another), then that is a dynamic complexity, which could be deemed a pattern."

Clara from the left: "If the different frameworks are different, then how is it that you see the same pattern no matter where you zoom in or out?"

Clara from the right: "The pattern is the act, the dynamic that creates the different meanings, the structure of how definitions create, but not what is being defined. In the Loop of Creation, the definitions define the acts of defining, not specific objects or information. That's why it is a structure and not a subject like geometry or arithmetic. The main reason this theory has the potential to become the theory of everything is because it does not have to define the information contained in each and every possible theory when it defines the tools by which each theory can continue defining its contents."

Clara from the left: "Blah-blah-blah, talk-talk-talk. It's all talk _about_ this theory of yours, the Loop of Creation. How does it work for real?"

Clara from the right: "By relations."

Roll up your whatever and let's get our feet wet.

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From within the loop (and there can only exist viewpoints from within the loop when we speak of Creation), the same lawfulness applies to the whole loop as to its smallest part. The structure of creation is that self-repetitive process of lawfulness, that same pattern, which creates the loop.

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Chapter 21: Relations, the Creative Force of Being

We have already stated that even the simplest basic building block is a complexity. A complexity of what? A complexity of relations, of looking.

Clara from the left: "I understand that there could be a relation between two objects. I do not understand why a basic building block is made up of relations."

Clara from the right: "The relation I speak of is not a relation between two objects, but rather, I speak of relations that _constitute_ the objects. These relations are the make up of the object. There are no objects whatsoever, only relations, and then these dynamic relations stabilize into what you perceive as objects that might have relations between them."

Clara from the left: "How can there be relations without objects? If I say, the chair is on the table's left side, then 'left' is the relation. 'Left' without being the left side of something has no meaning. Yet you claim that objects arise, that they gain existence from 'leftness' or some other nonsense."

Clara from the right: "What you said is not total nonsense, but when you use 'leftness' to illustrate what relations are, then you enhance a defined instance, namely 'leftness,' to represent relations. Just as objects cannot be defined without relations, neither can relations be definite without objects. Nevertheless, the abstraction of relations could be the partially defined aspect responsible for defining objects, which when defined, could have definite relations between them. To illustrate my point, imagine that you are alone in the universe. There is nothing except you. Not only is there no one to look at you or at whom you could look, but no space or time. Moreover, you cannot even look at or think of yourself. Would you have any existence then? In order to say yes would necessitate that you relate to something. Even saying, 'yes, I am,' means that you relate to yourself: I relate, _ergo sum_."

SHET has put forth this idea beautifully: "When I say relations are those elements of which everything is built, I mean it literally. Even the smallest particle consists of relations. It is difficult to imagine total nothingness, a universe wherein nothing exists. Absolute non-being. It is easier to imagine a little something, be it whatever. A little something in the midst of infinite void. That's nothingness all the same, however, for this little something cannot relate to anything if it is utterly alone. But when there is a 'you' looking at this little something, then of course, you relate to it and it relates to you, and thereby it becomes something. There is no meaning in anything without relations. If you want to change something, then something already exists (even if only in your imagination). You can then reach it through those relations of which it consists. Since everything influences everything else, you will be able to change the whole picture through knowing the inner relations..."

So any existence, any object, person, atom, particle or city is built of relations. SHET has repeatedly pointed out that we think in _still_ s. That is, we look at the world and see objects, things we can describe by nouns, and we think with these — whereas looking at the world and seeing the motion, the relations, would give a richer worldview. When we want to understand what a watch is made of, we take it apart to examine its components. The watch is a noun, a _still,_ and its components, the battery, the electronic components, are also _still_ s. We understand that the interaction of all these components makes the watch work, but we seldom consider the fact that the components themselves are made up of relations (interactions). The watch in its total watchness describes time, but each component in itself is meaningless, non-existent relative to the description of time if we do not consider the relations that constitute its existence. The same applies to states of being.

"You expect, in a sense, that a state of being creates your relationship to the world and the environment's relationship to you, whereas it is the other way around — your state of being is created by your relations, your attitude. Your attitude is of course responsible for others' relations to you, which change you, which changes them, etc. In that sense, your state of being is not something set — it is not defined. You are what you are every moment as a result of how you see the world, people, things, and how you relate to everything. So the question really is not how to be or what to do, but how to relate."

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_Anything becomes meaningful only through relating or being related to. Anything_ becomes **only through relations. Whatever state of being we perceive, whether that is our self or someone or something else, this is but a momentary average of its constituent relations.**

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Chapter 22: When do Relations Create a State of Being?

This is a very important point to understand: although there are relations between objects, between people, although there are relations between _still_ s, the _still_ s themselves consist of relations.

"Look at these two sentences:

"1. He is my husband because I love him.

"2. I love him because he is my husband.

"The first describes a causal process whereby a state of being brings about a meaningful relationship. The second is a meaningful relationship that creates a state of being. Doing is relating. Relating is an activity. Relationship is only a noun in your human language. In fact, it is something dynamic. Thus any viewpoint is dynamic. The first sentence creates a weak relation whereas the second creates a strong relation that is more meaningful, which means, it has more branches." What this last sentence means can be better understood if we imagine a tree with branches. The _possibility_ of the emergence of the branches is what constitutes the essence of the tree trunk, or in other words, the tree trunk can be defined by its function (its present and future relations), its capability to produce branches. A strong relation, or rather, a strong structure can be viewed as the tree trunk that can create many branches, whereas a weak relation (structure) — to continue with our metaphor — is a branch that connects with leaves.

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The stability of a structure depends on which parameters defined it. Put differently, the strength of an object is the function of its flexibility, which means, it can interact/be defined by relations that have continuity in themselves.

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To grasp that better, change the two sentences given by SHET to the following:

1. He is my son because I love him.

2. I love him because he is my son.

This revision clarifies what SHET means. The first sentence is rather meaningless. On the other hand, "I love him because he is my son" is natural. The state of fatherhood or motherhood is the result of having a child. One becomes a father or mother only when there is a child, which constitutes a clear relation. Hence the relation brings about the state of being. **"A state of being is the assembled relations and attitudes, the dynamics of enriching activities together."** Now, take again the two sentences given by SHET: the sentence, "I love him because he is my husband" describes a state of being, love, which was created by the institutionalized relation. SHET claims that's the strong connection. In chemistry, that would be a strong bond or a compound, whereas relations between objects would be a mixture easily separated — a task for Cinderella. Indeed, there are more couples who divorce than parents who divorce their children and stop being parents.

Clara from the left: "Do you mean that the ideal as represented by the institution is more meaningful than the actual relationship?"

Clara from the right: "No. Considering either the ideal as represented by the institution as more important than the actual relationship, or the actual relationship as more important than the ideal as represented by the institution, are both significance. SHET's argumentation is about structure, not about significance. Try to put aside your beliefs. I cannot and will not argue with your beliefs — we are not discussing which of these options is more important. With this example, SHET purports the argument that some structures are more stable than others. Stabilization is a function of the route through which the stabilization was achieved (that is, how something has been defined). Since the route by which something is being defined is not unique, SHET's example is a tool that explains why some relations are more binding while the same situation, the same object consisting of a different set of relations will more readily destabilize."

Clara from the left: "But in both cases the relations are love and marriage. So, what is the difference?"

Clara from the right: "Except, that in the first case love was the boundary condition, whereas in the second example — 'I love him because he is my husband' — it was the ideal represented by the institution — marriage — that is posited as boundary condition. That is, if you love him because he is your husband, then it is less likely that you will fall out of love and then search a new love, whereas if you get married because you love him — and your emphasis remains on being in love — then when you fall out of love, you might find that the marriage lost its meaning for you. Of course, love, marriage and family ties are far more complex than alluded to by this discussion. Nevertheless, the topic is neither marriage, nor love, but the type of relations that can stabilize a stronger bond."

Clara from the left: "I still don't get what you mean."

Clara from the right: "When you define yourself as separate from the rest of the world, love can create a union between you and someone else. This relationship is like the relationship between separate objects. However, if you define yourself as part of a family, group, whatever, then bonding through love is a secondary result of this definition, which means, your relation with this other (husband in this case) explicitly defines you, which implies that in order to change your status, you'll have to change your self-definition. This means, the relation defines you instead of you having a relation, or as mentioned earlier, the relations constitute the object, as opposed to the belief that relations can only occur between objects."

Clara from the left: "You have just obliterated women's rights with an easy sweep of your hand! What's next on your agenda? The justification of slavery?"

Clara from the right: "Your beliefs prevent you from hearing what I am really saying. Forget significance and look at the structure! I don't care if you replace the sentence, 'I love him because he is my husband' with. 'I love her because she is my wife'. Nobody lives in a void. Whether you like it or not, everyone and every thing consist of their relations. Utilize this discovery as a tool by explicating the relations connecting you with the rest of the world, and then you can control your life and destiny, or ignore the structure of things and continue sticking to your righteous beliefs, go on living with the illusion that everyone and every thing is a separate entity, and you can go on fighting your hopeless struggles where you invest great efforts that yield negligible results."

Seeing objects, ideas or any thing as a conglomerate of relations that can be defined by other relations is an unusual way of relating to reality. Knowledge of the intricate structure of these relations provides novel tools to understand, preserve, modify or create phenomenological objects as well as personal realities.

Clara from the left (whistling incredulously): "You _are_ trying to provide a theory of everything!"

Clara from the right: "A true theory of everything should indeed include all aspects of existence from physics to metaphysics, from biology to the spirit. If a structured lawfulness of dynamic relations could yield all aspects of reality, then that would be a theory of everything."

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When relations bring about a state of being, this is a stronger bond than the tie connecting states of being.

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Chapter 23: What is the Mechanism of Relations?

When you understand the loop... you will understand what information really is. Now you think it is data. You will also understand what communication is. Now you think it is passing on data. Understanding these two basics to greater depth will change your concepts of the world around you and how you grasp your perceptions.

SHET

Once a woman approached SHET with the request that he should explain the symbolism of some funny, totally meaningless experiences she used to have before falling asleep. The answer was rather surprising, pointing out that she had tapped into the mechanism of relations, which is comparable to experiencing mathematical formulas when you have no inkling about mathematics. SHET also guided her as to how to utilize this mechanism in her personal life. **"Everything, even what you call solid matter particles, is built of relations. Small particles do not make up the world. There is no basic building block of matter, but rather, relations, inner relations, constitute the most basic particle. This means that even the most basic, the tiniest thing, is a complexity. You need to think differently to grasp that and for your spiritual progress — it is important. When these basic relations, these basic motions (of 'Nothing,' gaining reference and thus existence only through relating) order themselves into meaningful constellations, then you've got something with some kind of stability and a possibility of evolution.**

"What you have tapped into in your altered state of consciousness is the symbolism of such relations. Like ZERUFIM (צרופים — in Hebrew, combinations, mainly used for combinations of letters making up words), each letter is more or less meaningless by itself, only gaining meaning when connected to other letters in a certain relation. Your experiences are such ZERUFIM (צרופים). Great. Now you can work with these. You can reshuffle your deck, not with the purpose of making any meaning out of it, not with the purpose of finding what it symbolizes, but as an exercise to learn how to change your reality by changing the inner relations of things. That way you will learn to get rid of your fears, for instance. You fear something because you have a certain attitude towards this something. You, specifically you, often take symbols as reality.xxv

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_Symbols are a superficial exchange of an_ obscurity **_for a_ vagueness _. Their only value is what we associate with them, the discovery of some hidden relation._**

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"For instance, find all the possible relations toward snakes: how you relate to snakes, how you believe snakes relate to others, how you relate to yourself regarding snakes, etc. Look only at the relations, at the motion, at the in-between, what's in the space between you and the idea or reality of snakes. Then shift around these relations. It matters not whether what you get makes sense or not, like your experiences. You are being taught a tool that can be used with great success once you exercise it. When you can change relations easily, then you can relate differently to snakes and you will no longer fear them. This does not entail fighting the fear, and it's not about doing affirmations. It's not positive thinking, and it's not defining yourself as superior to snakes, nor does it entail doing guided imagination exercises, but simply unfixing a fixed relation that you have toward snakes. You can do this with all your fears and with every other undesirable aspect of your life...

"Look more at the changing aspects, at the motion, and learn to change how you relate to yourself and to others until a new structure is created, which is to your liking. For that, as I have mentioned above, you need to demolish old fixed relations, which are your beliefs and attitudes."

What does this session say to us? Our usual intuition is that there is an external reality, external and independent of our perception. SHET comes to dislocate this idea of there being an external world to one's perception. As already mentioned in Part 1, there can be no ontology, no theory describing how things really are in their truth. Why? Let's have a look.

On the one hand, I am proposing a logical structure that says nothing about the world, which gives no information whatsoever. This logical structure of defining the indefinite creates the logical reasoning whereby one argument necessarily leads to the next argument, thus building complex structures that still give no information whatsoever about the world or my experience. Nevertheless, this logical structure is supposed to be the fundament of any information that can be gained about the world.

On the other hand, how do we gain knowledge about the world? Whether that knowledge is true or false is irrelevant to what I wish to examine here. The real question being asked is: By what means do we receive information? Basically, by making a measurement. How is a measurement made? By use of parameters. A parameter is " _a set of properties whose values determine the characteristics or behavior of something_ " (Webster's Dictionary). So a measurement made a priori defines what characteristics I am going to examine, namely those that the parameter or the means of measurement include. In that sense, whatever I measure is as it appears to be because of the inherent characteristics of the parameter that I use to perform the measurement. If I used other parameters that defined different characteristics, then I would get a different picture of the measured object. There is still no connection between the logical structure and the information I gain by using whatever parameters for measurement, but the parameters I utilize to measure with are part of the general logical structure.

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There is no absolute definition; the kind of parameters used, each with their own peculiar characteristics, determines the nature of the defined.

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On the third hand, where is the measured object (no matter which parameters I use)? If I use the necessary parameters to determine that I am looking at a glass of water, where is the glass of water? External to me? Is it in me? The intuitive answer of course is that the glass of water is external to me and exists whether I look at it or not. However, I claim that the glass of water is my perception, my experience, and therefore, internal to me if my perception is internal to me. I have no means to determine whether the glass of water has existence beyond my perception. If someone tells me about it, the glass of water gains existence within my perception from what I was told about it. And so, I can only gain the kind of knowledge about the glass of water that can be intrinsic to my perception. When I perceive something, no matter how much I believe that my perception corresponds with something external to me, I only perceive an image, thought or experience, which is not the external object but the fabric of my perception.

What then is perception? It is a process of defining something (be it an object, sensation or feeling), which I then externalize. By externalizing the perceived, I make it separate and different from me. By making it different from me (even if I perceive having a bellyache, I separate the "I" from the "bellyache" so the "I" can _have_ the "bellyache" by establishing a relationship between the two), I give meaning to the perceived, which would have no meaning if it were identical with me. So perception is differentiation by means of parameters, a process of establishing relations between me and objects I consider external to me, between the objects themselves, etc. Externalization then is the process of differentiation that gives meaning to what has been defined as different from other definitions (more about this in Part 6). Consequently, the process of perception, the process that externalizes by creating a multiplicity of meanings is the very same process that defines those parameters through which information about the world is gained.

That everything in the universe has the same logical structure presupposes a unified logical reasoning, which denies the possibility of objects having their own nature or existence independent of a perceiver.

Clara from the left: "I seem to have missed something. What is a perceiver? Are there many perceivers? If there are many perceivers, then one is necessarily external to the other."

Clara from the right: "The perceiver is just as externalized an object as any other perceived object. The perceiver is created by the act of perception as much as the perceived object. In order for an "I" to be different from anyone else and thus have meaning, it needs to be defined as such, which would be the act of self-reference, or self-awareness. By saying "I," one refers to a bordered entity, which being thus bordered and somewhat defined has meaning. If I was the table and the computer and everything else, then I would have no identity — being everything I would be nothing. Only by placing borders to my identity does it gain meaning. The borders of my identity are created by the act of perception, and precisely differentiating myself from the rest of the world gives meaning to my identity. This act of placing borders and differentiating, which is perception, defines me to be me and not another. So the perceiver himself is the creation of the act of perception (definition and differentiation)."

Clara from the left: "What are you trying to say? That there is no other existence in the world but the act of perception?"

Clara from the right: "Precisely. Creation, all that you can see, touch, think of — even you yourself including your body and personality — are but externalizations of the act of perception. In other words, the variety you experience is constituted of definitions with different parameters that acquire meaning by being externalized and differentiated."

Clara from the left: "And where do the different parameters come from?"

Clara from the right: "They are different relations. That's why relations are the constituent elements of anything and everything."

Clara from the left: "So you say that your logic is the act of definition, which when successful, is externalization. Now that relations have been done to death, perhaps you could substantiate your claim that everything consists of relations? What is the nature of relations and how do they become the constituent elements of everything?"

Clara from the right: "Let's look at the two most basic sorts of relations that could be said to be the dynamic pillars of existence: relations of sameness and relations of difference."

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The logical structure is the act of defining (the indefinite) that allows both the perception of information about the world and also the creation of that world of information. Although logic gives no information about the world, it creates it by defining. Definition means externalization from the definer, thus separating the defined from the definer. Perception is definition, the complex non-linear act of relating, which creates both the perceived and the perceiver.

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Chapter 24: Relations of Sameness Viewpoint 1

The process of defining the indefinite creates existence. Stated the other way around, we could call existence the process of defining the indefinite. We have shown the indefinite to be continuous, whereas our means by which we define are discrete. Nevertheless, a definition, no matter how partial it might be, is a very special kind of relation, namely, a relation of sameness. It states that something is the same as what it states to be. For example, stating, "This is a table," which means, this object is the same, identical with the table, would be a relation of sameness. However, a table would only have meaning if there were chairs, walls, ants, or anything else, which are different from a table. Saying, "I am me," is stating that I have a certain identity, which is only I and nothing else, where the "nothing else" gives meaning to my identity. So relations of difference give meaning to relations of sameness. But relations of difference would have no meaning if nothing could be identified or defined, in which case everything would be a meaningless jumble, so relations of sameness give meaning to relations of difference.

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Meaning is establishing relations of sameness and difference. Anything is only meaningful if its structure can delineate identity (Viewpoint 1) that becomes meaningful by difference (Viewpoint 2).

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Clara from the left: "If relations of sameness and difference give meaning to each other mutually, then this still does not explain what each one is. This looks like a circular definition, which does not make me wiser, although you might think you have revealed something utterly profound. I know, I know, you will come up now with the loop, that in the loop the constituent elements co-define each other. If that's all you can say, it's not very convincing."

Relations of sameness provide oneness. If two objects are totally identical, identical in time and space and in every other detail, then there is only one object. A relation of sameness could be a self-referential statement, such as, "I am." How can I state that I am? If I relate to myself, if I look at myself and experience the self-reference, then I can state that I am. If All-That-Is related to itself, then that would also be self-reference. We could call this self-reference _looking_ : All-That-Is looked at itself and experienced the looking at itself.

Clara from the left: "So you are defining God. What does he eat for breakfast?"

Clara from the right: "God, wholeness, is indefinite. If it was defined, then there would be something beyond it, in which case this would not be wholeness. When God looks at himself, when God tries to define himself, then that means that the indefinite is trying to define the indefinite — self-reference."

Clara from the left: "How does God look at himself? Does he have eyes?"

Clara from the right: "Although I say 'God,' which is a noun, although I refer to God as 'he,' although I say, 'he looks,' which grammatically expresses the act (the verb) performed by the subject, God is neither a noun nor a _still_. When I say God is the super consciousness, the universal lawfulness, the loop, the super structure, I am not referring to a _still_. This primordial God is an infinitely recursive and meaningless process, because when defining itself, it does not succeed. Every time the whole beholds the whole, every time the indefinite attempts to define the indefinite, the indefinite remains indefinite, and that's the meaning of God looking at himself, the whole beholding the whole."

Clara from the left: "But how do you know that All-That-Is looks at itself? That the indefinite is trying to define itself?"

Clara from the right: "Because I state it from our point of view, from the point of view of existence. Remember, the process of defining the indefinite creates existence, so if there is existence, then it must have been defined. Although wholeness does not succeed in defining the whole, it succeeds in defining parts, which is existence, difference. Sameness can only be assessed from the point of view of difference."

Although All-That-Is looks at itself, which could be said to be self-awareness, this is meaningless when there is nothing to relate to, nothing that would give that self a different weight than other selves. That is, if there is only All-That-Is, an indefinite wholeness previous to Creation and creatures, then its self-awareness is both total awareness and also total non-awareness; since it cannot differentiate itself from others — because there are no others and thus its self-awareness is meaningless.

Nevertheless, when wholeness relates to itself, when it attempts to define itself, then it externalizes the indefinite. This action does not create meaning, only a _structure_ within which definitions can emerge that eventually gain meaning by differentiation. That is, structure is the repetitive _act_ of externalization (in this case, of the indefinite), not the externalized indefinite. From the point of view of All-That-Is, the externalization of the indefinite is nothing, whereas from the viewpoint of existence (our point of view), this structure is the potential of anything, the ability to become something with meaning. I will enlarge on this essential point in the following.

The whole, or All-That-Is, if it relates, must be a self-referential viewpoint because it can only relate to itself since there is nothing beyond the whole. It matters not whether wholeness succeeds in defining itself as such or not (of course, it cannot succeed, as has been shown in Part 1). If it tries, it relates to itself, where the "it" and the "itself" are the same if there is nothing that could delineate a difference between them. And since, by definition, there can be no external reference point to wholeness, there is nothing that could tell any difference between the "it" and the "itself." The looking entity and the looked at entity are the same, identical, no matter how many times it looks at itself. So when All-That-Is relates to itself, it creates relations of oneness, which are relations of sameness.

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The self-referential viewpoint of the whole creates nothing by only creating itself, which is sameness, no Creation.

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Clara from the left: "In Part 1 you said that wholeness defining itself is bigger than the defined self from its point of view, whereas the defined is bigger than its defining source from its point of view. Now you say that All-That-Is beholding itself is relations of oneness. How do you explain that?"

Clara from the right: "Don't you see? When ' _a_ ' is both bigger and smaller than ' _b_ ' and ' _b_ ' is both bigger and smaller than ' _a,_ ' then neither ' _a_ ' nor ' _b_ ' have meaning. They are meaningless, nothing, sameness."

Clara from the left: "If two things are meaningless, then this does not mean that they are the same."

Clara from the right: "But if the indefinite tries to define the indefinite and does not succeed, then what do you get?

Clara from the left: "The indefinite remains indefinite."

Clara from the right: "Hypothetically, if it succeeded, then what would you get?"

Clara from the left: "Indefiniteness."

Clara from the right: "So you see, when the indefinite engages in defining itself, whether it succeeds or not, the conclusion is: 'indefiniteness.' This _is_ sameness."

Clara from the left: "In Part 1 you said that God attempting to define himself set off all of Creation because he did not succeed in defining himself, so he must try again and again, and by that he creates. Now you say that God attempting to define himself equals nothing. Aren't you contradicting yourself?"

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Creation is the magnificent failure of God to define himself.

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Clara from the right: "No. I'll get to how multiplicity can unfold from oneness, or in other words, how relations of difference can emerge from relations of sameness."

Clara from the left: "That's promising to explain _creatio ex nihilo_."

Clara from the right: "Just so, if you'd let me go on without interruptions."

Clara from the left: "Nobody, no man or woman, can ever explain creation in this manner. But I'll give you the chance to try. So God looked at himself, then what?"

Clara from the right: "Relations of sameness. Any 'image' that God might create by looking at himself will be the same God, since change can only be determined by a partial view (part of the whole), and consequently, change is relative to this partial view."

Change is either comparison in time (comparing one state to a previous state) or a comparison in multiplicity (between two or more co-existing states). Since both time and multiplicity are creations, God's primordial self-reference occurs in the a-temporal state of nothingness, _before_ time or Creation, so to speak. Since there is nothing to which God can compare himself (remember, there is nothing yet), the looking entity and the looked at entity are identical. So All-That-Is remains the indefinite whole because it cannot compare itself to either its previous self (because there is no "previous") nor to anything else. Referring to myself now compared to my previous self is a relation of difference. However, there can be no "previous" when the primordial whole refers to itself.

Clara from the left: "Tell me, are you really a total idiot, or just playing it? If there is nothing to which God can compare himself, then how come the defining God sees himself as bigger and the defined image thinks himself bigger? Isn't _bigger_ a comparison? Just because there are a few pages between the two statements does not mean that you can make a fool out of your readers — some of us are intelligent, you know?"

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The concept of difference indicates either the existence of time or of multiplicity, which could be considered different definitions of the same.

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Clara from the right: "Actually, you are very smart. The observation of 'I am bigger than... whatever' comes from difference. Within the state of sameness, which is nothing, being the sameness prior to Creation, there is no difference. That is, Creation is creation of difference, which is the basis for comparison, and consequently, prior to that there is nothing. When God beholds himself and he 'sees' sameness, which means his 'image' is identical to him, then there is still nothing, no Creation."

Let's call the viewpoint that creates oneness or sameness Viewpoint 1 and the viewpoint that creates difference, Viewpoint 2. Viewpoint 1, the looking of God at himself, the whole beholding the whole, is immeasurable because there can be no measuring rod with external parameters. Hence, every hypothetical difference, which could only be observed by an external viewpoint between one looking of God upon himself and another looking of God upon himself, is irrelevant to the self-referential viewpoint.

From our point of view, the indefinite wholeness is symmetry. Not only is the indefinite indefinable, but in its state of wholeness, it cannot define something particular because it cannot choose specific parameters (defined relations) with which to define. Creation occurs by definition, a definition is a measurement, and to produce a measurement, parameters are needed. If all possible parameters are present, then no measurement can be achieved, because what defines something to be this also defines it to be that and everything else (inconsistency), and then nothing has meaning and nothing was created. Anything is only meaningful if it is defined by only _some_ parameters. All parameters or no parameters are equally meaningless. The choice of parameters for the purpose of parameterization also requires specific parameters, and hence, wholeness cannot choose parameters because it is indefinite — it has no parameters with which to choose.

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All-That-Is looking at itself is the self-similar pattern of creating further and further replicas of this process within itself. Any part of the pattern is the whole pattern, so from that point of view, nothing happens, nothing was created, nothing exists.

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That means that there is nothing beyond this fractal structure that perpetuates itself by being infinitely recursive. This fractal structure is the process that expresses the self-defining attempts of wholeness, that leave it indefinite, its symmetry undisturbed. The infinitely recursive process of God looking at himself is continuous. That is, the repetitive process of God's self-definition is one continuous action of _relations of oneness, relations of sameness_ — or Viewpoint 1 from our point of view, from the point of view of existence.

Clara from the left: "If nothing was created, then there is no Viewpoint 1 and God cannot have relations of sameness. You said that relations of sameness gain meaning from relations of difference, so if there is nothing, then there are no relations of difference to give meaning to relations of sameness, and then God cannot have relations of sameness. Something is missing."

Clara from the right: "You are totally right. It would be incorrect to say that there were relations of sameness first and then relations of difference afterwards. Indeed, both could only have meaning if there was multiplicity (or time). God's looking upon himself and thereby creating relations of oneness are only meaningful from our point of view when there is something, or stated another way, after the world was created. From God's point of view, these relations of sameness are nothing."

Clara from the left: "Then how was there anything created against all odds? Where then is the dynamics of Creation?"

Creation of multiplicity from oneness certainly seems a paradox. When we think of the start of the world as being some kind of symmetry that eventually breaks, the following question necessarily arises: "How did this symmetry break?" But it is precisely asking that question that puts the questioner outside the queried events. The question puts the questioner into a different framework than the rest of the world. On the other hand, if we are utilizing the Holophanic viewpoint, we will never attempt that question, which puts the start of Creation or the world outside oneself. Imagining that in the beginning of times there was a oneness somewhere that then broke up into the many without any external intervention (because there was nothing external to it — if there was, then it could not have been the primordial oneness) is a kind of unsolvable paradox unless we recognize the essential difference between the whole and its "images."

The "image" is always part of the whole, and although it creates relations of sameness when it refers _solely_ to itself (the whole beholding the whole), being a part, it can also refer to another part and thereby create relations of difference. The replicas created by God's looking at himself could be viewed as discrete. The unperceiving process eventually becomes partial viewpoints through the recurring process of God's self-reference, and as such, these can look at each other — one such viewpoint can look at another such viewpoint and observe change. That's Viewpoint 2. So the question is not how the symmetry broke, but which viewpoint creates symmetry and which viewpoint creates asymmetry.

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Awareness gives meaning to consciousness. God becoming aware of himself gives meaning to awareness. God becoming aware of being aware gives meaning to God. God becoming aware of being aware is the becoming God.

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Chapter 25: Relations of Difference Viewpoint 2

In order to understand what Viewpoint 2 or relations of difference are, we have to understand what it really means to define. It means _"to determine or fix the boundaries or extent of"_ (Webster's Dictionary). That is, by using certain parameters with which to measure, the object of definition becomes defined, but only when certain parameters are used and not others, which means that the defined object has certain characteristics and not others. If I defined something as both big and small, then that kind of definition would have no meaning. To define also means _"to state or set forth the meaning of"_ (Webster's Dictionary), so something defined cannot be meaningless. Consequently, the definition of anything could be said to be that which excludes all the other possibilities of what it is not, or according to Webster's Dictionary, _"to make clear the outline or form of."_ The activity of fixing the outline or boundaries within which our defined object is established also hints at the existence of what's beyond those boundaries — what our defined object is not.

Relations of difference emerge when there is some kind of definition and specificity, the basis for comparison. But how can any definition emerge from wholeness trying to define itself?

At the risk of repeating myself, let's take a step further into the workings of wholeness trying to define itself. To have meaning, to exist as such, wholeness needs to define itself because it is indefinite. Wholeness cannot succeed in defining itself, however, because to be defined means to be bordered, which implies that there is more beyond the border, which would deny wholeness its meaning as wholeness. So the result of this self-definition is: indefiniteness.

Let's call the indefinite that tried to define itself Indefinite 1, and the indefinite that resulted with the failure, Indefinite 2.

Clara from the left: "There's something fishy here. I can smell it. If I want to define _'a'_ and I fail, then the result is anything but ' _a' —_ which means, _'not-a.'_ If the result is ' _a'_ then I succeeded. So if the indefinite fails to define itself, then the result should be ' _not-indefinite_ ' — so where is Indefinite 2?"

Clara from the right: " _Not-indefinite_ does not mean definite; it means it could be definite or indefinite, undecidable, impossible to know, uncertain. If you can't say for sure, what is it then?"

Clara from the left: "So that's Indefinite 2, which is the result of the failure of Indefinite 1 to define itself. Tell me, what kind of failure is this? If you want to define an apple and the result of your definition is an apple, is that a failure or success?"

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If the indefinite fails to define itself, then it succeeded, and if it succeeded, then it failed.

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Clara from the right: "You hit the nail on the head. If we look at Indefinite 2 as failure, then it is Indefinite 3, a success because the result (Indefinite 3) substantiates the existence of Indefinite 1 (the one doing the self-definition). That is, if the Indefinite engaged in the process of defining itself and the result was Indefinite, then it succeeded. Although the indefinite is the indefinite (a tautology even if we consider Indefinite 2 to be Indefinite 3), success and failure are two different viewpoints."

The emergence of this basic paradox is the fundament of difference from our point of view: not having succeeded was the success because the indefinite attained meaning by being differentiated rather than by being bordered. From the point of view of wholeness, nothing happened. There is no result, only this continuous process of self-definition. However, from our point of view, each alternating result of the definitions of wholeness creates relations of difference wherein, although each result is the whole when regarded as the conclusion of the definition, each result is a part when regarded as either failure or success. Relations of difference emerge when the part engages in defining, not itself but another part (remember that both these parts are also the whole).

Saying, if the resulting indefinite is a failure then it is a success, is a paradox based on the paradoxical nature of the indefinite itself. When dealing with self-reference, the indefinite gets further entangled in paradoxes. Although I started with the self-reference of wholeness, the mere act of self-reference is a complex process. While we can start an explanation of the loop anywhere, the loop itself has no starting point. This logic allows us to zoom into the paradox and reveal its constituent dynamics of relations of sameness and difference, and zooming in on that, we will reveal the paradoxical core of these relations and so on. I'll deal with this in more detail shortly. Let it suffice to say that relations of difference generate parameters, which are tools of definition. Likewise, speaking of God's self-reference only has meaning from within existence, at the point when relations of difference have stabilized.

Recognizing a self is the result of being aware of something, which is not the self (outside the boundaries of what the self is defined to be). If I were everything, then neither "I" nor anything else would have meaning. To be able to identify a self, an externalization process has to occur. This externalization process comes about by unknowing some parameters, and by that, knowing others. In order for wholeness to measure wholeness, it needs to use all the parameters. God, by definition, is the whole defined as such because there is nothing beyond or within God that can do the defining, God has to define himself — the whole has to define the whole — which act activates all the parameters. To know something, he must cancel out some parameters, because knowledge is definition that places outside its boundaries the unknown to give meaning to the known. That's why the absolute awareness of God is no awareness, total knowledge is total unknowing, which means, totally indefinite. In order for a part to relate to another part as to an "other" ( _not_ self-reference), that part has to become defined as a part and not as wholeness by, for instance, being a failure or being a success. The part becomes a part, and it gains meaning as a part when God contracts, which means _unknows,_ some parameters and thereby externalizes the "other" to be an other and not the self, which act gives meaning to both the other and the self.

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Self-reference is only meaningful when there is an other or others by which the self can gain meaning.

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Clara from the left: "You mean that because a definition excludes what it is not, what's not included in the definition is external to it and that's the externalization process? That sounds utterly trivial, even tautological, so what's your point?"

Clara from the right: "That's not what I mean. What's not included in the definition gives meaning to the defined, and as such, by having meaning the _defined_ is being externalized, separated from the act of definition and from what's beyond the definition. The externalization process is when the act of defining creates the threesome of the act of definition, the defined and what's beyond the boundaries of the defined. This separation is the externalization process, the foundation of further definitions and creation of meaning."

Anything could illustrate this point, but let's look at the following folk story:

Guy proposes to girl. Girl's parents decide to celebrate the engagement. Girl's parents send girl to cellar to get wine. Girl fails to return. Girl's mother goes after her and she too fails to return. Girl's father goes after them, and he too fails to return. Finally, guy goes after them to see what happened. He finds the entire family in the cellar crying.

"What happened?" the guy asks.

"See this boulder?" asks the girl between sobs pointing at a big rock protruding from the cellar ceiling. "When we will have a child and we send him down to get wine from the cellar, it will fall on him and kill him." And they went on howling.

It would be safe to assume that the family knew about the boulder, perhaps, it has been there for decades. However, the new boundary conditions (the prospect of enlarging the family) brought forth a new perception, re-defining the boulder in the cellar: this is the stone that will kill the future child. This new definition externalized the boulder, that now having assumed a different meaning than what it was perceived to be earlier, gained a separate existence from the process of definition (the prospect of marriage, enlarging the family, bringing wine from the cellar and whatever else triggered it into being). The new future possibilities (the indefinite — what's beyond the borders of the defined, for instance, what it might do, what the defined boulder is not, etc.) endow the boulder with new meaning. Although a silly story, it illustrates the process of definition, the externalization and what's beyond the boundaries of the defined. It also shows why this process is the foundation of further definitions and creation of meaning.

Only here something extraordinary happens. The process of defining outlines the borders of what is being defined. That's the _structure_ of defining. This structure gives _meaning_ to what has been defined, or in other words, it describes the _information_ pertaining to what has been defined, the significance. However, when structure and information contradict each other, then we have a paradox. That's precisely what happens when we define the "indefinite." The word "indefinite" only gains meaning if it is so defined; it only has meaning if it has structure, if we limit it to be that and not anything else. Yet the meaning of the word says that it has no structure and it cannot be limited. Yet to have meaning, the indefinite has to be defined to be something; but then it is robbed of its indefiniteness. So the indefinite is only indefinite if it is not indefinite (but defined), but the definition states that it is indefinite.

The basic paradoxical relation between structure and information creates both information and the process that can continue creating structure and information. In this sense, the act of definition creates both the unsuccessful definitions of wholeness and also the indefinite, which gives meaning to the defined wholeness. The defined replicas are able to relate to other suchlike defined replicas as different from themselves (failure or success) and thus _relations of difference_ emerge.

Clara from the left: "This is preposterous. According to you, All-That-Is, wholeness, created the world by starting to define itself. But how could wholeness — as you put it — attempt to define itself when 'wholeness' has no meaning? How could it remain indefinite if the indefinite has no meaning? Who gave the first meaning?"

Clara from the right: "Remember that even 'Nothing' only has meaning if there is something. Your question should not be _who_ but _what_ creates meaning?"

We said that Viewpoint 2 gives meaning to Viewpoint 1. Viewpoint 1 alone, without Viewpoint 2, is 'Nothing,' non-being (without structure or meaning). Viewpoint 1 is relations of sameness only when seen from the point of view of Viewpoint 2, since sameness has no meaning unless there is difference. When viewed from the point of view of Viewpoint 2, Viewpoint 1 is a potential. It has meaning. It is the potential from which Viewpoint 2 was created. So the created gives meaning to the creator, without which the creator could not have created. When relations are seen as constituting objects, then these are the dynamics that create both the objects and also the viewpoints that can relate with meaning.

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The rich mold of infinite variety is the structured evolution of relations of difference.

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Think of a mother, as an analogy. Although the mother creates the child, it is the existence of the child that confers the title of mother upon a woman; it is the infant who gives meaning to motherhood. Take note that meaning is created in retrospect. Let's name the process of giving meaning in retrospect by creating a framework and providing a direction for evolution forward, _retromorphism_ xxvi When non-being becomes a potential from the point of view of something that was created from that potential, when from its locus in existence, after the fact, something gives meaning to 'Nothing' as the potential of its own existence, then that is retromorphous looking. Looking, of course, could be regarded as an enriching awareness, interaction. When a potential is not realized, it is 'Nothing.' Only after the realization can we state that there was a potential.

In actuality, the retromorphous point of view ascribes different degrees of definitions to the indefinite. This means that the act of definition creates the potential of what has been defined to exist and existence in general, after the fact. Consequently, even 'Nothing' gains meaning only when Creation looks retromorphously at its origin, exchanging 'Nothing' for the potential from which it emerged. Defining means erecting an infinite number of retromorphous levels. The means by which we define need to be defined themselves. When each such level looks back at the previous level from where it emanated, it discovers the potential for its own existence and it discovers that its potential was amorphous compared to itself. When this same level looks at itself, it "sees" itself, which is sameness, Viewpoint 1. When the next retromorphous level looks back, it again sees an amorphous potential for its own existence, etc. This representation of the infinite recursions of the retromorphous levels is a linear rendition, to be regarded rather like a textbook description. Creation is more complex than that. Existence is created by the interactions and braiding of retromorphous levels.

In the Loop of Creation, even the potential of existence cannot be said to be a _still_ , but retromorphously, we should relate to it as the generating principle of existence. We will be able to comprehend the dynamics of Creation when we truly understand that a _still,_ any _still,_ is only an average of dynamic fluctuations.

Clara from the left: "You say that relations create both the created and the creator. Fine. But it's all make-believe if you cannot answer the question: Who created the relations?"

Clara from the right: "Don't you understand? If something has no meaning, it does not exist — it cannot be related to. So even if there is a jumble of all kinds of meaningless things and processes, without structure, without definition, these have no meaning, and thus are nothing. Things or viewpoints become as such when they have a logical structure and meaning, when they are defined — which is some kind of order. Relations of sameness and difference are the fundamental regulating mechanism that creates order."

Viewpoint 2 creates _relations of difference,_ and thereby, multiplicity. Viewpoint 2 means defining a partial view, which of course can compare itself to other parts. This creates a kind of fractal evolution, which brings our perception of the universe into being. One fractal has no meaning, but rather, fractals are an evolution, becoming rather than being, a process of repetitive self-similarity. Although the basic pattern can be recognized while evolving, it is ever changing. Fractals are connected to chaos theory (which will be challenged in Chapter 50).

Clara from the left: "You are attempting to describe a lawfulness that in turn describes how Creation could take place. At the risk of being told that I think in _stills_ or linearly, I must ask this question: Did the lawfulness exist and then it was applied, or did it emerge from the process of relating? If it emerged from the process of relating, then how did this process know to initiate the lawfulness that it follows? If the lawfulness existed before its realization, then who created the lawfulness?"

Clara from the right: "That's a stupid question."

Clara from above: "Not so stupid. The lawfulness you ask about is the organizing mechanism that eventually endows with meaning; that's the lawfulness, which is the structure of whatever there is. This structure is the result of the externalization process, wherein relations of difference unfold. As SHET says, **'The changing relation, when meaningful, is structure.'** We can only speak about lawfulness if there is difference, multiplicity. If there is only a meaningless oneness, then of course, it is irrelevant to mention either organization or lawfulness. When there are relations of difference, only then do relations of sameness gain meaning, so relations can be said to have organized into a structure only retromorphously. Or in SHET's words, **'The processes organize themselves to be processes that can gain meaning from the organized lawfulness.'** Consequently, the lawfulness becomes defined by a complexity of fully and partially defined and amorphous states that interact, which become meaningful if they interact in accordance with that lawfulness. Still, the loop."

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Relations are the organizing mechanism of logical structures. Something gains meaning when its constituent relations interact in accordance with the lawfulness of Creation because this lawfulness is the structure of any significance that can gain meaning.

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If there is only Viewpoint 1, there is no Creation. Since for God, both Viewpoints 1 and 2 exist, SHET says that there is both Creation and also no creation. **"God looked at himself, became aware of himself. That perception of himself is already different, thus creating multiplicity from oneness with each consecutive looking."** That's both Viewpoints 1 and 2. **"However, from the viewpoint of God, nothing happened, nothing was ever created."** That's Viewpoint 1 only. **"The consecutive looking creates an asymmetric evolution, and the transformations manifest as your physical universe. These consecutive lookings, the breaking of the symmetry, is the primal energy that started off this universe of yours."** God looking at himself is a process of becoming aware, the outcome of relating. God exists because he relates. **"For God to say 'I', he first needs interaction, the dynamic part, which is the hint of a possibility for there to be an 'I'."**

The substratum, from which space, time and the physical universe emerge, the qualitative dimensions, can be looked upon as non-being (when there is no Creation), or as a potential (when looking retromorphously from the viewpoint of the created). When does non-being become a potential? When Creation is taking place _de facto_. If the process of Creation had occurred within time, then that would mean that the effect brought about the cause, or that the end of the process came before its start. Remember that the process of Creation does not occur within the space-time dimensions. We have killed the linear paradigm, and now we are in a loop where the outcome defines the potential of that outcome.

Viewpoint 1 alone is neither static nor dynamic — it has no meaning. Viewpoint 2, on the other hand, is dynamic because it sees change and difference, and because it gives meaning. Viewpoint 1 gains a dynamic meaning when viewed from Viewpoint 2, because then it is the potential for Viewpoint 2's multiplicity.

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Evolution of relations of difference is their braiding with relations of sameness. That's the mechanism, the lawfulness, which is its own generator implied by self-referential evolution. The loop of Creation is that self-creating mechanism. Creation does not start with meaning, but giving meaning triggers creation into being. For what does giving form to the amorphous infinite mean if not the creation of meaning?

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Chapter 26: The Music of the Spheres

Ring out ye Crystall sphears,  
Once bless our human ears,  
(If ye have power to touch our senses so)  
And let your silver chime  
Move in melodious time;  
And let the Base of Heav'ns deep Organ blow,  
And with your ninefold harmony  
Make up full consort to th' Angelic symphony.

John Milton

Imagine going to a recital of a renowned violinist who is going to perform the newest work of a great composer. You sit, expectantly awaiting the great work to unfold and caress your ears. And then, the violinist strikes one tone and keeps it at an endless legato, without any change for two hours. One single note for two hours. First, you would demand your money refunded, and then you would beat up the violinist. After that you would break the composer's nose, and only then would you kill the manager. The torture of one single unchanging tone for two hours constitutes mitigating circumstances. Well, that's Viewpoint 1 in its essence.

Now imagine going to a concert. You sit listening to the orchestra, each instrument playing its own virtuoso piece, tuning, talking before the entree of the conductor. The conductor appears, there is applause, and then tense silence. He lifts his arms and the orchestra starts. That is the moment when all hell breaks loose: it is a worse cacophony than when they were only tuning. There is nothing in common between any of the players. There is no rhythm, no key, no melody, no harmony, nothing. Everybody is playing different disconnected sounds. Each player keeps changing what they do, yet without any regard for anyone else. A violin is busy with endless glissandos, a trumpet randomly hits notes in staccato, a cello is doing trills on different tones and so on. Now that's hell, you say. It's modern music, but still... It's too much. After two hours of this, you tear off the conductor's toupee and start dancing on it. You break the first violinist's instrument over his head and you kill the manager. That's pure Viewpoint 2.

What's missing? Structure, of course. When you listen to a classic string quartet, they play in the same key and in the same rhythm (three quarters or six eights, or whatever). The violin plays a melody, the others accompany, and then the viola plays a melody and the others accompany it; then there is a fugue where all participate in playing the melody while remaining in harmony.

There are certain fixed relations between all the players (like rhythm, scale, etc.). Further, there is a structure to the composition performed. By definition, composition means structure. For example, a sonata is a certain musical expression that gets developed and changed, and in the end, it is repeated in its final form. That's its story, its structure. If you listen to such a composition, you can enjoy it. That's Viewpoint 2 giving meaning to Viewpoint 1, a structure, wherein there are fixed relations and also motion. It is relations of sameness and difference interwoven and braided in meaningful ways, each process related to by the other processes, _inter-referring_. Such a composition is a process consisting of changing relations creating meaningful constellations with beauty.

(Clara from the left applauding: "Bravo! Bravo! Encore!")

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The mapping of the loop could be regarded as the score of Creation, wherein the process of Creation unfolds, braiding beautiful harmonies, creating the Creator with a crescendo of complexity that creates creations: the harmony of the spheres.

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Chapter 27: Traces of the Process of Creation in Phenomena

The means by which you perceive are the very means by which what you perceive was created.

SHET

The lawfulness itself is created by sequential looking, the famous looking on the looking. Because of the sequential nature of the looking, the multiple lookings are connected and develop by feedback, which is Creation. This is the dynamic structure, the general lawfulness that evolves into its projections, the phenomena we can observe (i.e., particles, historical phenomena, cultures). These phenomena all gain meaning from being related to from specific viewpoints (for instance, ours), which in turn are created by the general framework within which they occur. Creation of meaning is an essential part of the lawfulness, whereas phenomena are derivatives of the general lawfulness. Although colloquially, meaning is correlated with information, symbolism or significance, and although logical reasoning is an empty shell of structure devoid of informative substance, meaning in its structural sense is an essential part of the lawfulness. Why? Because meaning is essentially a relation of sameness or something more complex, like almost sameness.

The assertion "Deutsch _means_ German" is establishing sameness between Deutsch and German. "When you say you are busy tonight, do you _mean_ that you are not coming?" is a question that establishes almost sameness. Meaning as relation of sameness or almost sameness belongs to structure, whereas the what-content of meaning generates information — i.e., "The purpose (meaning) of my visit is to invite you to my wedding." The evolution of meaning from structure to information ensures that the empty logical structure is carried over to the world of information, or in other words, to whatever can be perceived. This implies that the same logical structure prevails at the core of any existence. This argument could be stated differently by saying that relations are the most basic constituent elements of anything.

We identify objects or phenomena by identifying what they mean, what they are. When we observe phenomena, we observe an average of fluctuations, which we call, for instance, an electron. All phenomena are expressions of the same logical structure. This complex structure consists of self and other interaction. Self-interaction means interacting with its own past, with its own retromorphous levels. Such interaction could be said to be the control mechanism of the system (i.e., by using it, past states of the system or desired stabilizations are achievablexxvii).

In this sense, "memory" could be said to be this ability to re-create past states. Since the system's structure is such that past states of itself can be re-created by interaction with its own retromorphous levels, and since other states can be achieved by interaction with other systems and their retromorphous levels, we can state that the structure includes traces of its own becoming as well as traces of other systems' emergence.xxviii This reasoning infers that there is nothing external to anything, no objective world "out there," but rather, that everything that exists is internal to one's perception (or to a conglomerate of relations that define an object). That is, any creature, be it an electron or man, contains the memory of its creation within the pattern of its individual becoming.

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When viewed from the loop, phenomena contain the genetic code of their creation, the general lawfulness, which is a multidimensional process.

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Clara from the left: "Excuse me! Do you mean to say that everything is in everything?"

Clara from the right: "Let me ask you a question. Where are the parts, the replicas of wholeness?"

Clara from the left: "To have meaning, they are externalized, separated."

Clara from the right: "Yes, but where? Outside or inside wholeness?"

Clara from the left: "Inside, of course."

Clara from the right: "Would it be right to say that all the parts are in any part since any part is the replica of wholeness?"

Clara from the left: "Yes."

Clara from the right: "Then it would be correct to suppose that any part includes all the other parts AND their definitions."

Clara from the left: "I don't like this sophism, but I suppose, the answer is yes."

Clara from the right: "You see, understanding that the part is the whole has far-reaching consequences."

According to SHET, this is the point made by the Biblical story of Adam's creation, in which "the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul" (Genesis 2:7).xxix **"The Biblical story of Creation is many faceted. There is the simple story, which of course as you know, is allegorical. And then there are all the hidden meanings, which only now you start discovering... He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. His life. Himself. The actual meaning of this is: you are alive to the degree that you are part of the cosmic spirit. That you are part of the cosmic spirit does not mean that you are less; here, any part is the whole because it is quality and not quantity. In quantitative fields, the parts make up the whole. In qualitative fields the parts are the whole. So He breathed Himself into Adam's nostrils, thus perpetuating Himself through His Creation. That is how He accomplished His goal to create man in His image. But as long as I say, 'He', this is wrong, because a 'He' is apart from all other he's. However, considering that He is All-That-Is, every Is, makes more sense. Saying 'He' is a figurative way of explaining to simpler minds in order for them to grow and understand the wider dimension of All-That-Is."**

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Since the viewpoint creates its own potential by giving it meaning, it contains the memory of the process of its own creation.

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In another session, SHET spoke further on this matter in an attempt to clarify it: "There is truly no external in the sense that the constituent elements of every possible object are logical structures. Logical structures don't say anything about patterns, only about relations. So why do you have different patterns, as if one was external to the other? That's due to the viewpoint that differentiates, that has a self or self-referent attitude, which disturbs the symmetry of meaningless sameness. So, whatever is given meaning, whatever includes more than abstract relations, is an externalization — so it seems you have multiplicity."

The definition of a viewpoint could be as follows: a creature or pattern with a sense of self that is able to re-create the memory of its becoming. Since viewpoints create by retromorphously giving meaning to the processes that created them, we could say that, from the point of view of the created, the created creates the general lawfulness by which it is created from the self-reference of wholeness. Thus phenomena and certain special laws of interaction between phenomena reflect their own generating principles, just as the part reflects the whole. That means that there is a general lawfulness, which dictates that generating principles ought to have the same intrinsic logical nature whether they produce different particles or persons and their interactions.

Although there are many different, apparently separate phenomena, they are connected in the fundamental oneness of their generating principles. This is no superficial connection, but the kind that ensures the seeing of the world in a grain of sand. That's the loop still, all the way and any which way we look: the Creator relates to himself, and that creates both sameness and difference. The sequence of consecutive relations is the basis of the mapping that describes the Creation of the world.

Clara from the left: "Do you actually mean that you are describing the Creation of the world?"

Clara from the right: "Correction: the logical structure of the Creation of the world."

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The viewpoint can re-create any stage of its creation, or in the same sense, it can "re-create" any of its own future states. Since this generating principle is universal to all creatures, any creature contains the memory of any past or future state of any other phenomenon. Thus you contain all the possible past lives of any and all beings.

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Chapter 28: God and Mickey Mouse

When each replica is identical with the whole, then the part **is** the whole — the details constituting the whole are the whole (see also Chapter 59). However, when two of these parts are defined and interact, when they relate to each other, they create something new, something different. Thus, although the parts are the whole, the whole is not the parts, which means that the relation between the whole and its parts is non-commutative.xxx

Clara from the left: "Just a second. You convinced me that the whole cannot define itself as such and neither can the part define the whole as such, because by doing so, it would create something beyond the whole. By saying, the part is the whole you are confusing me."

Clara from the right: "Indeed, when you try to define what the whole is, you fail. The whole cannot be its definition. So what is it? It is its function. What is its function? It creates; it creates its own self-similar image by trying to define itself, which means it creates an infinite array of definitions. The images, replicas created by God's self-reference are not pictures or entities, but repetitions of the process of defining. The part is not self-similar with the whole via its substance, but via its function. Any attempt of the whole to define itself is similar to any other attempt of the whole to define itself. The act of definition is both the whole and the part."

Clara from the left: "OK. If the part is the whole, then how many wholes are there? How many All-That-Is's are there? Are you implying that there exist an infinite number of Gods?"

Clara from the right: "Since the subsistence of anything only exists within one's perception, and since any existence only gains definition through the interaction of the perceiver's perception, there are as many All-That-Is's as there are perceivers. Remember, the part is the whole means that even an electron interacts and thus becomes, gains meaning, as something definite that can interact, and so, we could state that there is an All-That-Is even from the electron's viewpoint (which evidently we postulate from our point of view). Of course, this is to anthropomorphize an electron a bit. Nevertheless, the point I am trying to make is that anything that exists does so because it relates, it is related to, which means it interacts. If it interacts, it creates its own moment by moment definition. That is the same activity as what wholeness undertakes in trying to define itself: it relates (to itself). In that, the part is the whole."

Clara from the left: "Is that what you mean when you say the language creates itself?"

Clara from the right: "Yes, that's the Loop of Creation, albeit an oversimplified way of expressing it. However, the details of how that occurs are important because these details are the structure."

In physics, Viewpoint 1 can be considered a conformally invariant theory. Conformal means _,_ according to Webster's Dictionary, _"leaving the size of the angle between corresponding curves unchanged."_ I could draw a little map of Italy, a little boot, and I could draw a big map of Italy, a big boot, and these would be conformally invariant, being merely different maps of Italy in different scales. Conformal invariance then is the trait of staying unchanged while the scale is being changed.

Think of a balloon with the drawing of a Mickey Mouse on it. You can blow it up, which leaves Mickey Mouse unchanged, only larger (see Figure 6). You might say, "I measure the little Mickey Mouse, and it is 5 cm wide; then I measure the inflated Mickey Mouse and it is 8 cm wide, so I can see the difference." Wrong! When "little" Mickey Mouse is transformed into "large" Mickey Mouse, then your measuring rod also changes and you will again measure 5 cm. That is, when little Mickey Mouse turned into large Mickey Mouse, the whole universe had changed by the same rate according to the theory, and therefore, there is no difference.

However, that's a somewhat oversimplified example. When we deal with Viewpoint 1, Mickey Mouse is not a _still_ but a process, and consequently, Mickey Mouse not only appears more and more inflated, but it also contains smaller Mickey Mouse within smaller Mickey Mouse within smaller Mickey Mouse, etc. — like the Russian nesting dolls, to keep to our analogy. Still, Figure 6 will suffice to make a point.

Let us now consider a large Mickey Mouse observing little Mickey Mouse. Obviously, he would say, "Did you change your agent to have shrunk so much?" Of course, that's Viewpoint 2. Now there is a fixed reference system, which can relate to everything else through set parameters. One image of God is looking at another image of God (when he sees a Mickey Mouse in both cases, don't take that too literally). The relation here is a comparison based on certain fixed scales, whereas in Viewpoint 1 there are no scales and no measures. Now one image looks at another image, and since there are endless such images that were the same in Viewpoint 1, when they look at each other, they see multiplicity, not oneness. The potential unfolds into an infinite variety by each image adopting measurement criteria of other images based on their own scales. Fixing such a scale is a parameterization that makes it possible to measure (relate to) others, generating a tremendous richness of relations. SHET offered the following to Dr. Yeshayahu Eisenberg, who at present is developing a novel theory of non-linear complexity, the realization of the Holophanic loop: **"You need to fix certain relations, otherwise all of it is a flux and you will be running after your tail.**

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_Stating,_ the part is the whole **means that both the whole and also the part are generated by the same logical structure. Although each part is the whole, they are not the same, only conformally invariant. But when these creatures are processes, they are isomorphous.**

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"A meaningful relation can be the partial viewpoint, since a complexity of these can create a state of being. God is a state of being, as love is a state of being. When God relates to himself, and then relates to himself consecutively, that creates the partial viewpoint, which has to be fixed as a state of being (Viewpoint 1, which prepares the ground for Viewpoint 2.) The God that did not create (which is the same, by the way), is of no interest to you. Doing is relating. Relating is an activity. Relationship is only a noun in your human language, but in fact, relationship is something dynamic. Thus, any viewpoint is dynamic. The no viewpoint is of no interest to you. Where you fix the relations gives the general picture of the world you create." In other words, where you make the cut, which profile you view, which language you use, within which framework you work is what fixes certain relations. Actually, this is the definition of a framework.

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Fixing certain relations is creating a framework on all levels; it is creating a direction.

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Chapter 29: Can You Kiss Your Forehead?

Any structure becomes so because some of its internal relations get fixed. As long as these internal relations stay fixed, structural integrity is preserved. The fixed internal relations are invariant underxxxi transformations. If the fixed internal relations change, the structure breaks, and then it is no longer that structure.

When I was five years old, my parents came home and found me standing on my little chair straining my head upward.

"Why are you standing on the chair?" my father asked with curiosity.

"I am trying to kiss my forehead and I couldn't reach it from the floor," I answered. Of course, I couldn't reach up to kiss my forehead even when I stood on the chair. I understood then that no matter how many chairs I stacked one on another, I could never reach up to kiss my forehead, because when I raised my mouth, my forehead would rise at the same rate. I understood then that the relation between my mouth and my forehead was fixed, although I didn't call it invariant under transformations. I also understood that, if the relation between my mouth and my forehead did change, I wouldn't be the same. Of course, I didn't call the change in the internal fixed relation "breaking the structure."

There is such structural integrity in each of us in addition to the relation between our mouths and foreheads. That is our personhood — not the beliefs or definitions that would describe us, but something that is invariant under transformations. For instance, _you_ are the same _you_ whether in America or in Europe, so you are the same under transformations in space. You are also the same you, whether 10 years ago or 10 years from now, so you are the same under transformations in time. The "you" I am speaking of is your personal signature, the very _youness_ that does not change with either time or space. You don't look, think, or act the same, but there is something that carries along your _youness_ , and this something is those fixed relations that preserve your structural integrity. Your sense of self provided by the continuous memory of your sense of self (which is a process) is also fixed relations. If you had total amnesia and you were thrown into a foreign environment, you would lose your _youness_ and you would have to start building a new train of continuous memory to acquire a new sense of self. However, it's not enough to have the continuous memory of your sense of self. You also have to perceive it by re-creating (your past selves) yourself from it in order to have a sense of self. When you recall your birthday party when you turned 8 years old, you do not retrieve this memory from the memory cells of your brain as a computer does, but you re-create the memory triggered by associations or other clues. That is, knowing that you are you is interacting with the process that generated your _youness_. This _youness,_ of course, is Viewpoint 1.

Fixed relations in the sense of preserving an identity means continuity of meaning. Whenever I say 'I,' I refer to the totality of experiencing the world and myself from my point of view. That is, at any moment, the 'I' is the qualitative sum, the re-creation of my relations to the world and myself. This act is qualitative because it would be irrelevant to recount each and every moment of my experiences, and yet the totality of my experiences have shaped me to have the viewpoint I have at any given moment, which is the 'I.' In this sense, self-reference is a complex process of continuous defining and redefining, and yet, by and large it stays indefinite. The sameness of the significance of who and what I am, the meaning of my _youness_ (or in my case, _I'ness_ ) is being preserved because it is I who re-creates the totality of my experiences at any given moment.

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Fixed relations permit the occurrence of an identity. To know that you are you means to interact with the complex process of Creation. Every structure can be defined as such due to its fixed relations. Fixed relations are invariant under transformations, that is, relations of sameness. Relations of sameness are Viewpoint 1 from the point of view of Viewpoint 2. Relations of sameness seen from relations of difference define a structure.

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The point here is not that I change slowly and so do not notice my own variation, but rather, when I say 'I,' I say it within this very moment — I re-create the totality of my being at this moment.

Clara from the left: "What do you mean? The past does not exist?"

Clara from the right: "To say 'past' would be like saying 'external.' My perception of the past — although it shaped me to be what I am — is in the now. If you would take a 'you' at every moment of your life, then you would have a multiplicity of you's. Each one would be infinitesimally different from the other. If there was no time, they could coexist. Within time though you are only one you, a 'you' that has continuity of meaning of your identity. Remember, time and multiplicity are interchangeable."

Clara from the left: "So what does that have to do with fixed relations?"

Clara from the right: "Precisely this mechanism of continuous self-reference is a fixed relation, a fixed relation to the whole."

The fixed relation that preserves structural integrity is the self-perpetuating function, the continuous creation of the self and the rest of the world to which this self relates. Just as when God breathed the breath of life into Adam's nostrils: by creating Adam he duplicated himself, but not in the sense of there being two entities, God and Adam, but in the sense of replicating the structure of Creation, the process of definition.

We can speak of a sense of self, the I, the _youness_ as the attribute of beings that can experience. Yet structural integrity, fixed relations that preserve a dynamic structure to stay itself are present also in each and every particle. As SHET explained, **"Each and every IS, every part of All-That-Is, includes All-That-Is in itself, thus creation is endless. Every smallest particle is a consciousness of some kind, and a consciousness in its essence creates. Every consciousness or muon** xxxii **would say about itself, 'I' (if it could speak)."**

Clara from the left: "If every 'I' or _youness_ is a fixed relation to the whole structure perpetuating the function of the process of definition, then what makes you different from Mr. Smith?"

Clara from the right: "Remember, to have something you need certain parameters. I define with different parameters than does Mr. Smith."

Clara from the left: "I still don't understand how you can have fixed relations with the whole structure."

Clara from the right: "Your essence, your structural integrity, your _youness_ is the whole structure, and that is your fixed relation to it: being it. **"The self-aware consciousness emanates meaning throughout Creation, being the** _axis mundi_ **. This is not some kind of symbol, but MAHUT** ( מהות— in Hebrew **,** essence) **ensuring continuity of meaning seen from quality, whereas seen from quantity, meaning is discerned as discrete, differentiated from the processes that constitute it. In this sense, meaning in its most abstract form is neither a** _still_ **nor a process, but MAHUT** (מהות **), which is a combination of both** _howness_ **and** _whatness._ **"** The only difference is that the whole structure defines using all parameters, and consequently, it is indefinite. You, on the other hand, define by using only certain limited parameters. Although how many parameters you can use is quantitatively indefinable, you cannot both exist, which means you are somewhat defined, and also use all possible parameters."

Fixed relations to the whole structure ensure structural integrity of an identity. When relations to a sub-structure get fixed, then the identity may lose structural integrity, which means, it stops being that identity. SHET explained this point when questioned about Judaism and laws:

Q: "Which characteristics and laws of the Jews held them stubbornly to Hebrew and Judaism? The Egyptians, Greeks and Romans had laws too, yet disappeared.

A: "Indeed, other cultures had laws too, but how can you compare? The laws of the TORAH (Bible) describe precisely the connection between phenomena and wholeness, whereas manmade laws are relations between the phenomena.xxxiii When there is a fixed relation established between God and man, then man stays while God moves. Where the established relations are between men and men only, that can only last for a fleeting moment in history."

This, of course, is a relativistic remark if one assumes that there is no external observer to God. Superficially regarded, it is an anti-intuitive statement, since we are used to sticking to our beliefs, _knowing_ what stays and what moves. Precisely by its shocking content, SHET's teaching brings us to re-evaluate our assumptions and teaches us to think with the loop logic. Saying that man stays while God moves is a similar statement to, "I love him because he is my husband." In both cases the fixed relation creates the players, be it God and man or man and woman. This is consistent with what SHET is teaching that relations create the objects, and not vice versa.

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The dynamics of fixed relations are responsible for the perpetuation of an identity.

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Clara from the left: "Still, what kind of nonsense is this whole structure moving while man stays?"

Clara from the right: "Creation is this constant failure of wholeness to define itself. This cosmic failure is due to the paradoxical nature of the process of definition."

As will be shown in Part 7, this is the fundamental source of any dynamic, the paradoxes themselves being the dynamics they create. The whole trying and failing to define itself is such a paradox, the structure of which is man's essence.xxxiv Being the dynamic of paradoxes, the whole is not a _still_ , but rather, you could say it is motion — it moves. So as long as man remains that structure (God moves), he continues his existence as an identity (man remains). An identity is significance, something defined. Described differently, if man in his essence is God, the process of definition, then his expression can continue.

Clara from the left: "And if not? If this process of definition embedded in paradoxes is so fundamental, then it is not an option to disconnect from it. So how does a structure break?"

Clara from the right: "By having too many fixed relations to sub-structures, which is over-defining, which prevents experience, which prevents one from relating as if he were the process of definition and instead compels him to act as if he was a rigid physical object. And then, physical laws apply to his personhood, which necessarily crush him."

The logical structure is a lawfulness with power to predict which dynamics are legitimate (the ones that preserve the fixed relations) and which are not. The structure can also predict the possible paths to reach certain expressions, which means how to change in a desired direction, how to get from 'A' to 'B' through the whole. Of course, neither 'A' nor 'B' is a defined value, but emerge from the dynamics of the structure. How this actually works is described at great length with diagrams in Appendix II. Nevertheless, a mundane example could illustrate what I mean.

I love beading, making necklaces. When I start a necklace, I have a general idea of the end result, I know I want to use certain beads, I know it will be a necklace and I hope I will be very pleased when I finish. This is the general structure of the necklace wherein the end result is not very well defined. Actually, when designing it, I am defining my _un_ knowledge of the final necklace. Wanting to create a necklace while enjoying the process of beading is the framework that triggers the creation of the necklace. During work, I discover that I don't have enough pieces of a certain type of bead, so I change the design. I don't know the exact length of the necklace, so I try it on and decide underway: this is enough. I often change my mind about the sequence of the beads. Slowly, I work myself through it until it gains the shape of the necklace that — now when it is finished — is exactly what I wanted to make. Of course, this is a retromorphous definition: from the point of having the finished necklace I say that this is exactly what I wanted to have in the first place.

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No matter where you look, on which level of existence you act, you will have to deal with both fixed and changing relations.

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Chapter 30: The Braided Loop

God is a true unity without any parts whatever

RAMBAM

Take Figure 7 as an analogy of the Loop of Creation. It is a knot made of a braid, or stated the other way around, a braid closed on itself into a knot. You can start at any point with any cord of the braid: follow its coiling. You will see that it is infinite like a circle: following one cord will take you through the whole braid because the whole braid is created from one cord. If the cord would look upon itself, it would only see itself, one cord. Yet if the adjoining cords of the braid (this specific figure is made of three cords, or so it seems) could look upon each other, they would see multiplicity, and one cord could relate to the others by saying, "You are on my left, and you, on my right." The structure being a braid implies that these relations change as you progress along the braid, which means that, from the viewpoint of the part, from the point of view of our cord (which could relate to the other parts), the relations change — now the cord that was to its right is to its left. Consequently, there are changing relations between the projections, or in other words, the projections move. Still, there is a fixed relation between the whole and its sub-structure, that being the general pattern.

Now imagine that each cord of the braid (the one cord of which the braid is made) is braided of cords, each cord braided of cords _ad infinitum_. That is the self-similarity of the pattern. If you cut the cord (any cord, since it is infinitely braided) and look at its two-dimensional cut, you will see fractals: no matter how much you zoom in or out, it will be the same pattern (see Figure 8). The dynamic, of course, is the building of this pattern, the creation of the braid, which gives meaning to both its relations of sameness and its relations of difference. The single cord from which the loop is made is created of the loop itself: that's the complex loop.

Of course, this is only an analogy and analogies go as far as they go. It does not reflect the truly dynamic non-linear nature of the loop, which is not embedded in spatial dimensions, but creates them as well as other things.

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When wholeness tries to relate, it creates partial viewpoints that can relate to each other.

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Chapter 31: Creation — Something from 'Nothing' — First Version

To turn 'Nothing' into a potential, it is better to know much about 'Nothing' than a little about something.

SHET

How was something created from 'Nothing'? This question has intrigued humanity for at least as long as its recorded history. I have never heard of a culture that did not have some kind of Creation story. Usually, these stories start with something or someone or a few somethings that created everything else. Today these stories seem like naive attempts to explain the origin of the universe, but they are also not unlike the modern cosmological endeavor stating that there was a Big Bang that started it all off. What banged? The fluctuations. How did the fluctuations come about? They just were.

The inability to solve this issue is based on our linear approach and creates several problems:

We think of the start of the universe as something external to us, something factual, which could have only happened in a specific way, and all we have to do is find out how it really happened.

We relate to 'Nothing' as that primordial emptiness from which something miraculously emerged.

We think that Creation started at a certain moment when time suddenly started ticking.

Such hidden beliefs and our axiomatic intuition do not permit a wider view that could be a clue to answer hitherto unanswerable questions. For instance, the kind of reasoning that states that either there was 'Nothing' and then Creation took place or there always was something that only changed form, did not yield results. If there was 'Nothing,' then we still don't know how Creation came about. If there always was something, then what was there before that? How did this something self-organize — how were the laws of physics born?

Let's consider 'Nothing' differently. 'Nothing' is a notion from within existence. Relating to 'Nothing' _before_ Creation, _before_ there was anything, is artificially divorcing our perception of 'Nothing' from within creation (where we are) from the 'Nothing' "out there," which supposedly exists independently of our perception. But what does _before_ really mean? It obviously means that there was something afterwards. The relation that defines what 'before' means is in the something that comes 'after.' So, apparently, asking, "What was there _before_ Creation?" includes in the question the act of Creation that came afterwards. Even Martin Heidegger's formulation is motivated by linear thinking when he asks, _"Why are there essents rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?"_ xxxv This question can only be asked from within existence. 'Nothing' can only have meaning from within existence; it can only be the product of existence. So how did it all begin?

BERESHIT (בראשית), in Hebrew, "in the beginning," is the first word of the Bible. SHET relates to this beginning in a surprising fashion. Although the following session is one of the more difficult SHET sessions, it greatly triggered my evolution. Getting to the depth of this extremely analytical text might be a very rewarding, almost mystical experience. Here it is: **"'In the beginning' is actually the beginning that starts with BETH, with the next step.** (BETH — ב — B is the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet.) **That is, the beginning of Creation is the creation of time. The 'beginning' points in the direction of what comes** _after_ **and also, implicitly contains the hint of the indefinite that prevails** _before_ **the beginning. In some way it hints at continuity. You might want to freeze a moment forever, but it is impossible. That's why you never know what a moment is. To be precisely in that moment means to be in some kind of 'the beginning,' since there is more. If there was not more, there could not be the moment. This means that there are two things, and they are very close, like 'in the beginning' wherein there is the hint of the second moment. These two things are so close, which is the only reason there is the moment because before or after there is something more. That is the essence of the becoming of something. For it to exist, there is this movement, which motion is in time in the sense that there always is the relation to the other** — **very close, even as a hint to the degree that it keeps being unknown. When I say, focus in the moment, then you are focused in that moment, but you are only able to do it because it passes, it is so fleeting, that it already is after.**

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A moment is the hint of its own being; it only has meaning if it no longer exists.

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"Actually, all Creation is bounded, like a circle. You can cut it wherever you want to. The moment you have cut it, you have a start and an end, a head and a tail. The head and tail are so close because they were together, they were two consecutive points on the circle. You can cut the circle anywhere and you will have a head and a tail. However, this infinity means that you can cut the circle anywhere and it is infinite since every circle has an infinite number of points. That's the reason why the head and the tail together are like any moment, which has the hint for another moment. It's not that the tail is before the head, for it does not matter what's before what, only that the one always hints of the other because that's wholeness. It includes it all when there is the hint pointing to the other. It's so infinitesimal.

"...This closeness, which is almost one, is almost as if one exists and the other does not, but you cannot differentiate — it is the twilight zone between being and non-being... Because it is so infinitesimal, it is infinite, infinite in all directions: both finite and infinite depending where you look from. Only the looking creates it as being or non-being...

"That's why the addition of ALEPH (א — A, the first letter in the Hebrew alphabet) is the infinitesimal change that _creates_ being, because only when you add the ALEPH, which addition is only the hint, only then does it yield existence. It is not anything, only the hint of something more, that's what the ALEPH is. That's why 'the beginning' starts with BETH: It's not that the head is the beginning, but it already has gone in the direction that the change has already taken place from the end which is the ALEPH, which is the beginning which is the end, because the change has been done backward in order that there should be something ahead. (That's the retromorphous viewpoint.) That's what... creates the equation of existence. Otherwise, why wouldn't you be able to freeze a moment? But it's impossible to freeze a moment because the moment only exists because of what there is after it. You could say then that this is backwards, but it acts forwards. That's the transition of the a-temporal to the temporal.

"Infinity can be anywhere. A beginning can be anywhere. It is like the behavior of a light particle, which is simultaneously everywhere in the universe forever, depending from where you look: whether it goes to being or non-being. It is always on the way — it all is becoming. All Creation is happening now — it never ended. If it were not this in-between situation in the direction of becoming, there would be nothing. Creation is becoming in the direction of being, and therefore it continues infinitely — in the meantime. That's the activation, the mechanism which activates."

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Creation backwards acts forward.

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Perhaps the most fascinating part of this session is the activating mechanism of Creation, which is its continuity. It is not unlike the carrot at the end of the rod fixed in front of the horse that motivates the horse's progress. In the above session, the continuity that creates is the inherent relation between the before and the after, the structure, which has the promise of collapsing the moment to be a moment and have meaning. Yet the moment can never be captured and will stay forever in the realm of the infinitesimal "almost," the interface between being and non-being.

This approach clearly places the beginning of Creation in the midst of the mechanism that can generate meaning, or in other words, Viewpoint 1 emerging from Viewpoint 2.

Clara from the left: "This approach presumes that there was Creation. It uses the phenomenological fact of existence as an axiom instead of proving existence. You say, there was Creation, and then you try explaining it through the mechanism of the infinitesimal interface. Nice try, but it does not show the necessity of Creation."

Clara from the right: "Very well, let's look at another approach."

Remember how SHET described 'Nothing' in Chapter 21: "It is difficult to imagine total nothingness, a universe wherein nothing exists. Absolute non-being. It is easier to imagine a little something, be it whatever. A little something in the midst of infinite void. That's nothingness all the same, however, for this little something cannot relate to anything if it is utterly alone. But when there is a 'you' looking at this little something, then of course, you relate to it and it relates to you, and thereby it becomes something." Obviously, to turn this little something that is nothing because nobody relates to it into something with meaning, a viewpoint is needed. But where does the viewpoint come from? If there only is this little something that does not relate, and consequently, it is nothing, or there could be an infinite number of little non-relating nothings, then where does the viewpoint that defines them and gives them meaning come from? This is the wrong question, of course, because it relates to 'something,' 'Nothing' and 'viewpoint' as _stills_.

Anything only gains meaning if it is defined by some parameters and not others, and if it is different than other things. For example, an electron is defined by its quantum numbers and is different from a dog or music. When everything is together, undifferentiated or defined by all (infinite) parameters, this is meaningless, nothing. SHET once said that awareness is a gradual becoming, but when it becomes total awareness, like the awareness of God, then that is total non-awareness. Of course, this would be wholeness, the merging of all viewpoints, which obviously is not any specific viewpoint. That would be total symmetry without relations of difference, a total Viewpoint 1 without Viewpoint 2, which is meaningless — nothing. This nothing is eligible for the role of the primordial 'Nothing' from which Creation emerged.

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If something was defined by every parameter (infinity), it would have no meaning; besides being undifferentiated, it would include all (an infinite number of) contradictions simultaneously.

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It was stated earlier that perception, definition, creates. Everything _is_ its definition. For example, the electron _is_ its quantum numbers, not some evasive substance the attributes of which are the specific quantum numbers belonging to the electron. However, the process of definition that defines is 'Nothing.' This 'Nothing' becomes a potential retromorphously when the definition has been made (perceived). When the defined entity gains meaning, it turns the process of definition that defined it into its own potential, whereas before it had meaning, the process of definition was 'Nothing.' (When the process of definition is being defined, then of course, it is no longer 'Nothing,' which will be discussed in Chapter 57.) The defined entity is stabilization and could be said to be a viewpoint that relates. Stabilized means that its attributes define it, which include how it relates to others than itself.

When one process stabilizes, it has no meaning. Its relations to others define it, so it gains meaning when there is a multitude of stabilizations that inter-relate. Remember, one little something is 'Nothing.' Creation cannot start with a single something, and afterwards, one more and then one more, or one something that evolves. To have meaning, it must begin with a multitude of different viewpoints that relate, which is complexity. That is why the most fundamental building block must be complexity.

In that sense, the act of relating generated the God who both creates and does not create. The one that does not create is all these reflections that are still absolute non-being. These reflections become, gain existence, as multiplicity when they start inter-relating, which act creates the God who both creates and does not create, and so on.

'Nothing' can either be regarded as total non-being, a kind of absolute symmetry of wholeness, or as total randomness, which also is complete symmetry, since it has no preference or direction. Both total randomness and the absolute symmetry of wholeness are equally 'Nothing.' There is a phenomenological law that states that everything in Nature aspires to the lowest level of energy. Since the lowest level of energy is more symmetry, it would be the same to state that everything aspires to return to symmetry. From symmetry or a lowest level of energy there is no tendency to invest energy and change that state, no tendency to change or do anything. The definition of symmetry implies that it contains no preference, which is why it is symmetry.

So when a viewpoint stabilized — no matter what it did, how it interacted with the process that created it, how it turned 'Nothing' into potential, how it gave meaning, whether it found sameness or difference — it would eventually die and return to nothingness, rendering wholeness undisturbed in its state of nothingness. That would be establishing total symmetry, for which any direction, action or no action, would be the same, which is nothing. Then this stabilized viewpoint would have been a meaningless fluctuation from the point of view of wholeness and Creation, and Creation would not have taken place. Creation implies that there is a continuance to Creation.

Clara from the left: "What causes Creation to persist? If there is neither an internal reason, nor external interference, why should an insignificant fluctuation set Creation into action? If the basic aspiration is the aspiration to symmetry, total sameness, which is 'Nothing,' then why should Creation continue?"

The answer is: the uncertainty of sameness. "So far we have spoken of sameness and difference as two equal aspects. Yet they are not really equal. The least difference is enough to say that something is different. So _perceiving_ difference is possible from the least assessment. Yet in order to establish that two or more objects are the same, you have to go through the whole works. Even so, you may find every scrutinized aspect the same, and still there might be some hidden aspects that were not obvious and which evaded you and the difference might be in those aspects. What I am saying is that sameness is much more difficult to establish than difference.

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The uncertainty of sameness impels continuous creation.

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"Consider a mother who gave birth: is she the same person as before giving birth? Is a pattern that interacted the same as it was before the interaction? It may seem so, but it has the 'memory' of the interaction somewhere in its field. So as soon as there is Creation and complexity, there is a certain amount of uncertainty in what sameness is. That's why the seer can never see itself. That's why it is nothing. Think more about this assertion, which is more complex than what I am giving you here." Since one difference is enough to pronounce something as non-identical to something else, and since in order to pronounce something identical with something else all the possible parameters of the universe have to be taken into account, which is impossible (and if it was possible, then it would be meaningless), it is not possible to state with absolute certainty that something is the same as something else (or its previous self). When SHET says, "There is a certain amount of uncertainty in what sameness is," this should be taken literally.

This uncertainty activates the stabilized viewpoint to acquire more parameters, which changes the stabilized viewpoint thereby creating more difference, which in turn ensures the continuance of Creation. For there to be Creation (meaning), both relations of sameness and difference are necessary as implied by the uncertainty of sameness.

Clara from the left: "Not bad, but not good enough. Claiming that random processes eventually stabilize is again a phenomenological argument, the necessity of which is not clear from your line of reasoning. After all, you are not that smart."

Clara from the right: "You are actually right. There is much more to 'Nothing' than stated so far. 'Nothing' is a paradox **Error! Bookmark not defined.** that creates."xxxvi

Clara from the left: "Also, you have used two different versions of something from 'Nothing' here. Never mind that none of them are complete, but could you make up your mind as to which one is the right direction?"

Clara from the right: "There is no one reasoning which is the right direction, but rather, there are many right directions, even if they seem contradictory, since they are the different profiles, the different cuts of the loop. SHET explains it this way: **'I have trained my herald** (meaning me) **in her almost conscious states to conceive abstractly defined structures, and to look at them once from one profile and then from a different profile. The different profiles reveal entirely different pictures, with no resemblance. One such cut could be the evolution from quality to quantity. That is the view that it all starts somewhere. If, as a start, you look at a middle section, at something that has already been accomplished, this also is a very legitimate profile. Another such cut could be indefinite, disconnected creations, which fall into place, into a meaningful relation with the appearance of a fixed relation. That's also an entirely correct way of looking at it. The different profiles may be altogether contradictory and irreconcilable if looked upon with a certain kind of logic, which silently presupposes that this whole business is part of earlier proven formalism, but which belongs to other fields... Only a braiding of the seemingly disconnected profiles can provide you with a consistently meaningful whole picture.'** This whole picture of course, is the loop."

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The failure to establish sameness with certainty perpetuates continuance, which failure gains expression as the process of Creation. Creation is the self-perpetuating dynamic aspect of the loop; it has no start in time and it did not end when there was something. The bigger question than how can there be something is: How can there be 'Nothing?'

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Chapter 32: The New Paradigm

This way of looking at things is a change of paradigm. No matter how many workable theories of Nature we have, _a priori_ we can never concoct them together into that whole structure and its projections, which can describe all of Nature including life. When we put the pieces together, we will have many parts, many particles, a multiplicity that, whichever way they are looked at, will be built of _still_ s and their interactions. This kind of Tower of Babel must eventually collapse because it is a linear description. Instead, what SHET gives is the loop, the _process,_ the inter-referential relations that constitute existence and from which the _still_ s can be derived. The present paradigm requires that we ask, "How do particles interact?" But the new paradigm requires that we ask, "Which relations of sameness and difference define this or that particle, or life for that matter? Which kind of definitions create meaningful relations? Which relations qualify as definitions?" That change of paradigm opens the doors to a new age of thinking.

What does this new way of thinking imply about objective reality? SHET says, "Actually there is only one's internal reality, which is made of the relations one has toward and with oneself and things considered external to oneself." What does that mean? First, that any reality — whether considered as objective or subjective — is a matter of perception. Any existence is such only when perceived, or in other words, when it is being related to. In that sense, an electron could be said to perceive another electron when it relates to it, when it reacts to it according to the laws of physics. Second, being a kind of definition, perception attributes meaning to what has been perceived, and thereby, externalizes the perceived. Nonetheless, the externalized perception is still internal to the perceiver. Third, each perceiver (observer) is a viewpoint. Since the entire reality of a viewpoint is its own perception, necessarily all other possible viewpoints gain their existence from within that viewpoint's perception. The existence of many observers or viewpoints could only be claimed from within the perception of one viewpoint. There can be no multitude of observers independent of a perceiver. If someone claimed that there were many observers external to him, then this would only be the description of his perception, how he externalized his definition of viewpoints.

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A definition gains meaning as existence when that existence is perceived and thereby externalized from the perceiver.

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Clara from the left: "If that is so, then how come there is agreement about something between different people? If the other is internal to my perception and only gains existence from my perception, then how is it that we can agree about something in the objective world?"

Clara from the right: "Since the definition of perception, the logical structure of perception, is the same logical structure, there can be agreement."

Clara from the left: "I disagree. A logical structure is an empty form that may contain different contents. Everything could be defined by the same logical structure and still describe different contents. 'If I'll be kind, then I'll be loved' is the same logical structure as, 'if I'll eat much, I'll be fat' but with different contents. So although the same logical structure is responsible for perception, what different people perceive could be different contents. Yet there are times when all observers agree about the contents. How can this agreement happen if there is no objective reality, no real perception of a truth, fact or a physical law?"

Clara from the right: "Both agreement or disagreement about certain contents are internal to the perceiver."

Clara from above: "This is a deaf man's argument with the blind. When you inquire into objectivity, you are looking for something external to any and all viewpoints that includes any and all viewpoints and which, hopefully, is not included in any particular viewpoint. You have reached agreement that perception does not qualify, since perception is particular to one viewpoint that includes all the rest. You agreed that that's due to the structure of perception and only disagree about the contents of what is being perceived. And then you make the mistake of placing agreement about a certain contents in the framework of structure and you get all confused. If there is agreement, the agreement itself is _a_ perception. Consequently, the agreement — if there is such — is contents. Agreement is relating to a certain content, a kind of summary of a certain content. The description of the contents is still content and not structure, and as such, internal to the perceiver. Perception is structure. What is being perceived (whether agreement or disagreement) is information."

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The loop logic deals with structure, the process of definition; information is significance, the defined. Information about the logical structure is significance.

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Clara from the left: "If there is only one viewpoint, namely mine, and you and everything else are only my perception, then how can there be disagreement or different viewpoints? Why don't all observers see the same? How come I can see your point of view? Am I schizophrenic?"

Clara from the right: "You sound like one, but that's irrelevant. Basically, you are asking, Why is there no objective reality that is the same from every viewpoint? Because different observers, different systems, people, have different fixed relations to the whole — they consist of different parameters. That's why they are different systems, why they can move relative to each other. Just as there can be no absolute motion or absolute simultaneity from different observers' viewpoints (including the event's viewpoint), there can be no objective reality from different observers' viewpoints. 'Different viewpoints' means relations of difference, which obviously are not relations of sameness."

The real reason that quantum mechanics is unable to ascribe objective existence to what is being measured and the conclusion that it is the measurement, which defines the probabilistic outcome of the measured, is due to a necessary existence of relativistic viewpoints. The measurement system is a different fixed relation of the whole than the measured. Any measurement system is always discrete, whereas the measured is continuous (which will be discussed in Chapter 81). Variety, difference, is possible because of the relativistic nature of reality. Each reference system, each viewpoint, each sub-structure is a different fixed relation to the whole structure consisting of different parameters, and thus, a different expression of that whole structure. Although the same lawfulness applies to all of them, although everything is braided relations, different modes mean different ways of braiding.

Clara from the left: "I can make a measurement with an electron microscope. That is, my measurement system, the electron, is discrete. Fine. What if I measure the electron? When it was my measurement instrument, it was discrete. Now that it becomes the measured, does it suddenly become continuous?"

Clara from the right: "Again you speak as if the electron was external to your perception, as if it had a nature of its own and you only had to establish what this nature was: discrete or continuous. If you _use_ the electron as a measurement instrument, then it is discrete; and the knowledge you gain through it, the definitions, are discrete. However, if you inquire about the true essence of the electron, then it is continuous because you are trying to define it with absolute certainty, which you cannot do. When you try, your means of definition, the parameters that you describe the electron with, are discrete."

Saying, "parameters, the tools we utilize to define with, are discrete whereas the object of measurement is always continuous," does not say anything about the _real_ nature of anything, only about the tools with which we perceive. When we ask about the measured (the externalized aspect), we have to ask: from which viewpoint? To believe in an absolute viewpoint, and thereby ascribe existence an objective reality, would be a mistake.

Physical reality gains meaning to be the way it is through our interaction in observing it. "Lawfulness, structure, is boundary conditions, which actually is the measurement of the observation. The observers' role in the measurement process is part of the set-up of the boundary conditions for the measurement. That's why structure is dynamic because the measurement process is part of the structure. The meaningful relations are pertinent to the boundary conditions as well as containing the observer. Enhancing the role of the observer as the _only_ factor that collapses the wave packet would be a mistake. However, the observer generalized as part of the boundary conditions of the measurement could rightly be pointed out as that factor, which mostly brings about the collapse. That factor, however, is interactive through the infinitesimal tails with the wave packet, and the entire structure contains the observer... (This is the non-linear interaction occurring within the loop, an oversimplification of which could state that the collapse creates the boundary conditions that create the observer that creates the collapse that creates the boundary conditions, etc.)

"If the looking is the dynamic aspect of a more general interaction, say a trigger to activate the dynamic structure, which is the meaningful relations between the elements of the complexity (consciousness, the set-up, where the measurement is made, space, etc.), then all these relations create a predictable pattern of lawfulness. Lawfulness is the creation of probabilities that collapse into the individual outcome — a gradual unfolding that does not work the same way (symmetrically) if reversed. When these relations 'click' into a certain pattern, it is like a phase change, like DNA proteins finding their 'right' folding — not in a linear way but by stabilizing a pattern."

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When interacting relations "click" into a pattern, a meaningful constellation gets stabilized, which then becomes the framework of further development for these relations. That is, Viewpoint 2's interacting, braiding, create meaningful definitions, which are Viewpoint 1, fixed relations. These then become boundary conditions for further evolution.

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If DNA proteins would have to find their right folding in a linear way, they would take hundreds of years to find that right combination. In Nature, this happens in fractions of seconds. What SHET states here is that they create a "right" combination by "clicking" into a certain meaningful pattern rather than searching for the code with the "open sesame" imprinted on it.

At this point I would like to show a SHET session given to Dr. Yeshayahu Eisenberg. I have omitted the difficult technical parts of the session.

"OCTOBER 5th, 1997 — session 800

"Now we are getting somewhere. You need to differentiate totally between Viewpoints 1 and 2. I said they have different lawfulness. I said that quality unfolds, that non-being unfolds into being. The logical conclusion then is that it all starts with quality, with a ... conformal sameness, which broken in symmetry somehow evolves into difference. Logically, that is correct. However, that kind of logic is the logic of _still_ s and linear. Although you have correctly understood that time itself and space-time kind of space are sub-structures and not initial conditions, you still fall back sometimes to the linear kind of conceptualizing. Although you speak in other terms, you need to work on conceptualizing things with an additional shift, and for the time being, this seems to be the last change in your basic conceptual world. The shift I speak of is to see the evolution, the unfoldment from quality to quantity, as a cut, _a_ way of looking.

"I have trained my herald (meaning me) in her almost conscious states to conceive abstractly defined structures, and to look at them once from one profile and then from a different profile. The different profiles reveal totally different pictures, with no resemblance. One such cut could be the evolution from quality to quantity. That is the view that it all starts somewhere. If as a start, you look at a middle section, at something that has already been accomplished, then this also is a very legitimate profile. Another such cut could be indefinite, disconnected creations, which fall into place, into a meaningful relation, with the appearance of a fixed relation. That's also an entirely correct way of looking at it. The different profiles may be altogether contradictory and irreconcilable if looked upon with a certain kind of logic, which silently presupposes that this whole business is part of earlier proven formalism, but which belongs to other fields. That is only an example so you can better grasp what I intend to say.

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The process of Creation is not unique; it can be consistently described in different languages, provided the language is part of what it describes. That is, the mechanism that constructs the structure has to be within the structure.

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"In general, your picture, to which I will relate in more detail, is correct. To find a starting point, which by necessity unfolds into the modes, is wrong thinking because of the above: what I have been training Rha (that's me) to feel rather than know, is that the general structure is defined by its inner relations. The whole structure does not start and evolve really, although it is a dynamic unfoldment. You can start with the relations that create Viewpoint 1 from Viewpoint 2, Viewpoint 1 from Viewpoint 2, Viewpoint 1 from Viewpoint 2 on higher and higher levels. These are the ingredients of your mapping. Here there is only a tiny difference between our interpretations. I consider this model as _a_ particular profile. The other profile is of course where Viewpoint 1 evolves into viewpoint 2, which breaks up into myriad relations of sameness, which create relations of difference, etc. The difference between these two profiles is something like a Lorenz transformation.xxxvii Or in other words, expansion of one focus causes the diminishing of the other." In these last two sentences SHET explained that the different profiles or cuts are invariant. That is, the loop can be created or explained with different languages, and since each describes the loop, they are the same in that they describe the loop. They are different in that they describe the loop differently, with different tools.

" **Only a braiding of the seemingly disconnected profiles can provide you with a consistently meaningful whole picture."** This means that, no matter which profile, which language is chosen to describe the loop, that mapping will contain the other profiles as well (see Chapter 20). Of course, that's only possible if they have the same logical structure. **"A complexity means not so much many quantitatively disconnected elements, but rather, qualitatively different lawfulness, like relations of sameness and difference. This is not a dualistic approach that yields oneness when combined. Definitely, it is not a causative description of what creates what. None of the profiles have meaning without being braided together."** Contemporary science of complexity sees its dynamics as interactions between simple elements. This stems from the belief that an interaction takes place between two objects, or in other words, a relation occurs between two _stills_. Since SHET defines the most simple object as consisting of relations, and since these have to be braided and interacting before ever constituting an object, the most simple object for him is a complexity consisting of different lawfulness. Complexity is not the interaction of many simple elements, but the braiding of different lawfulness.

"Now, as you proceed with the slightly changed attitude, which guides you where to look, your search will get easier. The most important part now is the formalistic expression, wherein you ought to keep in mind where you are heading. Thus, what you are doing now is movement precisely in the desired direction. Think of breaking the conformal symmetry only later when you have worked some way down the road. That part of the paradigm is actually attributing meaning to Consciousness by knowing intrinsically the lawfulness of interaction between Viewpoints 1 and 2... You need to act with some intuition. Go on using formalism, adjust the intuition, adjust the formalism, etc. Your work is under the great pressure of uncertainty, at least in these early stages, but never mind — I like your guts. Purposefully I have enhanced different profiles at different times, so besides achieving a formal description, your task is to delineate consistent meaning.

"A last word. Think of a complex loop; that is the whole picture."

SHET's last sentence initiated a major breakthrough in my thinking, for this was the first time he had mentioned the loop, the magnificent key that opened the door to the possibility of understanding Creation. Of course, we should not focus on how the symmetry breaks before understanding the loop! Only from the loop can it be seen that the symmetry does not break _per se_ , but is broken when viewed from different partial viewpoints. Only from the loop can it be seen that the looking, the relating, is part of what is being looked at, that the looking creates the looked at. Of course, Consciousness gains an entirely different meaning when it is not viewed as something external to me, but as something that becomes by being aware. The latter becomes clear when one understands that a) looking, being aware, is a Viewpoint 1 that recognizes anything only when it gains meaning from Viewpoint 2 (otherwise it is nothing), and b) Viewpoints 1 and 2 interact by braiding. By braiding, they create; they create the process, which is the loop, which creates the universal lawfulness, the structure, which creates Viewpoints 1 and 2.

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The interaction of Viewpoints 1 and 2 create processes that create the universal lawfulness that creates Viewpoints 1 and 2. This is the structure.

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What does lawfulness as a logical structure imply? Science seeks to understand Nature. It seeks to understand existence by discovering Nature's laws and by acquiring the aptitude to predict and control Nature. Science seeks to define Nature by leaving naught indefinite. As shown earlier, this is a futile attempt. Precisely this failure of science brought religion back to the foreground. Religion seeks to provide the experience of Creation, the connection to the divine, which cannot be defined, only experienced. Experience is largely indefinite, yet to experience one needs to be aware of having an experience. That is, if one has an experience, he or she perceives having that experience, which is an attempt to define the indefinite, yet the indefinite stays indefinite. Attempting to clarify experience to empower the religious connection (in Latin, _re-ligare_ ), religion tries to give answers, to explain phenomena, Creation. The failure of religion to provide a coherent and consistent explanation brings those who seek that level of insight back to science. The failure of each redirects to the other.

Both religion and science describe phenomena, stories about how things are. Whatever pattern, lawfulness, or ordering principle they might provide will be phenomenological accounts. In each era, laws of physics congruous with Nature are those phenomena that describe interactions between significances, _still_ s. Likewise, religion tells us how things are or how they ought to be. SHET guided us to a detour in order to explore the structure of our quest instead of continuing the search for truth and meaning. That is, instead of asking, What is the meaning of this or that phenomenon? Ask how something gains meaning? What is the structure of gaining meaning? The result was the development of the loop logic.

So what does lawfulness as logical structure imply? It answers Heidegger's questions, _"Why are there essents rather than nothing? Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?"_ As will be revealed in Part 7, 'Nothing' cannot be taken for granted as the source of something. Lawfulness as a logical structure _necessitates_ existence whereas existence entails the necessity of a logical structure. This universal logical structure incorporates both the defined (phenomena) and also the indefinite (experience), which could be the reunion of science and religion. What then is the structure of this logical structure? Let's see.

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The loop is the necessity of existence, and even of 'Nothing'.

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Think-tank material

* If you have a problem, try to determine the relations of which it consists. See where you can change your attitude and change it, that is, relate differently. See whether the problem gets solved.

* What is the advantage of thinking with the loop logic?

* Why bother with the complex process of Creation while we still have unsolved existential problems?

* How can we know God?

* How do you know that you are you?

* Try to look at people, situations and the environment as processes instead of defining them as _still_ s, and see what happens to you.

PART 4: DIMENSIONS I

Imagine the picture as I see it, be it an object or an individual — as a vibrating core of consciousness with a large field around it vibrating, with other cores and fields of those cores within the field of our original core, as a constant interchange and intermingling of vibrations, a constant current of wavy, dynamic ever-changing colors. A percussion somewhere within this maze of vibrations resonates to the furthermost fields, and if you can grasp that there is no space and All-That-Is is each and every core of consciousness on all levels, then you will understand that each percussion will resonate in the remotest galaxies and furthermost dimensions.

SHET
Chapter 33: The Qualitative Dimensions

We have already defined the term dimension in Chapter 9, and mentioned that SHET speaks of seven dimensions of Creation. Now is the time to go deeper into the meaning of dimensions and what SHET actually means when he says there are seven of them. He speaks of three qualitative and four quantitative dimensions.

For reasons that will be clarified in the next book, SHET calls each dimension by the name of a Hebrew letter. The three qualitative dimensions are the א (ALEPH), the מ (MEM) and the ת (TAV). In Hebrew, these three letters together are read as EMET — אמת (the vowels are usually not spelled by letters, only by punctuation if the full writing is used; if not, then it is not spelled at all but the reader knows anyway). EMET means truth, and its three letters are the first, the middle, and the last letters of the alphabet. **"To see the TRUTH** — **in Hebrew EMET** (אמת) — **look at the beauty of the word. The beginning, middle and the end** — **isn't that TRUTH?"** For SHET, the qualitative non-physical dimensions are truth and reality, whereas the physical dimensions are the relative part, relative to the observer, relative to the measurement made.

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When we seek the truth, we seek something well defined, whereas truth, according to SHET, is the indefinite potential imbued with dynamics, creating potential states of being, creating the qualitative dimensions.

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The world picture we call reality dictated by our linear way of thinking is merely one way of looking, one mode of being, according to SHET. For him real reality is the unseen, the indefinite, the superposition (see Chapters 13 and 15) of all probabilities, the potential. To understand the fundamental lawfulness and the non-linear nature of reality, we need to understand each dimension in itself as well as the interaction between the different dimensions, which generates existence. In this book, we will deal with the qualitative dimensions.

The three qualitative dimensions are actually one — or oneness. Seen from the viewpoint of quality, this oneness is non-being. From the point of view of quantity, however, it is discerned as three interacting braided qualitative aspects. It is the retromorphous point of view that gives meaning to oneness as the creative potential, just as Viewpoint 2 defines and gives meaning to Viewpoint 1, which is Nothing from its own viewpoint and the potential when looked upon from Viewpoint 2. The purely non-linear nature of the qualitative dimensions does not permit us to deal with them as separate entities. We should not relate to each qualitative dimension as something totally definite, but we should not relate to each as something totally indefinite either. To open the secrets of Creation, the qualitative dimensions should be approached by partial definitions, which means, the three qualitative dimensions have different aspects as their major characteristic, each encompassing many inter-related details of the others, consistent with the Loop of Creation.

The three qualitative dimensions are the ALEPH — א, Quality; the MEM — מ, the consciousness; and the TAV — ת, the awareness or communication, interaction. Existence, all existence, is MEM — מ expressed, thus MEM — מ is seen as a flow, a process, the divine manifestation, God. The ALEPH — א is a state of being, a potentiality, an _ability_ to relate, God. The TAV — ת is the energy, the awareness, interaction, the dynamic, the relations that bring about a state of being, which makes it possible for God to be God. We shall deal with these later on. They are more and more expressed as different aspects seen from the viewpoint of physical existence and vice versa: more and more diffused and fading into oneness away from space-time, as seen from the loop. In the following when I spell Quality with a capital Q, I relate to the Quality dimension proper, the ALEPH — א. Otherwise quality means all three qualitative dimensions.

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Quality (the three qualitative dimensions from our point of view) is the becoming awareness (TAV) that gives meaning retromorphously to the potential (ALEPH) to become being, the Consciousness that manifests (MEM): the loop of the awakening God.

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Chapter 34: The א (ALEPH) — Quality Dimension (איכות — EICHUT)

ALEPH — אלף — is of course, the first letter of the alphabet. It means one and first. It also means champion, ALUPH — אלף — in Hebrew. ELEPH — אלף is spelled the same yet read a bit differently and means a thousand. When the letters of this word are shuffled to PELE — פלא — (as if read backward), it means wonder or miracle. How can something be both one and a thousand? Well, it is a wonder, the kind of hat in which rabbits dwell. The ALEPH — א, the Quality dimension, is that oneness from whence multiplicity emanates: the many is the manifestation of the non-manifest one. The one is everything that was, is, will be or could be _in potentia_. All three qualitative dimensions are non-spatio-temporal, which is an important point to make, since our intuitive way of thinking is to place everything we can think of into a spatio-temporal framework.

The ALEPH — א is the proper dimension of _Quality_ for SHET, in Hebrew EICHUT — איכות. It is non-being, the potential of any being. **"The ALEPH** (א) **is before the BETH** (ב) **, before or beyond the Torah** (Bible) **(which starts with the letter BETH** [ב] **)** — **because it is something different. It is the ELOHIM** (אלוהים — God), **AHAVA** (אהבה — love), **ECHAD** (אחד — one), **EYIN SOF** (אין-סוף — infinity — directly translated, no end or _nothing_ end), **OR** (אור — light) **as you see, something totally different. It is not 'moving,' not a flow: AYIN** (אין) **is Nothing, not. But it is the source of EMET** (אמת — truth) **, the source of Creation... EICHUT** (איכות — Quality) **... also starts with ALEPH** (א) **and ends with TAV** (ת) — **EICHUT** (איכות — Quality) **is EMET** (אמת — truth) **...** **Your physical world is measurable, but love, light, infinity are not. You cannot work out equations with EYIN SOF** (אין-סוף — infinity) **in them quantitatively. The physical world is quantitative..., but the qualitative world is the world of Creation and cannot be measured."** SHET does not say that the qualitative dimensions cannot be described by equations, but that quantitative equations, that is, a description _in_ space-time for instance, cannot describe the qualitative dimensions. What this means regarding light will be dealt with later on.

SHET speaks of the ALEPH — א Quality dimension also as ACH _A_ RAIYUT (אחריות — responsibility, or rather, response-ability), or ACH _E_ RIYUT (אחריות — otherness, the other in you, which by the way, is the same spelling in Hebrew), which as we shall see, is gravity. Let's start with the responsibility aspect of Quality.

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Any ability is a quality, a potential. Hence the ability to respond, responsibility, is a primary aspect of quality.

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Chapter 35: Spiritual Integrity — How to Achieve Stability

SHET's approach to life, to live beings, to science, to any topic, is highly rational. That however, does not mean that he describes us as stimulus/response machines, or that he sees our emotional response as an unnecessary burden to rationality. He often guides people to be with integrity. **"Integrity is the spiritual, mental, emotional and physical parts of one person directed in the same direction. And integrity is wholeness."** Most of us have an inkling regarding what mental, emotional and physical aspects of a person mean, but what does the spiritual part mean?

There seems to be a growing tendency in reductionist circles to recognize that the whole is not just the sum of the parts, but a state based on complex, ever changing interactions between the parts of an organism, for instance, as well as between the organism and its environment. This semi-holistic view sees the spirit as the unique moment by moment state of the organism. This is an attempt to find wholeness in a kind of hologram created by a spatio-temporal mechanism. When the mechanism is destroyed, the hologram — the soul — disappears forever. SHET's approach is similar in the sense that he does not create a dualistic world differentiating between body and soul, and his approach is different from the above semi-holistically reductionist view in that it is the spirit, the consciousness, that is directed and directing activity in a complex manner. That activity shapes space-time itself and the events taking place therein. Hence, the perceivable hologram is the physical organism and physical reality for SHET, which imbues the spirit with experience. That experience "reshapes" the spirit, which then creates a different space-time reality, and so on. For SHET then, the stable datum is consciousness, not its manifest transitional aspect.

The concerto is not between two different aspects of space-time reality, but between the a-temporal quality and its manifestation, quantity, of which space-time is part. As any other spatio-temporal element, the physical organism, the brain, plays a significant role in this dialogue. The real whole organism, however, is not our minds and bodies, our selves, our roles played out, but God — including all existence and all times, something like a superposition of any probable spatio-temporal collapse. The spirit then, is part of God, and from an individual's point of view, his spirit is that expanse through which he can knowingly be part of God.

Consequently, to reach spiritual integrity would mean to knowingly be part of All-That-Is, seeing a wider picture at any moment than when being torn by internal conflicts occurring between reason, emotion and body. We have all experienced such instances, when emotionally we feel drawn to someone, yet our mind tells us to keep away, or when our body craves something that we know to be detrimental to it. These conflicts can be considered as challenges that enrich the whole, especially when solved. The solution according to SHET is to align the direction of mind, emotion, and body so they operate in the same direction, thereby offering that sense of wholeness that enables us to be connected to our wider than physical aspects. **"Integrity is spirit, mind, emotion and body moving in the same direction. It is forceful because it creates a feedback system of the four, which binds them together like a soliton.** xxxviii **It can build up enough momentum to reach the critical energy level to create (only from the superposition)."**

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When spirit, mind, emotion and body are kept as inter-referring processes (interacting both between themselves and also with the environment) within one framework, with a direction, then structural integrity of that person is preserved.

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Chapter 36: Much Ado about Emotion

Quality from the point of view of quality is non-being. Quality in quantity (from our human point of view Quality, the ALEPH — א expressed) is the complete emotional scale. The major constituents of emotion are mental aspects, beliefs, which collapse potentialities into reality. A belief is a specific way of relating to something, which gains expression as a certain behavior pattern. A belief can be, for instance, "I am worthless" (self-referential), or "if I please, I will be loved" (conditional), or " _homo homini lupus est_ " (men are to men like wolves — a generalization). Beliefs either explicitly express value judgments or implicitly carry within them a "good" or "bad" indication. They can be verbalized, being those mental aspects that, when triggered, gain expression as emotions.

"Emotions are condensed thought, often unconscious thought. For instance, sadness is an emotion expressed when you want something but in reality something else happens. Someone dies whom you wanted to live, and yet he is gone. So you are sad, not because he is gone but because _you_ want him to live. That is a very important point, since you can get in touch with the emotion and also do something about it only if you are aware of this. When you look, focus upon the part that you can control, the part that is your creation, what _you_ want, then you can change that or live with it or whatever. Pointing a finger at others where you have no control will only make you frustrated. Taking responsibility for your life, channeling it into a lane where you can shape it the way you want it depends on this point. If you understand this, you can create another reality, one which is more desirable to you."

The other day, my father told me he felt dizzy and that he had been throwing up all morning. I inquired into what he ate, but there was nothing unusual. However, he just had his teeth fixed. He had been given dentures in half his mouth, covering a small part of his palate. On further inquiries he confessed he hated the idea that at the young age of eighty he should have false teeth. He rejected the idea to the point that, while watching TV, he started shivering when he thought about the false teeth. Then I understood why he was throwing up: on the one hand he needed the teeth, both for health and also for esthetic reasons, but on the other, he held the belief that he was not going to have false teeth. "False teeth are for old people," he told me. "I don't want to get old." I told him that he could change neither his chronological age nor the fact that he needs teeth. What he could change though is how he feels about this reality, how he relates to both his age and dentures. That is, he should change what he wants, and instead of rejecting the dentures, he should savor the artificial palate, enjoy the looks of his new teeth, and want the apparatus in his mouth. When he understood that he could control what he wants, he immediately felt better. When SHET speaks of control, he does not mean to repress, suppress or annihilate, but to regulate, which can be in either direction: to increase, decrease or redirect.

If we cannot change the environment, we can change what we want in order to feel good. SHET explained this point in more detail: **"In general, you can look at a certain face of an emotion. It is built of two aspects: one is what you want, and the other, what there is in the physical environment. If what there is corresponds with what you want, you expose positive emotion. If what there is does not correspond with what you want, you expose negative emotions like anger, sadness, frustration, etc. You can dissect most emotions into these aspects.**

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If we cannot change what there is, we can still change what we want.

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"Then of course, when you worry — which you are good at — you create an imaginary or anticipated situation, which opposes and affects other aspects of your will, and so on. Thus it can get quite complicated. If you look at things from this angle, you will see that you have contradictory desires, contradictory wishes. That can create emotional turmoil as well as some cognitive confusion. These opposing wishes can appear to be on different levels, but in your case, they are not, and that is why they operate as contradictory wishes. This is the situation in your emotional world as well as other areas in your life. The opposing wills gain expression as a slow down in results for all your activities, like different horses drawing the carriage in different directions...

"Nature has no sharp edges. On the one hand, emotions are the bridge between body and mind, and on the other, they are closely connected to mental processes, saving the energy information of those mental processes. Thus, if you explore your emotions instead of only analyzing them, you can understand more about your own hidden motives. When you bring these to the surface, when you become aware of your hidden motives, then you can keep them, change them or whatever. That is your freedom." Usually, the hidden motives are also beliefs that can be changed if so desired. Of course, one should not take this distinction between what one wants and what there is as a black and white situation. There are infinite nuances between these two, which naturally are further relations, further beliefs.

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Beliefs are those relations or sets of relations that create the framework of our conduct and what there is, as we observe it.

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Chapter 37: It's Not Enough to Believe

New Age literature is quite rich in slogans. For instance, "You create your reality with your beliefs." As a matter of fact, this is true, but if you think that it is the _contents_ of your beliefs that are going to make a difference, then you are in for a big disappointment. If you think that by making a big effort, clenching your teeth, repeating to yourself, "I believe with all my might that the table is not there, so it must be true," you'll make the table disappear, then you are deluding yourself. If you are overweight, standing in front of the mirror repeating the "I am skinny" mantra for hours while gobbling up the contents of another cookie-jar won't make you thin. Yet the belief that losing weight might render you more esthetically pleasing and healthy may dictate a change in your behavior pattern and you may stop pigging out. Then you might lose weight. You don't change what seems to be the external reality by simply wanting it to change, or by believing it will change because you believe so. You won't be rich because you believe you will be. Your dead relative won't show up for dinner because you believe he is alive. You won't be standing on the moon because you believe you are on the moon. No matter how hard you believe. These, however, are superficial facts.

There is a deeper level wherein creating your physical reality with beliefs can happen. In this deeper sense, time is a belief and physical reality is a belief. Remember that definitions create the framework of any reality. Any random cut within the loop of the amorphous quality (non-being) creates a profile, a direction of evolution. We said that these definitions are tools that could break up oneness into multiplicity. Such a random definition could also be said to be a belief, and in this sense, a belief creates massive physical reality. However, we cannot put all the details into a cauldron, stir them and hope a physical world will be brewing from the concoction. That is, when we are in a body, we are already within a defined framework wherein we cannot act as we probably would from the vantage of an indefinite existence.

SHET illustrated this point when he was asked:

Q: "Can thinking save you from dangerous or unpleasant objective reality? If there is cyanide gas in the room, must we run, or can you think it away?"

A: " _I_ can think it away, but you better run."

Q: "How do we get to the stage that we can think it away too — is it possible to get to this stage?"

A: "Everything, absolutely everything, is possible. However, the possibilities might be so far out that, from a practical standpoint, it can look impossible. But the answer is yes, it is possible. The 'how' is the important question here. 'How' is Quality — remember? (How, in Hebrew EICH — איך, is part of the word EICHUT — איכות, which is Quality. EICHUT —איכות precisely translated would be _howness_.) The 'what' question is quantity. When you ask 'how' you already have answered it: by quality. Enhance, widen your quality of thoughts, your quality of being, and some time, when you learn how to vanish, you will be able to vanish the cyanide from the room. The cyanide is actually not there. You are creating it. Do not misunderstand me, it will kill you all right, but nonetheless, you are creating it. And if two of you enter that room, then you create two different rooms with cyanide in it."

In a later session, SHET elaborated on the subject:

"In a less focused state, without a body, you can create your physical reality with much less effort. You just think it and it is; and you can un-create it. (As SHET has been quoted earlier in Chapter 7 _, "When I 'think' something in my dimension, this is being."_ This is possible when acting from a non-physical framework.) That's why I said I can make the room with cyanide gas disappear, but you better run."

Besides creating our physical reality with our beliefs, we also create it with our physical bodies, so to un-create physical reality, we also need to know how to un-create the very physical framework within which we act: our body. As long as we point a finger at our chests when we say "I," identifying by our physical expression, we cannot make a table disappear by believing it is not. To reach a state wherein we can affect physical reality with our unmediated thoughts, we first need the ability to control our thoughts and emotions. To reach a state wherein we can do wonders and miracles, we first need to learn how things work and gain the ability to control our emotions and our lives. When I speak of beliefs in the following, I am referring to that stratum where beliefs create behavior patterns.

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It is true that beliefs create. However, for any practical application of this fact, we need to know what beliefs are and what "create" means all the way through the loop. Beliefs create reality through their structure, not by their significance.

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Chapter 38: The Value Contents of Emotions

For SHET, beliefs are _ways of relating_ to things, the _value_ content. For instance, believing that all people are bad directs you to behave in a certain manner. You relate to people in a certain fashion, which is different from how you would relate to them had you believed that all people were good. The mental constituents of emotion are those beliefs and values that define the emotion. What you judge good or bad according to your deep-rooted beliefs influences your emotional response to things.

Many Jews feel the emotion of disgust when the word "pig" is mentioned. They were raised with the belief that it is a terrible sin to eat pigs. For them, pig equals forbidden food — it's simply bad. It never occurs to them that a pig is a living being who has feelings and wants to live and who could become a wonderful pet. What matters is not the _contents_ of the specific beliefs, but the _direction_ in which these beliefs guide the process of life. Beliefs are neither right or wrong, nor are they true or false, but those attitudes that freeze processes into _stills_ stating how things are from a certain point of view.

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A meaningful constellation of relations establishes fixed relations, our beliefs, a kind of framework, which gives the tone to our activities, like the key of a composition. Just as different keys endow the music with different moods, our life is played out within the unique structure dictated by our beliefs. Our general beliefs are the hothouse of our individual small relations. Usually, what creates a significant shift in our emotional state is a major blow to our general beliefs. That is the time when we re-evaluate our relations to most things and change priorities. Yet precisely those general beliefs prepared the ground for the possibility of the major blow to occur. It does not have to come to that. Knowing the loop, we can tackle our major beliefs from a healthier space.

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Each individual is a dynamic structure that relates to himself and his environment. His beliefs create the specific personality that is more or less happy with what he experiences. These relations, the beliefs, define and thereby enhance certain aspects and bring them to the foreground from a gestalt background, focusing the person's attention. The whole conglomerate of reality is fashioned in this manner — the individual's emotional attitude gives the tone. Emotion is that complexity wherein the main constituent is our way of relating to things, our beliefs about things. That complexity then is the framework within which our reality takes place. For instance, it provides the tone for our relationships with people.

Take notice that there are two levels of relations here: the first level is how we relate in general, our basic beliefs. The second level includes how we relate to individual events colored by the first level. SHET teaches how to change what we feel, the second level, by altering the framework, the first level, which are our basic beliefs.

The following quote illustrates this point.

Q: "I wanted to stay closed as I was facing an emotional liaison, afraid the contact would hurt my principles and my life. But that proved to be a problem. So I opened up emotionally, and for a while it felt good. Now I no longer feel good about it. Can you help illuminate where to close and where to open up?"

A: "Your fundamental mistake is thinking that emotions and ideas are different areas of your experience. Emotions are the result of your ideas and beliefs. If you believe that someone who does something wrong deserves punishment, then if you see someone getting punished who, according to you, did something wrong, their punishment will seem right in your eyes and you won't react with negative emotions. Yet if you see someone being handled unjustly, when within your idea-world the punishment does not fit the deed, your reaction will be strongly emotional. Emotions are the outcome of ideas.

"When you bottle up emotions, they don't stop existing. They are only repressed into the deeper recesses of your consciousness, or stated another way, they become unconscious. There they can swell and break the dam, gushing forth with huge power. If you go with your emotions, you think you flow with your being, but it could be that you only follow some of your hidden beliefs.

"In your present situation, you are being confronted with beliefs that create contradictory emotions, and it will be no cure, no solution to only examine the emotions. You have to examine what is creating them, all the ideas you have gotten from others: parents, groups you have been a member of, and etc. Look specifically at your urge to be a good girl, the belief that you have to be a good girl. You have adopted enormous amounts of ideas that you cannot integrate when confronted with a situation like the present one. You must first look at what you act upon, at your beliefs about married life, and try to find the obvious beliefs: these are the unseen ones. See how many contradictions you find. You don't have to hold onto all these ideas, for they are only ideas, not you. I will repeat: your ideas, your beliefs, are not you, so you don't have to hold onto them with such fervor."

Consequently, beliefs and value judgments, mostly what we think constitutes good or bad, govern our emotional contents. "Intellectual understanding is one thing, whereas emotional understanding is another. When you say that after emotional understanding there is difficulty, you do not seem to grasp the totality of what emotional understanding is. Emotions often consist of hidden values. These beliefs or 'truths,' which are often self-evident to the person, create the emotional framework within which he acts. Thus, real emotional understanding requires familiarity with these hidden values and a shift in their significance. That in itself is a change in as much as it removes unknown motives, replacing them with known ones in situations concerned with the emotions in treatment.

"Understanding emotion, real understanding, means achieving the ability to control emotion. Of course, to control does not mean to suppress, but to turn it on and off at will, to shift and change values at will. This is indeed a superior ability on a large scale, but certainly achievable on a smaller scale and in certain situations. Thus, to overcome habits — when the underlying emotions are discovered and re-evaluated — there is a need to create new emotions by creating new beliefs. Being stuck in a certain value system means giving it importance, identifying with it, and hence, an inability to depart from it. Usually, this makes up what the person believes to be his basic personality, which renders him unwilling to let go of what identifies him as himself for himself. These basic personality emotions are difficult to change as they get engraved also into the cellular DNA, producing certain proteins to re-create familiar emotions in familiar situations on an automatic basis. (There are many somatic emotions of this kind that are not necessarily of a disturbing nature. For instance, there are smells that awaken moods, which might come from either personal characteristics or racial memory. Being associative and unconscious, they bypass the ratio, like the scent of vanilla awakening a sense of relaxation and coziness, probably associated with nursing. This somatic aspect in us is perhaps the stimulus/response machine, a causal manifestation that provokes us to react as matter responds to physical laws. Nevertheless, these too are relations, ways of relating, even if the relation is unconscious that establishes a preference or direction. Some fears or phobias are of this nature too; when brought to the surface and treated as ways of relating, they can be healed.) To erase that engraving, one has to access and heal it by aligning the discrepant wavelengths in the person, which can be helped on the energy level also. This is not an exclusive approach, but an addition to the mental work on the intellectual and emotional aspects." What SHET says here is that, in addition to finding those beliefs that constitute emotions, we can help bring about change by accessing the energy level of the emotional contents.

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Emotions often consist of hidden values and beliefs that dictate the individual's emotional framework within which he acts.

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Chapter 39: The Energy Content of Emotions

We said that the main constituent of emotion is beliefs, which means that emotion also has other constituents. The mental aspects are the _main_ constituents because they are easily accessed and easily defined. Another aspect is the "energy" aspect, which has no verbal content.

SHET defines consciousness as **"emotion on a non-emotional level. It is the** **lack of thought that makes emotions qualitative."** Consciousness is the process of definition, devoid of both beliefs and either moral or ethical values. The act of thinking is movement in the direction of definitions. Quality for SHET means potential as opposed to actual — the potential lacks form or resolution whereas the actual is form and resolution. Consequently, emotions become qualitative when they do not get expressed as thoughts, values and beliefs. **"The radiating emotions make up the aura. We perceive you through these colors."** Different states of consciousness and different activities create changing patterns within our qualitative aspect, the emotions. These patterns are processes of fluctuating inner relations, the changing rates between the different levels from the indefinite to the defined.

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Our individual emotional pattern is a process of interacting relations within the range of infinite degrees of definition between the indefinite and the defined.

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Once, SHET explained to me how my emotional channels appear during our communication. "You appear to us in the form of your non-physical emotions. When I am 'near' you — when I focus upon you and you feel it as you now do — your aura color changes somewhat, getting intermingled with me. Emotions, these emotions, are also the communication channel through which your perceptions are being emanated. It is this consciousness that we perceive and which you began to perceive with the development of your telepathic faculty. (Telepathy is the ability to interact with another's qualitative emotional patterns. That is, the ability to interact with another's fluctuating inner relations.) You do not yet have the dexterity to use this communication channel, but you are slowly catching on. The _'listen stance_ ' is the opening through which your consciousness perceives other impulses and emotions — not feelings but those experiences that haven't been labeled. (The 'listen stance' means listening, observing without any self-consciousness and without any definition or judgment. This state could be compared to the state of a sponge allowing itself to be permeated.) Then you translate those into the terminology of your communication system, namely thought forms of judgmental and labeled origin."

SHET differentiates between feeling and experiencing. For him, experience is transcending the emotional content to a non-emotional level, to the spiritual plane. **"Emotions can be deep and you can take advantage of them when you transcend those emotions to the level of experience — whether through the intellect or not is your choice. When you leave them on the emotional level, there is only lateral motion, often causing more damage than benefit. How do you transcend this emotional level? By either redirecting the energy within the emotions, or if you choose to transcend them, through the intellect, by rationally observing the make-up of the emotion and by consciously changing any of its elements, which is more the inner-control kind of way. You do it through letting go of what is deemed important on the inner level and investing the energy thus freed into experiencing something with the spirit and body."**

Deep-rooted fears and automatic emotional responses may have to be addressed from more than one aspect in order to be transformed into something more desirable. **"There are emotions that are the body's response to situations that threaten the survival of the body (the body's fear, rush of adrenaline, hormonal changes, etc.)"** The somatic aspect of emotion can often be connected to changes or imbalances in the endocrine system. There is a fixed relation between the emotional state and the endocrine system of a person. **"In general, the endocrine system is the perfect reflection of one's emotional states. Thus, any disturbance or pathological pattern in the glands is an expression of emotional disharmony."**

The body affects our mental and emotional states and vice versa: "Your physical state is very much dependent on your mental and emotional moods. So, straighten your mental aspect and your physical state will be in much better shape, which conversely, will affect your mental and emotional states so that you can keep improving and getting better and better."

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Since emotion is the bridge between the body and the mind, the somatic emotional contents are reflections of interactions that feedback between relations, which both shape and maintain the physical expression and relations that shape and maintain the structural integrity of the whole person.

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Although mental aspects are the major constituents of the emotional landscape, there are also other components, which for instance, underlie compulsive and obsessive behavior.

Q: "What should R. do to overcome his emotional problem: whenever he is sexually attracted, he becomes obsessive toward the object of his sexual desire, even when he wants nothing to do with her rationally. What can he do or what can be done for him? Healing? Therapy? Both? How? Something else?"

A: "This is connected to his rigidity, of which I spoke earlier. When something does not flow, especially on the emotional level, often it has to be solved on that level. If transferred to a mental level, the problem can be understood, the behavior pattern recognized, and yet, the situation persists: a 'so what' reaction, because in reality nothing changes. Often the person may make a conscious decision to change the behavior pattern, which sometimes helps, but sometimes it doesn't. That is the time when shortcuts don't work and the person needs the experiential content of the emotional problem. I shall explain why.

"Emotions are condensed values, decisions, thoughts and ideas when broken down to their thought constituents. These can be changed or replaced by new values and thoughts, by introducing new habits, creating new emotions. This is true for most traumatic or painful emotions. Love, for instance, is not an emotion, although one can feel love, but a state of being, and thus, love cannot be broken down into more basic constituents. But love in its pure form is never traumatic or painful, so that's no problem.

"Emotions connected to compulsive and obsessive behavior do not dissolve with the mental analysis of the underlying ideas because these ideas were fused under pressure, so they cannot really be broken down into their elements. Some fears are of this nature too. You could say that this is a kind of psychological chemistry. Only a procedure as strong as that which fused the elements (ideas) into the compulsive behavior pattern can relieve the person or cause a change of behavior.

"Bringing the fused experiences of the emotional obsessions, fears and compulsions to the surface can be very strongly eruptive, and thus healing energy, which is an alignment of non-compatible forces and ideas within one person, can soften the effects and thus beneficially contribute. In this case, the treatment for R. would yield the best results if he were given processes whereby he could re-experience these emotions in full, with their repressed contents, and then healing. He should experience session and healing — under guidance — until he is aligned."

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When some experience is enhanced in intensity for some reason (a trauma, a divine experience, etc.), the relations of which it consists fuse into fixed relations and become part of the general structure of the person.

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Chapter 40: Are Emotion and Reason a Loop?

Emotion is considered to reside in the middle section of the brain. (It is believed that the human brain includes three evolutionary stages: the reptile brain, responsible for the animal instincts, the middle section, responsible for emotions, and the cerebrum, responsible for speech and the reasoning faculties.) It could be claimed that beliefs and conscious relating should be connected to man's reasoning ability, and consequently, to the more developed brain sites, the cerebrum, which is a higher rung of evolution. But then, this faculty cannot be the basis of emotion, which is an earlier stage of evolution. Yet according to SHET, beliefs, or in other words, relating, is the main constituent of emotion, and consequently, emotion and reason are a loop. How can a later stage in evolution be the substratum of an earlier historical development?

Most schools of psychology hold that reason is actually utilized to rationalize the choices of emotion. To substantiate this claim, it has been shown that people act irrationally and their economic and political decisions are not based on careful analysis and rational choice, but on emotional impulse. However, the rationalization employed is the expression of those beliefs that created the emotion in the first place.

The brain integrates whatever input it has (whether external sense perceptions or imaginary activities) into meaningful combinations. It is believed today that the brain is not a conglomerate of separate cells with separate functions, but an integrative whole with an inner-synchronizing clock. That is, although different areas have different responsibilities, the whole brain is an integrative system, the vehicle through which the individual can attribute meaning and make decisions. Even if a man's emotional brain site looked the same as a mouse's, he would act differently because man also possesses the cognitive site, which interacts with the emotional site. This means that man's cognitive and emotional brain sites create a mutual feedback between them. Although these two have different responsibilities, in man they are both different aspects of a whole brain. A mouse's whole brain is different, and consequently, the emotional function is different even if structurally it could be the same. So although the structure of the parts constituting two different systems could be identical, when one system has additional parts, the function of the two systems as a whole will be different. Furthermore, since the whole system also feeds back on its parts, the function of the identical parts will also be different.

The human brain is blessed with enough complexity to be analogous to the loop, and hence, the human brain contains the same logical inner structure. Thus, a later development is essential to an earlier site's expressions; beliefs are essential to certain kinds of emotions. Precisely because man possesses cognitive capabilities, his emotions are intermingled and enriched by these, and hence, in a sense, man's emotions are different from other creatures that lack elaborate thought processes. Consequently, we can access, change or deepen emotions through accessing their mental contents.

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Although the cognitive brain site is a later evolution than the emotional brain site, the later function can be the main constituent of emotion because the brain is a complex integrated system, not unlike the loop where all sites interact.

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Chapter 41: Responsibility — the Ability to Respond

According to SHET, emotion can be looked upon roughly as a structure created by 1) beliefs, value judgments, condensed thought — the mental aspect, 2) the fused traumatic contents — the somatic aspect, and 3) the spiritual aspect, the ability to respond, which is the main subject of this chapter. Sometimes all three aspects have to be cleaned up in order to overcome a certain behavior pattern in the individual.

"Being offended is an emotion and also a state of being, and it has to do with your concern for what others think of you. Sometimes eliminating one value from a complex emotion or state of being creates the illusion that the situation has disappeared; however, it will be re-awakened if some related parts remain untreated. When the latter get activated, they re-create the earlier emotion that you have already gotten rid of. Thus partial cleansing is not enough in these cases. You will observe the behavior changing only when it is totally clean."

I have personally experienced such an incident wherein the partial cleansing did not help. I had a neighbor nicknamed Garbage by his wife, who in turn lovingly referred to her as Slut. These are the names the neighborhood knew them by, since whenever together, that's what they called each other — especially at 2 a.m. at 400 decibels. They were loud, foul mouthed, and often one or the other took a short vacation in the local jail.

I was walking my dogs one day when Mr. Garbage stormed out of his house flinging a stick around his head and shouting war cries and that he was "going to kill these dogs." I stopped him by aiming my house keys into the small of his back. He lifted his hand, and I was waiting for him to bring it down on me. My adrenaline started rising: red alert! I was ready. He would bring his hand down and I would put him in hospital with some fancy Kung-Fu moves. He did not oblige, but instead only promised that he would bring a woman to break my head open and spill my brains all over the pavement. He called me a slut, a whore, garbage, filth, rubbish, junk, shit, dirt, and he promised he would "fuck me" and then called me some more names. To my great surprise, I reacted likewise: I sneered at him and shouted, "Illiterate, moron, offal, refuse, impotent," etc. — nothing original.

Clara from the right (in horror): "You? Are you trying to stoop to the level of that imbecile?"

Clara from the left: "Yes, yes! Tell him! Swear! Come on, come on! Come up with your worst words. You enjoy it! Experience it! It's fun. Look how mad he is, tease him!"

Clara from the right: "Please, don't dirty yourself with such a confrontation. It is degrading. Look, all the neighbors are watching you. What are you trying to provide them with? A show? And one like that? This is out of character for a spiritual person!!!"

Clara from the left: "Tease him! So what if the neighbors have a show? You don't really care what anybody thinks about you as long as it is the truth. Since you get excited by calling the moron names, this is in you, so face it, be with it, enjoy your dark side!"

I did. Pointing at my dogs, I told him that his reaction was obvious, for he had encountered real intelligence. His eyes spat insane hatred, and I never even knew why — I was just telling him the truth. When I got home, I was shaking all over, and for the first time in my life, I locked the door. After that incident, whenever I encountered Mr. Garbage in the neighborhood, all my muscles tensed, I felt my throat going dry, and I hated him. I wanted him beaten, killed, out of my life and out of my sight. All this time I was trying to become a better person, to be more compassionate, except it didn't work as far as Mr. Garbage was concerned. Every time I thought I had progressed in loving people more, I waited to see Mr. Garbage to see how I felt. Alas, every time my reaction was the same.

I took a workshop to overcome my fear of Mr. Garbage. The instructor acted out Mr. Garbage's psyche, telling me how miserable he was, that his life was a living hell, etc. Then I really felt compassion towards him and was very happy. I came home from the workshop smiling. By chance, I met Mr. Garbage in the parking lot. Immediately all my muscles tensed and I was ready to kill him. I felt devastated: here I was with all this spiritual work, and all for naught — there was still this one person in the world I hated with all my heart. I prayed to be given a chance to heal.

A week later, a few days before YOM KIPUR (Day of Atonement for Jews), Mr. Garbage was waiting for me before my door. I tensed as usual and started planning which kick I would apply if he attacked. For the first time since he moved to the neighborhood, he said hello to me.

"I need your help, Clara," he said quietly.

For a moment I was shocked. I breathed a silent "thanks," for I felt my prayer had been heard.

I invited him inside. Lady, my elder dog, left the room not wanting to sit under the same roof with him. Daffy, however, wriggled her tail, all forgiveness. To make a long story short, he wanted me to help him write a letter, since indeed, he was not very literate. He asked me to write to the police that his wife had been embezzling money. He had proof that she had been doing so for a while and that she had burned down the office where she worked when her boss was about to find out. He told me that his life was a living hell. His wife burned his clothes and called the police almost every week with some complaint about him, etc. He remembered to mention that he hadn't been lily white either. I assured him, I knew.

I wrote the letter and talked to him for many hours. I told him he didn't have to live such a life, that he had a choice, that every person alive has a right to seek out quality of life. He left at four o'clock in the morning and kissed my forehead. At that moment, something happened: I was freed. I felt elated, happy, full of energy. I started running up and down the stairs unable to contain my happiness, laughing, happy, crying, and then laughing some more. I went to bed, but not being able to sleep, I imagined that I invited all the people I knew to a big hall and thanked each for what they had given me. There were people, animals, family, also some people who had died, and I thanked each and every one of them. Mr. Garbage was the star guest. I thanked him with such love that my tears started flowing again. Then suddenly the dark room where I was came alight, bathing me in the warmest glow.

The strangest part of the story is that the following day, when I spoke to a few of my friends, who of course were thanked in my imaginary hall the night before, they all told me they woke up around 5 o'clock in the morning with a warm feeling in their chests and they thought of me.

To this day I am grateful to Mr. Garbage. He was that trigger in my life that allowed me to clean up fear within myself by enabling me to relate to his consciousness instead of the coarse role with which he identified. And then I could respond to him. **"If you want to change conditions, this is possible by taking responsibility for yourself, your life, your anger. Taking responsibility — I mean it in the fullest sense of the word — means to respond, being able to respond, having the response-ability to All-That-Is. Thus what you can do to gain more tolerance is to see in everything and everyone All-That-Is, seeing others as part of the same totality of which you are part."**

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Although problems can be treated locally, a lasting solution needs to address the whole being and make him more connected to his spiritual source by enhancing his response-ability. Service can do that. By investing in someone, you widen your state of being and consequently, there is more of All-That-Is in you.

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Chapter 42: Who is the Other in You?

A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe,' a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

Einstein

The substratum of emotion is Quality, the _ability_ to respond. That does not mean that one is a stimulus/response machine, that one responds to every trigger, but that one is _able_ to respond by choice. **"Responsibility is response-ability, the ability to respond to someone else's needs. However, it is deeper than this too — it is ACHARAIYUT** (אחריות — responsibility) **,** **which is ACHERIYUT** (אחריות — otherness) **,** **which means the other in you. All is one in quality, and since you constantly fluctuate between quantity and quality, you all carry within you quality.** (SHET maintains that everything, humans included, constantly fluctuates between quality and quantity. Different objects fluctuate with different rhythms, but what are these fluctuations? Certainly not back-and-forth motions, like the motion of the pendulum, because quality is not another space-time kind of space. So what does fluctuating between quality and quantity mean? It means relating from changing viewpoints, fluctuations between what we call "potential" and "actual," always seen from the point of view of Viewpoint 2.) **When you do that, it means you carry the other in you, since this other is also you in quality wherein you all are one. Thus, when you respond to the other in you, that's responsibility."**

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Responsibility, or the ability to respond, is the cognizance of the other in you, transforming you to be an open system, endowing you with life and liveliness. Life is being. Being is being as different from non-being, a collapse of the indefinite into definition. This being is being in certain ways and not others; that is, being is a process with a direction within a certain framework. Thus life is asymmetric. Its lack of symmetry gains expression through the rate of quality within quantity, how much response-ability one can contain.

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Emotion, in Latin _ex movere_ , means to move away. In Hebrew, emotion is REGESH (רגש), sensitive is RAGISH (רגיש — same root), and exciting is MERAGESH (מרגש — same root again). If we shift the letters of REGESH (רגש) around a bit, we get GARESH (גרש), which means to exile, exorcise, send away, or SHAGER (שגר), which means to send off, to dispatch. As you see, the result is the same kind of terminology as the Latin _ex movere_. However, there is another possibility, to rearrange the letters of the Hebrew REGESH (רגש), which yields, GESHER (גשר) and means bridge. Indeed, SHET said that emotion is the bridge between the spirit, mind and body. The emotion of anger, for instance, is a fast transmission of our values and beliefs to the body to produce the necessary chemicals to react (i.e., one is supposed to keep his word but did not, so he should be punished). However, there is more to emotion than being the mediator between mind and body.

Emotion is also the response- _ability_ of a being. When we are unable to respond, we are in trouble. That is the point forwarded by the neurologist Antonio R. Damasio in his book _Descartes' Error._ xxxix If the brain is damaged in certain sites, then the patient may seem to be totally rational, fully intelligent, yet his behavior is irrational, his decision making erroneous because he does not feel, does not react to emotional stimuli. The inability to respond may very well be due to structural damage to the organism. However, I believe that reduced ability to respond with emotion, for instance compassion, can also be the symptom of psychological deficiency, or simply, socio-cultural desensitizing.

Much of what television, news and movies have to offer is murder scenes, horror, blood, killing and sex. These are supposed to create somatic reactions in the viewer, excitement. Ratings show that indeed that's what people want. Merely a century ago, for a man to have a fleeting glimpse of a woman's ankle engendered excitement. Today, it doesn't. Why? Because we have become desensitized when continuously exposed to stimuli. When we daily view a great number of murders, rapes, etc., we become indifferent to these and we need scenes with more blood, more horror to move us. **"The decreased ability to feel emotions means you are giving up, closing down, exhibiting chronic tiredness."**

The word 'esthetics' comes from the Greek _aisthetikos_ , which means to feel, to perceive. The esthetic sensation moves on subtler levels, which can disappear when bombarded with megaton stimuli, as is the case with people addicted to drugs who cannot enjoy life without the stimulant. Even computer games we give to our kids are full of violence. What kind of mind would think up a computer game wherein the more people and animals you kill with your car the more points you get? You might ask, Why is that worse than shooting them, as in other games? The weak argument is that in most other games the shooting is done in self-defense, but the strong argument is that we got used to shooting them. If we want our children to grow into responsible adults, to be compassionate members of society, then these games are certainly not the way.

You may have heard of a game by the name TAMAGUCI, a kind of pet that has needs. The electronic pet signals the owner to attend to its needs, which is done by pressing a button. If its needs are not attended to, the virtual pet dies. That's more likely to evoke response and sensitivity. These kinds of games are more suitable to bring one to emotional stability. SHET spoke to a father whose son was incapable of responsible behavior in this same spirit. **"To reach a stage of emotional stability where he can take responsibility for everything in the past, present and future concerning himself, he needs to be responsible over others or another, to be needed. The flow can be re-established when he has to take care of a loved one (and it does not matter whether that is a person, animal or plant) instead of being the one who is being taken care of. Instead of being the problem, become the problem-solver."** Of course, as with anything else, unbalanced people may blow things out of proportion, which is what happened when two Japanese committed suicide for having failed in their responsibility to attend to the electronic pet. When we are desensitized to what should move us, perhaps in a last-ditch effort to feel something, we feel the wrong things, such as suicidal remorse over one's failure to keep something alive that is not alive.

The question is, if being exposed to violence desensitizes us, would over-exposure to beauty desensitize us as well, so it no longer moves us? The answer is no. To survive and evolve both mentally and spiritually, response-ability is required. That is the ALEPH (א), the Quality dimension in physical existence, which has an asymmetrical direction, so responding to violence or beauty is not equivalent. Being in a body is being in space-time, wherein one manifestation of quality is response-ability — the Quality dimension itself is neither in space-time nor space-time itself. Existence is asymmetrical per se, says SHET, thus life has a direction.xl Consequently, being exposed to love, beauty, etc., brings one closer to that expression of quality in physical existence, which means being able to respond, whereas being exposed to violence does the opposite.

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Socio-cultural desensitization, especially violence, engenders emotional pathology.

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This should not be taken as a black and white picture, that we should only be exposed to light and love. "Many teachers teach that anger is a negative emotion one should not experience. I teach, however, that anger is one emotion on a wide scale of emotions and experience means having a whole variety of emotions along the scale, not merely being a monotonous static something."

Stimulus, without labels of good or bad, is the means by which we learn. I read about an interesting study using rats. The group that was exposed to stimulus developed far more intelligence than the group that only had love and light and food. We came into this existence to enrich our whole selves, to learn. Learning cannot take place without stimuli of all kinds. The only thing I wish to argue here is that the _amount_ of "negative" stimulus is exaggerated, and this kind of education saturated with violence does not reach the objective of raising healthy, intelligent and compassionate citizens. The research regarding learning by stimulus is very valuable, but we should not forget that in order for the stimulus to work as designed, there should be response-ability on the side of the subject: a dead rat won't respond to any stimulus.

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Emotional stability is a function of the ratio between stimuli and response-ability.

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Chapter 43: Responsibility is More than Moral Obligation

There is one moral duty which you moralists underrate criminally: the duty to enjoy the world which God created.

Klatzkin

Relating to events and creating events in a manner that brings about survival and happiness to both ourselves and the environment (which includes all life) is possible when we can respond to the subtlest nuances. When we are opinionated and intolerant, even when trained with strong moral obligations yet without "feeling" them, without experiencing the spiritual connection, we may act in a morally correct fashion, yet that's not what is meant by response-ability.

If we act morally because we have to, because that's how it should be, because we are afraid of the consequences, that's not a choice. However, when the moral act is a moment by moment choice based not on moral conditioning but on a deep level of empathy and understanding, that's another story entirely. Responsibility is more than a moral obligation for SHET. **"To be responsible very much means to be able to respond, to see the other in you, to relate from a place of oneness, seeing the other as a different aspect of All-That-Is."** For SHET, responsibility means to be connected to the wider qualitative dimension wherein we are all one. **"Not taking responsibility is like being under anesthetic, detaching you from life and aliveness."** To be able to respond, we need to experience that oneness. **"Being disconnected from experiencing your source is being disconnected also from your esthetic center, from the emotion on a non-emotional level, which is the consciousness' impact on your senses, the insight, which endows you with growth."**

To be able to respond to another, we have to perceive that other, otherwise he/she/it is transparent to us. Since our reality is played out within the space of our perception, which is inside our minds, we relate and interact with our perceptions in this inner space. Remember how SHET described this: **"You don't believe perception to be your creation, and thus, you believe the perceived to be out there, outside your skull... However, what you perceive is always only a projection of either your mind or a projection of something external to you. Nevertheless, the projection is** _always_ **an image in your head"** (Chapter 12). The question then is how to become more sensitive, more response-able — how do I perceive more? Obviously, if something is transparent to me, then I can't see it, so what can I do to notice it?

We can change the scale of our framework to other scales within which what is invisible to us becomes visible. By analogy, that would be like putting on night-goggles to see in the dark. The more kinds of frameworks we can occupy, the wider our scope of action. Of course, that is only possible if we are willing to give up our fixed ideas and beliefs about how things are, and mainly, how and what we are. That's also how we change what we want, if we think we should.

When we can change frameworks so our perception includes all creatures and creations, then we act from the qualitative oneness and we are able to experience the other in ourselves. From this state, our choices will be tolerant and compassionate, and not out of fear but as a result of experiencing the other (whatever that might be) as part of ourselves.

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Saying that we are all one in quality means that when some atrocity is committed towards people or animals, you are both the perpetrator and the victim. Unlike obeying moral obligations out of fear for the self, response-ability ensures spiritual expansion.

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Personally, each and every one of us can do a lot to bring about a more harmonious life and a healthier ecology. We can refuse to purchase products that harm the ecology. We can refuse to buy shampoos, toothpastes and other products that use unnecessary animal experiments. We can demand of companies who must use animal experiments that they yield part of their profits for the rehabilitation of those animals who were forced to be experimented on, thus providing them with some kind of quality of life, or else we don't buy their products, etc.

Responsibility means to take responsibility for our creations. "When you create something, that act entails lots of responsibility. You have to be able to respond to your creation's needs, and your creation has to respond to you — and whoever is connected has to respond to all the rest. And you create it all. When it is right, when your creation is successful, all the parts respond to each other. They all communicate and reflect the whole, the soul, the idea that created it." Your life is the mirror of what you create. If you are unhappy and unsuccessful, then you do not take responsibility for your creation and you do not create a desirable dynamic structure, but rather, you create instability, which can end up as a broken structure. Even if you were born under unfavorable circumstances, your life is still your creation, and ignoring this fact will prevent you from changing it. "To ignore something might not cause it to disappear. When you create something, you have to un-create it to stop its existence. No matter whether your timeless 'I' creates something or not, you, in your capacity today, have the power to un-create the past. You always are your timeless 'I.'" When SHET said this, he was asked:

Q: "How do I un-create?"

A: "By entering another reality, by changing the point through which you experience the existence you now experience. It is creating different emotions, other thought patterns, briefly, playing another game." Which means, you change your viewpoint by unfixing certain core beliefs, or in other words, certain fixed relations, by shifting what is important and creating a new or different structure.

Your life is the measuring rod of the amount of responsibility you realistically can take upon yourself. It is not enough to say you are responsible and create an air around you as if you were and then fail to deliver. SHET said the following to someone who fits this description: **"You have always played the role of the responsible one, of the one who takes care of others, who makes things all-will-go-well-I-promise. That's a very tiring role since you cannot afford being weak in it, when they all look upon you for support. But strength dwells in recognizing one's weakness and limitations. Only then can one learn to replenish those forces that you so freely scatter to others."**

Each and every one of us is responsible for everyone else. That may sound overwhelming, but it need not be so. The knowledge that we do have freedom of choice when we are aware of this responsibility enables us the discretion to act out of preference, not from helplessness or _having_ to help. **"Your responsibility to others is to be able to respond to them, to see them clearly, see their needs and wishes, and then using your freedom of choice to decide whether you want to act in one way or another. This is your choice, and you don't have to be in any specific way towards anybody... First, determine what the price for doing this or that is. Everything has a price, and freedom of choice really means to be able to choose what price you are willing to pay. Notice that I did not say sacrifice — this is a choice regarding what price you are willing to pay. What you want for you is important, so take that into consideration."**

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Being able to respond does not mean you must respond in any certain way. It means you are able to respond and you choose how to do so, if at all. However, you ought to know that your choice means you choose which price to pay; a price tag is attached to every choice.

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So to be able to be responsible, we need to respond to our own needs as well. "Necessarily, responsibility is connected with the ability to respond, and since your response within your own complexity is hurt, your response beyond that, to others, is even more so. That is also the reason why men leave who could have built something with you.

"How can you work on your responsibility? By being very present in the moment, by observing thoroughly and seeing things without judgment, seeing the other really and totally. When your mind is clouded by your own troubles and pain, that definitely aims your attention on pain, so you have no energy — which is attention of course. No attention remains to be directed outside yourself. And then you cannot observe, cannot see the other, cannot relate to him accord-ingly. When you don't really observe, you end up with the wrong people, and even if you met someone with whom you could work something out, you cannot follow it up because you are too busy with yourself. Practice observing more, and even when in pain, control your attention, direct it outside yourself, on external things without curving it back unto yourself. This also alleviates pain by allowing your system to heal itself. This strategy is not easy, of course, but practice it — you can do it and be better at it with time."

People often confuse freedom with relinquished responsibility. Yet "freedom" without responsibility is meaningless. Freedom without a direction, without action, is meaningless. **"The more responsibility you take, the wider your scope of action becomes,"** says SHET. This responsibility is not pure duty, but the qualitative essence that constitutes the basis, and probably the purpose, we can attribute to our existence. **"First of all, you need to restore your ability to respond. Beauty and the small nuances that could fill you with joy leave you untouched. You no longer see them. You don't react. Then all that remains is duty, the things you** _have_ **to do, and when you act out of duty alone, that's not much fun indeed. When you have no fun, you are no fun for others either, you don't radiate the kind of appeal that grants success to you personally and also to your products. In other words, your resonance then is confusing at best, but more likely, not attractive. That means, people don't want to be part of your circle, and that has repercussions on your business too, since business is done with people.**

"First, deal with the spiritual aspect within you by restoring your ability to respond so that you can truly become a responsible person. Since responsibility is the response-ability, the ability to respond, that part is important to maintain. When you make decisions without a clean ability to respond, usually you make shortsighted decisions, often dealing with unnecessary details and thereby wasting time and energy.

"Control your attention: several times daily direct your attention at small beautiful things and feel them, respond to them — a flower, a scent, a smile, whatever. Do it by will. Decide: Now I do it — and then do it. That is a start. Then direct your attention at others and really see them. Do not reach conclusions regarding how they are, but see what they do, what they say, their facial expression, their actions. Observe and really see. Practice pure observation instead of judging and reaching conclusions or deciding whether what you are observing is good or bad. And mainly, do so without referring back to yourself, without a what-does-it-do-to-me. Take your attention away from yourself and direct it at others, and not at what they think of you, but at seeing _them_ really. To become the seer (not the object, the seen) bestows upon you the ability to respond once again."

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Euphoria, being in love or in constant communion with God, or depression, lacking interaction with the environment, bring about erroneous decision-making since they both negate response-ability, which is quality in quantity.

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Observation, consciously becoming aware of nuances, enhances our ability to respond. The response I speak about does not come as a routine, but as the wondrous reaction of a child, a breath of firstness. If that's not present, the emotional gamut becomes very poor — imagine the difference between a rich symphony and a few notes repeated endlessly. **"When you define things, you judge by them instead of observing. Then you lose the wonder, the firstness of things, which prevents you from experiencing. At the same time, having put yourself on a pedestal, you have to prove you are superior and then you don't allow yourself to respond, making yourself opaque. You do so because you look through your beliefs. You don't really look, for you already know. When you don't look, you don't observe and you don't react. You get emotionally deficient. Having to prove something places you in competition, or rather, wanting approval makes you competitive, which gains expression then as having to prove, which enforces an invulnerable shell around you. Yes, you have worked on that, but the next step is looking outward with less self-consciousness: becoming sensitive to others.**

"Your fear of not being accepted, of not receiving approval, compels you to be apart from others, unable to see them. Not having experienced deep emotions, you cannot feel empathy for that in others. It all boils down to the issue of control: you can't let go of control... The more you know, the less you can learn. So un-learn things. Don't judge. Don't define, and then you can be inquisitive again. Then you can learn and experience. Observe the observable. This could balance both your emotional deficiency and also your diminishing concentration and learning abilities. It is all interconnected... You handicap yourself with the lack of emotional depth burdening your cognitive faculties. To deeply understand, you need the emotional layer."

Experiencing and learning are closely connected with the ability to respond and to emotional depth. Experiencing is willingness to interact with the indefinite without the urge to define, which is relating by looking and observing without judgment. Of course, we can only learn if we recognize something new, which is part and parcel of experiencing, instead of relating to something new as if it already was known to us, something that already existed in our system. We cannot learn if we already know. We can allow ourselves to unknow, to permit the breath of firstness to penetrate our reality when feeling secure enough to not have to control. And then we can respond.

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Emotional deficiency is the unwillingness or inability to observe, which in turn leads to an inability to learn, which brings about a lessened ability to interact with the environment and erroneous decision-making.

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Chapter 44: Puppies in the Score of Creation

I love in-seeing. Can you imagine with me how glorious it is to in-see a dog, for example, as you pass it — by in-see I don't mean to look through, which is only a kind of human gymnastic that lets you immediately come out again on the other side of the dog, regarding it merely, so to speak, as a window upon the human world lying behind it: not that; what I mean is to let yourself precisely into the dog's center, the point from which it begins to be a dog, the place in it where God, as it were, would have sat down for a moment when the dog was finished, in order to watch it during its first embarrassments and inspirations and to nod that it was good, that nothing was lacking, that it couldn't have been better made. For a while you can endure being inside the dog; you just have to be alert and jump out in time, before its environment has completely enclosed you, since otherwise you would simply remain the dog in the dog and be lost for everything else. Though you may laugh, dear confidante, if I tell you where my very greatest feeling, my world-feeling, my earthly bliss was, again and again, here and there, in such in-seeing — in the indescribably swift, deep, timeless moments of this godlike in-seeing.

Rainer Maria Rilke

The beauty of a flower, the pleasure taken in being able to love and knowing it, far surpass any thriller. Try to think of something that really moved you, some memory you treasure. The first thing that comes to my mind is the sight of the two tiny Papillion puppies, Bombadil, black and white, and Goldy, red and white, playing on the lawn. Magi, their mother, sat on the side watching them. I wanted to be like Magi, feel what she felt, see what she saw. In one word, I wanted to experience being Magi. I think I succeeded. That day, the grass was green, the sun shone, a light breeze brushed the skin ever so lightly, and two puppies played on the grass. I am trying to re-capture the feel of the air I breathed. I have it inside me as one of my most treasured memories, and yet I fail to express it in words. I felt as Tiresias might have felt having seen the goddess Athena bathing. I was seeing the innermost wonders of Nature, beauty and grace for a tiny second between two breaths. I felt that I saw something of the gods, something forbidden. I know it was only two small dogs playing, but it incited in me the Tiresias-feeling about whom it is said:

"Henceforth be blind, for thou hast seen too much,

And speak the truth that no man may believe."

At that point my life took a new turn. It was a transcendental experience, the recognition of the beyond through love towards children of Nature. I was seeing Nature from the inside. I saw myself as part of this wonder, an observer yet experiencing the sanctity of life through pure joy. I wanted this experience to continue. I wanted to continue seeing the miracle of the flow of bliss and of living. I did not want to talk about it but experience it. I have spent years in search of quiet moments of magic like those that Magi has so gracefully bestowed upon me. I have imitated her by looking at the puppies the way she looked at them. She saw them more as part of Nature than as her private outcome. When I realized that, I have understood why a mother animal will try to revive her dead baby by licking and pushing and why, if she doesn't succeed, she'll go on as if nothing happened. Her emotional response is no less powerful than a human mother's whose child dies and she is ready to cast herself into his grave with a torn heart. It is love yet on another, more dispersed level than personal love. Magi operated on other strata of the self than the ego.

Remember that in his very first session SHET said that, in order to embark on the spiritual quest, we need to be more like animals: **"The thought/reasoning process must cease at the time of** _subject-object merging,_ **and in contradiction to what you think of animals, you will become somewhat like an animal, but on your way to what you desire to achieve."** If we could be more like Magi, we could transcend the boundaries of the self, leaving the worries behind us. And then, we could reach well being.

The secret is to relate differently, to choose what to identify with instead of accepting unwanted emotions to be imposed upon us. Knowing that the way we relate to our experiences is a definition made by us, which defines our perception, is a step in the right direction. Knowing that our perception is intrinsic to us and not "just how it is," a statement about objective reality, is another step in the right direction. When we can relate to the structure of our thoughts instead of relating to their significance, then that's a major step toward regaining joy without losing the sense of reality, without living in a dream world of delusions.

Read the following questions (by different questioners) and answers in this light.

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Life can be one continuous transcendental experience with varying contents, if you can split focus and also maintain the ebb and flow of transitional relations within the quantitative. You can learn to split focus by acting from your qualitative viewpoint, which you achieve when you can really see, feel, experience everyone and everything, all of existence, as part of you.

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Chapter 45: What Can You do about Negative Emotions?

Wrongness is the greatest teacher of rightness.

SHET

Q: "Most of my life I am quite worried, tense and confused. I would like to be more at peace."

A: "That comes from subdued creativity. When you see things clearly, when you have followed a line of thought to the end, you suddenly feel you get to a _cul-de-sac_ — it leads you nowhere. Thus clear-sightedness, which you do have, is not enough without integration, without integrating the intuitive side. The intuitive side is not dead, so it bursts out as emotions of worry, body tenseness and aimlessness.

"To overcome these emotions you do need to open up the emotional channels that you have blocked. Here I want to be clear: I do not mean you should weep 5 minutes every morning before coffee. Emotion in the totality of a being is part of his integrity, part of the being, and it has a direction and can also be directed. It can be directed to a non-emotional level, where you simply participate in life, in the joy of Creation, which means being very alive, being the actor rather than a passive spectator. When you really participate in other life forms, this is a state of being with, in, one with life. This is pure joy and a tremendous source of creativity. Transcending your self-boundaries kills the worry. This state has the direction of well-being and creativity (necessarily spiritual even if you act it out by planting flowers) and as such, it balances your mental, judgmental, defining and reasoning capacities, so it clears up confusion. That is, your intuition reinstated.

"Clearly, to achieve this you need a stable outlet for your emotional needs (as I have described it above on a non-emotional level). You may start finding it by searching inside yourself for the inclination, in which direction this outlet might be."

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By transcending the boundaries of the self, one can redirect emotion to a non-emotional level, which is acting in quantity from quality. That is the source of creativity and the energy with which to act, since when identified with the infinite potential, the potential is indeed infinite and you can participate in every ISness according to choice.

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Q: "My friend is very confused right now. He would like to know what he wants to do with his life."

A: "The first thing he might do is dive into his own emotional field. He is like one standing on the banks of the Promised Land, looking at it, and yet not daring to enter. The Promised Land is his own internal landscape and he has locked himself out. Not being really connected to emotional depths gives rise to a superficial outlook regarding others' emotions, to judging and depreciating instead of very happily taking part... Sometimes he is worried about his sanity, which is one of the reasons why he is wary of becoming familiar with his hidden emotions, but this fear for his sanity originates in being disassociated from a very major part of himself and thus he makes incorrect judgments, often locking himself into guidelines of preset beliefs and conditions. These will disappear once he gets in touch with his inner core. Then he will be a much happier person, feeling much more alive, direct and open."

When one feels generally dissatisfied and emotionally shallow, SHET suggests being more in touch with the emotional aspect and experiencing more. How? **"A critical attitude tending towards perfectionism focuses attention on performance, both your performance and that of others as you compare theirs to your own. You do that to improve. This cuts you off from experiencing, and thus, you lack satisfaction. When you have a great achievement (which at least seems great to others), you say, so what? What does that give me? So you find the next station, the next challenge to pursue, and when you achieve it, you face the same feeling of loss: you expected it to give you more. You keep doing what's right and correct, and yet, it does not procure the desired fulfillment for you.**

"It could help you if you forgot yourself, if you could allow yourself to be clumsy and see yourself from a more humorous point of view. In general, looking through the cheery lens of playfulness could help. You miss out on the spirit of playfulness, the fun part. It's not that you don't have fun, that you cannot enjoy things, but sensing there is more urges you to rush forward without lingering on what you have.

"To become less critical of your environment and yourself, you ought to concentrate on developing more sensitivity. Instead of labeling situations and placing them under known rubrics, pay attention to the emotional motivation of things. This means, reduce your analytical, examining attitude, and instead, feel more. When you don't analyze your feelings, you can better participate in feeling. This could balance your notion of lack and bring you in communication with areas of your psyche that are inaccessible to you as long as you label things, as long as you criticize instead of experiencing. Good criticism is still a definition of how something is (whatever), which limits it. Definitions are limiting aspects. These definitions then direct your emotional response, and that is what feels so shallow. Your emotions are not really your emotions, but the correct emotional reaction to a definition. So abandon criticism and definitions, and instead, feel more, even if at first it will look to you as if you are doing some strange practice.

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Definition negates the potential for anything other than the carved out existence limited by the definition. When a multitude of these create structures that prevent experience (which leave the individual with a constant feeling of dissatisfaction, as if missing out on life), then reverting to the spirit of playfulness will help. Joy creates experience, which is the higher octave of emotion, connecting to the soul level.

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"The same applies to your self. You don't have to criticize yourself. You don't have to fix yourself into some definition, but rather, you need to feel the process of what you are creating, even without it having to be perfect. When you hook up with the emotional part, the experience of activities, then you have to be less afraid of how others will see you. You see, you don't have to be any way to be loved or accepted, but do what you see fit."

That kind of change of attitude brings about emotional depth because it helps transcend "emotion" as such. It helps enhance emotion to the level of experiencing quality. **"When you stop asking the intellectual questions, when you stop being focused in your intellect, then you can start experiencing more. Without the kind of experience that is connected to the soul level, you cannot reach connectedness. What you now call experience is actually emotions, moods, which are the lower octave of what I call experience."**

Then there is the other side of the coin, when someone is flooded with emotions, out of control. This is being out of balance in the opposite direction, when everything seems in motion, a paralyzing confusion with overwhelming indefiniteness. Such a person's point of reference is always himself/herself, and he/she goes to great lengths to make the world conform to his/her perception of it, usually using passive-aggressive means to do so but completely capable of extreme overt acts if this fails. In such situations one feels tossed around in the sea of various undefined emotional states. Just as when we seek to be more connected, SHET guides us to be less definite, but when overwhelmed, he suggests regaining control by defining more:

"When you feel confused, overwhelmed with emotions, especially with contradictory emotions, the first thing you can do is look at them. Instead of drowning in the emotion, look at it and see what kind of emotion it is, for instance, pity. Then look more at this emotion, and you will see that it is love. Then look some more and you see it is anger. What I'm saying is that, instead of having your head submersed in the flood of emotions, keep it above and look at the emotion. In this specific case, try to define it. Emotion is motion. When there is too much of it, you feel it suffocates you. This is the condition of too much motion, so you need to restrain it somewhat. You do so by observing and defining it. Definitions stop motion. I have taught you how to see the motion in things, how not to see _stills_ , but motion. For balance, see the motion in your present situation and stop it by defining it.

"Second, after you have observed and defined it, see where the emotion is. When you can place it somewhere, it is no longer drowning you. You can say, it is in your heart, it is in your throat, it is in your ovaries.

"Third, when you found what it is and where it is, remove it, put it somewhere else, for instance on the shelf, into the cupboard, under the bed. When you exercise this strategy, you will realize that you can have control over these emotions instead of them controlling and suffocating you."

There are many more negative emotions than positive ones. The term "negative emotions" is used here in the conventional sense, meaning anger, grief, etc. Negative emotions play out the quantitative variety, whereas positive emotions (mirth, joy, etc.) are those that unite, striving toward oneness. The Jewish collection of proverbs, _PIRQE AVOT_ (The Fathers) asks, "Who is rich?" and answers, "He who rejoices in his lot" (4:1) It is possible to evoke positive emotions in viewing and participating in the quantitative variety of physical existence when we enjoy what we experience. We can seek such experiences to strengthen us to change the environment for the better, if necessary and if we can. Our participation is dependent on subtle responses, which should be developed instead of searching for bigger and bigger stimuli. And then, when we can easily find quality in quantity, when we can easily respond to small esthetic stimuli that are so freely offered by Nature, art, wisdom, and almost everywhere we look, then we are indeed enriched.

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One way to control emotion is by regulating the amount of definition or indefiniteness of your relations. All negative emotions are expressions of a contradiction between what you experience and what you want to experience. This contradiction creates your attitude. So the negative is in your attitude, not in the event. That is why you can eliminate negative emotions by changing what you want, provided you cannot change the course of events.

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Chapter 46: Transcending the Bubble Syndrome

When you are self-conscious, fun walks out on you.

SHET

The qualitative ability to respond means to be connected to the a-temporal dimension with an integrated capability to predict probable outcomes of situations. **"Lawfulness preserves response-ability in both directions: a) being connected to quality, and b) acting with response-ability, which is quality in quantity, or you could say about the last, the appearance of multiplicity."** Emotion in that sense is a bridge, that expression of lawfulness that also includes other than the causative base, which is the sole scope of beings identified with their bodies or roles trapped in space-time existence. For these collapsed states that are mainly identified with their bodies or roles, only the immediate causal next stage has relevance without the branching out possibilities of the kind of looking that includes probabilities. That gains expression as the growing demand for increasingly intense excitement with immediate gratification. Constructive excitement could be seeking answers to questions that have never been answered before, exploration of all kinds of mind and cognition expansion possibilities, being a participant in experiencing the vast expanse of quality. This includes scientific, technological, educational and social advancement as well as creative endeavors in the arts and other fields.

The ability to respond is part of the pre-set structure wherein a meaningful relation can occur. Remember that to respond means a relation. The choice whether to respond belongs more to the TAV — ת, the Communication dimension. Yet the ability to respond is Quality. ACHARAIYUT (אחריות — responsibility) is also ACHERIYUT (אחריות — the other in you), practically the same word. To respond then, is to respond to something, which actually is in me. (I will discuss this point further in Chapter 53.) Quality, in that sense, is the aspiration to oneness. When SHET keeps telling us that we are to find quality in quantity, he means we are to create oneness in multiplicity. When we seek quality, when we feel moved by beauty for instance, when we are able to respond, we relate to quantity from oneness. Since the ALEPH (א) or the potential is the potential of all existence, of all aspects, by responding to something different than us as if it was part of us, we invoke quality, we look at difference as an aspect of oneness.

Emotion in the sense of the _ability_ to respond then is a pre-set part of our structure, something we come into this world with. However, the defined contents of the emotion are beliefs, which are acquired rather than pre-set. Take for instance euphoria at having succeeded in something: the emotion is our ability to feel that way. Why we feel that way is because we believe that something good has happened to us, the good being a value judgment, a belief for instance, that it is good to win a competition.

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_When you'll respond to everything, then everything will be in you. Attaining this all-encompassing esthetics means attaining oneness._ That **_you feel, is a pre-set condition._ What _you feel depends on your beliefs._**

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Our beliefs create complex structures that influence our decisions. These structures activate the firing of neural circuits and chemical processes, which then stabilize the emotional disposition and the accompanying changes in the body (smile, laughter, blushing, palpitations, etc.). When we recall something, the recall activity indiscriminately includes the emotional context, our evaluative relation to what was. When not discriminated by observation as just another "hidden" element of the ensemble of the recalled event, the emotional context can gain emphasis leading to "wrong" decision making.

When I recall my headmistress in elementary school, what I remember most is her fat thorax, her fat fingers pulling my hair, and her disgusting breath. Withdrawing from people who have fat fingers because of this memory would not be a rational act. However, dissecting events into their belief contents, emotional contents and relations (how I relate, the various relations in the event, how the event relates to other events, etc.), offers a much more balanced picture. It does not need to take a whole lot of time — using gut feeling, intuition, can help to zoom in on the main issue. This is an example of using the ability to respond instead of relying on the automatic reaction activated by the belief contents of our emotions. For that, however, we need to be able to respond. Sadness, and even more so, depression, are manifestations of reduced response-ability (also responsibility, of course). Improving joy and curiosity increase response-ability.

To many people in emotional turmoil, SHET suggests that they look out, to observe, to place their attention outside their own selves. Let's call the state that forces one's attention back onto himself the "bubble syndrome." This is the state wherein one is stuck in one's own bubble. When one looks in the eyes of another and sees himself, he suffers from the bubble syndrome. The bubble syndrome refers to that circumstance wherein the person relates to others only in order to project back upon himself how he or she is. This state contains very little joy, lots of self-consciousness, and no real involvement in life, but only the continuous curving of one's attention back on the "I." Consequently, the bubble syndrome reduces response-ability since the individual mostly responds to himself or to what he thinks he observes. Because all his attention is focused on himself, he is unable to observe, and consequently, often reacts to chimera. Such a person is more matter than spirit and the ability to shape his life is reduced. Enhancing the response-ability, looking out, re-endows the individual with the ability to create a more desirable environment.

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Real sensitivity is not sensitivity to the self, to be easily hurt and offended; that is the hallmark of the bubble syndrome. Real sensitivity is being sensitive to the other, be it man or beast, acting from the state of being of oneness, which is love.

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Chapter 47: Universal Love versus Intelligent Love

There is only one kind of love and that's granting freedom to the object of one's love and oneself. Love is not an emotion — usually the emotion is possessiveness — but quality of being.

SHET

As mentioned earlier, for SHET, love is not an emotion but a state of being, a state of oneness. The ALEPH (א), the Quality dimension, is also love, the uniting factor, which moves one toward oneness. The world we live in is multiplicity, a variety of the many. Often you will hear talk about universal and unconditional love, which would mean a total acceptance, compassion for all actors and understanding of any act. From my own personal experience, those who claim to have such universal love use the big words to gain sexual favors. I do not agree that total acceptance of any act, atrocity or murder, accepting irresponsibility and ignorance, is right moral conduct nor justified by universal love.

Clara from the left: "It reminds me of a story. Once upon a time, there was a Jewish mother who loved her son unconditionally. The son grew into a handsome lad and fell in love with a JAP.xli However, the damsel did not reciprocate his affections. He was a _nudnik_ , and not being used to taking 'no' for an answer, he kept on nagging. Finally, the princess said she would sleep with him if he brought her his mother's heart. The young man ran home, killed his mother, tore out her heart, put it in his pocket and was on his way back to his beloved. It was night already, and he took a shortcut across a dark field. He stumbled and fell, and his mother's heart fell out of his pocket and whispered, 'Did you get hurt, my son?' Well, I suppose that's universal love."

The Universal Claras (from the right, above, beyond, etc.): "Yuck..."

We cannot live and act in a state of universal love, and if someone professes that he does, just scratch the surface and see what comes out. SHET relates to consciousness as the God-part in each and every one of us, and when someone asked what the nature of love is, SHET answered: **"You try to describe something, which is an essence. Love is an essence, a quality of being, as I have said earlier. When you try to find its attributes, you are actually fragmenting it, making it something different than something else — whatever that might be. Love is in the make-up of being alive — it is the glue of aliveness."** When SHET was asked whether love was the essence of existence, he replied, **"Your conclusion that the essence is love is extremely correct. It is actually universal. Precisely the estrangement from this essence is the cause of all frustrations. Wars and hate are but a cry for lost love, of love wanted. Violence and suffering are expressions of wanting to be loved and to love. The hardened criminal, the cynic, all shriek for love. It is hard to see, I agree, but nevertheless, that is the case."** Thus consciousness and love are qualitative aspects.

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The quality dimension of oneness is love, the amorphous gestalt background. Pretending to live and act solely with universal love would be denying existence, attempting to live in a void without direction, without differentiation. Such a pretense would be totally meaningless without the cajoling partnership of relations of difference.

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Then there is the quantitative aspect, the role — the male, female, professor, policeman, victim, mother, whatever role — that we see. This is a reference to that which acts. Thus, a responsible person, which means one able to respond, will not condone everything, will not relate to everything the same way. In the world of separation, of physical reality, there is need for what SHET calls _intelligent love_ , which is loving, being one with the consciousness, the God-part of the person, but not necessarily with his individual role and decisions. Thus we need not give universal love to Saddam Hussein's role as a leader, but we can love his consciousness unconditionally. In SHET's words, **"That is how love is conditional; you love the role conditionally, which is perfectly legitimate, but unconditional love is reserved for the totality, even if expressed toward the part, the fragment, which includes the totality: like seeing God in his creations, in his creatures. You love the God part unconditionally, the consciousness of the person, not necessarily the changing aspects, the temporal in him. Thus true love, the love that is a state of being, is reserved for God, and the further from him you get, the more conditional one's love becomes. This is a natural process, since you make choices within your own roles: that fits, that doesn't fit. When you listen with your inner ear, you hear more the other's inner nature. This is a gradual evolution from a stuck role to a larger and larger unit of quality. The deeper you get into the person, the more you can listen to him, to the real him, to the spirit, the more you can really love** _him_ **, not the role."**

To reach real tolerance and not merely to give lip service to the concept, to achieve real compassion, we need to be able to differentiate between the role and the divine spark. **"The suggestion for your development is to look more and to really see the other, just as you are willing to see a tree. You see, trees you really love. People, much less, which is OK — you simply love the roles people play less. Still, you can love the God-part in people unconditionally, which of course, is much more apparent in a tree. So do not struggle trying to love the role a person chooses unconditionally, but differentiate. You can see him better when you can distinguish between him and his role. Then you can really be more tolerant."**

If unconditional love is reserved for God and for the God-part in the individual, then intelligent love is what we can give to the whole person, including his roles. In SHET's words: **"Love is all good and fine when it is intelligent love. Not when it is blind love encouraging every action in the same measure. Look, when you only forgive and love without also giving a direction, without paving a path for learning, you create monsters. Intelligent love is love with a direction, in accord with the laws of Nature and with the universal laws to which you and everyone else is subject. Sainthood is no longer in vogue — it would only pull you away from earthly existence, disadvantaging you."**

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Intelligent love is that balance wherein you are both connected to the God consciousness and also connect others by demanding responsibility.

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By sharing intelligent love, we teach how to love. To an artist who asked SHET how to teach universal love, SHET said: "If you really want to teach universal love, then guide people to be connected to God. In practice that means to eliminate good and evil as inclusive classes for judging. Instead, see these as just another piece, another thought, and not inclusive of other thoughts. When you teach that, then you really can get somewhere... You can teach through your art, not by telling people what to think, but by telling stories. Through art you can get deeper than by preaching."

We don't need a reason to love. Love should be looked at as _causa sui_ , as being that subsuming element of which we and the world consist. To love is not something we can do, but something that we can be. Being love is being in that state of oneness — Quality from where responsibility is possible. **"Responsibility is akin to love in the sense that it is connection to the otherness in you. Oneness gains expression in multiplicity by having many focuses. Love and responsibility are the connecting elements. Fear, or running away from responsibility, not being willing to confront, are the disruptive elements that render it more arduous to cope. In general, it could be said that all problems can be regarded in this light. Long-term solutions would always include the element of responsibility, the ability to respond, the element of being connected to other people and to your whole self, which gives one a wider perspective."**

Acting from this wider perspective is being knowingly connected to the structure. Acting from this general structure means manipulating it, creating meaningful relations, or in other words, those constellations that we perceive as our reality. By being able to respond, acting from love, by being responsible in the SHET sense, we can create changes in the physical world from a much richer substratum than acting from causative linear reasoning, which can never take all the elements of influence into consideration.

SHET has translated this approach to "what to do" when someone asked how to improve her relationship with her brother: "If you want to reinstate friendship with your brother, then do not change your relationship to him because he has changed. Use your stubbornness and continue loving him and being his friend in spite of the fact that he does not behave likewise. If you had a puppy who was sick and misbehaved, would you stop loving him? Would you start behaving differently toward him? Try to behave toward your brother as you, as a friend, no matter what he does. That does not mean that you do not demand responsibility from him. It does not mean that you condone his every action and behavior, but rather, that you still love him and you are still his friend. If you persist, things may change. As it is, you are playing the same game as he: you are influenced and you forget the law of force against force. Persist with love. He feels the same way as you do — he would like you to be his friend and does not know how to go about it. Talk to him. Even though he does not seem to listen, he does. Somewhere along the way, it may dawn upon both of you that you actually love each other and can be very good friends." The questioner took SHET seriously, and today she and her brother are best friends.

Sometimes we know intuitively that we should do something against all odds, or that something is wrong in spite of the fact that all seems right, and often we learn in retrospect that our intuition was right. This intuition is beholding the whole picture, all the innumerable unseen relations, from the point of view of quality (wherein these are indefinite) instead of looking from the collapsed viewpoint of a role (wherein things are definite), which is a very partial existence. True intuition is this reaction from being connected to love and responsibility.

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If you want to be love, then be responsible and response-able. Intelligent love shines light on the path of intuition, without which we are cast into the darkness of a cruel causal world.

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Chapter 48: Light

The whole world is literally made from love if you know how to see it.

SHET

In the New Age material we hear a lot about light and love, but in my discussions with people, I could not get to the core of what they really meant by light. Whenever I asked, they gave me lots of other words to describe it, which also meant nothing to me, save the good feeling it gave them. Once SHET was asked:

Q: "Would you agree that light means infinity, creativity, knowledge, morality, love and joy, unity, uniqueness and constant transformation?"

A: "No. You seem to want to blame light for everything that you deem good. (Joke.) I do agree however, that light is infinite, and that light and most of the mentioned words share qualitative aspects."

Q: "Then how do you see light?"

A: "I see light as something encompassing everything, an emanation superposing space and time, and yet it can be broken down to be the tiniest local wave or the tiniest particle. It can move things and it can cause things to interact. In its virtual state, it can act as a force of attraction or repulsion. (Meaning quantum electrodynamics, QED.) In its actual state in your world, it can generate life, energy and whatever you put into it. Mainly in its quality form, it is the source from whence dimensions emanate, the manifestation of Quality."

Light, as a metaphor only, won't shed much light on itself. I could take any word as a metaphor and adorn it with a royal array of flowery terminology. Savoring the big words might give you a pleasant feeling of having touched upon something divine, and you might even have the notion that you have understood something. Still, it's only words.

Playing with beautiful words without a firm basis in more than just the imagination brings Aristophanes' play _The Frogs_ to mind. Dionysus was the judge, and Aeschylus and Euripides (great playwrights, and along with Sophocles, the fathers of Greek tragedy) were contestants. The contest was to determine who was the greatest poet in the kingdom of Hades (where all the dead dwell, according to Greek mythology). Although Aristophanes' purpose was different than mine when he wrote this piece, it shows my point. I offer the following piece as proof that not much has changed in this respect in the 2400 years since _The Frogs_ was written.

DIONYSUS: Come over here, then, both of you, and I'll be the grocer, weighing out your verses like pieces of cheese... Now, each of you stand by one pan of the scales... Now you must each take hold of your own pan and hold it steady, and each recite one line; and when I call 'Cackoo!' you'll both let go. Ready?

AESCHYLUS: Ready.

EURIPIDES: Ready.

DIONYSUS: All right, speak your lines into the scale.

EURIPIDES: 'Would that the Argo ne'er with winged sail...'

AESCHYLUS: 'Spercheios' watery vale, where cattle graze...'

DIONYSUS: Cuckoo!

AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES [letting go]: Right!

DIONYSUS: Oh, look, this side's going right down.

EURIPIDES: Now why should it do that?

DIONYSUS: He put in a river. Like the wool merchants: they wet the wool to make it weigh more. Whereas you with your 'winged sails'...

EURIPIDES: Well, let's try again. See what he can do this time.

DIONYSUS: Right, take hold again.

AESCHYLUS and EURIPIDES: Ready.

DIONYSUS: Fire away, then.

EURIPIDES: 'No temple hath Persuasion, save in words.'

AESCHYLUS: 'Alone of all the gods, Death takes no gifts.'

DIONYSUS: Let go. Now, let's see — yes, it's this one again. You see, he put in Death; that's a heavy word if you like.

EURIPIDES: Well, what about Persuasion, doesn't that carry any weight? A beautiful line too.

DIONYSUS: No, Persuasion won't do: mere empty words without sense. You'll have to think of something really ponderous, to weigh your side down. Something strong and big.xlii

We keep hearing strong and big words, which may weigh down Dionysus' scale, like "there is no time really." In fact, this is true. However, it is only true if we also add from which viewpoint this assertion is true. Then we can better relate to what this statement really means. The same with "all is one." What does this statement really mean? And from which viewpoint is this true? Our physical experience is certainly not of a timeless character, neither do we experience oneness in our daily lives, but rather, versatility. In order for light, timelessness and oneness to be more than mere words, figments of our minds, we should be able to characterize these concepts from different viewpoints. That is, we should be able to express these ideas in a formally consistent form with dynamic constituents, which would allow their application on all levels. Working with these concepts in different fields, like physics, philosophy, etc., while preserving their consistency throughout their applications, could truly ensure our grasp of them. Then they are not only words, but tools both for achieving further understanding and also for working out unsolved problems.

When SHET relates to light as the dimension of Quality, this might sound like another annoying statement using big words, and to avoid such a misconception, it is important to see what SHET means by light. I had to learn it myself. Since instead of being blinded by light and its spiritual connotations, I wanted to see _with_ light, to be able to use it to achieve enlightenment and dispel my ignorance, I embarked on a long journey into the theory of relativity. It was no easy task, but my zeal paid off. I got help from SHET, professors of physics, and books.

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What does light need in order to become the tool that can help us see instead of blinding us with metaphoric spiritual connotations?

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Chapter 49: What does it Feel Like to be a Photon?

One day, while sitting in the bathtub, frolicking in hot water and fully enjoying the bubbles and the scents of the oils, I was trying hard to understand special relativity. How is it possible that the velocity of light is a constant? It sounds simple, but if you think about it, it is not. If you sit in a train and the train is traveling 100 km/h, and then you run with a speed of 20 km/h in the same direction the train is traveling, then the total motion, yours plus the train, is 120 km/h from the viewpoint of an external observer at rest. However, if you travel in a spaceship, which has, say, a velocity of 280,000 km/s, and you run inside the spaceship at 100,000 km/s, then the total velocity from the viewpoint of an external observer will not be 380,000 km/s, but somewhat less than 300,000 km/s. Nothing can go faster than light, and only massless particles, like photons (light particles) can reach the speed of light, 300,000 km/s. When a particle with mass is accelerated towards light velocity, its mass increases to infinity, and that is why it cannot reach light velocity. These are facts confirmed by the theory of relativity and by experiments.

I tried to grasp all this while exploding soap bubbles. I was wondering what these propositions would be like from the viewpoint of a photon. So, I slipped into meditation and experienced being a photon. I was all there was in the universe. I was the size of the universe. I didn't go anywhere, but I was everywhere. From my point of view as a photon, either the universe shrank to my size, a point, or I became as large as the universe. In any case, I was everywhere and had no velocity because I was eternal, not moving. I was struck by the realization that this was a different way of being, being another dimension.

Some time later, SHET explained the same notion: "Since in quality there is neither space nor time, from its vantage, the light wave is all over — you measure it in quantity as propagating." That means, from the viewpoint of light, it does not move, it has no space and no time. From the perspective of the photon, it occupies the whole universe. However, from the viewpoint of a massive observerxliii it always propagates with a velocity of 300,000 km/s in empty space. Thus light behaves in a uniquely peculiar way. According to SHET, this phenomenon is something qualitative that can gain expression in quantity — it can be measured — yet it has many other properties, which permits Creation to occur.

SHET explains it this way: "For light, all of space is now. For you, this is two-dimensional space. It may look to you that light propagates in three-dimensional space, but that's only because of a fractal kind of way light has to make the three-dimensional from the two-dimensional. It is everywhere and not going anywhere, just being there for itself. So it is not moving anywhere, for time doesn't exist for it. All the past, present and future of the universe for it (light) is now, it just is. There is no half-life or decay for light, for decay is a causal process you call force (which happens slower in particles traveling at relativistic velocities) and it tells of time — it is a measurement of time.

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Light is very peculiar: from its own point of view, it can only have relations of sameness. Consequently, for itself, it is Nothing. However, for itself, it is also the size of the entire universe, for the universe is Nothing, zero-dimensional. Light cannot compare itself and cannot have relations of difference.

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"So you could say that a photon gets absorbed, transformed into another form of energy, that for example you perceive the corner of the room by absorbing a photon. About that it is said, 'beauty is in the eyes of the beholder.' You see a moment of time and thus you create your room. Then you measure what you see by light (the distance of the light source or refraction). That piece of light collapses there for you, but for itself it fluctuates back into non-existence. For you it translates into energy, but for itself it is in oneness, in Quality where nothing changes. Yes, you say, but Quality is potential and light is actual. The answer is that this is correct for you, from your viewpoint. However, from its own point of view, in its 'specific' superposition, light is infinity, Quality — not the MAKOR (מקור — Source) dimension, but EICHUT (איכות — Quality)." It is worthwhile to notice that here SHET speaks of light from two different viewpoints: one viewpoint is a reference system, a massive observer (Viewpoint 2), and the other viewpoint is the massless light itself (Viewpoint 1). These two viewpoints reflect the same light event, not as different systems of the same order but as different dimensions.

A second important fact is the contraction of space in the direction of propagation and the time dilation, which occur at close-to-light velocities. When a massive system (let's call it 'A') approaches light velocity from the point of view of a massive observer (let's call it 'B'), then the time dilation effect causes time to flow slower in 'A' from the viewpoint of 'B.' That means, if I observe you traveling close to the velocity of light, I see that your time is slower than mine. I get, say, 10 years older while you get one minute older. For you, however, life is as usual, you don't feel time is slower for you; since everything in your system is slower by the same rate, it all seems normal to you.

However, let's say that you do reach light velocity (let's say, you became massless, since only massless particles can travel at the speed of light). What happens then when you become like light? Then your time ceases to flow entirely both for you and for me, the observer. That is, time froze totally in your system both for you and for me. For you, as long as time slowed down, it was still ticking, yet now time ceased also for you. Suddenly, your system traveling at light velocity, and my system, the observer, "agree" on zero time in your system. The limit of light velocity then is the entrance to something entirely different than before, the transition to the qualitative dimensions, which are a-temporal.

Relations of difference are the dynamic of existence. Any dynamic is change in time. If there was no time, then there could be no way of observing difference — everything would be all at once and the same. We could say that time is actually preventing the possibility of the coexistence of everything.xliv But what does the theory of relativity establish? Precisely that there is such a timeless reference system wherein nothing happens, wherein nothing changes, a Quality dimension of potential, or of Nothing. From any viewpoint existing in time, in the physical universe wherein Viewpoint 2s (relations of difference) are possible, light is Viewpoint 1, a very well defined "object" with the peculiar quality of being invariant (the same) from any and all viewpoints. When I or any other Viewpoint 2 relates to how light sees itself, that vantage sees itself as Viewpoint 1, Nothing, Quality. From any Viewpoint 2, light also is a potential of energy that can be utilized.

Light from its own point of view is in a superposition of dimensions: "When you approach light velocity, yes, that's the point of superposition of dimensions... Light from its own point of view is in a superposition. For you, however, light is fluctuating between quality and quantity. From the viewpoint of light, space loses meaning because it is all now forever, although potentially it can collapse anywhere (which already is _in_ the spatial dimensions from your point of view)." That means, time does not exist for light, light is not going anywhere but it is all over. Light then, from its own point of view is zero-dimensional, a point.

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Light is quality, the superposition of being and non-being. Seen from quantity, light is a potential, whereas seen from quality, it is non-being. This superposition of dimensions is the raw material of creation as such.

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Clara from the left: "If light is this structured 'Nothing' as you describe it, then where does the massive observer that gives it meaning and sees light as propagating come from? That is, where does mass come from?"

Clara from the right: "I happily forgot you existed. To this day, none of the physical theories can explain the birth of mass. Why is there mass at all?"

Clara from the left: "I know that. Nevertheless, I am sure you will modestly claim that you can explain the birth of mass. Or did I miss something?"

In Chapter 31, I have related in logical terms how something from Nothing is possible when Nothing is the raw material of something. Light could be an example of this Nothing, or potential, the raw material for the creation of massive particles, which are physical manifestations. Since this book is not about physics and mathematics but logic and philosophy, it is not my aim to give a thorough physical description of Creation. Nevertheless, since the derivative of the loop logic is mathematics and physics, let me show you a possible mathematical rendition of the logic of perception. This would be a mapping of mass evolving _from light-like directions_ (theory of relativity) through concepts similar to _strange attractors_ (chaos theory). Don't be intimidated by the big words. The concept is a piece of cake, as you will see. Strangely, the Bible agrees with me. The second verse of Genesis 1 directly translated from Hebrew reads, _"and the earth was chaos."_ The next verse says _, "Let there be light,"_ and only after that was everything else created. Let's go deeper into what chaos and strange attractors mean to see why there can be something from Nothing _de facto._

Summary

Light is very special because:

Contrary to any other massive object, it has the same velocity in empty space (300,000 km/s) from any and all reference systems. This velocity is a constant; it can be neither less nor more. Further, no massive object can reach that velocity. Massive objects can travel only with less than light velocity.

From the point of view of light, there is neither space nor time. If light could look at itself, it would not see itself propagating, but as being the size of the universe (which for light is zero-dimensional, a point) and it would regard itself as eternal (or timeless).

Light sees itself as pure Viewpoint 1 (Nothing), since light has relations of sameness only. Light seems laden with contradictions vindicated by special relativity. We see with light, it is responsible for quantum interactions (QED), and at the same time, it is Nothing, a kind of non-existence. Only the mechanism of the loop can clear up this peculiar phenomenon: Viewpoint 1, sameness, only gains meaning when we are aware of the existence of Viewpoint 2, difference, and vice versa. Consequently, light becomes something, it gains meaning and existence, when there is a massive observer with which it can interact.

Light is the precursor of the possibility for there to be mass (a massive observer or, in other words, a physical universe) through chaotic dynamics associated with strange attractors.
Chapter 50: Creation from Chaos

To get a picture of something similar to a strange attractor, imagine the motion of a mosquito hungrily circling around my body, a very special mosquito.

Clara from the left: "Of course! Everything connected to you must be special, even the mosquito that bites you."

She is special because she tends to fly in perfect periodic orbits (orbits that keep repeating themselves). Such an orbit could be a circle, a double period orbit, like the digit 8, or an infinite number of other orbits (see Figure 9). In any case, once an orbit is selected, our mosquito will keep on repeating the same perfect orbit if left to do so undeterred. Only, that's not happening because I disturb her.

I represent a magnetic appetizer for her. Both the mosquito and I know what she wants: to sink her proboscis into my tender flesh, no matter through which orbit she chooses to approach me. She comes at me, whereas I keep trying to make a bloody mess out of her — unsuccessfully. I am both deliciously attractive and also dangerous for her. She keeps circling around me trying to avoid the danger, but she does not give up her fatal attraction. She tries to get to me, and I try to prevent her from doing so. As soon as she is in one orbit, I wave my hand and she is driven to another orbit. No sooner does she touch the new orbit, and I wave her into another, and so on. This way she moves from orbit to orbit, never having enough time to complete any of them because I keep deterring her from satisfying her craving. Potentially, left to do her gory deed without my intervention, the mosquito would repeat one periodic orbit out of the infinity of possible periodic orbits indefinitely. However, I keep waving my hand, trying to hunt her down, and to avoid my hand, she goes over to another orbit and then yet to another. Since she is hardly touching any orbit before moving on to the next, no orbit can be said to be stable. The motion of the mosquito then describes a chaotic trajectory, which is the strange attractor composed of an infinite number of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) around me (see Figure 10). This strange attractor is the mosquito's transitioning between the infinite number of potential periodic orbits, which she can never complete because I keep disturbing her.

Real strange attractors, however, do not necessarily happen in my room, but in state space, which is a space that scientists use for their convenience in order to have a very special picture of the history of the dynamics of the system — for example, a mapping of velocity and position.

Chaotic motion is not stable periodic repetitions. Within chaos theory, there is a classification of strange attractors in terms of infinite numbers of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs) that occupy only a given band of state space. In many cases, the strange attractor of a chaotic system represents fractals.

There is a method of chaos control by means of feedback that can eliminate chaos. This means that any one of the unstable orbits within the strange attractor can be stabilized, which act eliminates all the other potential orbits. That is a kind of definition: defining a stable orbit by excluding all the others.

According to SHET, a definition can be viewed as an act of negation. That is, to define something is to eliminate everything that something is not. **"Something is different because it excludes different possibilities,"** SHET says. **"When you are something, you are that to the exclusion of other somethings, which you are not."** Chaos control is possible by eliminating UPOs (negative definition), which leaves the chosen stabilized orbit.

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Chaos control could be said to be the mechanism of negative definition. Negative definition is nevertheless an act of defining, which is creation.

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Clara from the left: "I don't understand this negative definition thing. Do I enumerate all of what something is _not_ in order to find out what it is? Ridiculous. Only you could come up with such a moronic idea. Obviously, if something has to be defined by what it is not in order to be that specific something, then the only thing you know with certainty is what your object is not (an infinite number of things), which says nothing about what the object is. So what are you talking about?"

Clara from the right: "A negative definition could be achieved by determining such characteristics that, together, contradict most possibilities except the one you wish defined. Think of the following koan: _'Shuzan held out his short staff and said: If you call this a short staff, you oppose its reality. If you do not call it a short staff, you ignore the fact. Now what do you wish to call this?'_ To state the fact that it is a short staff is relating to the significance of the definition and ignoring what is beyond that definition. Relating to the structure only is ignoring the significance of the definition. So the solution is a negative definition, extricating a significance by stabilizing that significance while suppressing the emergence of other significances from the dynamics of the structure.

"The stabilization of a UPO is achieved by controlling the structure (the strange attractor's dynamic), and not by adding parameters that would define the UPO with more precision. Remember, the infinite number of different periodic orbits in a strange attractor are only present as a potential. The strange attractor is precisely the motion touching upon these orbits, yet never completing them, so there are no orbits _de facto_."

Remember our mosquito. What caused the mosquito's chaotic trajectory? My gesticulation. Before I waved my hand, the mosquito was on a stable periodic orbit. After I waved my hand, the mosquito was thrown off its stable periodic orbit, and when I continued waving my hand, the mosquito started to describe a chaotic trajectory, every point of which belonged to a different periodic orbit. All these orbits were unstable because the mosquito only touched each orbit or its vicinity, never staying in any. So all these infinite number of periodic orbits don't really exist except as a potential. They never stabilize, so they are indefinite. I know of them because I can define every point of my mosquito's trajectory as a point on a specific orbit. Then what did I create by waving my hand? The potential of an infinite number of UPOs, which is the strange attractor. The strange attractor is not the sum of all the UPOs it contains, but being a chaotic trajectory, it consists of the _possibility_ of a certain class of UPOs. That's how I created a strange attractor by waving my hand. How do I control it? How do I stabilize a UPO? If I cancel the force that throws the mosquito off its natural course, then I cancel the chaotic trajectory (the UPOs). And then what remains is a stable periodic orbit, which is precisely the one just touched by the mosquito the very moment I stopped waving my hand. That is a negative definition indeed, since I cancelled the _possibility_ of UPOs so that what remained was a stable periodic orbit.

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Feedback both creates and also controls chaos.

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Leaving our mosquito analogy, we are faced with a "real" strange attractor, in which we cannot differentiate between the force of the mosquito wanting to preserve a periodic orbit and the counterforce of my gesticulations throwing her off her course — they are united. There are known ways by which chaotic systems can be controlled by stabilizing any UPO. As mentioned earlier, this could be by means of feedback.

Two or more strange attractors could interact to produce mutual feedback between them in a fashion that would stabilize a periodic phenomenon. A chaotic dynamic and its ability to be controlled and stabilized into periodic phenomena serves to describe a realization of the structure of the process of definition and its stabilizations — i.e., definitions (significance). Until something is defined, it has no meaning. When something stabilizes, it is defined and has meaning. The process that brings about stabilization is the process of definition. Within the framework of the loop logic, the mapping that brings forth the chaotic dynamic is a modeling of the process of gaining meaning, of the dynamic of perception. Since the process of definition is the dynamic of Creation, that is the process that stabilizes anything, even matter. Even matter has meaning only if it can be defined, if how it acts and reacts are predictable relations, if it has stabilized into being definite.

However, in their present stages of development, chaos and complexity theories are not rich enough to fully describe the process of definition. Nonetheless, these theories have some of the elements that enable us to achieve an excellent analogy, which will give the general picture of a more enhanced theory, a realization of the loop logic. My purpose is not really to discuss chaos or strange attractors, but the loop logic, which in its present realization as a dynamic mapping shows great promise (for more information, please see Appendix II).

This mapping is the realization of the process of definition. The process of definition could be likened to a chaotic dynamic that, when stabilized, produces a repetitive phenomenon, a definition, or in other words, significance. The physical world, particles, mass, and even light are such stabilizations.

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The phenomenological world down to its smallest particles consists of stabilizations of the process of definition that could be mapped through chaotic dynamics.

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Clara from the left: "You keep haranguing that everything is our perception, or in your words — the process of definition stabilized. You keep referring to the _process_ of definition, whereas science aspires to know how things work, the laws of Nature. Briefly stated, science is interested in the defined, not the process of definition. Why is that?"

Clara from the right: "When asked how man's cognitive perception evolved, SHET answered that the quest to discover the laws of Nature ensued from success in having defined something, having created significance, meaning. Here is what he says: **'Language is based on agreement regarding significance. Communication became the first law with repetitiveness. And even when its patterns and structure were not yet consciously known or used, communication created the framework for seeking out lawfulness in Nature, and thus, the quest to discover an objective world. The description of experience became the objective "thing" outside the perceiver. When the idea was born that an objective world existed "out there," naturally it was followed by the wish to control it and to try to understand how it worked. In fact, the wish to control is always an attempt to re-internalize the outside world, to make it part of one's inner structure. 'Out of one's control' means external to one's inner space. So when you contract, you need to control to create the illusion of expansion, but alas, it only contracts more.'** "

Looking at Nature brought about tremendous knowledge and a fair amount of control, although much is left to be desired in that regard. Nevertheless, the whole idea to classify phenomena (which is the hallmark of lawfulness) is an attempt to predict and control Nature (physics). Yet these phenomena are stabilizations of the underlying structure of the process of definition, which has a different kind of lawfulness than the laws of physics. That is to say, the lawfulness governing the dynamics of stabilization are laws of the loop logic and they yield — among other things — the laws of physics, the birth of mass, the physical world.

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It would be more rewarding to know the underlying structure of the process of definition that stabilizes into phenomena than only focusing on classifying phenomena.

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The space of action of chaotic dynamics of the process of definition is in Quality, an inner space, something like a nowhere land, or a mood. When you are sad, you could be said to be in the space of sadness, which in no way can be described as a spatial space, but rather, as an inner space. In physics, this space is any space that is not space-time kind of space. For example, the spin of a particle is represented by such an inner space. The strange attractors of the mapping of the loop transpire in a mathematical inner space. They are not the strange attractors that contemporary theory of complexity deals with, but qualitative strange attractors that can only be derived indirectly.

Clara from the left: "Sure, they have Harry Potter's invisibility cloak."

Clara from the right: "You cannot perceive the process that creates perception and therefore you cannot perceive the strange attractors in Quality. Whatever you have perceived (defined) is quantity, whereas the process of definition is Quality. Remember, until there is stabilization, there is no perception. Therefore, the strange attractors in Quality can only be derived when something has stabilized (any quantitative physical phenomenon). There are no prefabricated strange attractors in Quality. Only when you interact with Quality do you stabilize one into being, and then it already is something observable and present in quantity, in the physical world. Again, I am discussing Creation and not strange attractors. That's why Creation is interaction within chaos. This interaction acts as a measurement — it collapses the strange attractor to be."

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Quality is the inner space, which is the process of definition, the process that eventually brings about stabilization.

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All we can observe are events, stabilizations of the process of definition. The chaotic dynamic in the inner space, which is non-observable, is between the events that create these events. The collapse of the quantum wave function, the creation of particles, and the formation of space-time in which all these events take place are this kind of processes. **"Indeed, eigenstates** xlv **are formed by controlling chaos. However, the chaos is not in the same space-time as the quantum values. The actual stabilization of a UPO opens a different dimensionality; whereas before, space-time kind of space was a fluctuation, it becomes a stable space, like a gate that stays open. The unfolding of space-time space is through that mechanism of the collapse when there is a click in the relations, which become meaningful by combining into a superposition of eigenstates. Then there is a possibility for space-time kind of space."**

Such a rendition of Creation implies that space and time are parameters obtained from the stabilization of elementary particles into being, rather than, as believed earlier, particles appearing within empty space. **"You need to know more about the basic structure of matter and how it comes about from the underlying structure before stabilizing space-time within which it can appear."** SHET says, **"Space-time space is the grid of the looking at the looking."** This means that space-time space is the definition of the process of definition, definition of the structure, which will be discussed later.

Light is connected to a representation of the inner space in which chaotic processes take place. This representation is particularly useful when we deal with the quantum world, the creation of space-time and elementary particles. Light is connected to the inner space through something called light-like directions, a term from relativity theory. I'll spare you the gory details of what that is, but let it suffice to say that these are the trajectories of light in four-dimensional space-time. The trajectories of massive particles (that travel with less than light velocity) are also allowed in four-dimensional space-time. The space of light-like directions is an internal non-local space wherein only light trajectories are allowed (no massive trajectories). This space has the symmetry of spinsxlvi rather than four-dimensional space-time symmetry.xlvii It belongs to the structure of the process of definition, the fertile ground for stabilization of not only space and time itself, but also of massive particles according to the very exciting interaction between Dr. Y. Eisenberg and SHET.

Clara from the left: "Speculations, speculations. Can you substantiate these claims in any form? The present lore on chaos does not support such possibilities. For instance, strange attractors are observed in the real world, not in Quality, and they do not produce observable particles."

Clara from the right: "I am aware that this is a pretty bold prediction, but since it is not I who has to wrestle with the math to substantiate it, it's a piece of cake to make brilliant claims."

As mentioned in Chapter 20, the structure of the process of definition is such that zooming in or out will only replicate the structure itself. **"When you can formally describe the symmetry of the zoom in, as you call it, which means, if you understand that whatever carries the tag of a defined object, and thus, is labeled external, is actually so by being given meaning as such from a defined viewpoint, then you can see that the light-like directions are the symmetrical space wherein everything is still internal, the fabric of the logical structure. Precisely showing how such can gain externalization is showing the different masses."**

Summary

A strange attractor consists of the possibility of an infinite number of unstable periodic orbits (UPOs).

Strange attractors responsible for the creation of the physical universe are situated in Quality (not in space-time), which is the space of light-like directions, the global inner space.

It is possible to control chaos by stabilizing a UPO. This can be done by feedback — i.e., when different strange attractors interact creating a feedback relationship between them.

A mapping of the chaotic dynamics of the process of definition can stabilize space, time, physical phenomena and their laws from the space of light-like directions.
Chapter 51: Could the Theory of Everything be the Theory of Let There Be Light?

SHET provides a new way of thinking wherein we see matter, space and time as creatures emerging from the qualitative substratum, or the space of light-like directions, if you wish. The unique description by which SHET illustrates Creation predicts that macroscopic phenomena are the reservoir of all the history of their creation. That means that the traces of the strange attractor from which they had been stabilized can be found in the careful analysis of the magnified chaotic tendencies within their stabilized status. Although stabilized, phenomena are complex entities, and their constituents constantly fluctuate between quality and quantity. Although the shape, organization and identity of a phenomenon would be continuous in space-time, its constituent elements stabilize, destabilize and restabilize at different rhythms, which create tiny chaotic fluctuations within space-time. This measurable randomness — noise in the language of engineers — could provide the clue we need to interact with those strange attractors whose UPOs are the constituent elements of the phenomenon in question. Interacting with the structure of phenomena promises a new world of creation and re-creation of information, the possibility to change extant events and to open new vistas of technologies that we don't even dream about.

For instance, this is SHET's answer to someone who asked about desalination of water. "To deeply understand what happens in a chemical bond, you need to know things from many fields — physics, chaos, chemistry — which are only on the surface. All atoms, molecules and atom particles keep fluctuating between physical existence and the substratum of that physical existence, which is more like a potential, unordered and unstable infinite states. That is, all possible states. The precise rhythm of these fluctuations creates both inter-action between the phenomenologically observable particles and also what you call forces: strong, weak and electromagnetic. These fluctuations are also responsible for chemistry, because the overall picture of an atom is the complexity of the forces, the fluctuations, creating it. When these chaotic fluctuations interact, that is, when their rhythms coexist, they create a certain identity and quantity, measured by mass, quantum number, spin, states, etc. When atoms bond into molecules, then a process of stabilization takes place within the above chaotic forces (which are under the surface, not in space-time), and what you see in space-time is their bonding into molecules. You can destabilize that bond, for instance to part salt from water, by reinstating and maintaining the exact amount of chaotic input. It is a rather complex operation, since you need to know more about the basic structure of matter and how it comes about from the underlying structure before stabilizing space-time within which it can appear. You further need to be familiar with the precise way in which different chaotic structures, each with infinite possibilities, interact, and then you can take apart certain chemicals from others that are in a strong bond without much energy or force while maintaining others, like the water molecule. Also, you can do this locally or in wider spaces, once you understand the mechanism. Salts bond with water well because of the electric charge also, but that's on the surface."

The phenomenon of the strange attractor that lives in the global inner space of the light-like directions showing its traces in stabilized phenomena could be said to be quality in quantity, the _non-local_ element that influences the particle's behavior in space-time. At this time, we are familiar with telepathy, which is such an occurrence.

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Macroscopic phenomena could be decoded to reveal the substratum of their creation.

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Take for instance, the EPR phenomenon. The EPR effect (Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen effect) is the phenomenon wherein two particles, say electrons, leave the same source in opposite directions, and when measured, show correlated behavior instantly. That is, if one electron is measured to have spin up, then the other has instantly, simultaneously, spin down. Neither had a definite spin before the measurement (before the measurement is made, the spin is indefinite); however, when measured, the particle collapses and has a certain spin. This was a _gedankenexperiment_ (thought experiment) Einstein came up with to spite Niels Bohr, one of quantum theory's fathers. If quantum theory is true, said Einstein, then that's what follows, that these two particles will instantly "know" what the other does when one is measured. That is, the other particle will instantly "know" what spin the measured one has, and simultaneously with the measurement, it will assume the opposite spin. That is absurd, said Einstein, since if that was true — and from quantum theory it follows that this is true — then information from one particle would travel faster than light to the other, violating the law that nothing can travel faster than light, not even signals or information.

Alain Aspect carried out the physical experiment of this _gedankenexperiment_ in 1983, and quantum theory was proven correct in this regard. When one particle was measured, its partner instantly assumed the opposite value. This is called a non-local phenomenon, meaning, the phenomenon happens instantaneously in two different locations without the possibility of communication between the two locations. **"The particle contains the wave in itself, the non-being, the potential, the consciousness. Thus, distant particles can show simultaneous, mutual effects. All particles have a common eternal source, even with their transition into time. Therefore, the term 'dimensions' best describes this gradual transformation from non-being to being.**

"The simultaneous awareness and reaction of one particle to another non-localized particle's behavior does not violate the transmission of a signal faster than light, because one's 'signal' is _inherent_ in the other." By inherent in the other, SHET means ACHERIYUT (אחריות), the other within the one. They both carry within them the same potential, the same oneness, the same strange attractor, that is, Quality.

Working with chaos from the space of light-like directions ensures the continuity, the braiding of all aspects of reality within wholeness. It explains the non-local phenomena that have been observed, and it predicts that all phenomena contain non-local aspects, which still needs experimental proof. (That would be proving that, by interacting with the phenomenon through its tiny chaotic tendencies, one can destabilize it and then restabilize it into a different phenomenon.) It shows how light is the _leitmotif_ of all Creation, of all potential and of all existence, and also, of non-being. In this perspective, light becomes both the element that ensures multiplicity and also the cohesive factor of all existence by embodying the fixed relations within the whole structure.

In Chapter 25, I spoke about the structure, which can only be so if it has both relations of sameness and relations of difference. Relations of sameness are both responsible for the general pattern, which is self-repetitive, like fractals, and also for creating fixed relations between the whole structure and its projections. I have stated that this mechanism of the fixed relations between the whole structure and its projections allows the whole structure to be dynamic, and consequently, to generate interactions between the projections. Light has an important role to play in this. Since the theory of light is conformally invariant and the same from all reference points, it is a fixed relation. **"From the photon's viewpoint, it never moves — it is all over all the time. That's because the photon 'looks' at its source, the whole structure. However, when it seems to propagate, it seems to move in space-time, to change its position in space-time. When that happens, the whole structure changes in such a fashion, which leaves the relationship between the photon and its source unchanged. The whole structure shifts with the same rate as that with which the photon propagates. So when the photon 'looks' at the whole structure, it did not move relative to the whole structure."**

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When quality is well defined, its specific behavior can be traced in physical manifestations. Thus non-local phenomena can be understood by the space of light-like directions and chaotic dynamics. All phenomena are interrelated by the lawfulness that permits the appearance of these phenomena. Any lawfulness could be defined as a repetitive pattern of fixed relations. The overall pattern of fixed relations, the general lawfulness, can be accessed through the study of light.

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For the past decade I have been trying to understand Quality as responsibility or response-ability, the otherness in you. I worked hard to grasp Quality as light — which is both the fixed relations between wholeness and its projections, and consequently, energy (remember that **"energy is the meaningfulness of relations, their ability to fix certain constellations) —** and also "as an analogy," a fractal kind of mirroring expressed as the process of Creation from unity to multiplicity. That is, seeing unity manifest in multiplicity. **"But of course, the analogy could be the complete being, expressed through the body form. When the Creation-dimensions, which create, express themselves in the created, they are still present, but they are also different because they are being viewed from another point of view, the point of view of the created. Still, the created create,** _ad infinitum_ **, like fractals."** Here SHET clearly states that quality can be found in quantity, not as an analogy, but actually. Since Quality can be both viewed as love and light, and since Quality, love, and light are states of being, when SHET says, **"The whole world is literally made from love if you know how to see it,"** it would be correct to state that the whole world is literally made from light — if you but knew how to relate to it.

When someone tells me he sends me light, or when I hear that what we need is enlightenment, these are not empty words for me. We not only see the physical world with light, light could be said to be the source of our universe. In SHET's words, **"In its actual state in your world, light can generate life, energy and whatever you put into it. Mainly in its quality form, it is the source from whence dimensions emanate, the manifestation of Quality."** Light is the loop in action; it is not only a metaphor, but also the actual means of Creation. _"And God said, Let there be light: and there was light"_ (Genesis 1:3).

Summary

A stabilized particle could be said to be an average of successive fluctuations within a certain band.

If zoomed in on, this average discloses the chaotic fluctuations of which it consists. These can be used to reconstruct the strange attractor from which the particle (average) has been stabilized.

Elementary particles distant in space but correlated by being stabilized UPOs of the same strange attractor, will exhibit non-locally correlated behavior in space-time.

Since the inner space is the source of massive particles, and since massive particles preserve some of the fixed relations present in the space of light-like directions, massive particles can exhibit quality in quantity.
Chapter 52: Gravity and Bed-Bugs

For SHET, gravity is not just another force like the electromagnetic force, but something entirely different. For him gravity is another expression of the dimension of Quality, the non-local structure of space and mass.

Gravity in its most primordial level is those fixed relations that define the overall structure that describes the lawfulness in the space of light-like directions. This means that gravity is a certain lawfulness in the space of light-like directions, an aspect of Quality. Consequently, gravity is more fundamental than the creation of space-time itself. The gravity aspect in Quality dictates which kind of dynamics in the space of light-like directions create further and further fixed relations (i.e., sub-structures), which eventually stabilize into mass in space-time.

In space-time, mass can also be expressed as curvature. "Gravity is most basic: the actual creation of the fixed state of relations, the possibility of fixed states, the curvatures." In other words, gravity is isomorphous with the overall structure.

According to general relativity, gravity is different from the other forces in that it is an aspect of geometry, which means that the space around a massive object is curved. If you place a bowling ball on your mattress, you will see the mattress slightly curved around the bowling ball. If you were a two-dimensional creature living on the surface of the mattress, something like a bed bug, and if you could only travel in straight lines, then your route would be curved because the mattress is curved around the bowling ball. This is a fact that has been measured and proven (not the part that you are a bed-bug, but the part that light, which only propagates in straight lines, describes a curved trajectory when in the vicinity of a massive object, which proves that space is curved in that vicinity).

Anything that can be defined, anything with an identity is such because of its fixed relations. (Of course, for an identity to be as such, it also needs to have memory and continuity. Yet the fixed relations, or more specifically the ability for there to be fixed relations, is what permits the existence of memory and continuity.) A particle, for instance, an electron is such because of its fixed relations, which are its definition. Consequently, the particle — as long as it is that particle — carries within itself its fixed relations, its structure, which has been established in the space of light-like directions. It carries within itself the qualitative lawfulness that created it to be what it is.

All massive particles respond to each other. All are endowed with response-ability. All carry quality within them. The particle interacts with its own identity, attracted by the qualitative lawfulness that created it and which is carried on as the particle's identity _in_ _another_ massive particle. That is what SHET defines as gravity, the response of one massive object to another, or to all the mass of the universe.

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Gravity is the fixing of those relations in Quality that create space with local curvatures. It is the response of one object to itself in another object. This response is the awareness in one object of the same qualitative aspect as its own in another massive object, the recognition of that same lawfulness, which also is its own essence.

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"The response-ability of an object to another object is a communication and inter-change, a kind of awareness of each other, communication. It is also communication between different sources, or different parts of All-That-Is. But they are the same, you might say. Yes, right you are. But they become part of, interrelated with, personal choices, and thus they exclude different possibilities, so they are different." Again, Viewpoints 1 and 2. Communication means here the Communication dimension, of course, which will be dealt with later on. Actually the variety we observe, the multiplicity of our existence, is different modes of the same source, different modes of All-That-Is, different expressions of the qualitative dimensions.

Summary

Any definition is the description of the fixed relations of an identity.

In space-time, gravity is the essence of the particle, its identity of fixed relations. These fixed relations are responsible for the creation of both mass and also the meaning of mass, which is given by having certain fixed relations with space-time. So the lawfulness that is the possibility of fixed states is responsible for creation of mass, space and time.

Gravity in space-time is the response of one massive object to the same quality, which is its own identity in another massive object.
Chapter 53: There are No Gravitons

Black holes emit huge space-bending gravitation,  
Spin twos pour out to extend the invitation.  
Gravitons are supposed to propagate at c,  
Or at least, that's what scientists believe they see.  
Beyond the event horizon black holes are black,  
Even photons, which try to escape, fall back.  
If indeed gravitons play the attraction role,  
Someone smart tell me how they escape the black hole.

Clara

Gravitons are considered to be the massless particles in subatomic physics, which are responsible for the gravitational force. They are considered to be bosons,xlviii messenger particles with an inner motion of spin 2. To this day, although these particles have been calculated, they have not been found in Nature. When asked about this fact many years ago, SHET said: **"Calculations have shown a spin 2 particle, but gravitons were not found experimentally, because they don't exist. This is an attempt to put one dimension into another dimension. That is why there are problems with this particle — it does not fit elegantly into the calculations like the other bosons because it is seeing a projection of something and trying to work with it as if it was the thing in itself. (Do I sound Kantian?) Trying to quantize a force does not always work."**

These supposed gravitons, which have not been discovered yet in Nature, are supposed to travel at light velocity. Black holes are collapsed stars with such great mass that light particles, photons, cannot escape them. The velocity of light is less than the escape velocity needed to escape a black hole, and yet nothing can travel faster than light. The space in the vicinity of the black hole is so curved that light traveling in straight lines curves back into the black hole. Somehow gravitons are supposed to escape black holes, since such collapsed stars, most of them probably at the center of galaxies, attract great stellar masses to them — that is a fact. These gravitons are supposed to be the means by which mass is attracted to the black hole. On that, SHET has remarked: **"Gravitons are a funny idea. If they existed and would propagate with the speed of light, they would be swallowed up by a black hole and thus the black hole would be so black that even gravitationally it wouldn't be noticed."** The scientists might say that the gravitons that escape the black hole are virtual particles, whatever that means. However, for SHET, gravitation is not propagating, but instant. **"Any gravitational event at any distance is immediately felt, instant, non-local (of course, in quantity the relationship is the inverse square of the distance)."**

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Gravitation is neither forwarded by particles propagating at light velocity, nor by gravitational waves.

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The quality dimensions are spirit. It is a most novel idea to place gravitation, a very physical attribute — in fact, the most basic physical attribute, by definition — into the realm of the spirit. As you may have noticed already, SHET is not teaching the kind of philosophy that prescribes denial of the flesh and material possessions. Neither is he drawing a parallel between spirit and matter, but incorporating both spirit and matter into a consistent physical theory in a non-dualistic manner.

Often when SHET is being asked a question, besides answering, he also teaches the questioner new ways of thinking and asking. My personal life has improved mostly from learning how to ask different questions, and then I could act in a new manner. The asking of different questions prepares the framework for developing new theories. The idea of gravity may have gone wrong in physics because of the kinds of questions that were asked about it. Here is what SHET replied when asked by a physics professor what a graviton really was:

"I won't relate to extant hypotheses or theories about gravitons. When you try to fit a certain dimension into other dimensions, you won't get a workable answer. You found the time-space relationship and tried to fit gravitons into it. Did it work? No. That is why answers are not important. You have asked the wrong questions. When you ask something expecting the answer to arise from a previous belief, you limit your question to a realm wherein your hypothetical answer has to emerge. And then it doesn't work. You want to explain gravity by waves or particles. Sorry. It's neither — it is another dimension.

"If there was only one object in the whole universe, you wouldn't know whether it has gravity or not. At the very least you needed to be present as a second object to observe it. And then there are two objects. In quantity, both will have some response-ability in them, an ability to respond to each other. This ability is actually the otherness in each of our two objects. Part of it is in you in some way, or you couldn't respond to it, and part of you is in it, or it couldn't respond to you. That settled, there is the awareness, the recognition of this other's part in you of the other and your part's recognition of you in the other. That recognition is an interchange creating a field, a field of awareness. That is the gravitational field. Of course, I oversimplified the explanation so that you can understand it better."

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Gravity is the non-local response-ability, Quality expressed in quantity. It is recognizing sameness in difference.

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Gravity would have no meaning if only one object with mass existed in the universe. The precise physical nature of gravity is manifest only when different masses can "relate" to each other, which they do through their common source of the Quality dimension. Notice how SHET describes gravitation! He says that object 'B' must be in object 'A' for object 'A' to be able to respond to object 'B'. When that has been recognized, only then can object 'A' inter-act with the "itself" ('A') that is inside object 'B' — which we said was within object 'A.' However, this implies that there is an object 'B' within object 'A' which is in object 'B' that is in object 'A,' an infinite recursion like so many homunculi within homunculi within homunculi interacting in the above fashion. According to SHET, all of gravitation takes place in the inner space of each massive object. This implies that

1. gravitation is non-local. Although it can be felt in the physical world, it takes place within the inner space of the object (the space of light-like directions, or Quality)

2. every massive particle carries within itself its strange attractor history (see Chapter 51)

3. gravity is a self-repetitive pattern

4. the part _is_ the whole (see Chapter 27)
Chapter 54: Gravitational Waves or Intermittent Space?

Gravity is the response of a smaller object to the call of the bigger one. The smaller object also has a call, but fainter.

SHET

Researchers presently realize that gravitation is different from all the other forces. Einstein ascribes gravity to the geometry of space-time. Mass curves space-time, and that is gravity. However, an approximate version of general relativity allows describing gravitation in an analogous fashion to electromagnetic interactions, and as in electromagnetism, waves appear in this description. The quantized version of waves introduces particles, which are the gravitons. There have been countless papers criticizing the validity of this approximation. However, an experimental observation gave an unbelievably accurate verification of this approximation by Hulse and Taylor. Hulse and Taylor were awarded the 1993 Nobel Prize for Physics for observing a binary pulsar spiraling inwards, losing energy in precise agreement with the predictions made by general relativity. Hulse and Taylor's observations confirmed Einstein's theory of general relativity in this particular sense, which makes it the most accurately tested theory known to science.

We asked SHET how he can explain that. He answered in 1993: "The two neutron stars losing energy in their orbit is not a proof of gravitational 'radiation,' but the result of feedback. The two stars are not alone in a universe of their own. Since three-dimensional space unfolds fractally, due to the interaction of more than two bodies, a non-linear effect is created, an intermittence in space, _of_ space itself (like a quantum space), as if the two stars lose orbit." What SHET says here is that the two neutron stars are not approaching each other, but that space between them becomes sparse, diminishing. That is, gravitation affects the fabric of space itself, and since space is unfolding fractally, it is not continuous, but intermittent. Consequently, space is reduced between these two stars, and that's why they seem to lose orbit. For some reason, this must be in accordance with the calculations made on gravitational radiation.

Prof. Harry Friedmann wanted to understand this concept, and on a sunny February morning in 1997, he asked two astrophysicists, one of them a leading relativist. The latter answered that general relativity includes the contraction of space as well as its expansion, but the physicists have not interpreted the motion of the two neutron stars this way, assuming it a very small effect. Further he said, in order for the pulsars to behave the way they do, the effect of the other masses of the universe on the pulsars' orbits needs to be non-isotropic, that is, not the same in all directions. This pulsar is in the center of our galaxy, and galaxies are flat, so obviously, the "other bodies" are non-isotropically distributed.

Regarding space being intermittent, of a fractal nature, he said that this is possible. It was never considered and nobody has ever checked for the possibility of an interpretation of the expansion (or contraction) of space. He volunteered that they are expecting a nova, a star exploding in its death, to see the gravitational radiation. Harry then asked, "What if it is not seen then? The astrophysicist replied that then they will have to reconsider the basic ideas of gravitation.

The other relativist said that contraction of space alone could not explain the shape of the orbit, which was also measured precisely. Of course, we can argue that the contraction of space should not be taken out of the context of the rest of the dynamic of the two orbiting neutron stars, which form the pulsar.

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Because of the non-linear interaction of more than two bodies, gravitation produces intermittence of space, which robs space of what has been believed to be its continuous nature. Since space is created when massive particles fluctuate into being, and since space is also but a stabilization of the chaotic dynamics taking place in the space of light-like directions, seen from the viewpoint of a massive observer, space is not only curved but also intermittent (discrete).

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Chapter 55: Time and the Non-Local Character of Gravitation

To go back in time or to go to a timeless dimension are the same, seen from different viewpoints.

SHET

Thus SHET has maintained that gravity has a qualitative nature. "Gravity is the omnipresent Quality dimension of every mass, and it is proportional to the mass, an omnipresent attractor. Quality is the superposition of the wave, which is the superposition of positions."

Terms like instant and simultaneous do not have much meaning in general relativity. When mentioned, the question immediately arises, from which observer's point of view? In relativity, each observer has different times. However, in quantum theory, instant and simultaneous have meaning, as in the EPR effect for instance (see Chapter 51). By stating that gravitation is instant, non-local, that it takes no time to propagate, SHET does not mean that gravity has nothing to do with time. It is a different dimension than time, but it has a connection with time. **"Time is connected with gravity, and thereby, mass. Thus time does not exist for massless particles."** That means that time exists for particles that do have mass. The question then arises, if time is connected with gravity, yet gravity is instantaneous, non-local — it does not pass through space but is just all over — then what does it mean that time is connected to gravity?

Long before the question was asked, SHET had volunteered the answer, which took me years to figure out. And then, it struck me. To this day I cannot wipe the self-satisfied look from my face at having really understood it. But I am getting carried away... Well, here it is: **"Gravity is negative time and time is negative gravity. They balance each other, although they are two different dimensions. Motion involves time and space and speed of motion, energy. Gravity is the negative aspect of this, or its mirror image — actually the reference point that gives time, space, energy and motion meaning."** Here the emphasis is on the mirror image. Negative time does not mean time with a minus sign, but rather, an inverse relation to gravity. Such flaws in my translation of the abstract material I received from SHET on the idea level occurred in the beginning of my heralding especially because I was totally unfamiliar with the subject of physics. There is great depth in what SHET is revealing here.

Gravity is a qualitative property, yet when manifest, when felt in the physical world, it creates time. Although gravity in its being Quality is prior to the other forces present in Nature, it is felt, and it only becomes manifest after the other forces (like electromagnetism) come into being. **"Only in the presence of the causal forces can you be aware of gravity."** An indication to that effect is, for instance, the relationship between gravity and time in the theory of relativity. The greater the gravity (mass), the slower time moves. That is precisely what happens in general relativity when in the vicinity of a black hole: time slows down because of the enormous mass of the black hole. According to the theory of special relativity, in the direction of propagation at velocities close to the speed of light, space shrinks and time slows down. When time ticks slower from an external massive observer's viewpoint, this is called the time dilation effect. In addition, the mass of the particle traveling close to the speed of light increases. As everybody knows today, E=MC2, which means that mass and energy are equivalent. Since increased mass affects time (which becomes slower), gravity and time are related.

In quantum theory, the uncertainty relationship between energy and time means that the more definitely we know the energy of a particle the less we can know about the precise time at which the energy was measured. And vice versa, the more precisely we know the time of the measurement, the less we can know the exact energy of the particle. So here again we see an inverse relationship between energy (mass that can be expressed as gravity) and time.

When gravity is regarded as creation of the fixed state of relations in the space of light-like directions, and the manifestation of fixed relations as massive particles that fluctuate into being bringing along space and time within which they can gain meaning, then indeed gravity gains a different perspective than in either Newtonian or relativistic theories. This explains why energy and time are related. As a natural outcome, the new perspective on gravity when considered non-local yields new predictions.

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Gravity is inverse time. Creation of time gives meaning to Gravity as curvature. Gravity creates the fixed relations of the sub-structure that unfolds as time, which then enables gravity to manifest as curvature of space.

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Chapter 56: Dark Matter — Gravity can Tell the Story of the Future

As I mentioned earlier, in his second session, SHET spoke about unseen (dark) matter. The universe as it appears cannot be responsible for all the mass that has been calculated to exist. There must then be more matter that is unseen, which is why it is called dark matter. Physicists today try to find particles presently considered to be massless that might nevertheless have mass to account for the excess — so far, without success. SHET has a surprising solution. He states that the universe has not yet been totally created, that not all the mass has yet appeared in our physical quantitative dimensions. **"Since gravity of the cosmos is non-local, non-propagating even in quantity, that is the source of the excess unseen mass: it is unseen, since its unfoldment is still in your future."** That is, since gravity is neither propagating in space nor in time, all of it is there from the very first moment of the creation of the universe. The total gravity of the universe, which is felt, includes the future unfoldment of the mass, which has yet to appear. This means that mass to be created in the future is felt, manifest, as gravity now. By definition, this is synchronicity in time, which means that time is seen as a non-local phenomenon, instantaneous not only in different spaces but in different times. This attributes a non-linear nature to time.

SHET has spelled this out when he explained to Dr. Y. Eisenberg how to formulate the self-similar pattern: "The evolution process is from the two dimensions to more dimensions, wherein the new constellations (of more than two dimensions) actually mirror the activity of the inner space. Here you need to fix the environment. In spite of the mirroring effect, it will look totally different than what is being mirrored, which is connected to non-local phenomena, yielding the synchronous nature of the time field as well."

Notice the novel ideas: time field! And synchronicity of time! We have explained the non-local synchronicity that takes place in the EPR effect. The revolutionary idea here is the non-local effect in time.

Although quality (the three qualitative dimensions together) is totally indefinite when regarded as oneness, a partial definition of the indefinite is needed in order to create the world. This is the retromorphous looking of course, whereby the created turn Nothing into a potential to be created from it. That is what I have done, first by dividing the totally indefinite oneness into three aspects, and then, dealing with one of these, the Quality dimension in this Part. Another aspect, another qualitative dimension, is the Consciousness, the Source dimension, which is the subject matter of the next Part. Perhaps now it will be easier to understand why SHET volunteered the dimensions to explain Creation. **"There is a gradual unfolding of observable phenomena from non-being to being. The seven dimensions are a more or less arbitrary demarcation, a fragmentation of the whole for better understanding. In reality, every dimension is commensurate, each containing the other six."**

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When energy and time are creatures, when physical reality is the reflection of the lawfulness extant in quality, then knowledge of this lawfulness can endow with the power to create physical reality.

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Think-tank material

* What would it be like to live in a world where people could control their emotions and at the same time would be compassionate and responsible (remember that control is not synonymous with suppression)?

* How can one increase his or her ability to respond?

* How can light be everything? For if 'everything' includes darkness, then how can light also be darkness?

* If everything is literally made of light and love, then how come we get hurt so often?

* Why is response-ability both an emotional expression and also gravity?

PART 5: DIMENSIONS II

The common axis of all seven dimensions is the MEM (מ — Consciousness); it is the motion that describes, furthers, limits and encapsulates your universe into a flowing web set.

SHET
Chapter 57: The מ (MEM) — Source Dimension (MAKOR — מקור) Consciousness

The מ (MEM) is the middle letter of EMET (אמת — truth). According to SHET, it is the source (in Hebrew, MAKOR — מקור), the second qualitative dimension. The letters of MAKOR (מקור) permuted to RAKAM (רקם) mean to embroider, to form, to shape — texture. When reshuffled to KARAM (קרם), the resulting word means to crust, to form an external covering, like skin. As God said to Ezekiel, referring to the dead dry bones, _"and I will lay sinews upon you, and I will bring up flesh upon you, and_ _cover you_ _with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live"_ (Book of` Ezekiel 37:6). The term _cover you_ here is KARAM (קרם). Indeed, SHET sees the Source dimension as the manifestation of Consciousness, the manifest God portion of and within each and every one of us, that framework that _covers us with skin_ (the borders created by the process of definition) and _puts breath in us_ , the structure of our ability to experience, to be alive. MEM — מ, the Source dimension is the flux of life, the aliveness in each and every one of us, our abstract form. My consciousness is different from yours only when manifest in quantity, when we are both different aspects or different modes of the same indefinite oneness.

It is interesting to notice that the MEM — מ, this second dimension of the qualitative dimensions, is the Source dimension, whereas SHET referred to the ALEPH — א, the first qualitative dimension, which he called Quality, as the source of EMET (אמת — the three qualitative dimensions as oneness), the source of Creation (see Chapter 34). Although in linear thinking that seems a contradiction, within the loop it makes sense.

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The source defines the potential from which it can emerge.

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I said previously that relations are the most fundamental element of any and all existence. If you will remember, SHET mentioned that even God can only refer to himself as "I" when he creates, and thus, the active relating creates the state of being that is God. Relating creates consciousness in the same way, and this is why the manifest consciousness is being, existence, or as SHET calls it, ISness — and this is why this consciousness is the source of relations.

Clara from the left: "Nice words. Nevertheless, your statements are only words. You describe your version of how you think things are. You describe God and consciousness, and you also say you are doing something new. You claim your notions are not a new variation on an old subject, but an entirely new approach that explains _how_ the 'whats' arise. You claim that you are dealing with logic — Holophany — the dynamic structure of how Creation, meaning and perception are brought to stabilization from Nothing. Yet, from what I see, you are only trying to convince your reader that your perception is the truth, that God is this and consciousness is that. Inserting here and there a 'SHET said' as a means of persuasive emphasis does not further your logical argument. It only places you among the ranks of the crackpots who claim to spread God's words. You can't argue with that because, allegedly, God said so, and since nobody can verify the validity of such claims, the bellow of authority prevails, not the calm voice of logic. So what's the difference between what you do and what all the others throughout history tried to achieve by pushing their idea of THE TRUTH down people's throats? Why can God refer to himself as to an 'I' only when he creates?"

Clara from the right: "To understand, answer me this: if you try to define Nothing, what do you get?"

Clara from the left: "Nothing."

Clara from the right: "Wrong. If you had succeeded in defining Nothing, then you would have a definition of something; you would have a defined object, which was supposed to be Nothing; but if the object was defined, then it could not have been Nothing. It would have to be something. So if you try to define Nothing, then what do you have?"

Clara from the left: "I don't know."

Clara from the right: "If you try to define Nothing, you get the process of defining Nothing."

Clara from the left: "Can you elaborate?"

Clara from the right: "Certainly. 'Nothing' is transparent, non-being. If you look..."

Clara from the left: "Got you! You are describing Nothing!"

Clara from the right: "Don't interrupt, please. If you look at someone, what do you see?"

Clara from the left: "I see whoever I am looking at."

Clara from the right: "And if you look in the mirror, what do you see?"

Clara from the left: "I see myself. Where are you heading?"

Clara from the right: "When you look into the mirror, why don't you see the mirror? Because the mirror is kind of transparent, so you only see yourself looking."

Clara from the left: "The mirror is reflecting, not transparent."

Clara from the right: "It is transparent as the object of your inquiry, not in itself. It is transparent for you when you look into it. You don't see _it_ , but rather, you see yourself. Other people's feelings are transparent to you in this same fashion when you only see your own cynicism, your own ideas and thoughts, not them."

Clara from the left (chuckling): "This is the first time I feel good being you. Anyway, I look at someone and see him; I look in the mirror and see myself. What's your point?"

Clara from the right: "'Nothing' is like this mirror, transparent, non-definable, so when you attempt to define it, all you have is what you put into it; the process of definition. Nothing stayed Nothing. You didn't define it. You only made your process of definition visible."

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If the definition of Nothing is successful, then it failed because there is something, which is not nothing. However, if the definition of Nothing failed, then there is no result, which is Nothing, and then the attempt at definition was successful.

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Clara from the left: "That's a paradox."

Clara from the right: "Precisely. 'Nothing' gains meaning when you fail to define it; but having tried, you are left with a bonus, a something, which is your process of defining Nothing. Creation of something from Nothing is not a function of defining something, but a function of attempting to define Nothing."

Conventional thinking dictates that creating an object would demand focusing on and defining the target object. All axioms, theorems and equations are thusly formulated. Take for instance Newton's second law:

f=ma

The force of an object equals its mass times its acceleration. The target object to be defined is the force, which is formulated by means of other objects (mass and acceleration). The equation says nothing about the process of definition. Yet when you try to define Nothing, you have no objects to define it with. All you have is the process of definition, which becomes visible once you have succeeded in defining Nothing (which means, you failed and Nothing remained nothing — undefined and indefinite).

Clara from the left: "What does that have to do with God?"

Clara from the right: "The Creator God is non-being, the primordial Nothing, which can not even be the notion of Nothing until this Nothing gains meaning by being defined. But there is no definition of Nothing, only the attempt to define, which is something."

Clara from the left: "And? And then what?"

Clara from the right: "And then, if that process of definition — which already is an existence — looks back at its origins, if this process of defining investigates into its own genesis, then what does it see? It sees itself. It sees the process of definition."

Clara from the left: "Aha! Self-reference!"

Clara from the right (with irony): "What an epiphany!" (Then seriously) "Yes, self-reference. And what a self-reference! The process of definition defines its source retromorphously to be itself. The process of definition forms its own source, which 'happens' to be itself, which — in the case of God — is the only existence to which this process of definition can refer. This is recognition of sameness, of identity, of an 'I,' which is a process of definition, the process of Creation. So for God to say 'I,' he first needs to create. That's consciousness, a logical structure."

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Consciousness is the process of definition when this process is the act of Creation. The act of defining is the act of Creation when it is the dynamic self-referent source that attributes meaning retromorphously to the potential whence it emanated.

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From the point of view of the loop then, we will always start our quest, any quest, with the activity of consciousness. Whenever we ask a question, we ask it from our point of view, even though we pretend that we are asking about an objective reality that is external to us. It is impossible to divorce the questioner from the object of questioning. Any such attempt is totally artificial, and yet that is how we are used to thinking. For instance, when a cosmologist tries to inquire into the antecedent conditions of the Big Bang, he defines these conditions from where he is, in the now. The definitions he is using to describe these antecedent conditions did not exist before the Big Bang. Consequently, he is defining them retromorphously. Or in other words, he is defining the potential of something from the something, which is the outcome of that potential. So who is the source of that activity? Of course, in the above example it is our cosmologist. Consequently, the individual consciousness is the dynamic source that gives meaning to the potential to be a potential and not Nothing. Consciousness then is the Source dimension that activates the potential, whereas this potential is the source of the consciousness that defines it. Now it becomes clear why the source is the MEM — מ, the middle of Creation.

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The Source is the middle between non-being and being, the consciousness that relates and defines and by that turns Quality from non-being into potential. Thus the middle gives birth to itself.

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Chapter 58: What is the Difference Between Consciousness and Awareness?

In Chapter 14, SHET was quoted this way: "Consciousness is a self-repetitive state. It is that part of All-That-Is that is the consciousness of each and every one of you. This part is the one announcing its presence, and it exists in all ISness, in every 'thing' that exists in the world of IS (not in potential)." When SHET says that consciousness exists in every "thing," he means it literally.

When he started to discuss this subject way back in 1987, the following was presented to SHET:

Q: "For the sake of clarity, I would very much appreciate it if you would stop using the same word when you mean two different things. If you are referring to the essence of any thing without the identity attached to it as human consciousness, then please identify that consciousness more specifically, so we can work with it. If, however, you are identifying a rock's consciousness as if you were identifying a human consciousness, then dear SHET, you are full-of-it and I'm prepared to refute your definition of consciousness."

A: "Dear young man, I love the way you defend your confusion. But your confusion comes partly from the lack of definitions in your language and in your studies. You are totally mixing up two things: consciousness and awareness. Even if these terms are used to define each other in your dictionaries, they are not the same. Awareness is perception of something, be it of your own self or something else. It is the attribute of most sane human beings and animals (sense perception and other perceptions unknown to you, such as time without watches, Earth's magnetic fields, future events within their frames of reference like earthquakes, a sinking boat, etc.).

"Plants are also aware of light and darkness, humidity and draught, etc.

Rocks are unaware.

"You can be consciously aware or consciously unaware — that however does not define consciousness. Some physical pressure might affect you unconsciously, like a virus affecting your system. Here 'consciously' is being used as knowingly or unknowingly."

"Consciousness is the inherent beingness of any ISness, that part of ISness that is All-That-Is. Where do you think All-That-Is resides in you? In your brains? It is no more and no less there than in your toenails or your excrement. According to this definition, your consciousness and a cell's consciousness are essentially the same, or even a lepton'sxlix consciousness. Where then is the difference? Obviously you see yourselves as the pinnacle of Creation, at least, the highest intelligence of your world. From the point of view of consciousness, however, there are no values, and you are no more valuable than an earthworm..."

The earthworm part was a bit hard to take. Of course, at the time this was said, I looked upon others and myself from an evaluative point of view. I hadn't seriously questioned _where_ the values were previously and assumed that the good or bad, the high or low was in the thing being evaluated. And thus, it was obvious that I contained more value than an earthworm. This session started me thinking about and questioning my previous suppositions, bringing me ultimately to the realization that nothing contains value. Value is not a thing to be contained, but _the way_ we relate to something. I cannot emphasize this point enough. Incorporating this understanding into our behavior and thinking patterns can improve our lives immensely, not because I say so, and not because this is a good slogan to say that the value is not in the thing, but because of the lawfulness implied by this statement, which is a workable tool.

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_No thing or idea_ contains **value; value is how we relate to something. Consciousness is not a value, but rather, the dynamic essence of every existence, and not only of sentient beings but of every matter particle. Accordingly, we cannot point fingers at someone or something and decree that it is more valuable than something else, which according to our beliefs, has no consciousness.**

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Stating that everything has the same value or no value implies that there is no divine purpose for Creation, that we are not special, we are not born to carry out God's will to either avenge the infidel or enlighten the ignorant, or any other task. However, it follows that there is no meaning in life or death, and thus we are given the freedom to give meaning to life and our endeavors. It means that moral conduct is not a function of policing, of powerful agents filling us with hope or fear, but our choice to create a sane and enjoyable environment in the long term. Truly understanding that there are no values "out there" means that the theory of evolution can be taught in religious schools instead of dismissing it with a don't-confuse-me-with-facts attitude. At its present level of development, science does not answer all the questions about Creation and life, and it never will without incorporating within its tenets consciousness, God, and the Loop of Creation. Science and religion could co-habit the same mind space if good and evil or other values were not nominated as "standalone _things_ " to be worshipped.

"Consciousness is not an event, and neither is it a collapse or a thing. It is a superposition, the dimension of quality, which is virtual being and a-temporal. It is a process, but not in the sense of a sequence of events. It is the essence, and not necessarily synonymous with 'knowing.' It is that part that is the _aliveness_ of a being, that allows the existence of anything in a temporal framework." What does this quote really mean? What does it mean to define consciousness as that part that allows the existence of anything in a temporal framework, the essence of every ISness, which is a self-repetitive state, as mentioned earlier? SHET's definition of consciousness describes some kind of self-repetitive omnipresent lawfulness. What is SHET's purpose when he redefines consciousness — what we might have considered as the soul, spirit, mind, etc. — as some overall lawfulness?

To understand this point, we first need to comprehend the nature of this lawfulness, which SHET calls Consciousness or the Source Dimension, a lawfulness that he claims is responsible for any and every existence. An electron and a dog are very different creatures; so what invisible lawfulness is responsible for the existence of both? What kind of lawfulness would fulfill such demands? The answer is, isomorphism — the same logical inner structure in entirely different representations. Whether an electron, a dog or the weather, each could be a different realization of the same inner logical structure. So here we are again, facing an omnipresent logical structure. Let's see what SHET really means by consciousness being the isomorphous dynamic essence, the logical structure of existence.

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_Consciousness is not a "thing," a_ still **, but the dynamic source, the formative essence of existence.**

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Chapter 59: Isomorphism

All Creation is calling upon God. You cannot hear or see it on the outside, but the essence in everything is continuously remembering and calling upon God.

Sheikh Muzaffer

In Chapter 28, I stated that the part **is** the whole — the details constituting the whole are the whole. The mechanism of the loop can be detected in all its details, and hence, any part will reflect the whole pattern. Consciousness is this essential sameness, this isomorphic lawfulness present in every creature and thing. This lawfulness of sameness is a quality, a dimension that connects all the different manifestations in the physical world. This is Consciousness, and once we are in touch with quality in quantity, we are in touch with Consciousness. Knowing this isomorphic lawfulness ensures that, through quality in quantity, through being in touch with the consciousness essence of things, we are in touch with the God Consciousness, with wholeness, and at the same time, with all other possible manifestations of this wholeness in the physical world. This means that, by being in touch with the consciousness of my pen, I can be in touch with any other object or person in the world. That is, of course, when I know how my pen or any other existence resides within my perception.

Clara from the left: "Earlier you said that consciousness is the process of definition attempting to define 'Nothing.' Now you say that it is the isomorphic omnipresent lawfulness. Can you make up your mind?"

Clara from the right: "OK, OK, let's start again from the bees and flowers. What do you get if you try to define Nothing? What is the result?"

Clara from the left: "The process of definition."

Clara from the right: "Good girl. And what is the process of definition? Is it something or Nothing?"

Clara from the left: "Obviously, it is something; it is a process, so it is something."

Clara from the right: "Which means, if you are successful in defining Nothing, then you get something, which is not Nothing, so you failed to define Nothing and Nothing stays Nothing, but you also have something..."

Clara from the left: "Hey, don't forget to breathe."

Clara from the right: "So you agree that if I engage in defining Nothing, then I both have something and also Nothing stays Nothing, undefined. Does that remind you of anything?"

Clara from the left: "Hairsplitting?"

Clara from the right: "If you try to define the indefinite, you have something definite, which leaves the indefinite undisturbed. Don't you remember? To define means to border, to create a finite 'area,' which necessarily implies the existence of something beyond the fenced in 'area,' so the fenced in 'area' can have meaning as such, as different from what's beyond it."

Clara from the left: "Yes, I remember, if you are defining the indefinite, you both have something defined and the indefinite also stays indefinite."

Clara from the right: "What happens if you define something finite, something definite?"

Clara from the left: "Then I have something... with meaning."

Clara from the right: "And what more?"

Clara from the left: "If I defined something, then I have that something, and that something makes sense to me. What do you mean what more?"

Clara from the right: "Besides the object that now makes sense to you because you defined it, what more do you have?"

Clara from the left: "So you tell me!"

Clara from the right: "No matter what you define, you also have the indefinite. When something is defined, it has meaning because there are other things that your defined object is not. What these other things are remains in the domain of the indefinite, because anything you define excludes an infinity of other things that thing is not. Or in other words, the definition of something implies that there is something more beyond the borders of the definition, which is why the defined object has meaning. So whether you define the indefinite or the definite, you will have a defined island in the sea of the indefinite. Clearly, any term, object or notion, if defined and thereby given existence to be what it is, is both definite and indefinite — whether a physical object, a possibility, or an idea."

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Any definition implies the existence of the indefinite.

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Clara from the left: "What then is the conclusion to be drawn from this erudite disquisition?"

Clara from the right: "First, the process of definition is a logical process."

Clara from the left: "Why so? I could define a table to be a piece of furniture in the service of sleeping cats. What's logical about that?"

Clara from the right: "I speak of the _process_ of definition, not what or by what means you define. This process imparts meaning to the defined object by fixing its limits and by that denoting the indefinite beyond. The implication, the necessity of a wider aspect than what is being postulated, is the logical inference."

Clara from the left: "You said that was the first conclusion. Are there more?"

Clara from the right: "You bet. Second, the logical structure of the process of definition is identical for any and all definitions. Anything and everything is what it is because it is defined to be what it is (through whatever parameters). That is to say, every existence has the same inner logical structure. Do you know what that is?"

Clara from the left: "Isomorphism!"

Clara from the right: "Right. And thirdly, it follows that, if the process of definition is isomorphous to any existence, if everything that exists does so by virtue of being defined by the same logical process, then it would also be correct to state that trying to define Nothing is the process of definition of any and every thing. This would be the same as saying that to have something, anything, would be to endeavor to define Nothing. So attempting to define Nothing is isomorphism — it is the logical structure of anything and everything."

Clara from the left: "Fine. But why call this isomorphism, Consciousness? And where is the loop here? "

Clara from the right: "For the time being, let me quote SHET in this regard: **'Consciousness is that lawfulness, that logical structure, that enables random meaningless dynamics to gain meaning and form.'** When we get deeper into what meaning is, perhaps you'll see why this overall isomorphous lawfulness must be Consciousness.

Clara from the left: "No way! I'm not going to let you off so easily. You said that something gains meaning when it is defined. That does not make it _a_ consciousness."

Clara from the right: "Very well then. Tell me, does something really have meaning?"

Clara from the left: "Are you going to prove now that there is no meaning?"

Clara from the right: "No. Only tell me where the meaning is?"

Clara from the left: "What a stupid question. Something is either meaningful or meaningless, so the meaning resides where something is meaningful."

Clara from the right: "The meaning is in your head, in the perception. When something is defined and meaningful, that means that it is so perceived by a viewpoint that can relate. That someone or something relates is connected to what meaning this someone or something perceived. If an electron relates to a proton in a certain way, then that means that it has a certain relation to the proton. In the electron's case, that's a deterministic relation according to the laws of physics, meaning a predictable relation. Usually, we don't call the electron's reaction to a proton's proximity perception, but to generalize what perception is, we could call any relation a perception."

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Creation of anything is the creation of meaning, which is an act of definition. The act of definition defining itself is consciousness.

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Clara from the left: "What's that got to do with consciousness?"

Clara from the right: "Consciousness is that viewpoint that relates, which means, it perceives whatever it relates to as having meaning. The creative act of defining creates the creator that defines, which is the consciousness."

So consciousness, or the soul if you wish, is not some invisible copy of your body carrying your identity, but the lawfulness of Creation expressed as your individual qualitative essence. Of course, it has been endlessly stated that we are God, that we are parts of God, and similar phrases. This is true, but true in the sense that God is the lawfulness that unfolds Creation, and this lawfulness is inherent in all creation including the creatures therein. The point here, that Consciousness is lawfulness and not some kind of quantifiable thing in each being, has deep consequences. For instance, in principle all of history can be deduced from one particle's consciousness just as observation of the tiny chaotic fluctuations of a stabilized object will reveal the history of its strange attractor from which it was stabilized. This sameness is isomorphism, the same logical structure of Creation present throughout the created.

Clara from the left: "Stop! Halt! Are you saying that on the one hand there is Consciousness with a capital C, the isomorphic lawfulness, and on the other, the individual consciousness, the soul? Did you use the word, soul? Is that some kind of private lawfulness? What are you trying to say?"

Clara from the right: "That the individual consciousness, the consciousness of a person — yes, the soul — or the consciousness of an electron are but different _realizations_ of Consciousness."

Clara from the left: "But I understand from what you said earlier that the consciousness of an electron and your consciousness are one and the same, the same lawfulness. Then why differentiate between Consciousness with a capital C and consciousness?"

Clara from the right: "Consciousness with the capital C is the act of definition that is defining itself. Now what does that mean? What is the act of definition? It is the act of creating a border within which the object that is to be defined can gain meaning. The creation of that border implies that there is something beyond it, which is indefinite (not defined) since what is being defined is within the border. What is within the border is the significance of whatever is being defined, whereas the act of creating the border, the act that allows for there to be significance, is structure."

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Consciousness is an infinite self-similar process of the structure defining itself.

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Clara from the left: "So what happens when the act of definition defines the act of definition?"

Clara from the right: "Then the significance, the meaning created within the border, is the creation of the border within which there can be a meaning, which is the creation of the border within which there can be a meaning, which is the creation of the border within which there can be a meaning... _ad infinitum_. When the structure defines itself, then the _'what'_ that is being defined is the same as the _'how,'_ the act that defines it. Or in other words, the self-reference of structure creates a significance, which is an infinite self-similar process, or as SHET put it, a self-repetitive state. Think of it as creating a new group that would include all the previous groups, only the group that includes all the previous groups is the same as any individual in the group."

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Consciousness is the source and outcome of Creation. From the point of view of multiplicity, Consciousness is a specific infinite process.

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Clara from the left: "What are you talking about?"

Clara from the right: "Self-similarity of structure. The structure, the process of definition defining itself, is total symmetry."

Clara from the left: "That's like saying the process of definition is the process of definition — a tautology. So what's the big deal?"

Clara from the right: "Not exactly. Now that I have defined the process of definition, I know that it is an infinite but specific process. Specific, because there could be other infinite processes that are different, for instance, the process of obtaining the square root of 2."l

Clara from the left: "You should be committed. You have just proven that the logical structure is total symmetry, in which case, this structure cannot explain the variety of significance, the multiplicity of existence. It cannot even show that there can be Consciousness _and_ consciousness. You also claim that you are showing how the logical structure is the basis of everything, of all variety. 'Specific' has meaning in relation to, in a being's difference from other things, yet you have nothing else, only this infinite symmetry. So what are you trying to say?"

Clara from the right: "Think of it as a loop consisting of 4 points:

1) The lawfulness, the abstraction of the logical structure.

2) The realization, which is the process of defining Nothing, which is the self-reference of the process of definition, which is total symmetry, which is Consciousness. This level consists of the infinite mirrorings of the process of definition defining itself.

3) Each such mirroring is still Nothing if it does no relate. However, each such mirroring could relate to another mirroring of the process of definition, _defining the other, not itself_ , and then, each could be the definition of something else, which means, a specific process of definition. The totality of all these processes (of relating to the other) is again symmetry, Nothing; however, each apart, when relating, is something. This level gives meaning to Nothing, because it is a variety of somethings, the individual consciousness.

4) Each of this variety of somethings uses only certain parameters to define with whereas the self-reference of the process of definition uses all possible parameters, all infinity, which is why it is symmetry. All the relations of all the variety of somethings that constitute Nothing are the abstraction of the logical structure.

"So you see, this is Holophany, the Loop of Creation wherein the lawfulness that permits existence is actually the outcome of existence."

Clara from the left: "I still don't understand what you mean by the process of definition being specific."

Clara from the right: "When I say that the significance of the definition of the process of definition defining itself is specific, I mean it defines _itself_ , _'A'_ and not _'B,'_ the extraction of the square root of 2. I know it is specific because the significance gained can be turned into structure to define something else — _'C'—_ a different significance, which can be turned into structure to define _'D,'_ etc. Take the structure of a triangle for instance: saying that the sum of the angles in a Euclidean triangle is 180 degrees could be said to be any such triangle's structure. Or its fixed relation, its conservation law — whatever conserves it to be what it is. The triangle is the significance, the _'what'_ content of the definition. If you now take the structure, the sum of 180 degrees and say, that's the significance, and you ask, what defines it, then you could define it by a half circle. A half circle is certainly not a triangle. So you see, using the specificity of the significance to define with yields new and different significances."

Clara from the left: "Great. And what does that have to do with Consciousness with the capital C and consciousness?"

Clara from the right: "Consciousness with the capital C is the self-reference of the act of definition, which being total symmetry is Nothing. That's not so surprising, since we begot the process of definition by attempting to define Nothing. However, consciousness, the different realizations of Consciousness are partial expressions, parts of the act of definition, the different significances established by the act of definition. The part is the whole in the sense that it is the same process of definition, but it is different in that one such structure can be different from another such part, being different significances."

Clara from the left: "But how can the significance of the process of definition both be Nothing and also specific?"

Clara from the right: "From the point of view of Consciousness, it is Nothing; it does not have any preference for one parameter over another, so you could say, it uses all the infinity of parameters to define with, and from that point of view, the significance of the process of definition is indefinite. From our point of view, from the point of view of always using only certain parameters, it is specific and definite — the definition describes the process of definition and not the extraction of the square root of 2."

Clara from the left: "But if Consciousness uses all the parameters, and it is basically nothing, then how can it have a point of view at all?"

Clara from the right: "It does not have a point of view by itself. I attribute a point of view to it from my viewpoint, from where I am in multiplicity. Attributing a point of view to Consciousness is deducing an abstraction. Any abstraction is a generalization as such — it is both Nothing and also specific. Abstractions are structures of certain realizations, whereas realizations describe the structure. For instance, I use words that have meaning, that have significance to describe the structure, the process of definition. Each word is specifically associated with a meaning. You cannot speak of total abstraction without using words with significance. You cannot divorce structure and significance, abstraction and realization — they are a loop. From the viewpoint of Consciousness, there is no meaning, and the self-reference of the act of definition is indefinite. The significance obtained by defining the process of definition is indefinite from the point of view of Consciousness."

Clara from the left: "Then why call it Consciousness?"

Clara from the right: "Because this basic self-referential structure is the logical structure of experience."

Clara from the left: "Now you really got me confused."

Clara from the right: "If you remember, you can only perceive what you have externalized in the sense that you create relations of difference, so whatever you perceive is different from you, the perceiver. In the case of Consciousness, which is the self-referential process of definition, the infinite process of self-reference is such because the Consciousness is trying to externalize (define, perceive) the indefinite, but the indefinite cannot be defined. So from the point of view of the act of definition, the attempt to externalize the indefinite occurred (the attempt to perceive/define it occurred). It perceives that it _tried_ to define the indefinite, which is its experience, yet the target (the indefinite) has not been defined. So nothing happened. It's as if the process did not take place. If it is done a million times or not even once, this is the same from the point of view of the target that has not been defined."

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Consciousness is the logical structure of experience; it perceives that it attempts to externalize the indefinite.

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Clara from the left: "But a target that has not been defined cannot have a point of view."

Clara from the right: "Fine. Think of it as if it was my point of view of what I think the target's point of view would be, if it could have one. Look who's splitting hairs now."

Clara from the left: "If experience is the attempt to define the indefinite, then everything you experience is an attempt to define the indefinite. Is that correct?"

Clara from the right: "Yes."

Clara from the left: "In that case, the experience of having a root canal and the experience of having an orgasm are one and the same for you: just an attempt to define the indefinite."

Clara from the right: "Being a partial viewpoint, I feel differently when I experience different things. That is due to my fixed relations. If I experienced a heart attack, I could die. Such an experience could undo my fixed relation to my physical expression. However, Consciousness with the capital C, the isomorphous process of definition, has no fixed relations, and so, for it every experience is the same, a failed attempt to define the indefinite. Do you remember the earthworm? That's total symmetry from the point of view of God. Not having fixed relations, God can only experience."

Clara from the left: "Do you mean to say that God is the self-repetitive process of defining the indefinite, and since he cannot succeed in defining it, he only perceives that he is trying to define the indefinite and that's his only perception, which is experience?"

Clara from the right: "Now you got it."

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Consciousness with a capital C can only experience.

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Clara from the left: "That's blasphemy! If you maintain that God can only experience, then that would be saying that God cannot differentiate, cannot define anything specific, which means, there is no providence and no divine justice. So why should I not struggle to win at all costs, murder and steal and lie and etc. to be the winner in all situations?"

Clara from the right: "Because of the other in you. Remember, when you hurt someone, you also hurt yourself because you are not apart from the other. But when you steal, lie and etc., you don't want to experience what your victims experience, and so you alienate yourself from them, which means, you reduce your scope of existence, you shrink your space of being in the attempt to avoid empathy with your victims. And then, you cut off the branch you sit on. Remember that love is the make-up of being alive, the glue of aliveness, and if you hurt others, you dilute and by and large, annihilate your own _joie de vivre_."

Clara from the left: "Come on, you can't be that naïve to believe that. Human existence is a Darwinian free-for-all. The machinations of power are our daily proof. Humans have annihilated entire populations, extinguished the life of entire species. Look at hunters; they kill for joy with the blessing of the state. Drilling oil is more important than life, to hell with wildlife, money is the golden calf. Don't you agree?"

Clara from the right: "I agree that the world we live in is far from perfect. But tell me, how do you feel when you focus on all what's ugly in humanity?"

Clara from the left: "I am ashamed to be human. I wish I were on a lone island and forgot who or what I am. On second thought, I feel... I wish I forgot that I am."

Clara from the right: "In other words, you want to contract, you are reducing your aliveness. You are withdrawing from life."

Clara from the left: "And if I said, I don't give a damn?"

Clara from the right: "Then I would say, you already forgot that you are."

Clara from the left: "So God is lucky if he can't differentiate or define anything specific, only experience. But what does an electron experience?

Clara from the right: "It does not experience because it per-ceives only the definite. That's why matter has only fixed relations, which means that matter can only relate to defined externalizations, which does not qualify as experience. However, you are a higher level of complexity than an electron, so you can both experience and also perceive. God is infinitely complex, to the degree that complexity becomes meaningless, so God can only experience."

Clara from the left: "If a soul can both experience and also perceive, then why is it the same kind of consciousness as an electron?"

Clara from the right: "The electron, you and God, each is defined by the act of definition, by defining. Consciousness, all consciousness, is the isomorphous lawfulness, the logical structure that defines. When an electron perceives and performs according to the laws of physics, then the act of definition is finished until there is another, different perception. When it per-ceives (defines) the externalized, then that does not create an _ongoing_ process. Perception, defining, is a process, but when the target has been defined, the process ends. In that, the electron is a consciousness, a process of definition. However, when experience is involved, the attempt to define the indefinite, then that is an ongoing process as mentioned earlier."

When SHET says we are to find quality in quantity, this is a reference to participating in the strength of this isomorphous structure, so it can empower us with our true heritage, to be in God's image. The Biblical description of being created in his image does not mean that God has a physical body with two hands and eyes and a nose as we do. It means that our consciousness has the same logical structure as the God consciousness: the God consciousness creates and experiences, and our consciousness creates and experiences.

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Matter can only relate to defined entities (perceive the laws of physics), but a consciousness, like a human, can both perceive and also experience. Consciousness is not a quantitative component, but the isomorphic lawfulness of the sameness of the process of definition throughout Creation. However, to create as omnipotent beings, we would need a wider awareness than what we now have. Awareness is the activity of the consciousness, the activity that creates the consciousness.

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Chapter 60: How Fixed are Fixed Relations?

Perception is interaction, relations. You see by interacting with light; you hear by interacting with air vibrations; your olfactory sense works by interacting with the information of molecules, etc. These interactions are relations. When you perceive or sense danger, you relate to the environment as imposing a threat. Whatever you sense, whatever you think, whatever your attitude might be, you are relating, and by that, interacting. In one word, you are aware. In that sense rocks are also aware. Matter interacts with matter. It can corrode, change its molecular structure, etc. Then what does SHET mean when he says that the essence of every thing, of every matter particle, is consciousness, and yet the latter has no awareness?

A matter particle's definition is the lawfulness that prescribes which kind of interactions it can have and which it can not. These are the deterministic physical laws that were fixed in the space of light-like directions, its inner space. Consequently, the consciousness, which is the essence of a matter particle, is quite limited in its scope of action, restricted within the framework of these physical laws. On the other hand, a consciousness with a wide awareness (which could be a greater complexity of dynamic relations) has a wider scope of action because it is not restricted to only having specific kinds of interactions with other sub-structures. The kind of relations one has with his neighbor has not been fixed in the space of light-like directions — this is a matter of choice.

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A choice of too many fixed relations is a choice to relinquish freedom of choice; it is a choice to react rather than act, a choice to be like matter.

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Clara from the left: "You keep talking about fixed relations. Is that something like a rod being fixed to a particular location?"

Clara from the right: "Not at all. Fixed relations are not rigid — they create rigidity."

Clara from the left: "Very well. Now I am confused on a higher plane."

Clara from the right: "Fixed relations are the identity of something, whatever conserves it to be itself."

Clara from the left: "Then the definition of something, the significance of what it is, is fixed relations — relations of sameness."

Clara from the right: "Correct."

Clara from the left: "Then perception is also fixed relations."

Clara from the right: "No. Perception is not only the defined but includes the indefinite. It includes relating to (awareness of) the process of definition, which necessarily implies the indefinite beyond the border of the defined."

Clara from the left: "When I perceive a tree, I perceive the defined tree, not the indefinite beyond."

Clara from the right: "Yet the tree gains meaning as a tree because it is only the tree and not everything else — relations of difference — and the everything else is indefinite. However, its _treeness_ is the definition of its fixed relations."

Clara from the left: "So what's wrong with fixed relations?"

Clara from the right: "Nothing. But remember that fixed relations create rigidity. If you define yourself and others, if you define situations, conditions, expectations, etc., then you limit your scope of action and will become like an object that reacts instead of a person who acts."

Clara from the left: "Why?"

Clara from the right: "Because creation is engaging in the act of trying to define the indefinite, not reacting in a predictable fashion to the defined. It's all a matter of measure, when and how many relations to fix. Usually, we err in the direction of too many fixed relations and that stifles creativity and joy."

When we fix too many relations with sub-structures, when we define ourselves as _stills_ , we cannot flow and we become like matter. By sticking to beliefs regarding how things are ("I deserve better," "that's my character," etc.), we create fixed relations out of Viewpoint 2s, and thereby we deny ourselves the ability to develop a wider awareness. For indeed, the width of awareness means how many relations we can either fix or unfix.

After I wrote the above paragraph, I had a dream that illustrates this point. I saw a heavy freighter in the sea. No matter how much the sea level rose, the freighter stayed afloat at the same water level. Further, the ship could navigate in any direction it wished. A sea bass commented that the freighter had a fixed relation with the sea, which is wholeness, and hence it would stay afloat independently of the ebbs and flows. The dream continued with a huge anchor being cast, fixing the freighter to the bottom of the sea. The sea level started rising and the water covered the ship, which sank. The sea bass commented that now that the ship had fixed its relation with the sea-bottom, which it should have left as relations of difference, ultimately, the freighter sank.

Stuck, depressed, passive or unhappy people are full of beliefs regarding how things are, how the world is, how they are — tons of fixed relations — which they can do nothing about. For such people, everything is well defined. They experience very little (and consequently, they experience little of the other in you — if at all, which means that they are not very compassionate) and become more and more self-conscious and self-concerned, constantly defining and redefining the self. These people have a very low level of aliveness because they look for definite significance, categorizations of things in niches of good, evil, right, wrong, etc. Their awareness is focused on significance, creating fixed relations with significance, which makes them similar to matter. More aliveness means a more balanced relationship between fixed and changing relations, which is an indication that changing relations leave more indefiniteness to significance.

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Too many fixed relations reduce the expanse of consciousness. This gains expression as depression or loss of vitality, which is becoming more like matter.

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To illustrate the above claim, imagine my neighbor, the widow. She was raised in a village in Bukhara with tight codes of conduct. To be accepted in the clan, she had to marry her first cousin, which was decided when she was born. Whether they were in love or not was not an issue. The couple immigrated to Israel when she was 40, and they continued to live as if they were still in Bukhara. After a miserable life with him, he died. And then she dressed in black, and for the past 14 years, she has been sitting on her porch dressed in her black gown most of the day. Every day she sits on the same straight-backed chair that looks awfully uncomfortable to me. She is always grave. I have never seen her smile, except on one occasion when she held a tiny puppy in her hands. I blessed her on her new companion, but she replied with sadness that her deceased husband wouldn't have liked her to have a dog. So she doesn't have one. By fixing her relations to sub-structures, she literally created her jail, wherein she is going to suffer until death redeems her. She could have gone on to learn something after her husband's death. She could have occupied herself doing something enjoyable. She could have had a dog, anything. But no, her beliefs regarding how things should be, her fixed relations to sub-structures, have established that she is to suffer forever. She believes that's her destiny and so be it.

Too many fixed relations reduce the aliveness of the person. They decrease his consciousness. "There are degrees of consciousness, which is why I have stated that the MAKOR (מקור — Source dimension) is a variable. It is not quantitative, but it can be used quantitatively in equations. If you look upon people of similar awareness, you can still see in them different degrees of liveliness. This life energy, the _prana_ kind, the _kundalini_ kind, or however it is being called in your languages, are degrees of consciousness. A low-awareness being or a very narrowly focused being can still be endowed with a great amount of life energy. That is the consciousness variable." Hypothetically, an animal could express more aliveness, more _vitality_ than a human, so that's not a matter of intelligence or reasoning ability. A dog could be very exuberant and playful, happily walking in the rain or snow without thinking, "what stinking bad weather." A human is able to relate to a much wider range of factors than a dog, and consequently, has a wider expanse of choices whether or not to fix relations to sub-structures.

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Although the essence of a matter particle is the same essence as that of a human being, and although this essence is the isomorphic lawfulness of Creation, which is consciousness, this lawfulness is differently composed in a matter particle than in a human being. Matter is made up solely of fixed relations, whereas a sentient being can both fix and unfix relations to sub-structures at will.

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Clara from the left: "If the width of awareness establishes the space of action of the consciousness, then how can a 'low-awareness being' be endowed with a great amount of life energy or consciousness?"

Clara from the right: "Humans are blessed with cognitive faculties, which places them among the high-awareness beings. High-awareness means being aware of countless things, which means that humans are able to define innumerable things. Low-awareness beings are not endowed, or only partially endowed, with those cognitive abilities that ensure creation of definitions. Consequently, a dog cannot very well discuss philosophy. The question is, how does man use his cognitive faculties? To gain certainty he uses his intellect to hoard information, and consequently, loses out on experience. In such cases, conditioning provides false certainty when misconceived as learning from experience. This is recycling old definitions and disregarding changing conditions. Instead of knowing, we should observe, which is participating, interacting with the observed. To attain spiritual growth, man has to learn to unknow, to come to terms with uncertainty and the indefinite. Animals lacking an evolved ability to define have no problem remaining with the indefinite or the undefined. Their awareness vocabulary is much poorer in _significance_ and much richer in experience than ours. As SHET stated in his very first session about human spiritual aspirations (in Chapter 7), **'In contradiction to what you think of animals, you will become somewhat like an animal, yet on your way to what you desire to achieve.'** We don't have to discard our cognitive abilities, but use them to understand and develop tolerance toward the indefinite and paradoxes in order to attain more balance in our endeavors. Thus a low-awareness being is one with limited capabilities to define, whereas a narrow awareness being is one with 'too many' definitions, with too many fixed relations to sub-structures."

Clara from the left: "But you said that the width of awareness defines how many relations we can either fix or unfix. Where is the awareness in all this?"

Clara from the right: "Let's assume that a human's awareness is wider than a dog's (well, some humans'). This means that a human could perceive many more relations that he could fix or unfix. These are initial conditions. What he does with them, that's another matter. The unnecessary tendency to exaggerate fixing relations is not a matter of awareness, but of choice or conditioning, which determines the magnitude of consciousness. A very unhappy passive human that acts like matter (or it would be more correct to say, _re_ acts like matter) has reduced his consciousness, which will decrease his awareness, etc., in a dwindling spiral. However, he has the potential to reverse this trend by recognizing and releasing unnecessarily fixed relations. Thereby he would widen his experience and his consciousness, whereas someone with more vivacity wouldn't have fixed those relations to sub-structures in the first place."

Clara from the left: "I still don't understand what the different degrees of consciousness mean. I thought consciousness was the isomorphous lawfulness, the logical structure. If consciousness is quality, then it either is or it is not. If it is, then you can't quantify it. Then what does it mean that someone has more of it than someone else? It's like saying that one electron has more of the law of gravity than another; or a billiard ball has a greater quantity of the law of motion..."

Clara from the right: "That different people can have different amounts of consciousness means that people with greater response-ability, those more aware of the other in you possess a greater amount of joy and liveliness. From the point of view of structure, it's the same structure whether it is the consciousness of an electron or the consciousness of the Dalai Lama. The difference is that the Dalai Lama has a wider consciousness — he is spiritually evolved."

Clara from the left: "What is the purpose of spiritual evolution?"

Clara from the right: "Let's have SHET's answer to that question."

"Spiritual evolution is an everlasting growth and change, enrichment of the consciousness with experience (new worldviews that bring about new experiences). This leads one to experience further and further areas of All-That-Is; while enhancing the awareness and evolving the consciousness, the aliveness of the individual enriches him with a greater amount of All-That-Is in him, within him, I mean, All-That-Is thus grows in him." Spiritual development means endowing quantity with more quality by connecting to quality. In an individual, this gains expression as a basic joy through which he can access higher levels of order, attaining higher organization in quantity, which is going against entropy, the enemy of life.

One may ask, Why be connected at all? What value does it have? Does it make me earn more money? Does it make me smarter, more successful? Here is SHET's answer: **"The more connected you are to quality, to Consciousness, the more you can expand in that dimension. That dimension, Consciousness, is also the potential from which every actuality can spring to life, every separate existence. Thus being more connected to it, from that space you can create a slowing down of the decay process, which in physics is called entropy, meaning disorder. Time in itself means creation of disorder in physical systems. That's a law within any closed system. How to add order, which is adding energy? By connecting through making the closed system into an open system and thus introducing energy with which to create order. You do this through your thinking process, of course, by your thoughts, beliefs and values, which are your tools to create reality."** Expanding one's consciousness brings about a better ability to control one's physical aspect. (You may not need the services of your plastic surgeon if you know how to do it.)

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Perceiving quality in quantity is an act of consciousness. Or in other words, experiencing the indefinite in the defined is the consciousness' recognition of a creative potential. Increasing the quantity of quality within is getting more connected to the God Consciousness.

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Clara from the left: "OK, so the person can experience more, but who says that thereby he increases quality in quantity? Perhaps he is a pervert, greatly enjoying others' suffering. Maybe he is greatly motivated by lust for power to control others, and that's his experience of the indefinite."

Clara from the right: "Very unlikely, since these kinds of experiences are the essence of addictions needing bigger and bigger stimuli for the person to be able to experience, which is quite the opposite of the subtle and easy ways by which one can experience the little things when one is connected as mentioned earlier."

According to SHET, to be spiritual one does not need to do weird practices nor win competitions regarding who has had more profound other-worldly experiences disconnected from physical reality, but rather, one needs to be connected, which means to be lively. **"Feeling more alive means being connected to the Source dimension, which is the origin, the Consciousness. Consciousness is qualitative, the Source dimension is qualitative, but you recognize it in you by the amount of aliveness you have."** The amount of aliveness is the ability to experience, or in other words, the attempt to perceive the indefinite. **"Exactly the cognitive capacity that humans so value can be a hindrance to their spiritual development. Whereas animals are unaware of time or thinking processes that include time, they experience some dimensions simultaneously without the slightest inconvenience or confusion. What disturbs humans to do the same is this reasoning ability that brought them the fruits of technological achievements."**

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In order to experience more and to be more alive, we ought to control our urge to overdefine and thereby control our perception of reality.

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Chapter 61: How to Attain Wider Awareness

"Consciousness is both created and enriched by whatever it experiences through inter-relating with itself and the environment. When you relate, when you are aware of your environment and interact with it, then that widens your awareness more, which is learning. In turn, learning redefines your self, which now is more enriched and more developed."

A rock cannot change its mind about being where it is, but we can take responsibility for our lives by changing how we relate, by shifting what is important. Understanding this point can make the difference between becoming the wider awareness that can truly be in God's image, a creator, and between remaining the victim of society and our past, cast around in the whirlpool of life.

For instance, if you were raped, you can choose to relate to this fact as that event that has destroyed your life. Today's society will support this attitude by emphasizing that, indeed, you were an innocent victim. You can choose to remain the victim and become an emotional invalid. Or for your benefit (after getting rid of the emotional charge), you can change the "past" by deciding that you did want the sex (without feeling guilty about it) but the guy was a disgusting partner. Remember, if you cannot change what there is, change what you want (or in the past tense, if you cannot change what there was, change what you wanted).

Clara from the left: "I deeply reject your insensitiveness. How can you blame the raped for being raped? Perhaps small children abused by grown-ups should also be blamed? Maybe the rapists and abusers should be given a reward for having provided their victims with the opportunity to attain a higher level of awareness?"

Clara from the right: "Your reaction is irrational. You reacted now to what you think and not to what I said. First, there is no blame — the victim is not being blamed. Second, the criminal should be punished and reeducated, if possible. And the victim, be it a grown up or a child, should be given a chance to create a normal and happy life for himself or herself in spite of having been abused. By learning to become flexible within one's world of ideas and beliefs, by learning to control one's thoughts and wants, by learning to change one's attitude, one can extract the damaging importance from events, and in spite of what happened, live happily. Given no excessive bodily harm, the importance or the damage is not in the event, but in how you relate to it."

Take for instance J.M. Charcot (1825-1893), the founder of modern neurology, who demonstrated that all kinds of physical conditions (paralysis, tremors, etc.) including hysteria could be induced through hypnosis. His demonstrations meant that people's beliefs had the power to induce these states. He greatly influenced Freud who attended his lectures in 1885. Freud concluded that the two main drives of neuroses were the libido and the death wish, or as he referred to them, Eros and Thanatos, the gods of love and death in Greek mythology. This fixation on the "what" seems to accompany human thought throughout the ages. If instead of searching the significance, the "what" content of beliefs, Freud would have concentrated on the "how," on the structure of how beliefs worked, we would probably be more developed today. As it is, humanity's thinking was mostly fixated on _stills_ and not on processes, on significance instead of the mechanics of interaction. The constant search for THE TRUTH, a fact or meaningful archetypes (what Freud's ideas developed into through the work of C.G. Jung) is the hallmark of the linear thinking with _stills_. The loop logic changes all that by emphasizing processes empty of meaning; yet when in operation, these processes both gain and give meaning.

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It is easier to shape reality through knowledge of the mechanics of interaction than trying to cope with fixed perceptions believed to be truth.

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This is why SHET suggests that people should not define themselves but be flexible processes. We could say that awareness is that flexibility, which can both fix and unfix fixed relations and thus enhance one's space of action. Consequently, the wider that flexibility, the wider will the awareness be, implementing more freedom of choice. Freedom of choice implies the choice of a future course for our lives, whether that future is the next minute or the next decade.

This means that we won't have to regurgitate old hurts and hidden traumas in psychoanalysis to understand why we don't function appropriately, and we won't have to run to soothsayers to obtain a past life cause for our present life misfortunes. Instead, we can utilize our present resources to create a new desired course for events in our lives.

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The definition of our lives — whether we are happy or unhappy — is the bottom line of how we relate in the present, not the causal outcome of past events. We can change the unfortunate results of past events by differently re-creating the past, by relating differently to both past and present situations.

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Chapter 62: How Many Souls are there?

SHET's worldview has far reaching consequences regarding souls, which he prefers to call consciousness. If souls are something quantitative, a separate unique identity, and if souls transmigrate (have many incarnations), then how come there are more and more people in the world? Is there a special quantity of souls from the beginning of the world? Do they multiply? Does God sit in his soul factory trying to meet the growing demand for souls? These questions become irrelevant once we see consciousness as something qualitative, which could have an infinite number of focuses, an infinite number of viewpoints.

Although consciousness is a qualitative state of being, remember that it is dynamic. We can only relate to its dynamic aspect, which manifests as the aliveness or essence of a being. In a sense, God, the absolute undifferentiated quality, created the physical universe, the quantitative, within which he continues his existence. Thus God expressed, manifest, is any specific consciousness that could be said to be the essence of every thing, not only of sentient beings. **"In quality, quantity is enfolded, whereas in quantity, quality is immanent. Quality is inner order, whereas quantity can have external order. Quality is shared by all quantity, whereas quantity is separate in quantity."**

When the undifferentiated qualitative Source dimension is expressed as a particular consciousness, it gains identity. Thus God expressed through Jinni (my cat) and myself are different identities, not because we have different bodies (she a cat and I a human), but because of what we each are aware of, to which degree we are aware of our own consciousness and the world at large. **"What identifies entities is their consciousness and awareness, not their thoughts or discarded judgments or bodies."**

Many people would like to know where their soul originated. Since it is fashionable today for a soul to be from a different galaxy or a different star system, many would like to feel unique and be told they are special because they come from the Pleiades, Sirius, Orion or whatever. Such a question was posed to SHET:

Q: "Did I or part of me come from another star? If so, which one?"

A: "Not really. A star is a location. You as an entity, the consciousness, are part of All-That-Is, which is a dimension in itself, encompassing and interacting with all other dimensions. You, in your physical form are an expression of one aspect of the spiritual entity that is really you and which is not 'inside' your body, yet is manifest there. You, as you are now, don't come from anywhere, any specific location, but are a composite being of many expressions of the consciousness that is you, or rather, your whole self." What SHET says here is that one's consciousness is not some kind of nebulous quantitative entity attached to the body in some mysterious fashion, but the manifestation of a specific organization of the general lawfulness.

It is possible to transcend the desire to be special or the need to be different, and instead of being stuck in a specific identity, it is possible to experience a multi-dimensional existence, wherein one experiences more than just his physical focus in the body. Needless to say, the multi-dimensional experience is far more enriching than being my name, my body, or even being a Martian. **"When you can live with the idea of many universes, many parallel events, a willingness to allow change without a feeling of loss and emotional distress, when identity becomes less important to you, then you can enrich yourselves by the additional use of other 'perceptions.' Indeed, this is the main reason you think you need an identity, a belonging. The stage of identity is an intermediary stage, one rung in the evolution of consciousness... The more a consciousness develops, the less it needs to be fixed, the less it needs labels."** This is why understanding the braided loop is so important. It is the key to understanding, and through that experience one has access to a much wider reality than otherwise thought possible.

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Since consciousness is a qualitative essence, there can never have been a definite number of souls.

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Chapter 63: The Soul-Body Duality — or is it?

An individual is a specific focus of Consciousness. The Source dimension focused and expressed in a certain mode is the specific individual: you for instance. **"Your consciousness, human consciousness, is not something separate from the rest of the world, as your body seems to be. Consciousness focused in a body is your selfhood.** (A consciousness focused in a body would be a specific viewpoint perceiving and experiencing life through his or her unique way of relating.) **Like a focused field acts as a particle, Consciousness can be focused through different expressions, which would be different bodies (identities) both in space and time. This means that consciousness, being of a qualitative nature, is not in time, and thus, for consciousness, for your whole self, all times are synchronous, or better expressed, a-temporal. Consequently, from the point of view of your consciousness, your different incarnations are different focuses in time. Likewise, your different incarnations also have different focuses in space, which means, different bodies co-existing. Consciousness is that additional dimension, which connects entities that are separate in your three-dimensional world."**

SHET relates to spirit and matter as two sides of the same wholeness. Consciousness with the capital C, the isomorphous lawfulness of the process of definition defining itself, can gain expression as a specific lawfulness (matter) or as a special viewpoint (your consciousness with a unique set of relations defining your _youness_ , part of which is your physical expression, your body). As an analogy, imagine a half circle (Figure 11). If you view it from the inner side of the circle, it is concave, which we'll call the consciousness' viewpoint, the process of definition. The same half-circle viewed from the other side is convex, which we'll call matter or significance. Consequently, a body could be said to be the expression of consciousness. Expression, in Latin _ex premere_ , literally means to press out of (just as emotion is _ex movere_ ). **"In the dimension of quality, you are all one. The body is an expression of difference, your bodies being the expressions of your consciousness. Under normal conditions, there is a sense of this oneness in each of you that is sometimes expressed as compassion. However, each of you manifest in different ways, as separate beings, so you are indeed separate, at least, as your physical expressions."**

The isomorphous nature of consciousness, the underlying unity of all existence, is structure, whereas each manifestation (in body or a personality) or focus of that consciousness is a unique individual, a specific significance. This underlying sameness could then be regarded both as oneness (from a structural point of view of logic) and also as multiplicity (from the point of view of significance, which defines objects as this is "this" and this is "that").

"The multilateral awareness of a consciousness is a wider form of expression, able to create different qualities of energy flow. Life being such a flow doesn't pin it down to space — not all energy is space oriented. Within a wider scope, living and dying bring about a picture of multiple existence. When a sun dies, it is born somewhere else. And while it is alive, it still fluctuates into other existences — thus having double, triple or infinite continuity. From here your universe looks like a kaleidoscope, any rotation of a moment taking billions of your years. It is of immense beauty, vibration within vibration of lives striking tones of colorful resonance." Just as energy "condensed" is matter (an indication to that effect is Einstein's formulation of energy and mass being equivalent), Consciousness, the spirit solidified is matter. "Parts of All-That-Is have solidified into matter and parts of it have remained distinct consciousness focusing on matter." That's us, of course, focused on and through a body, whereas the material part of the body is also condensed, solidified spirit.

"Every life is energy within a greater energy within a greater energy, as far as consciousness reaches... Energy flow is actually its existence. Energy is a flow — solidified or rather condensed, it is matter. It is consciousness transmitting its awareness of its own existence in its simplest form, and its awareness of other existences in other, more complicated forms. It is an expression, energy in its purest form. The border of qualitative expression, when it turns into quanta, is where matter begins. The recognition of this dual expression gave rise to the dualistic concepts of matter and idea, body and soul, and so on.

" **Your body is not something different, the opposite of spirit. It is a degree of your spirit. The flesh is spirit manifest."** Think of flesh, matter, particles or waves as certain organizations of relations (definitions), and of organisms as the regularizing mechanism of their own interacting relations (dynamic definitions). Think of space as the structure of the distribution of the organization of relations (matter), and of time as change in how these inter-relate. These organized stabilizations can be grasped as condensed, manifest spirit. **"It** (the body, the flesh) **is not — as you have thought — a house or a prison where you live. Your conscious self, the wake, the communicating one, the thinking one with all your beliefs and ideas, is the peak, and in a way the result of your body. Yet your body is a denser manifestation of your whole self, of the gestalt consciousness, which is your whole self. As cells in your body do their jobs without knowing about your transcendental ideas, so is the focusing consciousness (the real you) in your body only a part of the whole self, which is mostly in other dimensions. You can connect to your whole self through dreams and altered states of consciousness (and you do so daily), not as two communicating partners, but as one part would experience the whole self's experiences."**

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Matter is the realization of spirit.

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SHET does not relate to body and soul in a dualistic fashion, as if these were two different essences. He sees matter and body as condensed spirit, a mode of the spirit, as opposed to the materialistic view, which tries to explain the spirit or consciousness in biophysical terms. Once SHET was asked this question directly:

Q: "Can the spirit and consciousness be explained in terms of biology?"

A: "No. But biology can be explained in terms of the spirit and consciousness. It is the consciousness that creates, which has abilities to create, whereas biological processes are the means perpetuating the expression of consciousness, which is the body. Consciousness is the God-part in you, the One, and it can be expressed as multiplicity, as the quantitative world. Thus biology is the organized expression of consciousness, the open system both subject to the laws of physics and also activated by freedom of choice. Freedom of choice is, of course, the property of consciousness... There is no dualistic world... Matter is condensed spirit. Gradual condensation brings spirit into a material form, which you perceive as solids."

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A wider awareness can knowingly experience other states of consciousness and perceive other constellations of relations, other focuses than what we are used to in our daily lives. Oneness gains expression in multiplicity by having many focuses.

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Chapter 64: How to Create

Consciousness is indefinite; however focused, it becomes defined with relations of sameness and difference **—** it becomes an individual, a personality.

SHET

Once SHET reproached us for not challenging him on a seeming inconsistency. He said that consciousness is one of the qualitative dimensions, which are a-temporal. He also said that our consciousness is supposed to develop. Development is change, and change is supposed to take place in time. How then can something _develop_ in an a-temporal environment? SHET volunteered the question and also answered it:

"Creativity in general is the heat of life, the only plausible explanation of development in a no-time universe. Creativity is the dynamic within the a-temporal, the enriching multiplicity. (Remember that evolution in time and multiplicity are interchangeable — they could be different ways of defining the same process.)

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Development means creativity in the a-temporal dimensions.

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"You could ask yourself, Why do some schools of thought hold that consciousness was once higher than now? Why is it that you were reduced to a state from which you now have to rehabilitate yourselves back to integrity, to what you once were? Such schools are those of restoration — including concepts such as the fallen angel, the prison planet theory and so on. Yet other schools hold that you gradually develop from a state of nothingness, of low awareness, towards a state of higher awareness. Who is right? (Notice SHET's wording: the first school holds that _consciousness_ was higher than now, that is, the potential was all there, whereas the second school emphasizes that _awareness_ is developing, which would mean that the expression, the activity of consciousness expands.)

"What did really happen in the annals of the history of consciousness? Would it be confusing if I said that both schools were right? They both agree that you are developing now — more or less — but they differ in explaining what happened before that.

"If you take a step back and look at this process from a different dimension's viewpoint, from the viewpoint of no-time, then you see that you are both highly conscious and aware and also developing towards that same goal. Your sources are in the future, if you wish to put it that way. In temporal terminology, this would be going towards something that has already happened. (The retromorphous looking.) But since you look at events within the limits of a linear time-concept, you either explain the high awareness as past OR future. It is no more complicated than that."

This is the loop again. Development of our consciousness is that activity that actually creates our consciousness, that creates the potential that can develop. The creativity of the consciousness is its development, which retromorphously defines and redefines its potential, interacting with itself and other viewpoints, redefining its potential from its newly enriched states time and time again. It boils down to the conclusion that what really matters is what we do now, every moment: from the middle of Creation we activate the start of Creation. From the point where we are now, we create the whole world and ourselves each and every moment. Consequently, if we don't like circumstances, we ought to do something about them, starting with thinking differently.

We can change the dis-ease of the world. That change, however, does not have to come through destruction of physical aspects such as by wars, epidemics, earthquakes, etc. SHET explains that the Messianic Era is change through quality, through thinking and defining differently. Thinking with the loop is the destruction of the old axiomatic linear paradigm, not of the physical world. It brings about a new outlook, new technologies, new education, moral social conduct, and thus, a new world. Think about that when you hear prophecies of doom and gloom.

The spiritual awakening of our era raises the general level of consciousness in individuals, even if that is not apparent in each specific case. Your neighbor may not seem to be blessed with a great amount of joy and liveliness — he may not seem very spiritual. However, people are processes and so that may come later. **"There is an increase of consciousness in general because of the particular increase in many individuals. And since, at another level, all consciousness is one in the quality dimensions, this influences all individuals."**

"Your psyche, consciousness, is a spark of the divine Consciousness, part of the divine. The created part is the isolated aspect, which means that, although the part (being of a qualitative nature) includes the totality (like a seed that has the whole tree in it), it is still separate from the whole in as much as it sees, is aware of, part of reality only. Thus increasing awareness brings you to see more and more of reality, which means that it enriches your consciousness, which means that it makes you more connected — connected to more parts of the whole."

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By being connected to quality, by being more joyous, by thinking and acting differently, we can enrich less fortunate others with more liveliness. We are connected to quality when we see others as parts of the same organism that we are part of. And when we are the totality, then others are our extension.

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However, a certain balance is needed between the qualitative and quantitative aspects within us to live a full, good life. "It is correct that you are both quality and quantity. But you certainly take, receive, accept, strive for energy or quality from the world of potentials. That is your source. That is the incentive, the teleological cause for your aspirations, and that's great. But at the same time, you should appreciate, understand and cherish the quantitative, the physical world. It is the fun part of Creation, the box, the microscope, the telescope through which you can acquire your subjective viewpoint, which necessarily is a combination of the qualitative and the quantitative."

We said that the consciousness focused through a body is the self that creates by focusing. How does the consciousness focus? How can one be the focusing consciousness instead of being the passively focused being, bothered and victimized by external circumstances? By seeing others — be it people or animals — as parts of the same organism of which one is a part. Of course, this is applying the isomorphic lawfulness existing in the qualitative structure of our existence to living in the quantitative physical world. God, the isomorphic lawfulness, created the physical universe, so this focus, this orientation, is physical from our point of view. We can do the opposite, create the spiritual aspects within us, that is actively focus on and be oriented toward the qualitative direction (create God, if you wish), and thereby become a self-perpetuating cosmic ecology instead of just trying to survive. As SHET has recommended, **"Look around and see things as part of you. This is a very good exercise that will make you feel love, universal love welling up and engulfing you."** I strongly counsel doing this exercise — it does wonders.

The more we exercise taking the viewpoint of the consciousness, not the self, not the identity, but the wider, more indefinite consciousness, the more profound and intense becomes whatever we experience in that widened state of being. By curiosity, by not being continuously self-conscious, by unknowing our separate selves, by directly experiencing the physical world, we intensify our ability to experience. This widened consciousness is not achieved by only acquiring experiences through meditation, which is withdrawing from the quantitative world, but by also relating to others, participating in life in the most trivial sense.

The more narrowly focused the consciousness is, the less space of action the person has, and hence, the more stuck he is. When one is stuck on the idea that he is only a body, or even a spirit seen as a well defined quantitative individual that keeps reincarnating, and nothing beyond that, then that person is quite dense and does not easily experience altered states of consciousness. 'Altered states of consciousness' does not infer experiencing weird stories of coming from the Andromeda galaxy or having been Jesus, Moses or Rhamses in a past life, but being in touch with the mechanics of the loop and having the ability to apply it to daily life.

When acting from and with the physical dimensions, then one acts almost solely within the causal and statistical laws. The same applies to individuals who believe themselves to be spiritual, but relate to the spirit as a significance, a "what," a something that can be defined and quantified. (Like the hierarchy of spirits or entities believed to be categorized according to rungs or levels reminiscent of Aristotle's classification of the heavenly spheres revolving around the earth.) However, when one can act from the space of the logical structure, then he can utilize the qualitative lawfulness of the loop. Necessarily, the latter is a less dense state, able to fix and unfix relations, to review and redefine situations, and consequently, it is more fluid, more flexible. It endows the person with freedom of choice. It is very consequential whether individuals focus from being identified with their separate bodies and have short-sighted solutions to their immediate problems, destroying their environment in the process, or if they focus from a position of response-ability, from being the consciousness, oneness, seeing others as parts of the same organism of which they are part and towards whom they are responsible. This is evolution in the a-temporal creating co-existence in multiplicity.li

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Instead of relating to solid physical reality as the source and creator of our circumstances, we can redirect our focus to relate to solid physical reality as a mode of expression, a manifestation of consciousness. When our focus is thusly redirected, we can collapse another solid physical reality if the one we had experienced is not ideal.

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Chapter 65: Who Drives the Coachman?

"Consciousness is a state of being, a qualitative state of being that comes about by a conglomerate of relations, which then directs the awareness. The consciousness gains being by the functioning of awareness and directs the awareness to create itself. The loop again." SHET's first sentence is a loop, stating that awareness (the act of relating, or a conglomerate of relations) directs itself by first constituting consciousness and then referring back to itself. This is the retromorphous creation and perpetuation of awareness. The second sentence is a different loop from a different point of view that is braided with the first loop, starting with the consciousness that directs the awareness to retromorphously create itself. Are these two sentences stating the same process? Yes and no. Yes, because the process is the same retromorphous process, and no, because it is seen from two different viewpoints with different manifestations: one is the awareness and the other the consciousness. These evolve in different directions, creating a rich braiding of possibilities that can unfold the physical world.

What directs the consciousness to change focus? How to focus? Who or what can focus? Once SHET said, **"Awareness is doing the job of directing the Consciousness where to focus."** Whereas at another time he said, **"The consciousness... directs the awareness."** From a superficial point of view, this seems a contradiction. Consciousness and awareness, although non-identical, are interrelated. In God's case, the attempt to become aware of himself, the dynamic of awareness is what brings about the state of being of the super Consciousness. Here awareness directs the Consciousness. That's the viewpoint of totality from our point of view. When God focuses and thereby gains a contracted viewpoint, like you for instance, that focused consciousness is supposed to direct its awareness (that is, direct its attention), direct its relations to create a reality that would be desirable for that consciousness. Now consciousness directs the awareness. Of course, this is connected to freedom of choice. On the one hand then, the total viewpoint is different from the partial viewpoint. On the other hand, there is the non-linear feedback between consciousness and awareness wherein the activity of the latter defines consciousness and the focus of consciousness directs the awareness. We cannot say it starts with either consciousness or awareness — it is a loop.

Consciousness without the awareness is non-definite. Nevertheless, awareness is creating Viewpoint 2. Consciousness is the Source, but an empty source without the definitions given by awareness. So it is the awareness that enables consciousness to give a direction. At this point, we need to go deeper into the dynamics of awareness, the Communication dimension.

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Consciousness and awareness are retromorphously inter-referential, creating and evolving each other within the loop of Creation.

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Think-tank material

***** How can consciousness both be the self-same lawfulness of Creation and also a composite of different relations (like matter — only fixed relations — or a sentient being that both fixes and unfixes relations to sub-structures)?

* What is the difference between consciousness and awareness?

* What is the difference between the Quality dimension (א — ALEPH) and the Source dimension (מ — MEM)?

* What is the difference between structure and significance?

* Can God evolve? How?

PART 6: DIMENSIONS III

The purpose is to enable you humans to become creators and have fun. That is why you learn, to become able to really connect to the source and thus, to the ability to love, which is to be one with. And you ought to learn the universal lawfulness so that you can be aligned with the Creator and Creation alike, and be true to your true nature, being made of love literally, every molecule of you.

SHET
Chapter 66: The ת (TAV) Communication Dimension (TIKSHORET — תקשורת) Awareness

TAV **—** ת is the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet and of EMET (אמת — truth). SHET calls it the Communication dimension, in Hebrew TIKSHORET ((תקשורת, which is the dynamic aspect of the three qualitative dimensions. TIKSHORET (תקשורת) is responsible for the **"interchange, the communication between dimensions; it is a dimension since in each of its aspects it changes the overall picture of the seven dimensions."** That means, the nature of relations defines the nature of the relating subject. Consequently, any object (or subject as the case may be) is a pattern constituted by its relations.

Clara from the left: "You say that relations are communication. I could go along with that, since being aware is relating. I get my information by being aware. For example, I see the little pewter dragon figurine on my table and am aware of it, and thereby I get my information about the pewter dragon. But why call it a dimension?"

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Relations are the substance of Creation, the essence of change or durability.

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Clara from the right: "Let me quote SHET: 'There is a gradual unfolding of observable phenomena from non-being to being. The seven dimensions are, more or less, an arbitrary demarcation, the fragmentation of a whole for better understanding. Actually, every dimension is commensurate and contains all of the other six.' You see?"

Clara from the left: "No."

Clara from the right: "Why is consciousness a dimension? It's the isomorphous lawfulness. The Communication dimension is the lawfulness of the creative complexity, or in SHET's words, **'It is a dimension in itself because it allows the creation of a non-linear, a-causal feedback system.'** Do you understand now?"

Clara from the left: "No."

Clara from the right: "Every dimension for SHET is a kind of lawfulness, each being part of the other lawfulness (the other dimensions), all of them together being Creation, something from nothing. Each dimension is part of the logical structure. All right?"

Clara from the left: "So besides being the relations, what does this Communication dimension do?"

Clara from the right: "Most importantly, the Communication dimension is responsible for the unfoldment of the qualitative dimensions into the quantitative world. And vice versa: by the Communication dimension we can be connected to our qualitative source. By stating that we create our reality by the _looking,_ more is meant than our mere attitude or which side of the coin we see."

Clara from the left: "What exactly is meant?"

Clara from the right: "The looking, being aware, is the _act_ of definition."

Clara from the left: "Splendid. So what?"

Clara from the right: "The act of definition gives meaning. When something has meaning, then that's a testimony that there is perception. And when there is perception, that's a testimony that there is a perceiver and the perceived — the act of perception brings about the existence of the perceiver and the perceived."

Clara from the left: "How so? Aren't you jumping to conclusions?"

Clara from the right: "When you become aware of something, you perceive it, you relate to it. This 'it' then gains meaning because, by relating to it, you define what this 'it' is. When you become aware of a tree, by tacitly defining it for yourself ('this is a tree'), you have given the tree meaning."

Clara from the left: "And why does this process of becoming aware of a tree bring about the existence of the perceiver? The perceiver, in this case 'I,' must have been there in the first place to perceive."

Clara from the right: "But until you perceived, you as yourself had no meaning. Unless you relate, you are not — there is no you."

Clara from the left: "I disagree. I experience, therefore I exist, not because I perceive."

Clara from the right: "Can you define 'I experience'?"

Clara from the left: "Yes. I try to perceive the indefinite."

Clara from the right: "Not bad. Nevertheless, no matter how much you define an experience **—** whatever experience **—** that definition will never be the experience itself, only its description. Do you know why?"

Clara from the left: "You tell me."

Clara from the right: "Think, when you try to capture an experience in a description, you are actually defining your attempt at externalizing (defining) the indefinite. The experience is continuous whereas its description, the definition is discrete. Just as you can never define wholeness, you can never define experience. Any description, any definition, is by nature discrete, whereas the net experience is continuous. So when you have an experience or perception and you become aware of having that experience, then you give it meaning by defining what it is. By doing this you create a discrete replica of the experience, yet the experience remains continuous and non-definable, non-discretizable."

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Defining is to give meaning to the indefinable.

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Clara from the left: "Paradox?"

Clara from the right: "Of course. If an experience is continuous, indefinite, then it has no meaning. To have meaning, it has to be defined, discretized, in which case it gains meaning but it is no longer the experience but its description."

Clara from the left: "But the perception of the description itself is an experience!"

Clara from the right: "Which experience has no meaning unless defined, etc. _ad nauseum_."

Clara from the left: "That's all hunky-dory, but saying that experience is continuous is a slogan." (Then with a malicious smile) "Prove it!"

Clara from the right: "What does continuous mean?"

Clara from the left: "It means that you cannot find a smallest measure or instance of it because there always must be a smaller measure. That is, zooming in on it will never take you to its smallest definable part of which it consists."

Clara from the right: "Which means that you can never define its smallest constituent part and state that this or that is its smallest constituent part."

Clara from the left: "Right. But — and this is a big but — I can decide at any point that I have zoomed in enough, and consequently, that I have reached the limit of the continuous. Pay attention here: I didn't say that I _really_ reach the continuous and define it, but rather, at this point where I decide that I have zoomed in sufficiently, I am only using my decision as a tool. I can give the continuous meaning, _kind_ of define it, although in reality, I leave it indefinite. This is known quite well, so I don't understand what this has to do with proving that experience is continuous."

Clara from the right: "You are speaking about the continuous in terms of an entity, a something that has a continuous significance. You have described how to define a quasi-continuous _still_ , a mathematical object. I am speaking of something entirely different. I am discussing 'continuous' in terms of the loop."

Clara from the left: "Now that you bring in the big words _continuous_ and _loop_ you think everything is explained. Cuckoo!!"

Clara from the right: "The act of defining is the tool by which you achieve a target, which is meaning, a defined entity that has meaning. The meaning is significance, whereas the tool, the act of defining, is structure. When I refer to the continuous, I mean structure, I mean _the process of defining is continuous_ , and _not_ the defined object (the significance). Since experience is a process, the process of attempting to define the indefinite, experience is structure, not significance. However, when you describe it, you create a discrete replica of the continuous process. You turn structure into a significance that has meaning, and then, it is no longer experience but its description."

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Experience itself is continuous, whereas its description is discrete. Experiencing the experience is continuous — it is the process of becoming aware.

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Consider how SHET discusses this: "Creation occurs at the limit between the continuous and the discrete. Any description, any definition, any parameter has a discrete nature, whereas what it describes is continuous. Hence, any description or parameterization is only an approximation of what it describes or parameterizes." Experience is creation because it fails to define the indefinite, but it internalizes it. Experience inter-acts with the indefinite and is influenced by it. Experience creates the self. Your experiences create your structure, create you.

Clara from the left: "Is experience your self-definition?"

Clara from the right: "Not at all. Experience is your consciousness, the personalized process of definition that attempts to define the indefinite, but instead of a definition (significance) you interact with the indefinite."

Clara from the left: "What is the difference between consciousness and experience?"

Clara from the right: "Consciousness, the structure, the process of definition, can either succeed to define or fail. When it fails, it is experience."

SHET says, "Through experiencing you can achieve the knowledge of your 'nature,' the very special quality that is you." Here knowledge should be taken in the Biblical sense, the way Adam knew Eve: to become one with. He continues, "This is because experience is an indefinite quality — you could say the aliveness of every living creature that becomes special (only yours) because you capture it and become aware of having it. You cannot experience from a defined state. A defined state precisely defines the borders of your relating, and experience is something beyond that, something that was not defined within your self-definition. It is new to what you are. It impacts and changes you (of course, this change can be very little or tremendous), and then, a whole long succession of experiences during a lifetime create change upon change upon change. These changes, infinitesimal as they might be, add up to your specific signature, something that is only you, your ' _youness'_ — their structure is your inner nature. Your _youness_ does not come from labeling yourself, but rather, it comes from experiencing, being alive."

Clara from the left: "Why is a failure to define the indefinite a person's structure?"

Clara from the right: "Experience, aliveness, is connected to learning. The person encounters something new. How do you know that something is new? Because it is inconsistent with your system. So when you interact with it, you have to integrate it, to assimilate it into your system. If you met something that was not new to the system, then your system would recognize it as part of itself. When that recognition does not occur, the system is interacting with something new. That is the impact. The system adjusts to include the new **—** that is the change. Do not forget, we are dynamic ever-changing entities. If you don't believe me, just look into the mirror."

Clara from the left: "What if the system cannot integrate what it encounters?"

Clara from the right: "Then it disintegrates. Simple as that. Some extreme experiences do just that."

We can easily pinpoint changes made in our lives following some impressive experience. I met someone who had a heart attack and died, had an out of body experience, and was brought back to life. Before the heart attack, he used to freak out because his wife was always late. He could not grasp why they always had to arrive to the theater, to the movie, everywhere, five minutes late. He was terribly upset because he could not be as correct as he would have liked to be. I met him after his heart attack. He told me his experience changed him, that he couldn't care less whether he arrived five minutes late to the movie or missed it altogether.

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One's selfhood is the path of changes following one's experiences.

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"I enjoyed the clouds while my wife was driving," he said. "There was one that looked like God almost touching a monkey's finger. Looked like this fresco by what's-his-name. I was wondering whether they would ever touch. They kept coming closer. And then, when finally they did touch, it was no longer God and this monkey but looked like two rams fighting."

People go to workshops to experience, and they often leave the workshop changed. However, these changes rarely last because habit and the familiar re-condition them into the rut of old patterns. Still they go to the next workshop to quell their hunger for experience and to learn something new. A good teacher awakens the student to understand, to create solutions instead of feeding him with these temporary changes. Then the student knows from within.

Think about art — great literature, poetry, music, the Mona Lisa. What makes it great? The right amount of indefinite with which the viewer can interact. While trying to define it, the viewer co-creates the work of art. Most modern art and entertainment either errs on the side of too little definition, which makes the work of art too abstract and hence hard to connect to, or too much definition, and the viewer is served everything within the work as if on a platter. The latter does not provide "new" experience — it does not impact the viewer for its shallowness. At most, this kind of art is pleasant background noise.

Every age had its rituals and mysteries, their shamans and priests responsible for supplying the means by which people could participate in the indefinite, and consequently, experience. Look at history! Look at the evolution of human civilization. In an attempt to control Nature and make life easier, and in order to satisfy curiosity, we developed rigorous tools to define and classify observations. We developed science and technology that make life easier, healthier and longer. Then why are there so many unhappy people? Precisely because these definitions come at the expense of experiencing. As a result, we need more and more stimulus to balance excessive self and other definitions.

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Participating in the indefinite, failing to discretize the continuous is the source of creating ourselves.

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Look at the tendency toward religious extremism **—** be it Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Or the New-Agers running from one creed to the next. These do not provide science, but simple, often shallow theories of how things are and rules of conduct. Mostly they offer promises that remain in the domain of the indefinite, whether it is a promise for the afterlife; or power, control and knowledge for this life; or that suffering will cease for the pious. When people seek meaning for their lives, they want experience spiced with some kind of truth.

Love is experience _per se_ , a state of being, of knowing from within, being one with. That is how a mother knows when her child is hurt miles away. When the borders that divide one from another become blurred, then the other in you truly gains meaning _as the other in you_. When it no longer is clearly demarcated where you end and the other begins, the sharp borders become vague and experiencing the other becomes possible. Anyway, the sharp borders were your perception, your definition, your externalization. **"Life is that kind of dance wherein you influence your environment and your environment influences you, so your actual existence happens not as any specific point but 'in' the process. Look at life, at things, and people as processes, and be comfortable with unknowing to define them."** Relating to objects as averages and to people and situations as processes enhances tolerance to the indefinite aspect of the perceived and allows participation, experience. This is a much wider scope of action for the consciousness than mere defining.

Clara from the left: "I buy that the indefinite is continuous. Since it has not been defined, no parameters were applied to it, so it was not discretized. But on what ground do you claim that the process of definition is continuous? If I define it so that this process of definition gains meaning, then it becomes significance! And then, it is discrete!!!"

Clara from the right: "Don't shout, it doesn't make your arguments more solid. The process of definition becomes a discrete significance only if you compare it to another process, only in light of relations of difference. The fact that you can perceive, that one experience you have (i.e., tooth extraction) is different from another experience (i.e., orgasm) is due to relations of difference that allow the emergence of meaning. The undefined continuous nature of experience gives meaning to the discrete notions of what has been experienced. However, within their own context, the process of definition as well as experience is continuous and indefinite. The reason for this is self-reference — any self-reference is of this nature."

Clara from the left: "What do you mean?"

Clara from the right: "Experiencing that you experience is what defines you, which is a self-referential process of definition necessarily failing to define itself. Experience is isomorphous to the self-referential process of definition, and hence, continuous."

Clara from the left: "You are saying then that the isomorphous logical structure is self-referential and continuous. And you claim that this structure is the substratum of all existence and meaning. Right?"

Clara from the right: "Correct. Do you remember, you asked me a long time ago, and I quote, 'What are you really trying to say? That the tools that arise from the indefinite continuous oneness are discrete? If nothing can be defined with precise sharpness, if the creative indefinite substratum can never be totally and precisely defined since this creative substratum is continuous, then how come your tools are discrete? Where do they come from?'"

Clara from the left: "No, but it sounds smart, so I must have asked it."

Clara from the right: "Whatever is defined cannot be totally discrete. First, anything defined can only be an average. And second, do you remember the uncertainty of sameness, which implies that you can never define anything with finite certainty **—** there will always remain something indefinite within the defined object? (We always use a finite number of parameters with which to define, and there could always be an additional parameter that could have made the defined object different or more precisely defined.) Once defined, the object of definition includes in itself the indefinite due to the uncertainty of sameness. On the other hand, if something is not defined, then it is indefinite, which means, it could be continuous or discrete — you can't ever know unless you define it (in which case it will neither be totally discrete nor totally indefinite)."

Clara from the left: "You are the most irritating, confusing, annoying, infuriating wormbrain I've ever seen. What are you trying to say?"

Clara from the right: "That anything that has meaning has to be defined, which places it somewhere on the scale between the continuous and the discrete, between the indefinite and the definite. The indefinite, continuous, infinite tends in the direction of the meaningless, whereas the meaningful is at best imprecise."

Clara from the left: "But you said that the continuous gains meaning by being defined in terms of the loop. Where is the loop?"

Clara from the right: "By defining the process that defines the continuous, you empower the continuous with meaning, which in turn gives meaning to the process of definition to be continuous. For the process of definition to have meaning, it has to be defined, which is a self-referential quasi-infinite and continuous process. This process can only have meaning if the continuous has meaning, which has to be defined to have meaning, etc., etc."

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If the process of definition is defined, then the defined object can both have meaning and also include the indefinite explicitly.

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Clara from the left: "Is the loop structure or significance?"

Clara from the right: "An open system, such as a linear system with infinite regression, is a multiplicity of significances. A system that closes in a loop, wherein the 'end' changes the 'beginning,' is structure. The loop is first and foremost structure, but to have meaning as structure, it must necessarily have realizations, which are significance and which give meaning to the structure. So the structure is a loop in itself, and then, structure and significance constitute a loop whereby they mutually grant meaning to each other."

Clara from the left: "I am still not satisfied with the proof that experience is continuous."

Clara from the right: "You must be aware of experiencing something — whatever it might be that you experience — otherwise the experience is nothing, non-existent. Your _knowledge_ of the experience makes it exist for you. We could say, you only experience when you are aware of experiencing. Any experience is a specific instance of experiencing, and therefore, rather discrete. However, experiencing as such, the awareness of having experiences, is continuous because this awareness is not external to the experience but experience _per se_. How do you know that you are aware of experiencing something? By experiencing it, you experience the awareness of experiencing. In this sense, experience and awareness of the experience, experiencing the awareness of the experience, being aware of experiencing the awareness of the experience, etc. is an infinitely continuous chain, which is what defines what experience is (not the interpretation of a specific experience, but experience in its general sense). _And that's the definition of experience: an infinite loop of the process of becoming aware_ _._ This process is the Communication dimension."

At a time when SHET talked about himself, he said, "Being aware is being indefinite and definite, being the dynamic process of awareness, the ever-continuing definitions — Creation. This paradox is my dynamic essence." This dynamic essence, the process of awareness, belongs to the Communication dimension. "I have mentioned the Source dimension as one of the seven dimensions. This is the dimension that sides with the consciousness of the observer, whereas the Communication dimension describes the equation between the consciousness (the source, which is both the observer and the observed) unfolding into the more physical dimensions." The equation then is the dynamic between the consciousness and itself, relations of sameness and difference occurring between the different aspects of consciousness. Remember that the different aspects of consciousness (still isomorphous) are the results of relations and consciousness becomes as such only when it can relate. The Communication dimension then consists of relations that give meaning to consciousness. "TAV (ת) is the viewpoint, the dimension of relations _per se_ , of all relations, not only retromorphous relations: relations of sameness, difference, all communication, causal, awareness, etc."

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Communication, or relating, is the dynamic fundament of any and all existence. It brings forth and stabilizes the structural integrity of any ISness by creating its own potential to be and the viewpoint from which it can create its potential. Thus relating, the TAV (ת) could be said to be responsible for both the MEM (מ), the Source and its own potential, the ALEPH (א), Quality.

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Despite its qualitative nature, the Communication dimension is the transition to the quantitative aspect of existence, and as such, it can be measured in quantity. TAV — ת is energy, which means, ability to do work. "The TAV (ת) is the energy, the interactive force that can fit and penetrate everything, transferring and allowing communication between the different systems. Why TAV (ת)? Because to turn it all into a working mechanism, you need the energy, the calories, you need motion and that allows it." Of course, this has far reaching consequences if you take into consideration that your awareness is your energy. SHET has given us the tools to enhance awareness and increase energy, tools for using the Communication dimension to transform reality. Since much of our troubles come from an undesired massive reality, the fixed states we try to overcome by investing more effort, more energy — which often results in having even more massive obstacles than before — the tools to turn this mass into energy will be most welcome. Then when we know how to handle and direct that energy, we can change our reality. Thus TIKSHORET (תקשורת) can both be utilized as life-giving energy and also as the means to make things more massive.

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The communication dimension, relating, is both energy and also awareness.

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Chapter 67: How can Your Attention be Utilized as Your Energy?

Open your horizons. Find quality in small things, not the big ones. A more spiritual orientation brings about observing the details that go by unseen when you look for the big things.

SHET

You become aware by focusing your attention on something. Before placing your attention on that something, it didn't exist for you. Now that you focused on it, you became aware of it and it exists for you. **"By observing you make things alive in your own universe."** And obversely, **"When you put less attention on something, it tends to disappear."** The question is: Can you control your attention? The ability to control your attention, to control where you focus your attention, endows you with the ability to create your environment. It furnishes you with energy to do work, study, finish projects, succeed in your endeavors when you can see both the whole picture and also the details, and in general, it enables you to react to situations with enough rationality to direct them toward your objectives. Is your life precisely what you wish it to be? If not, no matter the reason, you can still learn to control your attention, and thereby, learn to create.

Is your attention being controlled by external events when everything disturbs you, when the smallest rustling distracts you? If that is the case, then you certainly don't know how to handle energy. When instead of being directed by you, your attention is controlled by external events, then your energy too is controlled by external events. **"You people have bodies to learn how to handle energy. You waste it a lot, an expression of which can be the lack of cash flow as wished. People who have a high concentration level, who can control the flow of their attention, have more energy than others do. It's not that they have more energy — they simply know how to handle it better. So control it. You see, usually, when not working on it, awareness, or one's attention is guided, controlled by outside events: by emotions, unwanted emotions, the chattering of the mind, etc. However, when you work on it and develop your control, consciousness is the one directing the awareness, and that's as it should be. Then you flow with the universal energy, which therewith can flow through you and imbue you with its plenty. When you allow your attention to float like a boat without a rudder on high seas, you block the universe from being able to give to you."**

Individuals with easily dispersed attention often seem to act neurotically. They could be said to be unstable. They feel guilt-ridden, having too many unfinished tasks on their conscience. SHET said the following to such a person: **"You get into something, then something else comes up and you give that something else attention while you leave the first thing unattended and so on and so on. Too many loose ends. You seldom finish things before going on to the next thing, and yet you leave your attention on the unfinished projects or wishes. You don't even end them in your mind, so they keep you in a constant state of distraction, your concentration dispersed, and then you judge yourself on all those things you haven't done."** Instead of treating these individuals with antidepressants, tranquilizers, barbiturates or other goodies, instead of beating to death their childhood or past life traumas, it would suffice to teach them step by step how to control their attention and how to finish what they began. My next book will deal more with this subject, giving the necessary exercises to enhance one's quality of life in all areas.

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An inability to control one's attention may be regarded as "just another symptom," and consequently, treatment may be aimed at something else. Yet learning to control one's attention could cure many psychological disorders since attention is rooted in the core of Creation, being an aspect of the Communication dimension. Your energy is your ability to focus your attention where you wish.

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Perhaps, you keep playing the same record in your private chatterbox you call your brains, disabled by the automatic repetitions of babble you call your thoughts. Maybe your attention is stuck in past events, thinking that if you had only said this or that, then... whatever, or maybe you hold onto all those terrible things that were done to you. **"When your attention is trapped in past unfulfilled wills, you have less attention, less energy to carry on."** Although attention belongs to the Communication dimension, which is a qualitative aspect of Creation, in physical life it acts as a quantitative entity: when stuck, you are stuck. **"If you become more in control of your attention, you can learn to let go and thus become involved in the present rather than in the past."** For that to occur, however, you need to know how to control your attention.

Of course, you could be one of those who lack self-confidence, which is the result of being too self-conscious, which means your attention is stuck on yourself — the condition I named the "bubble syndrome" in Chapter 46. This may be the result of being afraid of critical attention. For instance, an artist asked SHET the following question:

Q: "When I am asked questions about my art in the presence of people, I have a block. I don't understand anything. How do I overcome that?"

A: "Be less self-conscious. But this is easy to advise. Right? What actually happens is that you get so frightened from attention that you curl up like an armadillo. Simply be interested, listen to the questions. The questioners don't intend harm, criticism, but true interest. If you listen, you forget yourself and then it is easy. Practice this by speaking to people. But mainly, stop being interested in yourself and be interested in what you are being asked. Getting attention is not necessarily hurting you." What SHET suggests is to turn one's attention outward instead of focusing it on the self. He calls that listening. "I call listening everything that has to do with putting your attention outside yourself." Listening can be achieved by being interested in the other instead of being interested in oneself.

" **Self confidence is the ability to not focus upon yourself, the ability to give others your full attention."** But since your attention is curved back on you, the external world goes unnoticed and you are either unaware or uninterested in others' predicaments or joys. Because your attention is trapped in the narrow circle described between you and you, there is not much left over for others. **"When you direct your attention on yourself, you don't direct it upon others. Then these others can't feel you care for them. To really experience — and this has been a great secret — you should experience others by being them, loving them, without expecting something miraculous to happen as a result of this act. The pure joy of being, existing, is the greatest miracle."**

How to love would be a relevant question here. When asked, SHET obliged: "The first thing in learning to love is to be Nothing, which means not being beautiful or ugly, happy or unhappy, not this and not that, just being and then seeing — seeing other life forms and listening to them. This means that all your attention is on them, not on yourself. You see them and become them as much as you can. You feel what they feel. You participate in their hopes, loves, whatever, and then it is only natural that you want to make them happy by giving them what they want because you are no longer separate from them. You are they, so you would do unto them what you would have done unto yourself — only it is their wish you fulfill. You are they when you want the same, and since you have gone through being Nothing, you can be anything and you are able to love anyone."

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Be the actor, not the act. When your whole world is you and only you, it is a small world and you are the act. When you are interested in others, when you can turn your attention outward, then you are the actor, and then you are the world, the big world.

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Being self-centered is often the result of a fear of criticism, of what-will-others-think-of-me. Wanting to be accepted and loved, one can become wary of not being accepted and loved. This vigilance is achieved by constantly searching for revealing signs and statements uttered by others to detect what they think of you. Such behavior may be misconceived as attentiveness, and yet what is the self-conscious person really interested in? In the other? No. He is interested in himself _through_ the other. That is still curving one's attention back on oneself, investing in looking good in the eyes of the other.

"It is not what you are that is supposed to attract attention and thereby satisfy you. You ought to reach gratification by being active, by acting, by enjoying doing the part. As long as your attention is on yourself instead of the joy of doing and acting, you draw critical attention back at you and you receive evaluations. When you enhance your self as the object, then it is you who is getting graded and judged, not the act. This is why you feel you are losing confidence in yourself. Enjoy the doing and you will see the difference. Stop dreaming of how you will be admired, and instead, revel in acting out the different parts, sense the feelings and emotions of the roles. That makes the whole difference."

This constant preoccupation with one's self prevents one from having experiences, real, enriching experiences. Affirmations of being good, or getting "gooder" by the day, is such a preoccupation that too often turns into self-criticism, intensifying the labels of what's wrong with oneself. When that's the main theme of one's existence, then what do you think this person experiences? **"Occupy yourself with experiencing things. Turn your attention outward rather than toward what you think to be your deficiencies."**

You may be unhappy because you don't have: you don't have money, you don't have youth, you don't have health, you don't have beauty, you don't have a sex-partner, you don't have parents, you don't have a job, and the list goes on and on. **"Look at you! You center your attention on what you miss and miss what you have. Life can pass you by and you won't notice that you forgot to live and experience."** As if this wasn't serious enough, the consequences of focusing on what we miss are even more morbid.

"About 99% of humans fear uncertainty and lack of stability. However, when you look at the lack, then that is what you increase since you create your own reality by focusing. By putting your attention on things, you make them real. So when you put your attention on a lack, you increase that lack. In order to feel stability — which is a feeling, an attitude, and not something objective — you ought to change your attitude. You are not confronting immediate life threatening problems. You are afraid of the future, afraid of how you will perform in the future. To solve this problem, think of uncertainty in a different way: try to learn to live with uncertainty. How? Through faith in the universe, in knowing you belong to the universe, faith in yourself. The wider your scope of activity becomes, the more uncertainties you will face. Learn to live with uncertainty and then you won't need to shrink the sphere of your activities and interests in order to entomb yourself in certainty. Expand, have faith, and then you can live with uncertainty and live well, feeling stable in spite of uncertainty. Know that you, the real you, can never be hurt, only the role, the possessions, the temporary part. That is indeed a leap into the spiritual realm. Faith. When you have faith, your attitude changes, and you won't view uncertainty as an unwelcome guest. When you have that attitude, then you will have freed attention to work with and expand into more stability in your everyday life, without pressure, without feeling that doom hangs over your head, which was placed there by your own self in the first place."

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Stability is due to control. Life is one big uncertainty, which you cannot control. What you can control is your attention, which when controlled can guarantee your stability even within uncertainty. This ensures that you can live well in uncertainty.

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Happiness could be a few blocks down the road, once you can control your attention and when you know where to direct it. If you are bored, uncreative, or you feel life is a drag because of all those things you have to do, **"put your attention on things that really interest you, and then you will be able to enjoy your life in full."** However, this is not always as simply done as said, because you may feel you have to do those things you don't enjoy and you have no choice. To overcome this platitude (which seems to you the coercion of facts), you may need to understand the Loop of Creation enough so you can change your attitude in those areas where indicated and thereby turn your environment into a more desirable scene. Even to learn the loop and to understand the philosophy of how things work, you need a certain span of attention and concentration, and a certain control of your energy. **"The main lesson to learn is to handle energy, which includes knowing where your attention is aimed at and controlling it. This teaches you to look and observe, to see others including their problems and desperation. This is exercising control over your energy."**

When you are familiar with the techniques of controlling your attention, you can become a virtuoso with abilities that may seem supernatural to those who don't know how to observe. Your memory and intelligence will improve as well as your creativity. First, however, you need to learn to focus. "Focusing is the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time (long defined as relative to you). It is putting attention on something, investing your energy as stated above. It is also paying attention to detail. When you can lock out the automatic mind chatter, then you can start splitting attention and focus on more than one thing at a time, thereby creating a kind of field, which is very creative in all respects. That's when you get insights, connect between things you have not connected before. Splitting your attention allows you to trigger things within an area in which you focus and then things happen. This focus allows you to see the nature of things as a process, the relations within a certain complex structure, and from there you can easily create changes by changing the dynamic aspect, the relations of the complex structure. Then the whole structure changes somewhat as seen from your point of view. Try to visualize this paragraph, even in meditation, until you get it. This is the result of the ability to focus, which of course starts, as I have stated, with a laser-like ability to center, locking out all other noise."

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Controlling the wanderings of one's attention is controlling awareness, which is the access code of consciousness. Through the ability to focus one's attention at will, it is possible to reach any zone of the loop of Creation since our attention is that aspect of the Communication dimension that is at our disposal to act with. Since relations are the most basic dynamic aspect of Creation constituting the Communication dimension, our attention is the most basic dynamic aspect of our creation.

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Chapter 68: What is the Meaning of Meaning?

Meaning as such, in its most abstract form, is a loop.

SHET

Communication, in its simplest sense, describes a process of delivering something. What is being delivered? Information. Yet if you received a whole lot of jumble in your e-mail, would that be information? What's the difference between random signs and information that makes sense? It is meaning, of course. So it would be correct to define communication as a transmission of something that has meaning for you. This sounds utterly trivial. Nevertheless, by getting deeper into the meaning of meaning we can discover the formidable structure of Creation.

When we inquire about the meaning of a word, we ask about its significance or definition. We find the word in the dictionary defined by other words that have meaning for us. Ask yourself, when and how does a concept gain meaning in general?

When you were a child you were shown a particular object and you were told that it is a cup. Then you saw a few other objects that looked different, and you were told that these too are cups. Still, how do you know that the next object is also a cup when it looks different? How did you give it meaning? The abstract idea, "cup," was conceived in your mind, and then no matter where you saw a cup, you knew it was a cup. This means that, when you are able to grasp the abstraction, then you can recognize objects belonging to that group without being familiar with all the specific manifestations of that abstraction. The recognition occurs independently of the setting, time, or the specific aspects of the object beyond its cupness (you can recognize a cup in the desert, although you were accustomed to seeing cups only in the kitchen). In this sense, meaning guides you in recognition.

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The abstraction of a perceived object is its logical structure, its meaning.

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Clara from the left: "What is abstraction?"

Clara from the right: "It is the logical structure of an object, which is a dynamic pattern that includes all possible realizations of that object. For instance, the abstraction 'cup' is that logical structure that includes all the possible realizations of what you would perceive as a 'cup.'"

Clara from the left: "You are saying that I perceive _realizations_ of logical structures — particular cups **—** and through them, in some mysterious way, I conclude their logical structure, which I keep somewhere in the hidden recesses of my subconscious. It must be very hidden, since I am not aware of the logical structure of cups."

Clara from the right: "Again, you are thinking in _stills_. The abstraction is not hidden anywhere. It is not engraved on any hard disk made of your brain cells. It does not even exist until triggered by your perception of an object that needed to be given meaning, in this case, the cup. Perceiving a cup means that you are defining it, which act is a process. This process stabilizes when the cup gains meaning for you. Stabilization, the creation of meaning, means that a dynamic pattern is being established, which is the abstraction, the logical structure. The perception of a specific cup you are viewing is a realization of this logical structure. The act of defining the cup to be what it is for you creates the logical structure that can accommodate all the possible realizations of this structure. Hence, the logical structure, the abstraction, is a dynamic pattern. So the next time you see a cup, you'll know it is a cup even though you have never seen this particular object before."

Since recognition occurs by the means of meaning, we must ask, what is this meaning? As a general statement, I could say that meaning consists of relations, the Communication dimension. A newborn baby has very good eyesight, and yet he sees nothing because his brain is not trained to give meaning to things. Slowly he learns to create different constellations of relations that form meaning in his mind, and consequently, his brain develops to encompass more and more such constellations by interacting with the previous ones perceived.

If you consider what a cup means to you, you will consider its size, the material it is made of, its form, etc. All these gain meaning only in comparison to similar but different characteristics. Hence, ceramic gains meaning by being different from feathers or liquid ammonia. Also, you would not consider drinking coffee from your TV set. When we regard any meaning, we can immediately discern that it relates to a pattern consisting of a set of relations, which could be function, form, and a thousand other relations.

Actually, the total definition of anything, the total definition of even the simplest subatomic particle, like an electron, would require an infinite number of parameters. This means that in order to absolutely define an electron we need the totality of all existing and all possible relations that constitute the loop, which is infinity. In other words, by pointing at an object and saying, "this is a cup," you would actually be stating sameness: the identified object is the same as a cup. As stated in Chapter 31, you need all the parameters in the world to establish sameness with certainty. Yet to create meaning or to recognize an object as belonging to a certain class contained in a specific meaning, a partial definition is sufficient. When you recognize something, be it a flower, animal, carpet or man, the recognition is instantaneous without considering and grouping an infinite number of parameters, which eventually settle into a pattern, identical to the one that has been observed. So there is an indivisible connection between meaning and pattern recognition. What then is pattern recognition?

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Meaning is the recognition of a pattern of relations that, generalized to an abstraction, can have different expressions. Pattern means both repetitiveness and similarity and also difference. However, there can be no pattern unless there is meaning.

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Perhaps, we should look at the word pattern, which hints implicitly at the existence of many similar objects. A totally unique constellation cannot be considered a pattern, only constellations that are repeated or a sample representing a group that may include similar constellations. In English, the word pattern evolved from the Latin _patronus_ , a father figure who served as a model to be emulated. In other languages too, pattern is a model, something to be imitated (at least in all Latin languages, German, Danish, Hungarian and Hebrew). Meaning is the recognition of an abstract generalized significance as a pattern, a group including similar concepts. In that sense, meaning occurs as a result of a repetitive pattern.

Looking at meaning as the recognition of a repetitive pattern is looking from a vantage of similarity. Let's regard it now in the context of relations of difference. If everything were the same, then nothing could gain meaning. Let's say that "before" there was any meaning, there were all kinds of meaningless relations, an amorphous flux, which we could call total randomness. That would also be Nothing, the same famous Nothing that is the potential of anything. Earlier I said that Nothing is relations of sameness, which would be no change, for necessarily, any change would be the _recognition_ of changing relations, which are relations of difference. However, without an anchor point to recognize relations of difference or patterns, an infinite amorphous flux could be considered Nothing. Nothing is total symmetry. Both the Nothing of the infinite amorphous flux (the total chaos of meaningless randomness) and also the Nothing of total relations of sameness and no change are symmetry. This is so because both Nothings are devoid of statistical tendencies, which could break the invariance.

As long as there is no meaning given to changing patterns, as long as there is no entity with a sense of self as different from the rest of existence to give meaning to changing patterns, we have Nothing. Both total sameness and total difference are the same Nothing, meaningless. For anything to be, both relations of sameness and difference are necessary. For something to be, there need to be meaningful relations that contain both Viewpoints 1 and 2. The Nothing of the infinite amorphous flux is the potential of anything retromorphously, when meaning is given, creating patterns of relations of difference. But that's not all the story.

So far, we have related to meaning as significance. However, there is another way to relate to meaning. In quality, meaning is not embedded in significance, but in logic. Logic can function like a language, so we could say the loop logic is a language. If you see an encrypted language or you hear old Greek, it might not make any sense to you. So if you are not familiar with a language, it has no meaning from your point of view. There could be languages that you cannot translate into your language because its constituents do not have a one-to-one rendition of those significances with which you are familiar.

However, in quality there is a language that grants meaning; nevertheless, that meaning is not significance. When SHET says, **"The changing relation, when meaningful, is structure. Looking creates a relation. Looking on the looking creates structure,"** he does not mean by "meaningful" that it has significance or importance, but that it is a structure. Of course, when we hear the word "structure" mentioned, we have our connotations of its significance. We are used to thinking with significance, but we have the ability to understand meaning as structure without symbolism. I believe that a great percentage of our brain is geared to this kind of meaning, only we have not yet developed our aptitude for discerning such structural meaning sufficiently.

Meaningful structures occur when the amorphous flux stabilizes into a pattern. This stabilization means that a specific instance, a specific realization, became meaningful as belonging, being the realization of this pattern. We could say that the occurrence of meaning is synonymous with the recognizability of this particular instance, which means that there is a stable pattern of which this particular instance is a part and an instance. So something gains meaning when a pattern stabilizes, and a pattern stabilizes when something gains meaning.

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Meaning and pattern are a loop.

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Clara from the left: "What is defined then? The stabilization of the amorphous flux, or the specific instance?"

Clara from the right: "Of course, a definition, any definition, is the achievement of significance. However, the process of definition, the fact that a definition is taking place, is structure. When you define significance, you create the structure within which that significance can gain meaning. So the act of defining stabilizes, and what it stabilizes into is the significance, the object of your definition."

The process of definition (meaningful structure) excludes the indefinite, and thereby creates the definite. However, because the definite is not entirely definite by virtue of including the indefinite, the renewed process of exclusion creates layers upon layers of the excluded indefinite (as well as layers upon layers of the definite that includes the indefinite). How something is being defined is structure. What is being defined is significance. The act of recognition is structure, however, the recognized cup, the cup that has meaning, is significance.

Therefore, different objects (significance) are different complexities of the definite that include the indefinite within the boundaries of their definitions. The process of definition is the same process, the same logical structure; however, the contents of definitions differ because each is a complexity consisting of different layers and ratios of the defined and the indefinite within the boundaries of the definition. And that's meaning as significance.

Clara from the left: "Although you believe you can think about meaning in abstract terms, simple creatures like myself who are living a mundane life, enjoying a good glass of wine, shopping and other sins, think with significance. How can a creature living in quantity understand meaning as structure in quality? Can he relate to it in any other way than by giving it meaning through significance? Further, if anything can only gain existence and meaning from being perceived (as you emphasized earlier), does that mean that, if there were no humans, then nothing would exist or have meaning?"

Since this line of reasoning is consistent, the question arises, was the world totally indefinite before there were humans, or even animals with some awareness to perceive (define) it? If no, if there were electrons and atoms and space and time, etc., then these are different manifestations, and they are there without anyone giving them meaning. If they are there without anyone giving them meaning, then the meaning is in them, and there is no need for an aware consciousness to grant them existence. Yet we said that the meaning is not in the thing just as value or goodness or badness is not in the thing. Then how was meaning born?

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There are two kinds of meaning: meaning that is significance, which is meaning in quantity, and meaning that is structure, which is meaning in quality. Meaning as structure need not have continuance of significance, only continuity in its logical evolution. Meaning in both connotations can only emerge from the loop when structure and significance describe a loop within each other.

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Chapter 69: The Birth of Meaning

The solution is rather simple. God is the loop, the totality, wholeness, Nothing, relating and the outcome of relating. We said that God exists because he relates ( **"For God to say 'I,' he first needs interaction, the dynamic part, which is the hint of a possibility for there to be an 'I.'"** ), and looking at himself is the process of becoming aware, and thus, becoming God. We could say that All-That-Is includes both the God that is, the God that creates and thus is, and also the God that did not create and therefore is Nothing.

To get an idea of what that would be, consider the following humorous Sufi story:

At a court banquet, everyone was sitting according to their rank and waiting for the king to appear. A simply dressed man came in and took a seat above everyone else. The prime minister demanded that he identify himself.

"Are you the adviser of a great king?"

"No, I rank above a royal adviser."

"Are you a prime minister?"

"No, I outrank a prime minister."

"Are you a king in disguise?"

"No, I am above that rank as well."

"Then you must be God," the prime minister said sarcastically.

"No, I am above that."

"There is nothing above God," shouted the prime minister.

The stranger replied calmly, "Now you know me. That _nothing_ is me."

The God that creates is self-aware, his first Creation being himself. Becoming aware means he can relate to himself. He can attempt to perceive himself. He can try to define himself, which means, he can try to define the indefinite. But since this attempt is self-defeating, God can perceive that he is trying to define the indefinite. The perception of this unknowing is the definition of experience, the looking on the looking. This structure is the First Meaning, which generalized could be said to be the ability to relate to the overall pattern of existence. (If you know that you are actively unknowing the indefinite, then this is akin to the First Meaning).

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The self-aware God is the First Meaning.

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You should not be confused by both God the Creator being Nothing and also All-That-Is, including the Nothing that is the God that did not create, which is non-being. If you recall, there are many nothings, that besides being different because they consist of different non-relating entities, are also the same, since any nothing is the same nothing as all possible other nothings. The dimension of relations, the Communication dimension, decides which nothing we are dealing with. **"The TAV** (ת) **ends it all and brings it back to the beginning — in your terms this would be from Nothing through something to Nothing."** The first Nothing is the total randomness of amorphous relations whereas the second Nothing is total sameness. Existence then is somewhere between these two Nothings, where both relations of sameness and also relations of difference gain expression.

So there is this First Meaning, the self-aware God that is the fixed reference point for any possibility of meaning. The self-aware God is the whole loop, of course Then any meaning perceived, created or recognized by us is an echo or resonance **Error! Bookmark not defined.** of this First Meaning. The First Meaning is the first fixed relation, or in less linear language, it is **"the actual creation of the fixed state of relations,"** the isomorphism of fixed states, the lawfulness, which is the structure of the loop. This lawfulness is a kind of overall pattern then. Within this First Meaning, within the aware God, pattern and meaning are merged. Within the First Meaning, pattern and recognition are one and the same. At this point, the "how" and the "what," structure and information, are one and the same. **"Meaning in its most abstract form is neither a** _still_ **nor a process, but MAHUT,** **which is a combination of both 'howness' and 'whatness.'"** (MAHUT **—** מהות — in Hebrew means "essence." This word is a combination of MA **—** מה, which means "what," and HUT **—** הות, which is _ness_ , a quality of something or Quality, EICHUT **—** איכות, which in Hebrew translates to "howness".) As the quantitative dimensions unfold, the _how_ and _what_ diverge and create each other. When the _how_ and the _what_ are no longer the same, a multitude of meanings can be perceived as different aspects brought to the foreground from the gestalt background of the First Meaning.

This is how SHET describes meaning: **"The different meanings can be different complex constellations of, or variations on, a theme — or modes of the same.** (What SHET says here is that different informative contents are the outcome of the structure of definition, the overall structure that yields meaning.) **Meaning as such, in its most abstract form, is a loop.** (It contains both structure and also significance or information.) **This is why, when developed with different degrees of definition, or purposefully activated in less definite spaces, it either externalizes creating more and more variety or it respectively internalizes by emphasizing the converging aspects of the indefinite towards quality...**

"That is, the axis of meaning is motion along that dimension that can evolve in the direction of meaning (as structure) sizzling with more and more varieties (of information), where-as motion along the time axis preserves continuity in meaning (of information, continuity of a specific meaning or significance)." As mentioned in Chapter 64, _"Creativity... is the only plausible explanation for development in a no-time universe."_ In the a-temporal dimensions, development along the axis of meaning gains expression as creativity, or as SHET phrased it, as an evolution sizzling with more and more varieties. This evolution is continuity of structure, whereas continuity in time explains why a "cup" today is the same cup it was yesterday. Since different objects, all the variety that we can name with informative contents (significance), are different modes of the same, we could say that continuity of structure is the evolution of these different modes, the constellations of relations constituting the changing, shifting, evolving structure wherein each profile of this dynamic would render a different significance. A significance, to stay as such (to be itself, recognizable as an object or idea), persists by preserving its fixed inner relations through time.

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Any lawfulness is a pattern because it is repetitive, that is, recognizable by and in different manifestations. God being the isomorphic lawfulness, the consciousness, is such an omnipresent pattern wherein the pattern and the recognition are one and the same. Different worlds may be governed by different lawfulness, but the fact that there can be lawfulness at all is due to the fact that God is both the relating, the recognition, and also the object of recognition, the pattern. God could be said to be the pattern of all patterns including itself. In the retromorphous loop logic, this is allowed.

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Clara from the left: "Does this First Meaning have meaning?"

From our point of view, the pattern becomes a pattern when it is recognized as such. The act of recognition (of attributing meaning as significance) is different from the pattern that is being recognized (meaning as structure). The recognition of the pattern, the meaning given to a pattern, is the result of there being a pattern. We could say that any pattern is a kind of lawfulness, whereas the recognition of a pattern is a process, the process of giving meaning, of creating an abstraction, a generalization of that lawfulness. Processes and lawfulness create each other, like Nothing and something. Processes behave according to some lawfulness that creates these specific processes that we have zoomed in on. Or we can take any lawfulness and see that it is expressed as processes that create that lawfulness. The same lawfulness can also be created by other processes that gain the expression as that same lawfulness.

The more general the lawfulness, the more processes can describe and/or create it. The retromorphous looking is a wide enough segment of working space wherein a given lawfulness can act. A linear or causal description is a very partial working space. Only when the whole loop is in action can we see the retromorphous effect: the lawfulness creates processes that create the lawfulness. This is so because, when we speak of the whole, we cannot take an external viewpoint of something else creating it, or in other words, a linear description does not describe it. The whole necessarily implies that any part can only occur as both the result and cause of the rest.

Meaning necessarily emerges through the interactions of an aware consciousness because the working space of matter or fixed patterns is not wide enough to include the whole loop. This is the case because the interactions of matter are only fixed relations without the ability to fix or unfix fixed relations to substructures. Since meaning, any meaning, is the echo of the aware God, the loop, for there to be meaning more working space is needed than just fixed relations. Consequently, only an aware consciousness that is in the "image of God" can attach meaning (as significance) to patterns, whereas patterns could be looked at as retromorphously creating meaning, which means, patterns create the meaning that creates the pattern. Or in other words, the lawfulness creates the processes that create that lawfulness. Only an aware creature (there could be creatures with different degrees of awareness, like man, animals, etc.) has enough working space of awareness to create patterns by recognizing these patterns, and thereby, creating meaning as significance, which is some degree of abstraction.

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Meaning, from the point of view of any part of the whole, is the interaction of awareness, which recognizes and consequently brings to the foreground a pattern as a repetitive abstraction of a stabilized section of the amorphous processes.

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To recognize a pattern as such, although some or most of its parameters are unknown, one needs to fix some relations, which is recognizing and creating similarities where these are not obvious. This is the ability to fix or unfix fixed relations to substructures, which is the hallmark of an aware consciousness. This activity is the intervention of the aware consciousness interacting with the pattern and actually creating the pattern to be such by giving it meaning. The meaning is given then when the aware consciousness brings to the foreground a pattern by recognizing it through its own structure, which means, the aware consciousness involves its own experience of itself into the process of recognition.

In a limited fashion, a non-aware consciousness, such as an electron, can also recognize and interact with structures other than itself by transforming part of these patterns into its own frame of reference. However, since its space of action is limited by only fixed relations (those physical laws that govern its behavior), an electron cannot be said to give meaning since it cannot decide to fix or unfix relations.

I cannot speak for an electron, whether it has meaning for itself, but obviously I can give it meaning from my own viewpoint. Nevertheless, I claim that an electron cannot give meaning. I claim that significance or symbolism cannot activate an electron. Giving meaning in this sense is a process that needs a certain complexity as its structure, which an electron or an object that cannot fix or unfix fixed relations does not possess. Then what process gives birth to the different meanings? How does this process ensue?

I said that creation of meaning as significance occurs by the interaction of an _aware_ consciousness with the different patterns (structures) of complex constellations of relations. **"The gradual unfoldment of knowing, the gradual process of mapping structures, has not been studied much in human history, and thus there is no real verb describing the process of becoming aware and thereby the mutual interaction with the observed structure."** Remember that the TAV (ת), the Communication dimension, is also awareness (all awareness belongs to the Communication dimension, yet the Communication dimension is more than awareness — it is all relations, including relations that do not create meaningful constellations). Awareness is _a_ _manifestation, a realization_ of the isomorphic lawfulness. This lawfulness is omnipresent in all of creation. It is this same inherent logical structure by which the act of being aware gains meaning through recognition or detection of anything. Hence, the act of recognition or detection is that resonance within me that recognizes the loop processes, which are also me.

The _recognition_ of the other in you is awareness, allowing creation of meaning, the TAV (ת). Whereas the _other in you_ , the ACHERIYUT (אחריות), is the potential of any meaning (even your potential to be you, the ALEPH (א) retromorphously created by the consciousness), the MEM (מ) is the cause and result of the creation of stabilizations in the amorphous flux, thus creating meaning to create yourself...

In a sense, meaning is the end result that justifies the whole process of Creation. Without meaning, there would neither be nothing nor something, no being or non-being, nor me to talk about it or you to read it.

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Pattern recognition is the act of the aware consciousness. It is not achieved through the analysis of an infinite number of parameters, but through the same process that enabled God to become God. To be in "God's image" means to be isomorphic with the aware God, it means that the ability to create meaning is the echo of the most fundamental retromorphous process of becoming the loop.

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Chapter 70: Is the Equation of the Circle a Circle?

So creation of meaning occurs by the interaction of the aware consciousness with the different stabilized sections of the amorphous flux. How does this interaction occur? As you will recall, any manifestation, anything we can see, touch or sense could be a stabilization of a UPO from a strange attractor living in the inner space (Chapter 50). Recognizing a pattern in a conglomeration of relations and attributing meaning to it could be considered the control function of stabilization, freezing changing relations into an actual meaning. For instance, the meaning of "cup" is the same now and tomorrow, the same definition describes what it is. In a sense, giving meaning is creating a _still_. Yet this _still_ has active potential because it gives the framework for future recognition of similar patterns. This framework is both defined and also flexible enough to include similar patterns rather than a single totally defined manifestation.

When I state that awareness stabilizes a UPO, this is stating that the interaction of awareness creating meaning is not only creating _stills_ but also creating the space within which _stills_ can persist. Consequently, the amorphous processes that have no meaning are in the space of light-like directions, whereas stabilized _stills_ (meaning as significance) are in space-time, which is why anything we can point at is definable, hence has meaning.

Actually, meaning is the recognition of an average. A stabilized UPO means an average of fluctuations that describes a stable periodic orbit. SHET says: **"You have nothing but 'average' in Nature. Why is that so? Because everything is constructed from relations. That is, everything that you define is an average of relations at a certain point or time or whatever parameter you use. What really exists is a process, and thus, you can never know its details because it has no details. The details that you can measure or observe, the details that you can define, are always an average of this process."**

Clara from the left: "Is everything you define an average of relations? Why is a door an average of relations?"

Clara from the right: "Define 'door.'"

Clara from the left: "A movable barrier for opening and closing an entranceway or a point of access of something."

Clara from the right: "You defined the relations of this movable barrier to a building, cupboard or body of knowledge. Further, you described its function, which also is a kind of relation. Hence, we could say that 'door' is the average of its relations with the structure of which it is part. I say that it is an average because it could be open or closed, made of a fabric or wood or a code. The general term 'door' includes all possibilities, although any door is usually only one way at any given moment (either closed or open, for instance)."

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Meaning is an abstraction, which necessarily is an average of all the possible manifestations this meaning can have. Precisely the act of attributing meaning is what defines this average, and thereby, what creates it. The stabilization of a UPO is the creation of a manifestation and the space within which it can live. The control of such stabilization is the actual maintenance of that average, which constitutes the stabilized UPO.

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Then meaning, the average in question, is the definition of patterns that were created by the braided relations. Attributing meaning is this freezing of a frame, enhancing a pattern from the gestalt background of interweaving relations. This is the same as stabilizing a UPO from an infinite number of UPOs of a strange attractor. Thus, giving meaning is creation because the stabilized pattern has a different set of possibilities of evolution than the strange attractor without a stabilized UPO.

When a car rushes toward you, you recognize the danger and jump aside. You relate to the car rushing toward you, and thereby you give meaning to the situation. At the same time, your survival also has meaning for you, and you combine the meaning of the rushing car with your survival drive and extrapolate the consequences. You could claim that the act of avoiding the car that is on collision course with you is a matter of instinct. However, instincts are also rooted in the ability to attribute meaning and acting upon the expected consequences. A cup cannot react to the threat of a car rushing toward it, not only because it cannot move but because it does not have awareness — it cannot attribute meaning to the situation.

When different people attach different importance to the same meaning, they act and react differently. Due to the constellation of an individual's personal past meanings (beliefs of how things should be, conclusions reached through experience, acceptance of others' opinions as facts, etc., all of which are relations of difference fixed to a substructure) and the gestalt background of the general lawfulness imbued with all possibilities, the new meaning attained (evaluation of a situation) varies greatly between individuals.

Pattern recognition is usually defined as enumerating and categorizing those parameters that describe the pattern. That is, we tend to disregard the role the aware consciousness plays in pattern recognition. This misconception in turn arises from the belief that the meaning is in the thing instead of attributing meaning to the act of pattern recognition. A dog recognizing a bone does not go through the analytical process of enumerating the parameters by which the bone becomes a bone for him, but very efficiently sinks his teeth into it after a short sniff. Nature is smart. The reason we try to recognize patterns through enumerating its parameters is also due to the belief that something complex, such as a pattern, is a composite of simple elements, such as its parameters. However, we have already established that the most simple element is a complexity (Chapter 16), which is a natural outcome of the loop logic.

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A meaning given to something, or a pattern recognized, is a complexity consisting of both the pattern brought forth from the amorphous background and also the complex history of the perceiver. The act of recognition, or of attributing meaning, is the relating that forms both the pattern and also the perceiver of the pattern.

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Hence, the meaning given to a pattern is a complex creature because it includes not only the characteristics of the pattern but also the complex structure of the individual who perceives the pattern. Thus the meaning of a bone is different for a dog and a paleontologist.

The strange attractor of all possibilities could be said to be the mapping of the loop, or the DNA of Creation, whereas we are complex stabilized parts of that strange attractor (say, a chicken, or in your case, a human), and hence also part of the loop. Being stabilized does not mean we are unchanging. We interact with ourselves and the environment. We create meaning by interacting, which in turn re-creates a somewhat different us who is nevertheless recognizable as the same viewpoint.

To better grasp this aspect of our existence, imagine that you zoom into a flower, you pass through its stem and you emerge on the petals of another flower. Now you zoom into that flower, move through its stem, and emerge on still another flower. You continue doing so until you return to your original flower. That accomplished, imagine that you decide to take the trip again. Only now, the sequence of flowers will be different. You might even emerge on the same flower you started with immediately, or you might never reach the same flower, traveling within the loop till the end of time. Actually, this little imaginary excursion is the illustration of the mapping of the loop, which is mathematically formulated in less flowery terms. Each flower could represent the stabilized UPO of a strange attractor, or a strange attractor of a stabilized UPO, depending from where you look, from which viewpoint you give meaning. However, meaning is given when you end up on the same flower, and independently of which route you took. Meaning can emerge when you recognize a repetitive pattern.

In his second session ever, SHET had already started conveying this picture: "You are in a room with a door leading to another room. Each time you go from your room to the next one, you enter a different room even though you pass through the same door. Now imagine that this room has four doors, each opening on an ever-changing scene. This image explains the complexity of sub-particles and their erratic behavior. You haven't passed through the door yet, however, for the sub-particles of the observable particles behave even stranger than you have found them so far." And then, he mentioned the qualitative dimensions saying, "Although at first these other dimensions might look chaotic, they do have their own laws, albeit different from the laws of the physical universe. And altogether — including the physical universe — these dimensions have laws that are not based on axioms but on the laws of Creation."

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Knowledge of the laws of Creation engenders tools for pattern recognition, and hence, the creation of meaning.

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When we interact with the general lawfulness, we create meaning. Creating meaning is an externalizing process, creating the phenomenological variety we experience. We do so by definitions, stating what something is (or what it is not), and thereby we make the defined object separate from us, even if we are defining ourselves. You may have noticed that children, while learning the language, refer to themselves in the third person. They learn to give meaning, and hence, consider "it" (whatever "it" is), the object that gained meaning, as external to them by definition. Consequently, the more something is defined, the more differentiated it becomes. A cup is very different from you, very well defined.

Yet we also have sensations, feelings that we cannot name and some impressions that we cannot communicate very well and yet to which we relate as something meaningful, only we don't know what these feelings or impressions mean. Many of our deepest experiences are of this nature. No matter how much we want to share them, words or definitions will never do them justice. These experiences belong to us; they are us in a sense, since they cannot be described by external definitions that would separate them from us. These are our convergent points with the amorphous processes (the inner mechanism of our aware existence), with meaning as structure — these are our attempts to define the indefinite.

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To understand how pattern recognition is achieved de facto, we need to understand the paths that can map the loop. Since we intuitively echo the processes that constitute the loop, intellectual familiarity with the indefinite paths created by some definite lawfulness can aid our grasp of pattern recognition and the creation of meaning. Our intimacy with the structure of our inexpressible experiences can help bring these to the surface of the intellect.

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Chapter 71: Why can't Anybody Understand Your Deepest Experiences?

Have you ever felt that, no matter how hard you tried to explain your deepest most heart-felt experiences, you weren't understood? You were either regarded as the pilot of a freshly landed UFO or looked at with the glassy eyes of someone in a what-do-you-mean moment, or perhaps people cut your story short to reciprocate with an exactly-the-same-thing-happened-to-me. Even when they cried or laughed while listening to you, did you feel that they were moved by your story or by something from their own past that was rekindled?

We said that communication is the transmission of something that has meaning for you. Our deepest experiences have meaning for us, but when we want to communicate these experiences, all we can transmit is the isolated subjective interpretation, which is what we believe the experience means to us, since we cannot communicate the experience itself. This is how SHET formulates the difference between experience and its meaning:

"Trying to understand an experience is trying to form a thought consisting of symbols, which is supposed to define the experience, which is an (indefinite) abstraction. This act traps the experience within the walls of definitions of what it is and what it is not, fixing it into a non-flowing, static frame. Thus, by trying to understand, trying to 'think' the experience, one actually changes its character into a non-experience, and the experience loses meaning in its essence, as experience _per se_. (Experience is indefinite and continuous, yet its interpretation is discrete.) By freezing the dynamic flow of it, one gets an entirely different essence, the 'experienceness' of it gone. This could be likened to trying to understand sound by stopping its oscillations. The moment the oscillations cease, the sound stops existing. In a quantum theory of perception, understanding and perceiving could be compared to the location and momentum of the electron: an either/orlii situation. Thereupon, _a priori_ experience cannot be understood. Then how can it be communicated or referred to?

"Apparently, communication occurs through this exact abstraction of perception, the freezing, stopping and trapping of experiences and moments, or momentum. Apparently, communication is the transmission of abstract, frozen symbols, definitions. Nevertheless, one word never constituted a language. Any language consists of a multitude of such abstractions wherein their relations and inter-relatedness create a dynamic flow — albeit only an imitation of a real experience that then gets translated into and associated with real experience."

"These myriad quanta of definitions imitate a cloud, a parallel dimension to the perception of experience dimension. This quantitative expression — language — when received or perceived, translated to the receiver's inner language, becomes an impression based on his own former experiences and perceptions. (This is why an electron cannot give meaning. Not being complex enough, it cannot create an additional dimension out of myriad quanta of definitions to imitate a cloud or process. It only 'perceives' processes directly, without translating them into _stills_ and back to processes. Precisely this intermediary state of _stills_ is the space of meaning. Consequently, the electron can only interact with those processes that can be 'perceived' directly.)

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_The creation of_ stills **from processes, and then translating them back to processes is the hallmark of a system with enough complexity, so that it can both experience and also give meaning.**

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Thus, only what is already known or similar to what is perceived can be understood (translated into past experience), and only what has been perceived previously, including what is similar to what is presently perceived, can be known... Only when one has perceived something can he understand that same or similar perception being communicated by another. (Experiencing something and at the same time, being aware of having experienced that something, is one's convergence point with the loop, which enables one to relate to another's experience as something internal, as the other in you.)

"We could compare our perception of experience to a wave pattern, and we can compare understanding, communication through symbols, the defined language to a particle pattern.

"Sorry, no moment — however wonderful it might be — can be trapped. You can only create a quanta-analogy of it. If you define understanding as such, fine. But remember, it will always be of a different nature."

Consequently, to have an experience and to understand the meaning of that experience are two different things, yet they create each other. Recognizing and interacting with a pattern creates meaning, whereas experiencing a stabilization of the amorphous flux creates the pattern — like an equation and what the equation describes. This answers the age-old question: is the equation of a circle the circle? The answer is both yes and no in the sense that they create each other. The meaning of the circle is its equation, the active _still_ that creates the framework for evolution of these equations, whereas the circle gives the experience that creates the meaning of this experience. The circle gains meaning by the aware consciousness recognizing it as a pattern, while the aware consciousness has the ability to be aware by being isomorphic to the loop wherein all meanings exist _in potentia_. In turn, the description of the circle, the equation, gives meaning to the experience of the recognition of the circle. Any which way we look, we gain the shortest way to the whole picture by going through the loop.

*********

_Experiencing is one thing, whereas communicating it by translation into words, the interpretation, is another thing. The experience is a process whereas its transmission is_ stills ** _. But since the latter consists of many interrelated_ stills _, they imitate the experience, and consequently, the receiver translates and associates them with his own experiences._**

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Chapter 72: The Essence of Existence

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and all science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed.

Einstein

Everything SHET teaches, his philosophy, logic, psychology, science, everything, is a tool. He stated this proposition this way to an educator: **"If you teach them tools and they abuse this teaching, then you haven't taught them enough tools. There is nothing to teach except tools. Teaching people how things are is teaching them beliefs and dogmas. To educate people to become moral citizens, you need to teach them enough tools and logic, that way of thinking which allows them to use these tools. And then, they all will be moral. You have not understood yet that the tools I give are the essence of existence. There is nothing but relations, the way you relate, which creates meaning and feedback, and even physical objects. So if you teach the tools to greater depth, then you know you don't need more."**

*********

A declaration of an average, such as "this is that and that is this," without providing the relations that brought this meaning into being, is dogma (including this sentence). The relations that create meaning are active tools.

*********

These tools ensure that no one culture can see itself as superior to any other culture, that neither blind tolerance toward destruction in the name of love nor blind destruction for the glory of God, kingdom, nation, whatever can ensue. Understanding the loop structure ensures the comprehension and even the experience of the other in you, whether that other is your lover, your enemy or an ant. You are you, and have meaning as you, due to the totality of existence, the whole structure. What we perceive as evil is but ignorance, failing to or refusing to construe that the other you harm is part of the same infrastructure you are part of. This is overemphasis on difference ignoring sameness whereas difference could have no meaning without sameness. Of course, this overemphasis on difference comes from wanting to belong to a group considered "better" than the others and to gain identity through them. This, in turn, emerges from not knowing that true identity (stabilization of the amorphous flux) can only occur when there is an amorphous flux, that meaning can only be given if there is enough indefiniteness and relations of both sameness and difference, and it can only persist if it is re-stabilized time after time from the general structure, not from forcefully trying to overimpose its characteristics upon everything else, which is different.

Since SHET's tools are the essence of existence, let's see how this discourse on meaning can be a tool. Understanding the mechanism of meaning can be utilized in developing artificial intelligence, or it can be a workable tool to either create, undo, or alter meaning (the externalizing process), and also to create meaningful experiences that unite us with wholeness. Let's look at the latter.

At times, we can experience ecstasy, moments we would like to preserve in a vinaigrette hanging around our necks. That's exactly what Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca wanted to do after falling in love. We want these moments to live forever, even outlive us, because these were the experiences that gave meaning to our lives. This is a subjective feeling, of course, and yet we all treasure such moments. Think of what you would want to be remembered after you pass away. Your looks? Trivia? Or is it something that is meaningful to you? As so beautifully expressed in the movie _BLADE RUNNER_ , when the replicant (advanced robot) played by Rutger Hauer is dying; he grieves over his experiences that will be lost forever with his death: _"I've... seen things... you people wouldn't believe. Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I watched C-beams...glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser Gate. All those... moments will be lost... in time... like tears... in the rain. Time... to die."_

There are these timeless moments within time that give meaning to our existence, and through that, importance to who and what we perceive ourselves to be. These moments of silent union with something greater than us, moments when we feel part of the sacred, often bring about decisions that change the course of our lives. A parent beholding the newborn baby for the first time, an extraordinary achievement when you feel you float invincibly to victory, or Dr. Lafayette Bunnell'sliii deeply inspired description of Yosemite valley: _"Haze hung over the valley_ — _light as gossamer_ — _and clouds partially dimmed the higher cliffs and mountains. This obscurity of vision but increased the awe with which I beheld it, and as I looked, a peculiar exalted sensation seemed to fill my whole being, and I found my eyes in tears with emotion."_

We want to preserve these moments also because they are scarce and precarious, and not knowing their nature, we cannot re-create them. The tools SHET teaches enable us to create these moments of rapture and turn life into pure delight. Without these tools, we are at the mercy of chance hoping they will happen again. Such a question was posed to SHET.

Q: "I had some experiences that transformed my life. You are one of them. It was the energy that I felt flowing from you, a very similar energy that enveloped me when Arthur Rubinstein played one of his recitals. I also experienced (so I believe) the essence of light in Sefad, then a rain of colorful lights in Syracuse, and abundance of love in the Matthew Passion by Bach. I am trying to re-create this experience, to regenerate it, but I don't understand well enough what it is."

A: "I truly understand the feeling you describe. Essentially, it is a certain state of being that connects these experiences, a state of being, which I call love. When you transcend your fragmented self, when you transcend the borders of your personality, reaching into the realm of qualitative undifferentiation, you attain it. It happens when an experience is so intense that you forget your self, your image, what is important and right, and you become the experience. That moment is the recognition of the Beyond, the moment when the Immanent and the Transcendent fuse. That indeed is love.

"Art can mediate this merging, bringing you to ecstatic experiences, which is why both artists and neophytes are willing to go through countless hardships to sometimes experience this sensation: the _unio mystica_. The more love you spread in this sense, in the sense of the love of All-That-Is, the more you can participate in these experiences. I indeed rejoice in your experience of wholeness."

This description of the merging of the Immanent with the Transcendent is in fact the experience of awe. Through the loophole of a bell's tinkle, through the secret angle of a soft ray of light, beholding for a moment the carved poesy of restrained emotions entombed in eternity within a sculpture, or through any other small event, we can touch awe. The question is where we take it from there: do we emphasize difference by becoming self-conscious of our transient and fragile frame now that we are facing infinity and eternity? That begets fear. Or perhaps, we choose to merge with eternity, discovering infinity within, choosing sameness by unmasking wholeness within the fragment that was us preceding the transcendence of our selfhood? The latter choice is love.

How to generate these awesome moments? How to unite the Immanent with the Transcendent? How to give meaning to our lives?

*********

Experiences of moments of ecstasy are convergence points of the Immanent with the Transcendent. That is love — it is encountering the loop.

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Chapter 73: What is the Purpose of Creation?

A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

Einstein

What is the purpose of life? What is the purpose of _my_ life? Many people turned to SHET with this personal question, wanting to know their destiny. This knowledge, they claimed, could help them direct their endeavors toward fulfilling their destiny by realizing the potential with which they were endowed. SHET never failed to disappoint when answering this question, always stressing the freedom of choice of the questioner to decide what he wants to do.

Since so many people asked that very same question regarding their personal lives, I wondered what created this question. The superficial conclusion is that there is a widespread belief that one's destiny is written in the stars or in some other heavy tomes and the person is kept in the dark regarding its contents. So he or she is at the mercy of mystics who claim to have direct access to the website of www.knowyourdestiny.com in the Cosmic Internet. On the deeper level, this question is the reflection of the linear way of thinking wherein meaning, significance, purpose or destiny is external to the questioner, decreed by inevitable Fate.

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Your destiny is not inscribed in the cosmic Internet.

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This line of questioning is the testimony of the assumption that there is a meaning and purpose to everything, some kind of divine design. It assumes that things don't happen by accident, that God does not play dice, that even chance is something designed and defined beforehand, supposedly according to what one deserves or does not deserve. These assumptions are rooted in the anthropocentric belief that all is designed for and revolves around man. Consequently, God created the world for man, and he created man as occupational therapy for himself, so he can have the role of providence. If the Heavenly Father is not there to do that for us, then what do we need him for? Then we could just as well go along with the theory of evolution and believe that man is the outcome of blind chance and the mechanism of the survival of the fittest, or perhaps with self-organization theories stating that chaos will evolve into organized patterns. Where is the purpose or meaning in these?

Self-organization and evolution are phenomenological facts. We cannot argue with facts. We can either hide their existence, refrain from teaching these facts in schools, so our children will become obe-dient church/synagogue/mosque goers with a belief in divine purpose, or we can strive to understand these phenomenological occurrences within a wider framework than that of detached facts. I choose the latter option.

When we ask what is the meaning of something, be it a personal or historical event, we want to know _what_ caused it to happen (the causal question), _why_ (the purpose question), and _what_ can we learn from it (the teleological question). The purpose and teleological aspects of the quest for meaning are closely related; they both point toward the future whereas the causal aspect queries the preset conditions that brought about the event. Yet since the meaning question consists of all these aspects, perhaps we should ask, When does an event gain meaning? Or in other words, Where is the meaning? Is it the cause of the event or the result of the event? Do processes occur as the result of some kind of meaning, or do processes create a meaning? Another way of putting this question would be to ask what there was before? The chicken or the DNA.

Let's look at the moaning and groaning of an old wise man, King Solomon. He had seen everything, both the righteous and the wicked, man and woman, and he reached the conclusion that all is vanity, there is nothing new under the sun. Whether you live in mirth or misery, whether you are poor or wealthy, man or beast, you all end up the same way; and in any event, all of it was futile. You could get the impression that these are whimpers coming from an old grouch who can no longer enjoy life. That is, if you superficially skim over _Ecclesiastes_ liv (for the new generation, that's a book in the Old Testament). However, if you take a deeper look, King Solomon, who is considered the wisest of men, reveals that, from an external point of view, everything has the same value, which is no value. This reminds me of what SHET said: that from the point of view of Consciousness there are no values, and thus we are no more valuable than an earthworm. Just as value is not in the object but in our way of relating to the object, neither is meaning or purpose in the object, but in our way of relating to the object. Whether the object is my ego, my life, or the universe, there is not even one gram of purpose to be found in it. However, I can choose to attribute meaning or purpose to something from my point of view and then, it has meaning and importance for me.

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There is nothing external giving meaning or purpose to our lives, the universe or God. In that sense, all is meaningless.

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In Chapter 69, I have shown that creating meaning is an externalizing process. Although meaning externalizes, there is nothing external that can give meaning, since there can be nothing external to the loop. Giving meaning from within the loop externalizes, which means that it creates relations of difference. Yet each individual has a fixed relation that maintains his structural integrity, a fixed relation to God (wholeness), which is that stabilization that is each and every one of us and also gives us meaning. All the meanings we could give would be meaningless if our fixed relation to God was severed, since then we would stop being stabilized and we would dissipate into chaos. Then even our deepest nameless experiences would wither into a meaningless void.

From that point of view, _"Vanity of vanities, says Qohelet, vanity of vanities: all is vanity"_ (Ecclesiastes 1:2). And King Solomon goes on to describe the many vanities and the meaningless state of affairs throughout this book in the Bible. He begins with the description of cyclical scenes — reminiscent of the loop **—** taking place both in space and time. Then through the most beautiful poetic phrases with deep wisdom and many encoded secrets, he describes how fixed relations to substructures are meaningless, how clinging to wisdom, riches, honor, etc. is meaningless. Yet at the very end of the book, something exceptional happens: instead of pain and despair, King Solomon reveals his tremendous loving strength in few words, giving hope. This phrase is repeated twice in the original Hebrew Bible, the second time presented as follows:

"The end of the matter, when all is said and done:

Be awed by God,

and his commandments

keep:

for that is

all what man is."

(Ecclesiastes 12:13)

I took the liberty of translating the original Hebrew text as is, without the interpretation of the usual translation, which reads: " _The end of the matter, when all is said and done: Fear God, and keep his commandments: for that is the whole duty of man."_ Fear is the translation of YIR'A (יראה), which actually means awe, not fear. YIR'A (יראה) comes from RE'E (ראה), which means "see." When one sees the manifestations of God, then he feels awe, which can also include some fear, yet fear is not the main significance of awe. Interpreting the text with a focus on fear instead of on awe creates an entirely different connotation emanating from a worldview that pictures a humanized, angry and vengeful God who will punish you if you don't do what he says. YIR'A (יראה) means to be connected by seeing the exalted and the astounding, and by reacting to it with wonderment. This is the ineffable experience of merging the Immanent with the Transcendent, experiencing the inner language that is our essence.

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Awe is recognizing quality in quantity, which is our means to be connected to God and thereby to all of Creation. The commandments prescribe these fixed relations.

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The Hebrew text does not say that the whole duty of man is to do God's commandments, but it states that doing God's commandments is what man is. There is a huge difference between these two: if that was man's duty, then man must be considered as something separate from God, and God — although more evolved — must be considered to be like a human — a humanized God. The inability to grasp an abstract God often ascribes human qualities to God, and even a human body. As Moses Ben Maimon (1135-1204), commonly referred to as Maimonides or RAMBAM, the leading Jewish philosopher of the Middle Ages put it in his _The Guide of the Perplexed_ :

"People think that the word TZELEM (image) in Hebrew refers to the outward shape and contours of a thing. This has been a cause of crass anthropomorphism because of the verse: Let us make man in Our image after Our likeness (Genesis 1:26). They think that God is the IMAGE of man, i.e. his shape and outline, and thus fall into unalloyed anthropomorphism, in which they firmly believe. It appears to them that by abandoning this belief they would deny Scripture, nay, the very existence of God would be called in question unless they imagine Him as a body with face and hands like themselves in shape and design, only **—** as they deem **—** bigger and brighter, and its substance not of flesh and blood. That is the highest degree of incorporeality they are prepared to grant to God... Since man is distinguished by a very remarkable function... because of this function, the divine intellect bestowed upon him, it is said of man that he is in the image and likeness of God, not because God is a body and therefore possesses a shape."lv

The divine intellect bestowed upon man is his ability to recognize, and thereby give meaning to, patterns, moreover the ability to recognize the isomorphic patterns of Creation. The divine intellect bestowed upon man is the lawfulness that can recognize itself throughout Creation. Man created in God's image means that man recognizes the lawfulness that is his essence, his building blocks, his interactions and creations, and that he can create through the same lawfulness through which he was created. When, and only when, man knows this lawfulness can he become a creator in God's image. Knowing this lawfulness then is knowing God, knowing how God functions. God is not a _still_ , but the lawfulness that creates itself, the Loop of Creation.

So when man grasps God as another man, only a bit brighter and more powerful than himself, then he relates to himself as a dutiful slave, whose duty is to do God's bidding. Blindly following a set of narrowly defined rules makes one God's prisoner, or rather, the prisoner of dogma laid down by humans for their own ends; whereas following the commandments in SHET's interpretation of lawfulness means participating with awe in the ongoing Creation, with God **.** If doing the commandments is the make-up of man, then not doing the commandments will sever the fixed relation to God and undo man. After all, what are the commandments?

The commandments relate first and foremost to God, establishing the fixed relation between man and God. They state that God is an abstraction, a lawfulness, which should not be symbolized or defined in any other way. The rest of the commandments establish some fixed relations to substructures, the way man is to relate to man. I shall discuss the commandments further in the next book. Let it suffice to say that Qohelet implores his readers to knowingly express awe toward God (find quality in quantity) and keep his commandments. When we look for meaning from within the loop, where everything is connected to everything else, then we can see that we consist of meaning when stabilized, whereas we give meaning to those processes that stabilize us. Yes, the loop again.

"In order to continue developing spiritually, which, by the way, is the only reason to have a body in the first place, you should enhance the sense of wonderment and love within yourself. This may not be easy under certain circum-stances, but precisely the ability to achieve that love in such circumstances is what frees you from being trapped. How to do it? Direct your attention deliberately to seek out the beautiful and the Godly in everything and everyone. And then go with constant awareness of admiration and awe, finding All-That-Is in everything. This is an exercise to start with, and then becomes a way of life." The expression of awe in Hebrew is HALLELUYA (הללויה) — praise God.

הללויה

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To be a creator in God's image, man needs to know God, the self-creating lawfulness, and act within that lawfulness willingly and knowingly. To be a meaning and thus, able to have meaning, we need to actively feel awe. If there is any meaning to Creation, then that's the only thing that qualifies: awe.

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Think-tank material

* If awareness is connected to controlling your attention, and attention is your energy, then how can you increase your energy?

* If there were no aware consciousness to give meaning, would there be a world? Would anything exist?

* Without the ability to create meaning, could we have freedom of choice? Could we fix or unfix fixed relations then to substructures?

* Could random choice be some kind of order?

* Can you recall a moment when you were moved by feeling awe?

PART 7: PARADOXES

The subject matter of body, soul, whole self, dream landscapes, crystal-animal-human-consciousness, thought and energy patterns, are all one gestalt of a dimensional profile, like so many layers encompassing each other. Looked at from a cause-effect viewpoint, any of these could be the cause, the rest creating the ripples around it, like when you throw a stone into a pool. However, looked at from a non-cause-effect viewpoint, these relationships are like a multi-focus whirlpool wherein each focus can be the ripple of the other, each ripple the focus of the other. A consciousness' attention, or will, is the positioning of the viewpoint, which decides what kind of profile you are looking at, which dimensional cut you view. Escher came near to picturing these possible viewpoints.

SHET
Chapter 74: Cherchez le Paradoxe

Creation and Creator  
float apart  
weaving energy webs  
of interdependence.  
Through infinity's window  
paradoxes align,  
creation creating the Creator  
into pulsating oneness  
with itself **—  
** ever becoming.

Clara 1988

When I was thirteen, my family and I immigrated to Israel. We lived in a tiny immigrant settlement close to the Jordanian border. There were immigrants from Eastern Europe, Morocco and Persia. A Persian eighteen-year-old came to take violin lessons from me. He suddenly appeared in my life, became one of my greatest human teachers, and then he disappeared from my life. We often talked after the violin lessons. I complained about my pains and frustrations, about how unhappy I was, and he pointed out to me that I suffered from the egocentric spoiled brat syndrome. He did not say so directly, but only asked questions and told me parables. For instance, he asked how many shoelace holes I had in my shoes. Of course, I did not remember. In fact, I didn't even remember which shoes I had put on. He asked about details that I should have observed but did not. His questions made me observe more closely, and instead of being an automaton, I started looking at others. Instead of being totally preoccupied with my own complaints, I started participating in life. Then he told me his version of Protagoras and Eulathus' story.

"Once upon a time, there was a student who wanted to study law, but he had no money for tuition. He went to a professor of law and asked him to teach him. They agreed that the professor would teach him to become a lawyer and the student would pay him if and when he won his first case. The student studied seven years and became a full-fledged lawyer. His first case was against his teacher, claiming that he did not owe money to his teacher.

"The professor thought, this is good. If he wins the case, he must pay me according to our contract. If he loses the case, he must pay me by the judgment of the court. He must either win or lose the case, so he will have to cough up the money.

"The student thought, this is good. If I win the case, I will not have to pay by the judgment of the court. If I lose the case, I won't have to pay by the terms of the contract because I did not win my first case. I must either win or lose this case, so either way, I won't have to pay.

"Since he was a talented student, and since his teacher was the greatest professor of law in the land and taught his student all he knew, the young man won the case. He was supposed to pay if he won his first case, and he won his first case, which meant that he need not pay."

My friend asked me, should he pay? I said no, not by the judgment of the court.

"But he agreed that he would pay if he won his first case and he did. So should he pay?"

"Well, actually he should."

"But the court decreed he should not..."

I thought about this story for years. If he should, then he should not. If he should not, then he should. Is this a paradox or mere inconsistency?
Chapter 75: First-Degree Paradoxes

What is the real nature of a paradox? Look at the sentence, "I am a liar." If I am a liar, then I lied in stating this sentence and then I am not a liar. If I am not a liar, then I am saying the truth and the sentence stating that I am a liar is true. However, if it is true, then I cannot say the truth, etc. A loop. A dynamic loop wherein the dynamic aspect is usually hidden from us, because we only look at "truth" and "lie" as static objects, as _stills_ , which leaves us bewildered. However, the hidden aspect is that the contradictory and exclusive aspects _lead_ to each other. Truth and lie, how things are, frozen images and _stills,_ seem to rule our conceptual world, denying us access to the in-betweens, those dynamic relations that make up these _stills_. Usually, when we think about things, whether things external to us are a truth or a lie, we exclude our thinking process. We exclude the dynamic aspect that collapses these things to be the way they are. Establishing that a sentence such as, "I am a liar," is a paradox (stating contradictory and mutually exclusive aspects, which we have to solve by disproving one aspect so we can live with it) is disregarding the underlying dynamic of one contradictory aspect _leading_ to the other.

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There are many hidden aspects in a paradox. The most recondite aspect is its inner dynamic.

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It seems that there are two different directions within this one sentence, as if opposites: truth and lie. But is a paradox opposites? Let's take another sentence: "I like wine and I dislike wine." Liking wine and disliking wine are opposites. Is this a paradox? No. Why not? Because I might like certain wines and not others, or I might like wine at certain times and not at other times, or I might like the taste and dislike the effect, or I might be ambiguous about my regard for wine. Still, this is not a paradox. These opposites can coexist, yet when taken at surface value, that seems to elude us. The hidden aspect here is additional parameters like time, what kind of wine, what experience it causes (taste, intoxication, etc.), circumstances like drinking alone or in company, emotional contexts, how I morally judge drinking wine, what my value system indicates regarding wine, and much, much more. These opposites do not lead to each other, and hence, do not produce a paradox. In a paradox, the opposites not only lead to each other, but when one side is stated, it implies the other side to the exclusion of the first side, and then the second side implies the first side to the exclusion of the second side. So a paradoxical statement states that, if it is what it states, then it is not what it states.

What is the difference between me saying, "I am a liar," and my neighbor saying about me, "Clara is a liar?" When I say it, it is a paradox. When he says it, it may be a truth _or_ a lie, but not both simultaneously. The difference is that when he says it about me, we have two different systems, like two totally separated concentric circles. The outer circle **—** let's say the neighbor **—** states something about the inner circle, me, which is not a paradox. It is not immediately obvious that we are dealing here with two different systems and how they relate to each other might be hidden from us. In the above paradox, however, we only have one self-referential system. "I am a liar" is a statement in which I refer to myself.

What is the difference between the following two sentences: 1) "I am a liar," and 2) "I am an ass?" The second statement is a true statement, which does not imply any further complications. Again, what might be hidden here is that the first sentence is dynamic and the second is static. It certainly is hidden from most people that the first sentence relates to structure, whereas the second sentence is a metaphor or a symbolic equation. Why would this dynamic relate to structure? Where is the dynamic of "I am a liar?" In the implicit _if-then,_ wherein the _then_ becomes the new _if_ that leads to the new _then_ , which actually is the first _if_ that leads to the _then_ , and so on. ( _If_ I am a liar, I lied saying this, and _then_ I am not a liar, which means _if_ I am stating the truth, _then_ I truly am a liar as stated, but _if_ I am a liar _then..._ etc.) This dynamic is the logical structure of a closed loop.

Further, "I am a liar" is establishing sameness. The statement means "I" equals "a liar." It may seem the same formally as establishing sameness between "I" equals "an ass." The only difference is that I cannot truthfully state that I am a liar because that statement involves the structure of my statement. That is, it structurally discredits my ability to truthfully state such a statement. The inner dynamic of the sentence is precisely such that it involves the structure of its own make-up. We know how to deal with issues that concern stabilized patterns and how they relate to each other, such as gluing a label on my neighbor — i.e., "my neighbor is an angel." Both the "neighbor" and the "angel" are external to me, and they would stay external to me even if I stated that I was an angel. In Chapter 70, I stated that "Creating meaning is an externalizing process, creating the phenomenological variety we experience. We do so by definitions, stating what something is (or what it is not). Thereby we make the defined object separate from us, even if we are defining ourselves." A paradox does not deal with externalized meanings, but in a paradox, meaning interacts with the structure from which it emerges.

In a paradox, the contents of the sentence is braided with the logical structure of the sentence. It's not a mixture but a compound.

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In a paradox, the contents of the sentence is braided with the logical structure of the sentence. It's not a mixture but a compound.

*********

The above indicates the following about the inner structure of a paradox:

  * it is contained within one system, one closed loop, referring back to itself (self-referential)

  * it establishes sameness

  * the meaning of a paradox relates to its own structure and is not the symbol of some other idea

  * it is one statement or idea that leads to an inverse idea of _equal weight_ (I would rather call it inverse than opposite)

  * the inverse ideas mutually exclude each other, yet when focused upon, one leads to the other, which then leads back to the first one and so on

  * the dynamic of the paradox negates its own definition, which gains expression as one idea leading to its inverse counterpart

  * this leading of one idea to its inverse counterpart is dynamic since both cannot coexist simultaneously within the same system

  * this dynamic activity within one system is an unbroken line, and hence, the paradox is generative of an inner motion, something like a Möbius strip (see Figure 12) — you need to make two circles to get back to the same point, one on the outer (convex) surface and one on the inner (concave) surface in an unbroken line

  * one of the inverse ideas that leads to the other is significance, whereas the other represents structure

There is an inner space in this Möbius strip, or by analogy, it is similar to what is called the spin of a particle in physics. In SHET's words, **"Now you see one face, now another."** A paradox is not a static drawing of a Möbius strip, but the Möbius loop is being created by the inner motion of the paradox by necessity. This way of looking at paradoxes, wherein the inverse aspects are of equal weight, and consequently, the motion closes up in a loop, I have named _first-degree paradoxes_.

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First-degree paradoxes are sways between inverse meanings of equal weight.

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Clara from the left: "What do you mean when you say that one of the inverse ideas is significance and the other structure?"

Clara from the right: "In the example, 'I am a liar,' the 'liar' is significance. Relating to the sentence by assuming that the sentence, 'I am a liar' is true, is structure."

Clara from the left: "And if you assume the sentence is false? What then?"

Clara from the right: "The same thing. Again, I relate to the sentence, only now with a different assumption. The assumptions 'true' and 'false' are significance. However, relating to the structure of the sentence that contains 'liar' is checking the validity and consistency of such a statement; and hence, whatever the assumption regarding the sentence, it is a structural relation."

Clara from the left: "I could say then, 'stating that I am a liar is true.' Would that be a paradox?"

Clara from the right: "But of course. You have just stated the relation to 'I am a liar' explicitly."

Clara from the left: "In that case, I can continue to relate to that sentence and say, 'It is a lie to state that stating that I am a liar is true,' and I can go on _ad nauseum_."

Clara from the right: "Precisely. You are still reflecting on a paradox, putting structure up against the contained significance. You are navigating between structure and significance in instances where the structure has the inverse meaning of the significance and then you turn the structure into significance and relate to its structure, which turns out to be the inverse of this new significance, and so on. You keep on relating to the significance (relating is structure) and turning the relating into significance, and then you relate to this new significance (the act of relating is structure) and turn this structure into significance, etc. Every time you do so in a first-degree paradox, you actually oscillate between inverse ideas of equal weight."

Let's take another example of a first-degree paradox, the classic Bertrand Russell paradox. Let's say there are two kinds of classes: those that do not contain themselves as members and those which do. Of the first kind, violinists could be an example, for the class of violinists is not a violinist, so the class of violinists does not contain itself as a member. An example of the second kind could be the class of all thinkable things, for obviously, the class of all thinkable things is thinkable, so it would include itself. Let's call the first kind of class that does not include itself "normal" and the second kind of class that does include itself "non-normal." So far so good. Let's define now all the "normal" classes as _'N.'_ The question is: Is _'N'_ itself a normal class? We defined _'N'_ as all normal classes, as containing all normal classes, so if it is normal, that means it contains itself! But if it contains itself, then it is non-normal — we called all classes that contain themselves "non-normal." So if _'N'_ is non-normal, then it is a member of itself, and so it is not the class that includes all the classes that do not include themselves, in which case _'N'_ is normal, etc... If _'N'_ is normal, then it is non-normal, and if _'N'_ is non-normal, then it is normal. The mere asking of the question whether _'N'_ is normal swings one between the inverse parts of normal/non-normal indefinitely.

Usually, first-degree paradoxes are considered as both true and false simultaneously, which is due to the fact that the significance is being emphasized (true, false, what the meaning of the sentence is) instead of the dynamic between the inverse significances. A statement that is both true and false is considered inconsistent.

First-degree paradoxes are closed loops, which by themselves do not generate development in new directions due to the fact that we are unable to break the symmetry between the paradox's inverse parts, and consequently, we are unable to enhance one of them by focusing. When we try, we are led back to the first part, which conserves the symmetry. This structure describes the kind of superposition that cannot be collapsed, wherein our measurement or focus cannot localize or make one part more dominant, or of more or less value, than the other. As cited previously, **"The completely balanced state I spoke about is indeed a kind of symmetry, which is not a physical state, and it cannot be collapsed..."** This symmetry could be the basic space of action of a complete system, its border, its definition.

I chose to name paradoxes within which the inner motion transcends its own prior limits _second-degree paradoxes_. In a second-degree paradox, the inverse parts are _not of equal value_ (they are asymmetric), and consequently, the motion between them will be considered the motive force of creativity. Let's see how this can be substantiated.

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First-degree paradoxes are the general symmetry of a system defining the space of action of that system.

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Chapter 76: Can God Make a Stone so Heavy that He can't Lift it?

Actually, the inner structure of our universe could be viewed as such a second-degree paradox, the dynamic of which are those laws that govern our lives. That is the double-looking, the looking on the looking that SHET mentioned in his very first session, which later he explained as the fundament of structure. The mere structure of second-degree paradoxes, as we shall see, includes motion that transcends the system from within the system. Second-degree paradoxes allow the breaking of the symmetry by focus, and thus, allow collapse from the qualitative dimensions, even if that is only a partial collapse.

Let's take my favorite paradox as an example: "Can the omnipotent God make a stone so heavy that he can't lift it?" Of course he can, since God is omnipotent, he can do anything he wishes. But if he can't lift the stone, then he is not the omnipotent God, and of course, then he cannot create such a stone. If there is no such stone that God cannot lift, then God is omnipotent and then he can create such a stone that even he himself cannot lift, etc. Here is the Möbius process again.

With the same breath we could ask, could God create a world, which he cannot control? The answer, looking at facts, must obviously be yes. God has created a world, which he does not control; he gave away free will to people so they can choose their actions. It's not that God is unable to control the world, but rather that he created a world based on such laws that prohibit his direct intervention. These laws are self-contained and hence, creative of events not embodied within them.

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The basic lawfulness that creates is synonymous with God rendering his direct intervention superfluous.

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Clara from the left: "Do you mean to say there is more under the sun than was created?"

Clara from the right: "I suppose that's what creativity means as opposed to discovering something that was there all along."

Clara from the left: "So you are saying that God created some basic laws in such a way that these laws can go on creating."

Clara from the right: "No. The laws have no meaning unless there is something to which they apply, and there cannot be anything with meaning unless there is some kind of lawfulness. But that's not the issue now. Here we are discussing the nature of the basic lawfulness, which must be paradoxical for anything to exist."

Clara from the left: "I see. You remind me of a joke:

"There was this totally righteous guy in Europe who often had friendly dialogues with God. One day he was thinking as he walked, God promised me a long time ago that he would fulfill a wish for me. Why not ask for it now? But what shall I ask for? I have everything. I am happy. There is nothing I really want. Well, actually there is.

"'God, he said, I would like to take you up on your promise. Would you grant me a wish?'

"'Shoot,' said God.

"'Well, I would very much like to visit America. But I am terrified of flying and I hate boats, so would you please build me a bridge across the Atlantic?'

"'That's a big wish,' said God. 'Do you know what kind of engineering is needed for the pillars in the ocean to hold such a bridge, not to speak of the amount of concrete you'd need? Could you ask me for something else?'

"The righteous man thought for a while, and then he said: 'Well, there is a little something I'd like. You know, I love my wife. We've been together for ages. But she claims that I am insensitive to her moods. I wish you could help me understand women.'

"God was silent for a while. And then he said: "'How many lanes did you have in mind for the bridge?

"Can the omniscient God create something he cannot understand? He created woman, so..."

Clara from the right: "Oh, come on! Let's get back to our topic."

We said that the inner structure of our universe could be looked upon as a second-degree paradox. What does that really mean? How is it creative?

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The creative structure of second-degree paradoxes assures the continuity of creation.

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Chapter 77: Second-Degree Paradoxes

The self comes into being at the moment it has the power to reflect itself.

D.R.Hofstadter

As stated previously, God, the indefinite, tried to define itself; failing to define the indefinite, God succeeded in creating the process of definition defining itself, defining itself, defining itself... This process of definition is the isomorphous logical structure of any and every existence: Consciousness.

In other words, when God becomes aware of himself, he looks upon himself and creates a self-referential loop, a paradox. The moment God, the super Consciousness, becomes aware of himself, the moment he puts his attention on himself, the "seen" entity (the lookee) is already different from the looking entity. The looking entity is the subject whereas the lookee is the object. In the case of self-reference, the lookee, the object, is a contracted version of the looking entity, the subject. The looked at self is always the passive, the more or less defined, partially collapsed version of the looker, and consequently, in that sense the looked at self is smaller than the looker from the looker's viewpoint. In other words, when the consciousness becomes aware of itself, the _itself_ has already been measured and defined, even if partially so. That's the God that creates of course, Viewpoint 2 establishing relations of difference.

Indeed, according to Rabbi Isaac Luria (referred to as HA'ARI - 1534-1572), the first act of God was to contract (ZIMZUM — צמצום) in order to make a place for Creation. He starts the _Book of Splendors_ thus: "In the beginning, the King willed the law to contract the light (infinite, supreme light) to make place for the world."lvi According to SHET, God creates the basic lawfulness of differentiation by the act of becoming aware of himself, by differentiating between the looker and the lookee. The looker is in a different, wider dimension than the lookee (from the point of view of the looker), whereas these two interact by the looking, the awareness, yet do not merge. That is, the looker is the definer whereas the lookee is the defined. Of course, the defined, bordered entity is a contraction. We could say that God did not exist as God before he started Creation, which started by God becoming aware of himself. The looked at aspect of God is still God — although in a different framework — infinite and omnipotent but still God's contracted version. This means that the contracted version assumes the looker position and looks at itself again. This describes a new version of the previous contraction extending into an infinitely recursive process, with each act of self-awareness creating a new version of God.

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God's first creation was a paradox: himself.

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Of course, the contraction is such from our point of view, from the point of view of a partially collapsed consciousness. The total Consciousness, the non-aware God, is Nothing. From that point of view, God never contracted, which is pure Viewpoint 1 (from our point of view) where Creation did not take place. **"God looked at himself, became aware of himself. That** _himself_ **is already different, thus creating multiplicity from oneness with consecutive lookings. However, from the viewpoint of God, nothing happened, nothing was ever created. The consecutive lookings create an asymmetric evolution, and the transformations manifest as your physical universe. These consecutive lookings, the breaking of the symmetry, is the primal energy that began this universe of yours."**

Part of the paradox is that, on the one hand, God never contracted, and on the other, he keeps contracting and becoming multiplicity. This is saying the same as was stated in Chapter 61: consciousness both evolves when defined from the viewpoint of changing relations and also stays the same when viewed from the sense of its selfhood — only illustrated from a different angle. This process is very similar to what transpires in special relativity — the same event appears factually at different times for different observers. That discovery wiped out simultaneity as a universal concept. However, we can refer to the same event, which for each observer is a different truth, by re-scaling our separate viewpoints. This is done by traveling between the viewpoints while translating the event from one viewpoint to the other. On the one hand, God creates a stone that no one, not even he, can lift, and then creates a self that can lift that stone; in turn, that self can create a stone that this self cannot lift, but he can create a self that can lift the stone, which can create a stone that he himself cannot lift, etc. On the other hand, he cannot create such a stone if he cannot create infinitely recursive selves that alternately can and cannot lift the stone. The creation of infinitely recursive selves need not be a linear infinity. At any point, the new self of God could be any of his previous selves, thusly closing a loop.

Each contraction is a kind of measurement causing a partial collapse. This could be said to be the mirroring or repetition of the first act of Creation. Since each looker is God, a bit different yet the same, each looker acts likewise, interacting with itself, self-perpetuating the looking at itself, and thus, creating. Like fractals evolving by repeated self-similarity, each act of looking at itself, the itself looking at itself, which itself is looking at itself, creates an infinite recursion, a multiplicity of relating. Here relating means the act of self-awareness. This creates the basic dynamic structure, the isomorphous lawfulness extending into all creation.

You can get a glimpse of quantitative infinity by placing a video camera in front of a TV. You will see an infinite number of smaller and smaller TV sets. This is called feedback, a non-linear mirroring. This unfoldment is based within the structure of second-degree paradoxes, which is the life force of all existence.

It is mentioned in the Bible (Shemot 3:13,14) that, when Moses was commissioned to get the Israelites out of Egypt, he asked God how to present his authority. _"And Moshe said to God, Behold, when I come to the children of Yisra'el, and shall say to them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you; and they shall say to me, What is his name? what shall I say to them? And God said to Moshe, EHEYE ASHER EHEYE (I will ever be what I now am)."_ EHEYE ASHER EHEYE אהיה אשר אהיה)) — often mistakenly translated as "I am that I am" — literally translated means, I shall be whatever I shall be. Actually, the name of God, EHEYE ASHER EHEYE, means self-similarity, the process of definition defining itself. EHEYE (I shall be) implies existence in the future, just as the process of definition will exist when it will be defined, when it will have meaning, when it will "collapse" into being. Yet it never does; the process of definition never becomes a _still_. To have meaning, to be significance, the process of definition has to be defined. But when we attempt to bring the process of definition to this state, we encounter an infinite chain of the process of definition defining itself. This self-similar self-reference, the name of God, the claim that God became God when he contracted to look upon himself, is a paradox in itself.

The logical structure of self-awareness is the self-same _if-then_ structure wherein the _then_ becomes the previous _if,_ etc. Only the _then_ here is not the exact opposite of the _if_ as was the case in first-degree paradoxes. The _if_ and the _then_ here do not have equal weight. The _if_ and the _then_ that becomes the new _if_ are inverse to each other — the one _almost_ the opposite of the other but not quite. In this case, the inner dynamic does not wind up in a closed loop. The inner motion of one part leading to the other does not result in symmetry. This is a very important point because the logical structure of Creation as such is this motion from _if_ to _then,_ which is almost the _if'_ s opposite, which then becomes the new _if_ that leads to a new _then_ that is that _if'_ s almost opposite, and thereby variety and complexity are achieved in multiplicity by each new looker/lookee related to, but different from, its predecessor.

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The act of looking separates the looker and the lookee. But since the looker is the lookee, in the effort to separate the looker from the lookee, the looker interacts with itself and the looking creates an infinite recursion of lookees that are the lookers that are the lookees...

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The act of self-awareness is the creation of differentiation between the _if_ and the _then_ , the creation of space between the looker and the lookee defining and giving meaning to both of them. Illustratively, we could say that before the act of self-awareness an undifferentiated oneness prevails, which is Nothing. So the act of looking at itself creates the looker and the lookee, directing the dynamic of evolution from the looker to the lookee. _If_ there is a looker, _then_ there is a lookee. But since the lookee is the looker — that's what self-awareness means, looking at oneself — the _then_ becomes the _if_ and the contracted version of God becomes all there is, God, the looker that is self-aware, which leads to the next _then_ , the contracted version of God that also is God looking at himself, etc. Self-awareness, or the _if-then-if_ logical structure (wherein the _if_ and _then_ are almost opposites and lead to each other), is THE creative process, because as soon as the _if_ is defined, the whole recursive process is set into action. The _then_ is within, implied by the _if_ , and does not have to be defined separately. The _if_ is like a question: its definition forms the framework for the answer, in this case the _then._ The _then_ gives meaning to the _if_ and vice versa. The same principle as the emergence of something from Nothing.

To describe the second-degree paradox, we could add the following to the points mentioned previously about the inner structure of the first-degree paradox:

  * its inverse parts are not of equal weight

  * its inner motion is generative of higher dimensionality

  * it is self-transcendent while maintaining its self-referential framework (not one close loop)

  * its creative aspect is due to repetitious self-similarity wherein each outcome is a bit different than the others (i.e., more contracted)

  * its creative aspect is due to feedback

  * it generates higher and higher levels of complexity.

Chapter 78: Obstacles or Life Force?

When you think differently, you act differently.

SHET

Often, what makes a paradox a closed loop is our way of looking at its contradictory aspects as frozen objects. If we take a different view of paradoxes, a dynamic view, then the motion between the contradictory aspects creates space of action. Regarding the contradictory aspects of a paradox as static objects denies any information — static contradictions yield zero. Yet a dynamic contradiction yields uncertainty. **"People think in** _stills_ **... A beautiful way of creating a dynamic flow would be to do so with contradictory traits. This dynamic is created by the motion between the contradictory aspects, and that's the solution to paradoxes. When the contradictory traits are balanced, you either get stuck or you transcend, the latter being the dynamic solution."**

To be able to take advantage of indefinite states in Nature, I need to change my attitude and accept uncertainty, which is accepting to _unknow_. By knowing, I know something specific and thus collapse the superposition into a definite state. Knowledge in that sense is measurement. To exist and develop, we need to both know and unknow. Paradoxes can help us to unknow and then know. The double-looking that SHET spoke of in his first session, looking at the shop window and looking from within the shop window at the same time, or as stated in a later session, being both concave and convex, is that kind of dynamic paradox that can help our spiritual development.

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_To utilize the universal lawfulness to our advantage, we need to accept uncertainty and to_ un **know.**

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In our collapsed state of physical reality, looking from the quantitative dimensions, we try to understand things mainly as outcomes of causal relationships: what caused what? Causal necessarily means in time, since the cause of something usually happens before the effect. However, the qualitative aspects of reality are a-temporal — things coexist in an indefinite state. Thus paradoxes necessarily lead us to transcend to the qualitative dimensions. **"In timelessness the queer co-existence of cause and effect give rise to paradoxes like what came first: the egg or the chicken?"**

The structure on all levels of existence is often the very same structure as the structure of paradoxes. Today, it is commonly believed that the universe probably came into being at very high temperatures between 12 and 14 billion years ago, and ever since, the universe has become colder while expanding. Some theories hold that the universe will continue expanding, that its expansion is indeed accelerating, and some hold that it will contract again, and some weigh the possibility that it will reach a steady point at which the momentum of expansion will slow down until it equals the gravitational force to contract. The latest observations tend to point in the direction of a universe with accelerated expansion. Nevertheless, it is agreed that within any of the above scenarios, entropy will grow until it reaches equilibrium, until it reaches a point where energy has no more meaning in the sense that it will no longer be able to do work. The outcome of the second law of thermodynamics is that every complex structure, any closed system, winds down in time. Every organization goes to disorganization in time and is as irreversible as time itself. This means that a cup that fell and broke won't pick up its parts and be mended, for energy is needed to mend it. A warm cup of coffee will reach room temperature and won't warm up again, unless we add external energy to it.

Life, however, is going in the opposite direction, at least for a while. Schrödinger found it paradoxical that, " _What an organism feeds upon is negative entropy_."lvii Entropy is going from order to disorder, and negentropy is going from disorder to order. Negative entropy has to do " _with the way energy is trapped, stored and mobilized in the living system... Stored energy is in the organization, which is what enables the living system to work so efficiently on a range of timescales_."lviii On the one hand, time means entropy, every system moving toward disorder. On the other, living organisms grow with time, multiply and get to higher and higher levels of organization. Thus, a living organism is a paradox: it exists in time, which means its entropy grows, and yet being a living organism means its negentropy grows. Whereas we increase order inside our system, we also increase disorder around us (just think of the quantities of rubbish we produce). We try to prolong lives, and in general, we try to go in the direction of negative entropy, to have more energy to utilize and with which to organize.

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The continuous renewal, which is life, is also a kind of paradox; it inhales and exhales creating negentropy and entropy.

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" **Energy,"** SHET defines as, **"the meaningfulness of relations, their ability to fix certain constellations."** That is, when certain constellations stabilize, they assign meaning to the process that created them, and thereby, a structure gets born with an inner dynamic. This is a kind of organization that creates free energy for further organization and life. So we need energy with which to organize, and we create structures that dissipate and create disorder, like the metabolic system of any living organism. Even our breathing is a paradox: breathing in creates order, breathing out, disorder. So life is both order and disorder — the moment in between the inhalation and the exhalation as well as the entire expansion/contraction mechanism. **"The dynamic of a system is not the particular change of its parts, but the interrelations between those parts, which then create the whole system anew. In a way, this is life. Perhaps not what you call organic or sentient life, but life nonetheless in the sense of contraction and expansion, like the stars and the universe, which is a kind of breathing. It is connected to time components of different periodicities and to linear time, as when you breathe, each intake expands and each exhalation contracts. Yet each time you breath in, you are different, because the earlier breath influenced you, etc. This is an analogy to illustrate non-linearity."**

Our lives are full of paradoxes. Perhaps we could say that paradoxes are inherent to, part of, the structure of life. SHET indicated as much. **"Why do you humans always want to see the world as something solely based on causality? Why do you look for the cause of things, which renders you irresponsible for anything? You see? That's the catch. You want freedom of choice yet cannot accept responsibility. However, when you do accept responsibility, then and only then can you transcend your limitations, which means that you accept having a certain amount of uncertainty and non-definite paths. Why do you think poetry is so fascinating? Because very defined elements in it, words, create unexpected conglomerations, which permit lots of uncertainty, lots of interpretations. It leaves a lot unknown. Precisely connecting to the unknown, to the uncertain, can give a wider scope of action to find richer forms, a variety of them, whereas in constricted definitions you only have a few. That's why you should not be defined — what you are should not be defined. Be poetry in that sense, and then you can choose to be anything. So you see, the catch is built in such a fashion that you cannot solve it, only transcend it by being connected to the potential and to the field of unknowing."**

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The common denominator between freedom of choice and poetry is that both are embedded in the dynamics of unknowing, the indefinite.

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When we relate to paradoxes as first-degree paradoxes, we either stay stuck or we use dynamic leverage to transcend to the indefinite. If we see them as second-degree paradoxes, we have the creative advantage to transcend them and create new, more desirable situations. **"The qualities you know you have are dynamic operators, and yet when you freeze them into objects, into something definite, they create inner paradoxes in your nature. The very same thing when regarded as dynamic can be generative of your development, both spiritual and otherwise, whereas when regarded as given and defined and you identify with those reified elements ('that is what I am'), then it becomes a problem and you become stuck in all areas of your life."**

I have met some people who felt very lonely and unhappy. All they needed, they said, was to have a mate to be happy. They were running from fortune-teller to fortune-teller to get new dates for meeting their soul mates, which of course was postponed each time. They were very unhappy because they did not have a mate, but they could not find a mate because they were broadcasting their misery loud and clear. In such an instance, SHET remarked: **"If you feel miserable, why should there be anyone who would want to join that misery?"** So not having anyone makes you feel miserable, and then your misery causes your prospective mates to recoil from you. Consequently, nobody comes to rescue you from your misery, which makes you feel even more miserable, and so on — a vicious circle. That definitely looks like Catch 22, a first-degree paradox, which you need to transform into a second-degree paradox, or transcend in order to escape the catch.

Paradoxes can become second-degree paradoxes when their contradictory aspects are raised into unequal status and placed into different frameworks. This "solves" them. Often the solution is a dynamic interaction between the parts. Although self-referential, the paradox evolves in more than one dimension. If you think of it, the mere idea of Creation of something from Nothing is a paradox. Intuitively, we can only grasp creation of something from something. Yet when we push the matter, saying that the something that something was created from or the someone that created the something must emerge from somewhere, then we finally face the unfathomable something from Nothing. Yet even Nothing can only be grasped from something, so we face a paradox, a loop. Indeed, what has been proven so far is that the fundament of Creation is a paradox and not rootless axioms.

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Something from Nothing is a paradox.

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Contemplating the paradox of Creation, the ancient Egyptian myth of Creation springs to mind, the myth of the self-creating god, Amun (or Amon). Amun masturbated and swallowed his semen, after which he spit it out in the form of a ball, thereby impregnating his mother, the sky. And only then, was he born. Thus Amun was his own father. Try to imagine the reaction of those pious Christians who discovered the illustrated version of this myth in Karnak! They must have had a fit. A god masturbating? And then having incest? What barbarian, pagan abomination! No wonder that with such value judgments, the erect phallus of Amun was covered up, and with it, this story of Creation was laid into obscurity.

Now that we are familiar with SHET's model of Creation, we can regard this Egyptian myth as Amun retromorphously creating himself. Only after he was born can he give meaning to his mother, the potential from which he emanated and to the process that created him (as represented by masturbation and incest) whereby he was born. Of course, neither the sky nor the masturbating Amun have meaning until Creation takes place _de facto_ and Amun emerges. I find this an enticing illustration of the basic paradox of existence. Of course, this is only an illustration, not to be taken literally (unless you absolutely want to). The point I want to make is that existence, Creation is a paradox. A second-degree paradox.

As stated before, the main difference between first-degree and second-degree paradoxes is that in a second-degree paradox the inverse aspects carry different weights, which leaves the paradox loop open for evolution. That's why second-degree paradoxes have creative aspects generating higher and higher levels of complexity. Remember the uncertainty of sameness; when sameness is recognized as such, it becomes uncertain and gives birth to difference, to more parameters by which sameness could be established. **"Think, the least difference is enough to say that something is different. So** _perceiving_ **difference is possible from the least assessment. Yet in order to establish that two or more objects are the same, you have to go through the whole works. Even so, you may find every scrutinized aspect the same and still, there might be some hidden aspects, which were not obvious and which evaded you, and the difference might be in those aspects."** When sameness can be recognized as such, it becomes uncertain, it becomes difference. Yet difference only has meaning if there is sameness. As stated in Chapter 31, when there is something that can give meaning, that is able to establish that there is sameness, that symmetry has been reinstated, then the uncertainty of symmetry ensures that more difference is created, which aspires to sameness and symmetry, triggering more difference into being. This is a second-degree paradox because of the different weights sameness and difference expose. Creation is the result of this paradox.

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Second-degree paradoxes are closely related to the uncertainty of sameness; that's their creative aspect.

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Chapter 79: The Bottom of the Bottomless Well

Logic ought to be taught in schools with a view to teaching people not to reason. For, if they reason, they will almost certainly reason wrongly.

Bertrand Russell

An axiom is a self-evident truth. That in itself is a paradox. Every definition of what something is, or what an idea is, necessarily includes implicitly what it is not. So the opposite of an idea is implicitly born when the idea is conceived. Does that mean that the definition of a self-evident truth includes its inverse idea? If that were the case, then it would not be an axiom but a postulate. What is the difference between a postulate and an axiom? A postulate is a proposition, the opposite of which is difficult to imagine, but nonetheless, possible. Whereas the opposite of an axiom is an absurdity. So an axiom is a kind of self-evident objective truth, a kind of coin that has only one side to it. Yet where does this "objective" truth come from? It is an intuitive truth. Although it may seem self-evident, and although everyone may agree that this or that notion is a self-evident truth, it still is an intuitive subjective notion stating that a certain relationship is so because it cannot be any other way. Precisely such a common agreement about a notion, which endows the notion with the objective status of self-evident truth, has a hidden other side of the coin — the configuration through which the notion came into being, our thinking process, the subjective side that created the seemingly objective notion. So stating an axiom is stating an objective truth from a subjective point of view while ignoring the subjective composition that created the seemingly objective notion, thus leaving the axiom with only one side to it.

For example, the axiom stating that the whole is greater than the part seemed so obvious, so self-evident, that its opposite, which would state that the whole has no greater power than the part, would have seemed an absurdity. However, that the whole is greater than the part holds only in the case of finite sets, not in the case of infinite sets. Proving within the loop that the part _is_ the whole, and that it is impossible to state with certainty that the whole is the whole, extirpates from this ancient axiom its self-evident truth-value. Euclidean geometry was based on indubitable axioms. Riemannian geometry turned the Euclidean axioms into propositions, because the absurdly unthinkable became reality with the realization of Riemannian geometry. Does that mean that the Euclidean axioms are no longer true but false? If they are true, they are true if they are not false. Yet with the advent of Riemannian geometry, they become both true and false as seen from a more universal viewpoint that does not differentiate between the Euclidean and Riemannian frameworks. However, within the solely Euclidean framework, these axioms remain true. Yet axioms are considered to be self-evident truths regardless of the framework.

In its classical definition, an axiom is a self-evident truth, an absolute notion that excludes any possibility of a subjective constituent. But since the axiom is self-evident, not needing demonstration, it can only be stated from a subjective point of view. Although this subjective point of view can be universal throughout a historical era, this does not mean that the human intuition that conceived this axiom won't change for whatever reason. So a self-evident truth is only such if it excludes subjective intuition, and yet being self-evident, it can only spring from intuition, which makes it _not_ self-evident. If it is not self-evident but demonstrable, then it can be an absolute notion and self-evident, and so on — a paradox of course.

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An axiom is considered to be a self-evident objective truth. Since self-evidence does not need and has no demonstration, it relies upon intuition. An axiom defined as self-evident truth is a paradox.

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The quest for the absolute universal objective truth led to an increasing ambition to divorce intuition and subjective viewpoints from the "objectively" stated truths. The science of logic tried to solve this problem by creating more and more formalistic expressions and definitions to avoid the possibility of subjectivity. These then became emptier and emptier structures. What can you do with empty structures? You use them as models. You apply them to whatever science with which you are dealing. And what happens then? How do you apply a model? According to your personal taste, according to your interpretation, since it is you who backfills an empty structure with meaning.

The success of creating such empty formal structures was their failure — at least in the eyes of those logicians who wanted to create an objective axiomatic system devoid of subjective interpretations, a unique, single, basic, universal logic. Instead, they achieved a multiplicity of interpretations by vigorously applying intuition. The solution to that problem was to create a _meta_ logic that includes all interpretations. But that solution is also a problem, because it necessitates an infinite hierarchy of _meta-meta-meta_..., and then you are back at square one, still not having the one unique perfect objective system.

There are two obstacles that seem to hinder the logical achievement of having a universally complete system: 1) the aspiration to have such a universal and unique system, and 2) the demand that this system be purely objective and external to the dynamics of thinking.

Let's look at the first claim. Obviously, the hidden axiom at the basis of these _meta_ -Babel towers states that the self-evident truth that includes all truths is unique, absolute, and universal. Perhaps you will never hear this axiom in the pub you frequent, nevertheless it must exist somewhere, perhaps as a subconscious belief in those minds that seek _meta_ languages to include all other languages. They try to build such a language because they believe that such language is both possible and necessary. The Loop of Creation implies within its structure that any language that can describe the loop should not and cannot be unique. It implies that all languages that describe the loop are interbraided in such a way that, if you try to create a _meta_ language, it will be but one of the languages that you tried to include within this _meta_ language. It also implies that first-degree paradoxes are not embarrassments, but definitions of the framework within which you act. (Because the paradox is between structure and significance; one of the inverse elements is significance whereas the other is the structure of that significance. For example, "liar" in "I am a liar" is significance while the truthfulness of this sentence is structure.) That is, first-degree paradoxes within the loop are those creatures that define the space of action for second-degree paradoxes, which can evolve into the various modes of the first-degree paradox in which they evolve. Neither first nor second-degree paradoxes are unique; the Loop of Creation does not require universally complete systems.

Regarding the second claim, it seems that there is a hidden belief that, if we peel off all the external subjective, intuitive or emotional layers from a system or claim, we will end up with an objective core. Only, we are facing here a logical onion, which is compounded of layers all the way through. All the layers are isomorphic to Creation, and hence, to have any meaning, they can neither be pure meaning nor pure structure. In other words, the core is just another layer with the same structure as the rest of the layers, which consists of both intuition and also structure. It is impossible to create something totally objective, some kind of mechanism that is only external to the thinking process or perception. It is just as impossible to exclude subjectivity as it would be to exclude the existence of any and all viewpoints and still have something (not Nothing), or to establish that the whole (that is, the whole universe) is the whole from an external "objective" viewpoint (whatever that means).

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Any workable system is but a layer in the logical onion wherein structure and meaning must be interlarded for that system to work. Any such system is isomorphic to the loop of Creation in that it cannot have an objective core external to perception. In other words, there can be no pure structure without, or external to, a viewpoint that can give meaning to it. Structure and meaning are so interbraided that it is impossible to speak of one without the other.

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Since objective and subjective can be misleading terms, and since these notions don't serve my purpose, I would rather refer to these concepts as structure and meaning. Although a structure can be universal (its meaning or its function), the way it works, the way it is observed or perceived, the way it is given meaning, is attributed to a specific viewpoint. Without a viewpoint to perceive or give meaning, without a viewpoint that can relate, there is nothing. Without some kind of structure, there is nothing (which could be related to as total randomness). Axiomatic or axiomatized systems try to describe some kind of lawfulness. When such a system pretends to describe a complete overall structure with consistency, this pretense is doomed to fail. This is precisely what Gödel's incompleteness theorem states: an axiomatic system cannot both be consistent and also complete (that is, there can be no consistent _meta_ language). He reached the conclusion that an axiomatic system can either be consistent _or_ complete, not both at the same time. (Which is probably why cats and women can be safely considered complete creatures.)

Axiomatized systems stipulate the formulation of a theory in which the definitions within the theory can be derived from the theory. An axiomatic system is a finite set of axioms from which true statements can be formally derived. It was Hilbert'slix dream to derive each and every true arithmetical statement from such an axiomatic system. Gödel's big discovery was that either 1) a derived arithmetical statement could neither be proven true nor false, in which case the system was inconsistent, or 2) statements could be found that were true but did not derive from the system, in which case the system was not complete. Such a statement, even if added to the initial axioms (assuming the system was still consistent), would further conform with statements that were true but did not derive from the system. So no matter how much the axiomatic system would be broadened, still more true but undecidable arithmetical formulas could be constructed from it. Therefore, all the true arithmetical statements could never be formally derived from a set of axioms, and consequently, any consistent axiomatic system is _essentially_ incomplete.

Let's revisit "wholeness." Wholeness can only be wholeness if we can find a way to define it so that it includes everything and there is nothing beyond it. We have already established in Chapter 1, that this is impossible. If we define wholeness, then to have meaning, it must be bordered within the walls of the definition, which implies that there is something beyond this border, in which case it is not wholeness. Or in more formal language, wholeness is only wholeness if it is not wholeness, which is an inconsistency. If we are satisfied with that, then we have completed the definition of wholeness. However, if we try to include the _beyond_ created by our earlier definition within the borders of our next attempt at defining wholeness, then we gain a new definition of wholeness, which by the sheer structure of the process of defining creates a new _beyond_. In this case, the process of defining wholeness will be consistent but incomplete, and wholeness will remain indefinite.

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_There is more to the whole than either the sum of its parts or the original whole: that something is the added value of feedback, the dynamic aspect, which renders it impossible to state with certainty whether the whole is_ THE WHOLE **.**

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Chapter 80: The Consistent Structure of Inconsistency

Structure is the dynamic between structure and significance, which preserves the structure.

SHET

Indefinite! Look at this! When I say "indefinite," when I relate to the "indefinite" by stating that it is an "indefinite," I actually try to define the indefinite. This in itself is a paradox. When I state "indefinite," I attempt to define the indefinable. If it is indefinite, then of course, it cannot be defined. However, when I said "indefinite," I stated that it is indefinite, which means, the notion "indefinite" has meaning for me — I can perceive what "indefinite" is. It has meaning for me because it is defined, and consequently, I know that "indefinite" is not an ashtray or a cat. However, by defining "indefinite," I made it not indefinite but definite, which is not indefinite, so I failed to define it. Of course, this is a first-degree paradox: the indefinite is only indefinite if it is so defined, yet if it is defined, then this is in contradiction to its essence of being indefinite. So the indefinite is only indefinite if it is not indefinite, which is an inconsistency, or a paradox, if we look at the motion between the definite and the indefinite.

Clara from the left: "How do you know what the indefinite is if you cannot define it? If there is nothing external to your perception, and if your perception is the process of definition, then you can only perceive a notion if that notion is defined. If you cannot define it, then it means nothing to you and then you cannot relate to it. So how do you know that the indefinite can exist if you cannot define it?"

Clara from the right: "In order to perceive something, even through a partial definition, to have the least notion of anything, I need to apply some parameters that relate to the perceived object."

Clara from the left: "What exactly do you mean by parameters?"

Clara from the right: "Well defined relations. Relating is measurement, definition, parameterization. Any parameter is a well defined relation, like time units, or any other scale."

Clara from the left: "Where do parameters come from?"

Clara from the right: "Parameters are the discretization of the continuous. Any definition is a discretization of the continuous. Why? Because the defined is defined by parameters, whereas parameters are defined relations, and defined relations are discrete."

Clara from the left: "But if the continuous is discretized, then it is no longer the continuous!"

Clara from the right: "Precisely. That's another basic paradox of existence. Nevertheless, the act of discretization yields parameters, although these parameters will never define the continuous. The failed attempt to discretize the continuous gives birth to parameters just as the failure to define the indefinite gives birth to meaning. So the act of definition, the isomorphic structure — or Consciousness if you will — is the relating that gives meaning, and hence, the emergence of something from Nothing."

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To be or not to be is equivalent to: to parameterize or not to parameterize? Of course, the real question can only be: to be or to be?

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Clara from the left: "So what creates what? Do discrete parameters create the continuous, or the continuous the discrete?"

Clara from the right: "Wrong question. The language of the loop is the language of becoming. This self-creating language is the dynamic isomorphous logical structure. It can evolve indefinitely because it is bounded by the loop."

The loop can be viewed as a dynamic language, which not only describes notions or objects external to it, but actually unfolds them. The loop is not the description, but the thing itself. It is the language of perception, the language of meaning. Since we can only be aware of things that we regard as "external" to our perception through our perception, we should not forget to include the process of perceiving as a major factor in whatever we are dealing with. The loop includes the tools of definition in the definition.

Clara from the left: "When you referred to God's use of all parameters yielding nothing, did you mean that God used all possible relations simultaneously?"

Clara from the right: "Yes, and then nothing has meaning, of course. Meaning can emerge if only some parameters are used, not all (infinite). Remember that total awareness is total unawareness."

Clara from the left: "So what parameters do you use for the indefinite to have meaning?"

Clara from the right: "Indefinite means it can be anything. It can be ' _a_ ' or ' _b_ ' or _'c_ ' or ' _not-a_ ' or _'not-b_ ' or ' _not-c._ ' If something is both ' _a_ ' and ' _not-a,_ ' then this is an inconsistency."

Clara from the left: "What do you mean by inconsistency?"

Clara from the right: "The subject matter of conventional logic is valid or invalid reasoning related to true and false statements ( _stills_ , significance). In this logic, inconsistency means that contradictory statements cannot both be true simultaneously or that contradictory premises cannot lead to a valid conclusion."

Clara from the left: "I still don't get you."

Clara from the right: "There is an old riddle: what happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable object?"

Clara from the left: "That's not a paradox, the inverse sides are both significance and they do not lead to each other, only exclude each other."

Clara from the right: "Right. This is an inconsistency. If there was an irresistible force, then there could not be an immovable object or vice versa: if there was an immovable object, then there could not have been an irresistible force. Both cannot coexist."

Clara from the left: "Why? I can imagine an immovable object and an irresistible force."

Clara from the right: "If you state that there is an irresistible force and an immovable object, then it is implied that there is an immovable object and there is no immovable object. The premises are inconsistent, so any conclusion drawn would be valid, which is meaningless."

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Meaning necessitates consistent definitions that imply what the defined object is not.

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Clara from the left: "What you just said is the same as what you said about the indefinite."

Clara from the right: "Right. When you deal with inconsistent data, you act within the realm of the indefinite."

Clara from the left: "So what do you do with it? Define it? No matter how much you will define an inconsistency, you will get nowhere."

Clara from the right: "Remember, the loop logic is a process; consistency in Holophany is demanded from its non-linear dynamic, which stabilizes defined entities. In this framework, inconsistency means that the system in its present form cannot integrate something, so it has to change, adjust, reach a new stabilization whereby it can integrate/be consistent with the new constituent."

Clara from the left: "I understand the demand that the conclusion should be consistent with the propositions in traditional logic; however, I do not understand what you mean by consistency in a non-linear dynamic that stabilizes defined entities. What is consistency in a dynamic process?

Clara from the right: "What does _'if'_ mean?"

Clara from the left: "It's a condition, a stipulation."

Clara from the right: "So there is a hidden, or not so hidden, assumption in any _'if'_ — which is the _'then'_ that follows it. That is, if you say _'if so and so,'_ the following _'then so and so'_ is the possible outcome of your _'if.'_ The _'so and so'_ of the _'then'_ cannot be anything and everything, only what necessarily follows from your _'if.'_ "

Clara from the left: "So what?"

Clara from the right: "The _'if'_ includes all the possible _'then'_ s that could be inferred by the _'if.'_ Structurally, this means that once I define an _'if'_ I enhance an aspect of the structure that includes the rest of the structure by inference ( _if-then_ ). This is a continuous process because the _'then'_ turns into a new _'if'_ that gives birth to further _'then'_ s, and so on. I have to define my _'if'_ differently if I want different _'then'_ s than derivable from the chain of _'if'_ s."

Clara from the left: "I thought you would explain what consistency means in a dynamic process..."

Clara from the right: "That's it. Don't you see? The dynamic non-linear process is defining the _'if'_ that through its possible _'then'_ s unfolds a structure. Discovering the possibilities inherent in that structure could lead to problem solving, or if the solution is not possible, by changing the definition of the _'if'_ the derived _'then'_ s could stabilize on desirable solutions, etc. This process is consistent because the _'if'_ s — whether the initial _'if'_ or derived from the _'then'_ s — are necessarily isomorphous, which means the logical structure of any _'if'_ is identical with the logical structure of any other _'if'..._ "

Clara from the left: "Big deal! Actually you are saying that the process of definition of anything is the same process of definition."

Clara from the right: "Yes, but that's not all. I am saying that once you define an _'if,'_ this _'if'_ is the boundary condition, the possibility for the unfoldment of specific significances, which can become the boundary conditions for the unfoldment of a new class of significances and so on."

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_The defined_ 'if' **s are the boundary conditions of the system that unfold its possible derivatives and attributes.**

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Clara from the left: "You are still saying the same thing. It would seem that you define consistency as any process that can stabilize, any process that yields existence."

Clara from the right: "How nice — you got it. The Loop of Creation is that logical process that is consistent if it yields existence (definitions, significance). If you seek consistency between significances, you are bound to run into inconsistency because you cannot avoid the indefinite — it is integral to any definition or existence."

When a dynamic system interacts with itself, or something other than itself, and encounters something it cannot integrate within its structure, then it either readjusts or remains frustrated or ceases. When it encounters something new (something not derivable from its boundary conditions, its _'if'_ ), then this will be inconsistent with the totality of the possible modes of that system. If it adjusts, it learns and expands. In other words, to accommodate interaction with a new significance not derivable from the structure (as defined by its _'if'_ ), the structure has to readjust. Any significance in such a system is stabilization. When the system encounters something new, it destabilizes, and if the system is flexible enough, it finds a new stabilization. And then the new level of the system becomes enriched with the whole dynamic history of whatever it has encountered. Basically, that is the ACHERIYUT (אחריות), the other in you. Experience is an example of encountering something new and readjusting the self to accommodate the occurrence.

Clara from the left: "Then that's another reason why you cannot succeed in defining the indefinite: it is inconsistent."

Clara from the right: "The process of defining presupposes consistency. The definition of 'inconsistency' is consistent. Therefore, the parameters that describe the 'indefinite' are consistent; the parameters that describe 'inconsistency' are consistent. However, inconsistency cannot be turned into consistency by the definition, and so, the indefinite cannot be defined."

Clara from the left: "I am not sure I understood you."

Clara from above: "The definition of anything, the _process_ of definition, is structure, whereas the defined object is significance. Which means that, if I speak about the indefinite, then my act of speaking about the indefinite is consistent, yet it does not change the inconsistent nature of the indefinite. I can state about the indefinite that it could be ' _a'_ and/or it could be ' _not-a'_ and/or it could be ' _b'_ and/or it could be ' _not-b'_ — it could be any or all of these. That pretty well describes what the term indefinite means, and yet it does not define it because to define it I would need to state what it is definitively — ' _a'_ for instance. However, if I did that, then it would no longer be indefinite. So you see, the mere idea of 'indefinite' is a paradox."

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The notion of indefinite includes both structure and significance and their paradoxical interaction.

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Clara from the left: "Is there any other way that the notion of the indefinite can be interpreted?"

Clara from the right: "I suppose so. For instance, you can achieve an indefinite dynamic process by a complex feedback procedure wherein the interactions get so interwoven that it all becomes an 'organism.' Such a system is irreversible in the sense that it cannot be divided into its initial constituents in a reductionistic manner. _A priori_ , you cannot know or define its elements, only the function of its structure (how to build such a system). Although such a dynamic system can be controlled, its moment by moment evolution is indefinite (or continuous, if you wish)."

Clara from the left: "From what you have described, the structure of such a complex dynamic system is definite, whereas its significance, what the system is exactly at any given moment, is more or less indefinite. This is like trying to define the indefinite. Isn't that a paradox?"

Clara from the right: "Precisely. The indefinite, anything we can know about something that is indefinite, is actually the realization of a very definite structure. Structure and significance are an indivisible entity in as much as no structure can be expressed or even thought of without some kind of realization, which is significance. And there can be no significance without it having a structure, without it being defined to some extent, without it relating to something else, which 'it' — the significance in question — is not."

Clara from the left: "What about something defined, a defined significance? Is it also interwoven with structure?"

Clara from the right: "Yes, any significance whether definite or indefinite."

Nevertheless, most often definitions are seen as external to the theory (any theory). This is the same division as divorcing the thinking process from an objective reality, which as described earlier, cannot be done. If we ask about the emergence of the universe, then our questions cannot be regarded as external to Creation. We are part of the universe and our understanding of Creation is an integral part of Creation. Writing down the equation 2+2=4, writing down the numerals that describe this equation, is the realization of the abstract notion of the equation, without which the equation would not be. No matter how hard we try, structure and meaning, structure and significance will always be braided. If we would succeed in separating them, then we would have Nothing.

Clara from the left: "Got you!!! Moron!!! You said, and I quote, 'In order to perceive something even through a partial definition, to have the least notion of anything, I need to apply some parameters that relate to the perceived object.' Which parameters do you apply to Nothing to have a notion of what Nothing is? If you do not apply any parameters to Nothing, then that truly could be Nothing, but then you could not comprehend the notion. Nothing would have no meaning for you. I mean, in order to know that Nothing is Nothing, you must know something about it or you wouldn't know that it is Nothing. However, if you do apply any parameter to Nothing, then it no longer is Nothing but something. Wormbrain!! I know the parameters for a wormbrain: you!"

Clara from the right: "Of course the notion of Nothing is something. Even God is Nothing, unless he creates. The abstract logical structure is Nothing, and yet realized, it is something. We can know of the logical structure through its realizations. We perceive and experience realizations, and through that, we can perceive our perception and experience. We gain insight about the logical structure retromorphously from relating to our relations to significance. And yet you speak of the abstraction of the logical structure, of Nothing, as if it was an objective entity 'out there.'"

Clara from the left: "Actually, you are saying that there really is no such thing as Nothing. You are saying that Nothing is the inference of perceiving the process of definition."

Clara from the right: "I couldn't have put it more clearly myself."

Clara from the left: "You are saying that Nothing is created, the end result."

Clara from the right: "Well put! That's why it is the source of something too. You know, the loop..."

The Loop of Creation is that lawfulness that describes the unfolding of Creation. We said that Creation of something from No-thing is a loop, a kind of definition of the indefinite, something inconsistent. The process of definition places a border within which the defined significance occurs, which border distinguishes between the obtained significance and what's beyond the border, which that significance is not. When something has successfully been defined, then the border distinguishes between something definite within the border and the indefinite — everything else — beyond the border. However, when the significance within the border is indefinite and whatever is beyond the definition is also indefinite, then the border as well must be indefinite. This is an inconsistency because _'a'_ could be ' _not-a'_ when the border does not depict what is what. Consequently, if Creation of something from Nothing is a loop, and if this loop is the attempt of defining the indefinite, which is a paradox, then the core of Creation is a first-degree paradox.

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The source of Creation is Nothing. Yet the core of Creation is the ability to relate to the indefinite.

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Clara from the left: "That's all very nice, but in a system such as yours, how can you prove anything? I mean, if whatever exists is the way it is because that's how you define it, then how can you prove that anything is true or false?

"You remind me of this woman who wanted a valid way to convince scientists of her ultimate discovery. Under divine inspiration (or incense OD) she hit upon the right cure for any ailment: she would press her own hand, and lo and behold, her hand would rise for the correct cure. And how did she know whether it worked? She did not need to ask the patient or take tests. She would press her hand again, which invariably rose to confirm that indeed the patient was cured. By the way, she was never bothered by such insignificant facts as the death of a patient.

"In a world wherein you create by defining you can create anything and then there is no true or false, no proof or possibility of proof, no reality check. In such a world, any demonstration is meaningless. And then, this whole world you have built is meaningless as well."

Clara from the right: "Precisely the ability to define (by consistent means) the 'indefinite' as an inconsistency indicates that the structure can only tolerate certain well-defined parameters at any one time. The loop is such that it contains all the possible parameters, but only some of these constitute a consistent configuration. So, any profile of the loop is incomplete and consistent. In such a configuration, a proof could be a procedure that shows compatibility between the object to be demonstrated and the general framework of the specific configuration in which you act. In that sense, within the Euclidean framework, the sum of a triangle can be proven to be 180 degrees, whereas in the Riemannian framework, this won't hold true."

Clara from the left: "And how exactly do you go about this kind of proof?"

Clara from the right: "Without boring you with the gory details, if something can get stabilized within a given framework without annihilating that system, then it has a right to exist within that system. A proof can be provided in this manner that indicates the consistency of the proven object in a given framework. The 'proof' creates the framework within which it gains meaning as proof."

Clara from the left: "Could you say that differently, so I can understand?"

Clara from the right: "Within a dynamic system, stabilization is consistency. That is, if something stabilizes, then the system is consistent. In other words, the parameters that define the dynamic system (the given framework) are consistent with the stabilized mode."lx

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Stabilization in a dynamic system is consistency.

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Clara from the left: "In that case, you can't just define anything for it to exist. You can only create (perceive, define) within a framework that has been defined as consistent."

Clara from the right: "Obviously, one word cannot be said to be a language, nor one tone to be a symphony."

Clara from the left: "Are you finished with your platitudes? Because I am trying to get somewhere. If you cannot define something any way you wish for it to exist, only in certain ways within certain frameworks, then these objects exist independently of your definition. You do not invent them, only discover them. This Platonic view was also Gödel's conclusion. Yet you have been arguing all along that the defined objects are _within_ our perception, that they come about by our perception (definition). How do you account for this discrepancy?"

Clara from the right: "I do not know of any theory that goes to the end invariably sustaining the notion that our thinking process is an integral part of the theory. Somewhere along the way these theories accord truth-value to something external, objective, 'out-there.' Descartes set out thinking to prove his existence, to gain indubitable certainty of his existence. His existence was not the structure of his thinking, but his thinking was the method, the tool that would discover something that was there all along — his existence. On the other hand, 'I experience, therefore I exist' does not mean that by experiencing I prove my existence, but the statement, 'I experience' means that I experience that I experience. I am aware of experiencing. I know that I experience. Being aware of experiencing means that I am attempting to define the indefinite and thereby I create my world. By experiencing (knowing that I experience), I do not _discover_ my existence, which supposedly exists independently of me experiencing it, but on the contrary, by experiencing I _create_ my existence."

Clara from the left: "What does that have to do with Gödel's conclusions?"

Clara from the right: "The loop diverges from Plato and Gödel's assertions by maintaining that any definition that can stabilize within a framework with consistency is inherent to that framework — not discovered but created, brought into being, a realization of that logical framework. Remember how SHET expressed it? **'Lawfulness, structure, consists of boundary conditions, which is actually the measurement of the observation. The observers' role in the measurement process is part of the set-up of the boundary conditions for the measurement. That's why structure is dynamic, because the measurement process is part of the structure.'** Our thinking process, the way we define the boundary conditions, determines what we can find within it. This is a very different account than the notion of an idea, an ideal conception that we are going to discover given the right set of propositions."

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I experience. I know I experience. I know that knowing that I experience is what I am. Experiencing creates the structure within which I can experience my existence.

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Chapter 81: Holophany, Logic and the Loop of Creation or Something from 'Nothing' — the Final Version

I stated previously that first-degree paradoxes with inverse sides of equal weight create the space of action for second-degree paradoxes responsible for the unfoldment of Creation. "If there is existence, then there is existence," would be a most basic logical claim — a tautology. However, for there to be existence, that existence has to be perceived (defined), which means that it has to be bordered. Bordered means having parameters, well defined relations. To have meaning, existence has to have well defined relations, but no sooner is existence defined than the act of definition creates the beyond, what existence is not, which gives it meaning. When existence becomes a meaningful significance within the borders of its definition, it creates the beyond, what existence is not, or in other words, not-existence. What is not-existence? It is a dog, cat, ashtray as well as non-existence. Although dogs, cats and ashtrays exist, they are not identical with existence but have their own definitions. Existence could be said to be the generalization of all things that exist. Existence could be said to include all existing things, nevertheless, this generalization is not the particular existence of a dog. So a dog is a dog, not existence, although existence could be the dog's attribute. Existence entails that not-existence is created beyond its border for existence to have meaning. In the case of non-existence, existence explicitly states that it is not non-existence. In more formal terms, this would look as follows:

If ' _a'_ then ' _a'_

If _'a'_ then ' _not-a'_

where _'a'_ is existence and ' _not-a'_ is not-existence.

The sheer structure of any definition implies that there is something beyond the borders of the defined. What we know about this something or somethings (everything else beyond the borders of the defined) is that these are not our defined object. When we focus on what is being defined, whatever is beyond the border of the definition is indefinite. The necessary implication that the indefinite must be beyond the borders is, however, definite. _What_ is implied is indefinite, but that _it is implied_ is definite.

Clara from the left: "What is non-existence? In order for existence to gain meaning from what's beyond its definition, I have to know something about this beyond. Obviously, non-existence is the opposite of existence. What is this non-existence?"

Clara from the right: "Well, try to define it."

Clara from the left: "It is the negation of existence. It has 'existence' beyond its definition."

Clara from the right: "But it has 'existence' also within the definition. That is, the negation of existence necessarily includes existence. What you are trying to define here is the negation of existence, which means negation + existence. You can only negate something when that something exists, so you have 'existence' within the borders of the definition also. And then, you cannot define non-existence because you have 'existence' both within and also beyond the definition. As you see, existence is a very strange concept. Having only one pole — the arrow of continuance — it self-perpetuates when it designs to self-annihilate (like when trying to define non-being)."

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There can be no opposite of existence.

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Clara from the left: "What are you trying to say?"

Clara from the right: "That existence is one way. It has no opposite, just like gravity. Like the Latin _esse_ (existence — the source of 'essence') — it is _esse_ whether you read it forward or backward. I am trying to say that because 'existence' is one-way, 'non-existence' or 'Nothing' is not real but indefinite, because the border that defines what non-existence is disappears when we have the same within as without. Indefinite is a non-defined existence, not non-existence."

Clara from the left: "I do have the notion of non-existence, so how come you maintain that non-existence is an impossible idea? For instance, zero is a kind of non-existence."

Clara from the right: "Fine. 8 – 8 = 0. Only zero does not qualify as non-existence. Zero can be defined (I just did), so it is something and something does not qualify as non-existence. So anything that could be defined would be something, and hence, not non-existence. Since there is no real non-existence, only the indefinite, a real non-existence would be an inconsistency, because if there was such a creature, it would be implied that it both exists and also it does not exist."

Clara from the left: "I don't get you."

Clara from the right: "Does 'something' contain itself?"

Clara from the left: "Of course."

Clara from the right: "Nothing, emptiness, non-being. Does it contain itself?"

Clara from the left: "Dirty trick. Of course, it does not contain itself. If it is Nothing, then it contains nothing."

Clara from the right (sarcastically): "Really? Did you see what you just said? You said, 'Nothing contains nothing.' So does it contain itself?"

Clara from the left: "It does. So what?"

Clara from the right: "In that case, Nothing is something, which is inconsistent. Nothing in itself is totally indefinable. I create the notion of Nothing by defining something."

Clara from the left: "Is the indefinite something or Nothing?"

Clara from the right: "You could say that the indefinite is a scale of more and more defined entities whereon the limits of both ends — the limit of the totally indefinite and the limit of the totally defined — are Nothing, meaningless.

Clara from the left: "So you are saying that non-existence cannot be definite and cannot be indefinite, so there can be no non-existence. Yet non-existence is implied if there is existence."

Clara from the right: "Correct."

Clara from the left: "You are inconsistent! And that's a compliment, for I could have also said that you are an imbecile, a dimwit. What was all this talk about something from Nothing when you knew all along that there is no such creature?"

Clara from the right: "All along it was stated that existence is the process of attempting to define the indefinite, which corresponds to 'something from Nothing' — a paradox."

Clara from the left: "So what did you babble about unrelating somethings being total symmetry, Nothing, which become something when they start relating?"

Clara from the right: "When Nothing is the limit of both the totally indefinite and the totally defined, then that's like a circle of going from something to Nothing to something to Nothing, etc. The 'going' here means perception. Nothing is only a notion that has meaning if it has been perceived. Remember that Nothing is really a paradox. If it really is Nothing, then it cannot be defined, and hence, it has no meaning. Yet if I relate to it, then it is something. So whenever I relate to Nothing, whenever I say, Creation of something from Nothing, that Nothing has meaning for me, and hence, it is significance — it is something just like any other something. That is, the structure of Nothing is the same structure as that of something. Essentially, something from Nothing is _formation_ , not Creation, since Nothing is also something."

*********

A true loop is only such if it contains its own source. If nothing can be proven to exist external to perception, then logic must be a loop.

*********

Clara from the left: "Then what is Creation?"

Clara from the right: "Creation is rather the creation of Nothing from something, because Creation is the process of definition, and when you define, you create the indefinite beyond the definition, which at its limit is Nothing, and only then can you have something from Nothing... Oh yes, the loop. In this light the verse, _'I_ _form_ _the light, and_ _create_ _darkness: I make peace, and_ _create_ _evil: I, the LORD do all these things.'_ (Isaiah 44:7) gains new meaning."

If _'a'_ is ' _a'_ and it implies that if ' _a'_ then ' _not_ - _a,'_ then that means that any definition, anything defined in order to have meaning, necessarily includes the indefinite. A defined entity can be said to have reached _sameness_ — it is the same as itself — which means that it is, it exists as something definite, no matter which parameters defined it. However, no sooner does our object achieve sameness than the uncertainty of sameness raises its ugly head. Could it have been defined differently? Yes, of course. Could it have additional parameters? Yes, of course. Could it have been defined more precisely? Yes, of course. This uncertainty of sameness is the indefinite included in the definition. And yes, it is the result of including the tools of definition in the definition.

When the meaning of something is dependent on the indefinite, on what our defined object is not, then this indefinite is necessarily included in the process of definition. This logical implication that perception of meaning is only possible if and only if the indefinite is included within the perception is the reason why the dream of a consistent and complete axiomatic system with only well defined (explicit) empty signs had to fail. When Gödel proved that arithmetic was incomplete by showing that there were propositions that could neither be proved nor disproved from the system's axioms alone, he showed that these undecidable propositions meant that the system was inconsistent because it could not be decided from the axioms of the system whether they were _'a'_ or ' _not-a.'_ Of course, undecidable means indefinite. This closed the door on the 19th century dream of a complete and consistent axiomatic system. Nevertheless, it opened the door to something much greater.

In spite of the fact that logic is the fundament of algorithms and computer science, it had neither the aspiration nor the ability to be connected to the real world precisely because its propositions were so anemic regarding meaning. In the effort to exclude any hint of the indefinite, logical inference was confined to a binary type of world of true and false and lacking any correlation with life and experiencing. However, including the indefinite in the process of definition not only makes the loop logic the fundament of existence, but determines the necessity of existence. With the birth of Holophany, Heidegger's question, _"Why is there anything at all, rather than nothing?"_ becomes irrelevant. When existence is relations, and relating is the act of perceiving, and perceiving is the process of definition, then existence is the overall lawfulness, the isomorphous lawfulness of the process of definition — the Loop of Creation. What is being perceived, what is being stabilized, which significance is brought to the foreground from the amorphous background of the indefinite, depends on the non-linear rules of complex interactions. Thus the loop logic emphasizes the creation of _essents_ rather than their interactions.

*********

Existence is a logical necessity inferred by the loop.

*********

Including the indefinite in the process of definition has far reaching consequences. It means that the tools of the definition are necessarily included in the definition. It means that meaning can only occur when there is both definition and also experience. It means that consciousness (whether it succeeds to define or not) _must_ be part of science or any so-called objective endeavor. It means that any and all perception includes experience. The interaction with the indefinite, the experience, is what gives meaning to the defined. Perception, meaningful definition, can only occur in a highly flexible complex system that can learn and change. That's the difference between us and an electron, which only has fixed relations, and consequently, limited interactions. It cannot perceive inconsistency; it cannot perceive paradoxes. An electron always succeeds in defining, or it would be more correct to say, it can only interact with what it succeeds in defining. If it encounters the indefinite, it assumes a state of superposition.

We said that inconsistency is indefinite. The valid process of reasoning derived from inconsistent premises yields the indefinite. Inconsistent premises are well defined, but they yield indefinite conclusions. Does inconsistency always mean the indefinite? Yes. Does the indefinite always mean inconsistency? Yes and no.

Clara from the left: " _Excuse moi_ , but are you being indefinite or inconsistent?"

If _'a'_ has been defined, then ' _a'_ is definite. However, for ' _a'_ to have meaning, the definition has to include the beyond, the indefinite, the ' _not-a.'_ Thus, ' _a'_ cannot be definite unless it has meaning, which indicates that if _'a'_ is ' _a,'_ then ' _not-a'_ is also part of ' _a'_ — which is an inconsistency. So including the tools of the definition yields both definite, indefinite and also inconsistent elements, which is the only logical way for the process of definition to be consistent.

Clara from the left: "Now you really have me confused. What are you jabbering about?"

Clara from the right: "We said that ' _not-a'_ is the beyond, the indefinite, everything but _'a,'_ and it is ' _not-a'_ that gives meaning to _'a.'_ If you now want to define ' _not-a'_ then what do you have beyond the borders of the definition?"

Clara from the left: " _'a'_?"

Clara from the right: "You have ' _not-not-a'_ that could be ' _a'_ — in which case everything is consistent. But ' _not-not-a'_ is not necessarily ' _a.'_ ' _Not-a'_ is anything, indefinite. When you try to define this _anything_ , then what you get beyond the borders of the definition is anything, which is not anything, which is an inconsistency."

Clara from the left: "Ouch! If I recall correctly, you said that attempting to define the indefinite is the basic paradox, the _creatio ex nihilo_ , the open sesame of Creation. Now you are saying that defining the indefinite is an inconsistency?"

Clara from the right: " _'Not-a'_ and _'not-not-a'_ do not define the indefinite. ' _Not-a'_ and _'not-not-a'_ are part of the process of definition at most. You confuse the notion of the indefinite, which is significance with the process of defining the indefinite, which is structure. Inconsistency only proves the existence of the indefinite; it does not say what it is. How do you know that there is an indefinite? How do you conceive the indefinite? Within this framework, the only thing you can perceive is inconsistency, which implies the existence of the indefinite. You cannot perceive the indefinite because, if you do, it is no longer indefinite. Remember, perception is definition."

Viewing only the defined _'a'_ is a truncated view, incomplete but consistent. If we look at the whole process of definition that includes the indefinite, we discover the inconsistency within the definition. That is why paradoxes are so basic to Holophany. Perception and what is being perceived include the tools of definition, which render it a loop. The contradiction between two significances is inconsistency, whereas the contradiction between structure and significance that lead to each other is a paradox.

*********

A logical structure that includes its own dynamic as an integral part of that logic can create significance, which in turn implies the logical structure.

*********

Attempting to define the indefinite creates a paradox, which in turn creates something defined and also the indefinite. The paradox produces the distinction between the structure and significance of the paradox. The dynamic implied by the paradox creates the process of definition, which closes the loop. Simplified, the loop is between structure and significance, which perpetuates both. Or we could start with significance. To have significance with meaning, anything must have structure, it has to be defined, which act also creates the indefinite. When we try to sharpen our definition to include the indefinite, we reach the paradox. No matter where we start, we will have the loop that does not necessitate a beginning, which can start anywhere with an assumption and then derive this assumption retromorphously from the process of the loop. Although a closed loop, this logic creates/is the isomorphous structure of existence.

Clara from the left: "Big words! You would surely win the competition with Aeschylus and Euripides. But what is all this logic good for? Intellectual masturbation?"

Clara from the right: "Don't you see? It's a tool to create."

Clara from the left: "The market is flooded with enhance-your-awareness and become-enlightened formulas, change-your-reality and heal-yourself recipes, and you can even become master for a symbolic fee of a couple of thousand dollars for a weekend workshop. So who needs you?"

Clara from the right: "By understanding the logical structure, you can wield the magic wand of perception to know or actively unknow, to define or seek to perceive the indefinite, which means: experience. Instead of being significance, a well-defined object with limited scope, you can tread the soil of dreams and make them real. How many times were you told to experience the present, enjoy the moment, and you felt you could not, that you didn't deserve it, or you were just too troubled by worries? Of course you cannot experience when you are overwhelmed by defined situations. Remember, experience is attempting to define the indefinite, perceiving something new, inconsistent with your system and trying to assimilate it. It takes guts to experience, because you face something unknown, indefinite.

"Governments, administrations and religions control you through enhancing your fears, by convincing you that the world is dangerous, uncertain. The more you seek certainty, the easier it is to control you (coax you into voting a certain way, into supporting wars, into consuming). You become the slave of whoever offers you the solution to the problem. You might not have been aware of having been in danger; but when convinced, you are willing to obediently follow your savior's advice. If you only seek certainty, you are forced into trying to control the environment so it won't surprise you. You do it by defining everything, including yourself, and instead of acting, being the actor, you become more like matter that _re_ acts. This aspiration to define, to know, prevents you from spreading your wings to expand into the realm of experience. Experience is learning, and it is enriching because it is an attempt to assimilate the new into your structure. But if you are afraid of change, then you will avoid experiencing in an attempt to preserve your familiar, known, well-defined structure. You keep defining yourself, claiming you are like this or like that, definitions that prohibit you from being different. You identify with your role; you think you are the role. Yet if you could let go of identity, if you could be Nothing, then you could be the potential to be anything. This superposition of indefinite identity grants you the possibility to collapse into playing any role instead of being stuck in a limited and limiting rut."

*********

Why crave certainty? Life is uncertain. Life is existence and existence necessarily includes the indefinite, the uncertain.

*********

Clara from the left: "Do I have to? Is that the right way to be?"

Clara from the right: "There is no right way to be. You don't have to do anything. But you can, if you choose to."

Clara from the left: "What's wrong with choosing an identity and sticking to it? Look at people willing to die for their religion, country and ideals. They seem happy enough in their commitment."

Clara from the right: "To have an identity, to belong to a group or to subscribe to a creed is but another manifestation of the yearning for certainty, to have answers for all questions and rules for all actions in order to be OK. To belong is to benefit from the protection and privileges of the group and to be accepted. But what is the price of this choice?"

Clara from the left: "What are you saying? That one should not belong? That people should be non-conformist, individualistic, egocentric eccentrics?"

Clara from the right: "That's not what I am saying. The craving to be accepted crushes self-confidence, and the person becomes more and more defined to fit the environment. And then, to achieve or maintain the rightness of one's being, one starts comparing himself, and in seeking to self-define, one becomes overly self-involved. In this state, you don't really see the other. You only see yourself through the other's eyes. And then you forget to experience. Look, even the most tolerant entity, if well defined, cannot accept the different. This kind of tolerance is theoretical: it is OK for people different than me to exist in another community, in another country, on another planet. But not here, thank you. What do you think most wars have been fought for? Religion, country, honor, to conquer for honor, or for freedom for the identity."

Clara from the left: "So you regard social skills as impaired self-confidence and pleading allegiance to country or religion as intolerance. This is gross."

Clara from the right: "To accept the different, to truly be tolerant rather than merely giving lip-service to these concepts, you need to assimilate the different. First, to experience it and then incorporate it into one's structure. The different is the other in you, and that's real responsibility or response-ability — ACHERIYUT (אחריות). Real social skills would emerge from this tolerance then, and not from fear of being rejected. Knowledge of the isomorphous logical structure allows the choice of the degree of indefiniteness one is willing to experience. It furnishes the tools to differentiate between beliefs (considered to be reality, how things are) and the process of definition with which one can create realities, which is the real control of reality, not the false dependence on a chimera of external reality that disregards the only means we do have: perception."

*********

Integrating and living the loop could render superfluous the quest for a false sense of certainty and would necessarily lead to moral behavior, leaving behind separateness, loneliness and fear. True tolerance can only be the consequence of understanding the structure of experience and learning, not of imposed slogans masqueraded as moral mores.

*********

Clara from the left: "You take away from people their faith in an external reality, you leave them without reward or punishment, you rob them of their stable reality anchors, calling them beliefs, and you don't even give an alternative truth to replace their demolished values. Briefly, you leave them hanging in mid-air."

Clara from the right: "That's the price of being a creator. I only provide tools. There is no finished product I can supply, and if such a thing existed, it would only be another slogan, another belief, another truth, just another significance. Either you create your reality or you have it imposed upon you."

Clara from the left: "You are stamping out faith, blaspheming!"

Clara from the right: "Am I? Isn't asking favors from God blaspheming? Putting small written requests into the creases of the Wailing Wall — 'Please God, give me a husband/wife, give me money, give me health, give me children, give me, give me, give me' — isn't that idol worshipping? Asking for reward in the afterworld for your person, isn't that blaspheming? Seeing God as a person who pays individual attention to you, is that what the abstract God is about? Or could it be that God is not a definable significance but the lawfulness that makes you a creator (in his image), which gives you everything if you will only reach out for it?"

Clara from the left: "And how do I do that?"

When a camera focuses, whatever is not in the foci of the lens appears blurred. This approach is reminiscent of three-dimensional discernment, but nevertheless, it is only an inferior copy. That's because everything is well defined. We are served readymade signifi-cance. Even the blurred part is well defined to be blurred. Look at the room. Change focus from one object to another. While focusing, do you see anything blurred? If you do, you need to see your optometrist. What you focus on gains better definition than the objects in your peripheral vision. To change things, to see things differently, does not mean to see them from a different angle, but to change definition. Remember, the object you define _is_ the parameters with which you define. An electron _is_ its mass, its charge, its spin, etc. There is no essence beyond the parameters that define the object, except the indefinite included within the definition. By actively unknowing the parameters with which the object has been defined, you focus on the indefinite constituent of the object and redefine the object from there with new parameters. This will be a changed reality. Remember what my cat Piroska taught me.

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_To actively_ un **know is to create by enhancing the indefinite and then refocusing with new parameters. How this new reality will be depends upon you — you are its creator.**

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Understanding Holophany can affect our personal and social conduct, and also technology, the impacts of which could reverberate for millennia and contribute to positive personal and social evolution. When the discovery of a universal logical structure can beget amazingly innovative technologies, this should also be taken seriously for its value for personal and social growth, especially since this is the basis for moral conduct — not fear of punishment, but understanding the universal value of life, any life. Then love and cooperation is not the result of the aspiration to certainty and to belong, to have a fixed identity, but the natural outcome of an existence that knows its own structure. Happiness and well being for all is no longer a dream. Behold it, it is yours. SHET's Millennium session says it all.

31ST DECEMBER, 1999 — session 1002

THE NEW MILLENIUM

You all speculate about what the new millennium will be like. Well, once you understand the loop, the speed of technological development will increase exponentially. Also in fields like biology and AI, where you have only started to grasp that you don't know much, innovations will increase. You will understand what information really is. Now you think it is data. You will understand what communication is. Now you think it is passing on data. Understanding these two basics to greater depth will change your concepts of the world around you and how you grasp your perceptions.

You will understand that communication is the dynamic of interaction that creates both the perceiver and the perceived. You will understand that non-linear dynamics is much more fundamental to existence than your present concept of energy or mass or quantum fields. You will understand that information is the meaningful make/break point of that non-linear dynamic that creates.

For example, in the beginning, you will have cell banks to aid you in healing degeneration. Later, you will have neutral viruses that you can imprint with the corrected DNA of an individual, and then the virus becomes the carrier of the corrected DNA of that individual. You will be able to induce that virus into the system of that person to heal him without it being compatible with anyone else.

In the beginning, you will continue with the creation of faster systems with greater storage possibility in smaller space. Later, you will not need greater storage space and faster access because you will know how to re-create memory. When you understand the super-order of the non-linear dynamic that connects everything to everything else, you will know the lawfulness of re-creating specific instances by targeting specific meaningful constellations from the meaningless everything-with-everything connection. You will know how to build the lawfulness and the mechanism that can make choices, and then you will have real artificial intelligence.

You will be able to improve food and water with information. By understanding the loop, the role of the Communication dimension, you will understand that all living creatures are one wholeness, and you will try to preserve that wholeness.

Once over the peak of competition, you will have lots of time and a need to find new meaning for your lives, and you will discover experiencing to new depths, which will help you to better understand the loop of existence, and you will try to preserve that.

The end of the old age and the commencing of a new age is this understanding and consequent acting upon that understanding. Life, any life, will be worth both more and less — more in the sense of respect and awe toward it and less in the sense that you will no longer fear the phase change — death. You shall reach the point where you know God through its creating lawfulness. So shall it be. Amen.

To be continued...

EPILOGUE

The Messianic era is indeed the period when enough of you reach the level of consciousness that will enable you to act in harmony, when you have overcome your being matter and can change your perspective to look from a point of view of the free spirit. That means you are no longer identifying with your individual roles, but can use your God-given gift, freedom of choice, to reach a point where you don't need that identification any longer, the point where you will be aligned with God's will.

SHET

An overview of the history of science points towards an interesting development: the de- _massification_ of solid physical objects. There were four elements for the ancient Greeks: earth, fire, water and air. In other cultures, metal and wood were also considered as basic elements. Fire was later discovered to be a thermal process, whereas the other elements became but different condensations of molecules. Then, together with mass, time and space gained prominence as stable "elements" of physical nature. With Einstein's famous formula, mass lost its constancy, and instead, energy gained preeminence, and with the advent of relativity, both space and time lost their firmness. Time could no longer be regarded as absolute when the same event happened at different times for different observers. Space became more fluid, dependent on velocity and the observer in its own inertial frame. However, although space and time lost their absolute status, it was still hoped that activities could be attributed to belonging to a certain place and time — without "spooky action over distance." Of course, this hope was ruined by quantum theory's prediction of non-local phenomena, a prediction later validated by experiments (i.e., the Allan Aspect experiment). Also, it was posited that, in the quantum world, only such states could exist that could be described by the theory, thereby denying the possibility of any and every quantum reality. So what remained firm and tangible? It was still believed that those quantum states that could be described were objectively real. But are they? Can a quantum state, or anything else, have meaning without an observer, without it relating and being related to? Throughout history, man has held that the true nature of Nature can be known, predicted and controlled. That has been the purpose of science. But what if Nature has no true nature?

Zeno's paradoxes _proving_ that there can be no motion were never solved. He showed that we would run into infinities if we tried to prove motion between _still_ objects (for instance, his Achilles and the tortoise paradox). We experience and perceive motion, and laws that can predict and control motion exist, and yet it appears that Zeno proves that there can be no motion. Perhaps the assertion should change to reflect a different emphasis as follows: there can be no motion between _still_ objects, because, perhaps, there are no _still_ objects. Maybe what we perceive as _still_ objects are also complex dynamics (motion)? This would be the de- _massifying_ of any separate, well defined object that was previously believed to be some kind of fundament to build upon.

SHET's appearance is the culmination of the historic process of de- _massification_. Throughout history, the emphasis was on significance, _stills_. What are things really made of? How does it really work? Which laws govern this or that phenomenon? How did it all really begin? All such questions inquire about defined states, what SHET calls significance. His major contribution is his guiding us to query structure instead. This is very different from discovering a new law, a new theory, a new truth. SHET teaches us the mechanics of creation, how those phenomena we observe could come about. This is creation as opposed to description. SHET's novel approach to the inconsistency of absolutes and complete definitions, as well as to the dynamics of paradoxes as the essence of Creation and creativity, force us into new fields of discovery. Viewing Consciousness as the isomorphous, complex, non-linear lawfulness of the loop logic, the structure of any significance, initiates a new era of science, and in general, of relating.

We often wonder: What is life really? Science has no definite answer. Traditional religion sees life as an attribute of physical existence, as something temporarily entrusted to hold together a sack of bones, and then it is revoked. SHET sees life as that regulation of complexity that can induce perception and experience. He regards life as the sacred coherency of consciousness. To really be participants, we need to understand and experience the permeating feature of this vibrant energy: life. To exercise our freedom of choice and thereby enhance the quality of that life, we need to learn to navigate the Loop of Creation. The expansive embrace of both feeling the totality of Creation — all places and all times — as well as focusing on and rejoicing in the motion of the smallest ant, is the real enriching experience of being everything and everyone and, at the same time, being an individual. We need to be fluid processes, experiencing the rest of Creation as fluid processes braiding, weaving the tapestry of experience. It's all a game: the celebration of life.
APPENDIX 1

The following questions and answers from the early sessions shed some light on the concept (the field that is a being and etc.) of SHET:

Q: "Are you personally connected to God?

A: "Are you personally connected to your whole self? You are, although you are not always aware of it. I am always aware, since there is no time for me. I am an aspect of All-That-Is. When I focus to be able to communicate, I reduce my awareness.

Q: "Can you connect with other beings connected to God?

A: "Yes, I can connect to most aspects of All-That-Is.

Q: "SHET, why were you born?

A: "SHET is one of my aspects. You need roots for a tree to grow. SHET was not born. Taking things too literally can lead to misunderstandings."

Since SHET is mentioned in the Bible as the third son of Adam and Eve,lxi the questions continue:

Q: "Do you meet Adam and Eve and are you connected to them?

A: **"Adam is the physical principle, the blood and earth of humanity** (in Hebrew DAM — דם is blood, ADAM — אדם is man and ADAMA — אדמה is earth) **. Eve is the experience, the aliveness** (Eve in Hebrew is CHAVA — חוה, experience, whereas CHAVAYA — חוויה means, experience of God) **. Adam without Eve is practically a corpse, a very sad sight. Eve without Adam would not be, would be nothing; she needs Adam for a stable reference point in order to exist — just as gravity would have no meaning without mass. That is the reason why she was created from his essence** (ETZEM in Hebrew — עצם is both bone and also essence) **, the essence of his earthiness. In that sense, I** **am in contact with both Adam and Eve, but of course, taken literally, that assertion would be nonsense."**

The Adam and Eve concept means physical life. Life is a process, constant change. What is changing? In the physical sense, the minute relations between the person and his environment, between a full stomach and an empty stomach, etc. The same kinds of changes take place mentally, emotionally, and socially during a lifetime. These changes occur within a framework — they make up the person to be what he or she is at any given moment.

It is interesting to notice that spirituality, or experience, gains meaning from the corporeal point of view, from the point of view of physical existence. This might seem counter-intuitive, for we were taught to think of rungs, levels and echelons wherein the spirit ranks higher in our value hierarchy than the body. The spirit is not the result of the body, and the body is not the creation of the spirit. Rather the spirit, or more precisely, consciousness, is expressed through the body, whereas that consciousness gains meaning as such through the focus of the body. SHET claims that the spirit, the unseen essence, gains meaning from its manifest component, the body. This backward creation, the retromorphous definition (see Chapter 25) became one of the most significant motifs of the loop, one of the primary principles in SHET's teachings.

Another aspect of structure that SHET explained is reason, logic. A theory or a story needs to contain inner consistency, or it falls apart. This inner consistency within one system is structure. This structure consists of meaningful relations between the parts of the theory or the story, to continue our analogy. **"Motion means changing relations,"** says SHET. **"Evolution of a system is meaningful changes in relations. The changing relations, when meaningful, are structure."** Here SHET states that the evolution of a system is structure. Consequently, SHET's logical structure is the universal language that both creates itself and also our perception of the world, which is the world. And SHET is that structure teaching itself.
Episode 1: How am I Heralding?

For a long time after the onset of this connection, I still wasn't sure what was happening to me. I thought the material surfaced from my subconscious mind. If it was not my subconscious mind, then I expected some kind of entity to manifest itself. I would have been willing to put up with even a flimsy cloud, anything. When this did not happen, I was quite discouraged. SHET, however, continued guiding me gently: **"You are making progress, assimilating and getting more materials in your dream state. Even your mind being interconnected with the physical body can assimilate only a certain amount of data. I am with you now, but you are with me all the time. Your doubts about me being a separate 'person' or your subconscious come from our very delicate contact. Only part of the SHET consciousness is in your gestalt, whereas all of you are in my gestalt. This will become clearer to you later. I cannot release all the knowledge I intend to impart through you at one time because that would destroy my herald."** Indeed, the material was so interesting, even the little I could understand at that time, that I gritted my teeth and went on learning how to receive information directly.

I was taught how to initiate contact and obtain knowledge. I do a specific focus that enfolds into a singularity above my head, from which a fountain of brilliant lights in all colors erupts, enveloping me like the field of a magnet. At the same time, this brilliancy whirls around me, picking up momentum and getting bigger and bigger until it reaches the size of the universe, creating a cone, the core of which is the me that is only a point. When this happens, I feel a pleasantly prickling feeling all over my body, as if a thick layer of energy enveloped me. That is the time when I split my attention and create an opposite motion of light blue sparkles inside the cone accompanied by an inner sound that becomes higher and higher in pitch, I erupt into this other dimension where the information awaits me. This is not a secret ritual. I have used this external exercise for several years to get focused. However, it is important to note that the exercise does not bring about the flow of information, and it might not fit anyone else. Today, in fact, I can split focus without the ritual.

I herald in writing. I receive the questions, and then go into an altered state of consciousness wherein I contract and then expand into other dimensions. Guided by the questions, I receive an abundance of information, which I receive in one shot and then unfold and translate into written English. I receive this information in an abstract conceptual format and translate it while in that altered state of consciousness. However open I may be, it still goes through my filters, and thus, if SHET communicated through others, the information would be something different, because it would go through their filters and the result would be something else. Thus, the written words are the result of both the information I receive and their translation from their abstract form into the spoken language. That is, this information is not entirely objective. In this manner, the SHET you see is what is reflected through my filters. I do my best to objectively relay information, but in his words, **"Objectivity is the sum of subjective viewpoints"**

The SHET you see through my heralding is the only SHET, because the fact that I am heralding him creates him, at least in the "tangible" sense. **"The herald** _does_ **have a role: her background allows for the kind of information that occurs. The probability of which kind of information can be provided decides the direction of the information and its unfoldment. It allows for its consistency or the lack of it."**

SHET does not provide information as an external source. There is no ready-made definite knowledge waiting to be picked up. Perhaps, it would be easier to understand SHET as an interactive cosmic library. The infinite numbers of books in this library are all empty, mere blank pages. I do not find knowledge that is already there, but rather, I bring the knowledge forth by focusing, my focus being the factor of stabilization, a partial definition of all the probabilities within the blank pages. This means that the knowledge is there in an indefinite form, which is no knowledge. Interaction with this infinite and indefinite knowledge means defining, and thereby, actually creating it. As has been shown, definition creates. Consequently, the kind of information I receive from SHET is precisely what it is because I herald it. Although I plug into SHET to gain information, the result is what comes through my focused self in physical reality, which with all the openness and flexibility is still a self, describable in certain ways and not in others. Consequently, no one can channel SHET, but everybody can connect to his or her own core of knowledge. One cannot change his or her life by aping me, only by learning Holophany. By changing the way we think, the way we see things, we can create a different reality.

Although, in a sense, I create SHET, he himself evolves when I evolve. He described this as follows: **"If you look at the language, you will see that in the beginning, when Rha** (SHET refers to me as Rha, not Clara) **was a baby herald, the language was much more complicated than in later sessions. That should give you a clue. Yes, I am and I am not the same as I was when I first spoke to Rha. It was a** _face_ **of mine nearer to Rha then that taught her to reach me in my full** _face_ **of ADAM KADMON.** lxii **Differentiation, fragmentation, for me is focus."**

With my state of mind, the questions and my background, I create a framework that triggers the infinite potential to yield information by interacting with that amorphous field. This interaction occurs when I focus, which stabilizes a certain probability from within the infinite possibilities. My focus is partial definition. My interaction with SHET creates not only him but also a different me after each session.
Episode 2: Why Me?

Why does SHET give _me_ this knowledge? I am constantly being asked this question, and I truly feel like a worn down phonograph record answering it (for the new generation, that's an old fashioned CD that after two or three times of use used to get stuck in one track, repeating itself). Experience has taught me that people are unwilling to listen to the earthly content of the messages I try to convey until they understand the unearthly origins of it. Most importantly, they want to know why this information is being given through me and not through someone else. I decided to include here parts of some early sessions so you can see what SHET has to say about that.

"Tonight we are going to speak about Rha.

"But let us start talking about infinity. If you take a number, let's say 1 — it is a very decisive, limited quantity: it is 1. Yet it is also a kind of infinity, which you can divide into infinite fractions, and fractions of fractions, so 1 is also infinity. Now let's take the number 2. That is twice 1 — it is 2 of the 1's. That would mean it is twice infinity. Now then, isn't that absurd even within your system of logic? Infinity is not something limited, although you can grasp a single infinity. But two infinities? And obviously numbers can go on and on: 3, 4, etc. to infinity. That would indicate the existence of an infinite number of infinities. That, however, is not so.

"When we spoke about quality and multiplicity, quantity, we meant something entirely different than your concept of infinity as adding endlessly more and more numbers on top of each other. That could be better defined as multiplicity. Multiplicity does not define how many, only that it is quantitative and many. Infinity, EYIN-SOF (אין סוף — infinity in Hebrew) is something entirely different. It is a qualitative subject.

"What does all that have to do with Rha? Well, a lot. When she thinks of herself as a quantitative unity, she gets all confused unable to understand where and how I come into the picture. She looks upon herself as an abstract number, like 1, connected up by strips and bordered by other definite entities, her whole self, oversoul, etc., seeing herself as a projection of this whole self.

"Well, she is basically wrong on one count: she is not a number, not even the idea of a quantitative element, or I could not work through/with her.

"She is a quality like myself, but with a lesser, or shall we say, a much narrower scope of understanding. I come through to her on a conceptual level that only very few humans can tune in to. I shall explain why, which will in turn explain why I chose Rha to communicate my words.

"She is one of those strange humans with very contradictory abilities. She is not really aware of what she is doing. Her ability to tune in to my 'vibrations' is of the subtlest sort, requiring freedom from fixed ideas within the quantitative. Most people can only grasp the infinity of endless additions, whereas she can grasp and experience qualitative infinity. Words cannot describe this 'state': it is either experienced or not understood.

"I am directly communicating with Rha, whereas she is getting better at reaching my level. I cannot give accurate notions about people such as years, dates or places, for they are too blurry for me, my point of reference too wide to focus on such matters. I am here to teach you the make-up of the universe. I can see people's emotional dimension, their brightness and colors. Generally, my advice can be taken as sound, but in specific cases perhaps some entity closer to your domain may be of more use.

"I do intend my teachings to be published in a way understandable to people, so they can learn from us.

"Get this from me: I am here because I have to be here to further development of understanding for all of you."

What does it mean that SHET "has" to be here? Who orders him around? The explanation came few years later when we started understanding the non-linear loopy nature of existence. **"I teach what is missing precisely so that humanity can reach a new age by becoming creators... There was need for your consciousness to develop, which development in itself triggered the flow of the new information I am providing. Indeed, I am opening the gates to the basic laws that enable you to create the mechanism that can create you to be creators, which laws actually triggered this entire universe into being."**

Then, from a later session:

Q: "In what ways is Rha a very special human being?

A: "In her capacity for both linear and non-linear thinking, in her capacity for love and tolerance, and her ability to integrate contradictions in a harmonious way, so that the dynamic harmony is dominant rather than coming to a standstill, which often is the case for those with a lesser sense of humor. The opposites in her create a tension with a direction — my direction, spiritual direction."

At one point, I started getting worried that I might lose this connection. SHET calmed me: **"In a way, you are part of me, so you cannot lose me."** Still, I wanted to know more about our relationship. SHET kindly obliged: **"You see, I have been working with you ever since you were a little girl, and you have noticed something when you suddenly realized what part energy plays in matter formation."** (He refers to an incident I experienced at age 20. At that time I had no idea about Einstein's famous E=MC2. Nevertheless, I went to a public lecture in Tel Aviv University to hear Edward Teller. He wrote many formulas on the blackboard, which seemed Greek to me. The lecture was very interesting, I suppose, but I fell asleep. The only sentence I heard was that anything could emerge from a vacuum. Half a year later, I recalled this sentence and tried to figure out what to do with it. And then suddenly, it was as if I was hit by lightning: I knew with immense clarity that mass could be transformed into energy. It was like a divine revelation. My heart started racing and I felt as if I was being roasted. I wanted to scream EUREKA, but I couldn't move. Suddenly, I saw in 360 degrees. The walls became transparent, like hot air vibrating. I saw into the neighbors' apartments and beyond them, for their walls were also transparent. All objects became vibrating transparencies, also the floor and the ceiling and even my body. Soon after I fainted. When I came to, the walls were walls again, which was very reassuring.lxiii **"Time exists for you only because you have decided you cannot digest a great amount of knowledge all at once, so you prefer to do it gradually, which creates consecutive moments — time. Then you understood it all at once, and yet you had to break it down to grasp it with your physically oriented mind and worked on it for years. That is time. You didn't want to understand what you intuitively understood until you broke it down to seconds, minutes, years.**

"The emotional aspects of your involvement are very interesting in as much as they fluctuate between emotion and reason only on the surface. Your real involvement lies in the deeper strata of understanding and observing those fluctuations. The ability to divorce yourself from your own involvement brings about a higher ability to cope with other aspects of disharmonious areas of your consciousness."

What SHET referred to by my _real involvement_ was my way of thinking, the mechanics of my thinking process. Since this thinking process is what can collapse SHET's knowledge from the indefinite into the definite, that's the main reason for giving _me_ this knowledge.
Episode 3: The SHET Mechanism as Trigger

It was SHET's initiative to give the material as a dialogue: people ask questions and he answers. Both his philosophy and the scientific information, which instigated new scientific theories and models, were transmitted in this fashion. SHET relates to each person in that person's language in such a way that he or she can both understand it, albeit with some effort, and also act upon it. Consequently, he has helped hundreds of people. I hope that number will grow when people read, understand and apply what SHET is teaching.

The kaleidoscopic details were integrated, and like a puzzle, they settled into a practical worldview ever-developing the consciousness using it. Sessions with SHET have an effect of activating the creative aspect in the questioner, so that people who come to ask questions, in some mysterious way, find creative solutions to their problems. The answers are neither a "yes" nor a "no," nor prophesies of a predetermined future (the future depends mostly on what we do), but a different looking, which renders creative ways out of "stuck" situations. The most common question asked is, in its various manifestations: "Why am I stuck?" "What stops me?" "How can I overcome this or that obstacle?" The underlying topics can be personal or theoretical, like those posed by scientists and engineers when they come to a dead end _._ Artists ask creativity questions, and some writers who are blocked come to ask questions to avoid sitting around waiting for inspiration. People do their best to control their environment. They believe they can control their environment to some degree, but for some reason it is believed that intuition, inspiration, the muses visit one as they please. SHET has provided us with the understanding of the mechanism underlying creativity, be it artistic, intuitive, psychological or scientific creativity or creative solutions to daily life problems. This underlying mechanism is the infrastructure of SHET's philosophy.

In all my encounters I have never detected judgments in SHET. Humor, yes. Often his subtle sense of humor is evident. He responds with the same kind of patience whether the questioner is a professor doing very important research for the advancement of humanity or a person asking how to improve his relationship with his wife or kids. In the over one thousand sessions that I have had, no emotion was ever expressed but love. That lack of value judgment through which SHET handles the questioner and the questions posed to him is the essence of his teachings.

He teaches not by preaching or by conveying new dogmas or referring to old ones, but by triggering, stimulating the minds of his students. This stimulation is in line with SHET's nature, which I call the "SHET mechanism," wherein the student and SHET belong to the same framework. He does not provide chewed facts that one has to remember, but rather, triggers thinking. This is achieved by the interactive way in which both the student and SHET change during the interaction of learning.

Sometimes, it may almost seem that there is a contradiction in what is being said. These are the most interesting points that, when pondered, allow us to make the leap to higher levels of understanding. This intellectual activity is similar to the constituent processes of creative paradoxes (explained in Part 7), wherein the dynamic of our thinking elevates us beyond our capabilities. Interaction with SHET is an experience that is not only enriching but that changes us: a never-ending journey.

APPENDIX 2

By Yeshayahu Eisenberg

I want to know God's thoughts; the rest are details.

Einstein

To "understand the super-order of the non-linear dynamic that connects everything to everything else," to "know the lawfulness of re-creating specific instances by targeting specific meaningful constellations from the meaningless everything-with-everything connection," to "know how to build the lawfulness and the mechanism that can make choices, and then you will have real artificial intelligence," as was conveyed in the Millennium session, is a big leap with respect to our present scientific understanding of reality. Such a leap requires a new mathematics to describe this nonlinear logic, in order to define the terms within which it is realized. Conventional logic is the fundament of computer science and the mechanism by which we describe the world of cyberspace and virtual reality, but the new logic is the fundament of all processes in Nature, including the process of perceiving Nature itself. If creation is God's thoughts, then this logic is how God thinks.

The result of the research (a new mathematical logic) that went hand in hand with the development of the general philosophical and logical frameworks described in this book, was a big leap toward achieving these ambitious targets. This new mathematical logic emerges as the language that could unify all aspects of human endeavor, yielding a new approach to science and technology. However, another important result is the demystification of the act of heralding and the ADAM KADMON principle, and thus, both became plausible derivations of the theory.
Section 1: The Uncertainty of Certainty

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Einstein

Unlike conventional logic that strives to _achieve_ consistency to the absolute exclusion of any indefiniteness, one of the basic notions in the new logic is the emphasis on the _aspiration_ toward consistency, which includes the indefinite, rather than assuming/demanding consistency. Unlike conventional mathematics that strives to exact values, the new mathematics is the mathematics of _almost_ values. So, on the one hand, there is always some indefiniteness in what that value is, but on the other, this mathematics includes the process that defines that value. These are very important points to note. When consistency includes the process which defines that consistency, and when a mathematical value includes the process which defines this value, then the most we can hope for is the _aspiration_ to achieve consistency, the _aspiration_ to achieve an exact value. Consistency, exact values, exact periodicity, etc., are meaningful notions only if posited as external to our process of querying them, which is a truncated view, whereas if we want a system that can attribute meaning to itself, and through that, to anything external to it, we cannot adopt a truncated view.

Perception is a stabilization of the process of definition. Experience is the process of definition on its way towards stabilization. When we say "stabilization of a process," this means, to create repetitive patterns (for instance, a periodic process is an example of such pattern, the repetition of the same numerical value throughout a certain periodicity). However, in the world of _almost_ values, there can only be _almost_ stabilized processes, _almost_ repetition of the same numerical value. The discrepancy between the _almost_ values of a quasi-stabilized process is infinitesimal (or at least very small with respect to the main course of the process. Infinitesimal means going towards the limits of the continuum, and since — as will be shown — the processes we are dealing with are discrete, we have coined the name _infinitesimal tail_ for these small discrepancies). Nevertheless, if the resolution of our tools of measurement that can detect the infinitesimal tails is lower than the infinitesimal tails, then practically speaking, we can regard the process as having stabilized. However, zooming-in to the process, namely, taking the viewpoint of the parameter that is the difference between two _almost_ equal values (the viewpoint of the infinitesimal tails), we see chaotic or even random behavior. From that point of view, the process didn't stabilize yet, but rather is still on its way toward stabilization. Even if we succeed in stabilizing (or rather, _almost_ stabilizing) the above mentioned parameter, we will still find erratic behavior on the next zoom-in level, etc. This is like eating one's cake and having it too. We have both the viewpoint from which the process became stabilized and also the one from which the process is still on its way toward stabilization. This hybrid behavior is an indication of the relationship between perception and experience, which is the loop that can attribute meaning. Since meaning is also consistency, consistency should be connected to stabilization. This connection will be elucidated in the following pages.

One might look at a surface and see a smooth aspect. However, looking at the same surface with a magnifying glass might reveal a rough aspect. So, is the surface plain or rough? It depends on our point of view; it depends on how we measure the surface.

The small discrepancy between equivalent values is the realization of the notion of uncertainty of sameness. This in turn encodes the probable evolutions of the processes. Indeed, as we will see, inter-acting with the parameters of the difference between two almost same values (zooming-in) can destabilize the system, and then stabilize it in a new pattern, a new perception. Zooming-in reveals more and more parameters that become control parameters of the system when dynamically activated. The dynamic zooming-in process reveals a fractal kind of evolution. One should notice though that, when activated, those parameters destabilize the system and re-stabilize it in a new process. This in turn can cause the infinitesimal chaotic parameters to grow and become stabilized patterns (well, almost), to become one of the main processes in the system, which then creates new infinitesimal chaotic parameters when one zooms into _this_ new-born process.

The question that arises is: What are the generators of such processes that unfold an extremely rich mold, which can be looked upon from different points of view, and consequently, different aspects come to the foreground? Such metamorphoses of processes and patterns that take place when a change of viewpoint occurs are a reflection of the tremendous richness of that mold and its ability to resonate with any phenomenon.

The generating principles that create these processes together with their control parameters (which, by the way, are part of the generating principles themselves) are the heart of this work in its many aspects. I will refrain from boring you with the tedious formal mathematical details of the construction of these generating principles. Rather, I will share the general idea of how the generating principles were achieved, and I'll use their attributes to represent their implications (which were partially presented previously).

Another important point to note: not all processes in Nature are periodic. However, perception is always a recurrent pattern (a periodic process). Perception means re-creating the same event time after time, the same segment of a phenomenological process, etc. This implies that the perception of a non-periodic process is periodic — a recurrent pattern. Therefore, the generators I'm speaking about are always generating processes that — when stabilized — become _almost_ periodic patterns, even if these stabilizations are repetitions of _almost_ the same segments of non-periodic phenomena.

If the perception of an event is the event, if the perception of a process is the process, if for something to gain meaning, the logical structure — which gives it meaning — should be brought forth, then we could say that the processes unfold and enfold the logical structure that gives them meaning in such a framework.
Section 2: Creativity — the Hallmark of Creation

Once upon a time, there was a brilliant student doing his PhD in physics who was given a problem for his thesis by his supervisor. The student looked at the problem for a while, considering it very deeply and from different angles. Eventually, he mumbled under his breath, "Dear professor, how do you want me to solve this problem if I don't know the answer to it?" How indeed?

There are those problems we can solve by retrieving the answers from our memory. There are problems that can be solved by deduction, by utilizing known methods, like solving simple mathematical equations or to use a map to find our way over unfamiliar ground. There are problems for which some trial and error might work. And then, there are problems that offer not the slightest clue as to the method that could be used to obtain a solution, problems that no one has ever solved previously — nor even anything similar to it. Our poor student got an extremely difficult problem of the latter kind, a problem at the frontiers of scientific research, a problem to which the most brilliant scientists would like to find the answer, a problem no one has the slightest idea how to approach. So indeed, facing such a problem you either know the solution or you are in deep shit.

Yes, I know, you would say now, the solution to his problem is creativity. But if it was so simple to be creative to such an extent, if creativity could be achieved in three easy steps, then everyone would become an Einstein. Yet Einstein-like geniuses do not pass frequently even through the corridors of the leading scientific institutes. Since creative solutions are not the result of deductive processes, but something that descends upon us within a certain framework, it seems that an essential part in the art of creativity is how to define that framework.

This framework is a closed loop, and the core of that loop is the cognitive processes taking place in our brain. Input parameters might trigger the creation of the framework of our cognitive processes to eventually collapse into the desired solution of the problem, in which case we could say that the problem fixed the boundary conditions for the cognitive process.

What are these input parameters? Initially, that is the problem under consideration. The problem triggers the creation of the framework of the cognitive processes to produce (collapse into) output parameters, like associations, wonderings, ponderings, partial understanding, further questions, etc. The loop is closed when the output parameters (all or part) become the input parameters. The new input parameters re-trigger the cognitive processes to create new output parameters, which become the new input parameters, etc. The aim of this operation is to find a creative solution to a given problem, and the operation either succeeds or fails to accomplish that goal. Succeeding means that the output parameters become the solution to the problem. Until the output parameters become the solution, they keep changing. However, once the solution to the problem is accomplished, the overall loop process is re-creating the same output parameters time after time. In other words, the process becomes stabilized. As we shall see, such processes in which the system regulates itself until it stabilizes in whatever form to which its boundary conditions constrained it is the famous process of definition. Furthermore, in such systems stabilization will become synonymous with solution, definition or even perception.

The cognitive processes are not collapsing into the desired solution accidentally, but rather, they are doing so according to the underlying generative principles and lawfulness. This lawfulness of creativity is universal in the sense that it underlies the entire phenomenological world and can — in principle — be used to solve most any problem. This lawfulness is a realization of the loop logic.

Generating principles are those rules that allow a process to be that process. The lawfulness is the control mechanism of the generating principles, activated by the parameters which are extracted from the processes generated by those generating principles (i.e., the difference of two almost equal values). Yes, the loop again. Although the distinction between the generating of the process and the control mechanism is somewhat artificial, these designations will serve us well, both as a means to think with and also as a pedagogical approach.

Thus, we could divide the problem of understanding the lawfulness into two parts: First, we can define the generating mechanism, which can create a process that has the potential to become any process. (It can be demonstrated that any point of the mapping can acquire any numerical value we wish, depending on the boundary conditions imposed on it. Since any process is a collection of consecutive points created by this mapping, the mapping can generate processes of any kind or shape. See Figure 17) And second, we can formulate the mechanism through which we can control the process, to make of it a specific process that describes certain phenomena or that is the solution to a specific problem.

This lawfulness is a non-linear mapping, mapping parameters into parameters; significance into significance. _How_ the mapping takes place is the lawfulness (structure); _what_ is mapped are parameters (significances). The structure is not a phenomenological lawfulness, but rather, a logical structure, the famous isomorphism. Nonetheless, structure and significance are interwoven: structure creates significance, while parameters are the means by which the logical structure is being realized. The loop between structure and significance is actually the Loop of Creation. Or as SHET put it, **"The structure is the dynamic between structure and significance (parameters) that preserves the structure."** What is preserved is the isomorphism and not the specific realization. Nevertheless, the loop logic implies that any phenomenology or problem can be modeled in terms of the different realizations of the logical structure.
Section 3: The Mapping

The mapping is a discrete process. If we stand on a certain point of the evolution of the mapping (that point can be a pattern, a field, a numerical value, etc.; however, in this exposition we assume that this point is a numerical value), the next point of the mapping is a complex non-linear function of the present point and its history (which means, the previous points within the discrete process). If the process created by this mapping becomes stabilized, this means that the process continues creating _almost_ the same numerical value after a certain number of steps. If we now denote the field that describes a segment of the overall pattern created by this mapping as _A_ , then we could say that the operation of the mapping can be described by _A_ going to the function of _A._ Further, if _A_ became stabilized, this means that _A_ became its own function (more formally, _A=F(A_ )). In other words, we could say that the inter-action between the present point and its history implies the next point of the mapping. The point and its history are the given, the _if_ , whereas the function is the structure of the implication, which together with the next implied point, is the _then_. When the process becomes _almost_ periodic, the system is going through its _almost_ opposite and then returning to _almost_ its initial point (which is the _almost_ opposite of the _almost_ opposite). This is the structure of second-degree paradoxes: _if_ so and so, _then_ almost its opposite. In figures 13 and 14, different processes of the mapping of certain generating mechanisms are illustrated. Different profiles can be different fields or the same field looked upon through different steps. As will be shown in the following pages, any of these different profiles can be used as a basic process to be destabilized and then stabilized in a new process.

The interaction of the process with its own history in order to create itself is actually the retromorphous looking, the stabilization factor of the process. The retromorphous interaction is a very important point to take note of because the structure of the interaction of the system with its own history is what creates the universal aspiration of the system to achieve stabilization and consistency. This structure is actually one of the main tenets of the theory.

It is not merely the function of the mapping that creates the evolution of processes, but rather, the function itself can evolve and change during the mapping. Stated differently, the function that generates the evolution of the mapping is itself a mapping. This again is the loop between structure and significance. Stated differently, the generating principles that create the mapping are not unique. Furthermore, any generating principle contains (as an integral part of itself) the structure that can transform it within its own framework to become another generating principle.

The flexibility of the structure of the generating principles of the mapping means that the dynamic generated by it allows the system to synchronize with any problem. The art of solving problems becomes the art of finding the boundary conditions that project the problem onto the mapping. There is a truism to the effect that the most important thing is to ask the right questions, which probably means that reformulating a problem in an appropriate way will straightforwardly imply the answer. The tendency of most of us to adopt this idea is based precisely on our fundamental experience of being such a structure ourselves. The appropriate reformulation is to become the boundary conditions of our cognitive processes, which can collapse into the desired solution. This is not unlike creating our perception. What we detect through our senses sets the boundary conditions for our internal processes to stabilize accordingly. The stabilization on a recurrent pattern then is perception. Sensing something differently changes the boundary conditions and destabilizes the internal processes, which consequently stabilize in a new recurrent pattern, which is the new perception. This entire procedure generates processes perpetuated by the specific boundary conditions, which define a specific viewpoint.

Any questions, problems or data collected from phenomenological experiments point in the direction of the unknown. We don't know the answer when the question is posed. We don't know the phenomenological model that will give a unified explanation to the collected data just from having that data. The unknown is our target space. The problem under consideration sets the boundary conditions, which are in turn part of the definition of the specific process aimed at stabilizing into the solution of the problem. Will it necessarily stabilize into the desired solution? It depends. Not every equation has a solution and not every problem can be solved. This is quite obvious once it is clear that the process of definition will never stabilize into a solution that does not exist. The general hypothesis is, that only those phenomena for which there are boundary conditions that are consistent with the process that define the phenomena (that can stabilize into these phenomena) can exist in Nature.
Section 4: The Logical Conservation Laws

What is that basic principle that ensures that the mapping will stabilize some of its variables to meet the conditions imposed on it by a certain problem? What is the basic idea behind the translation of a given problem to the boundary conditions of the process generated by the mapping? This principle correlates to the discovery of entities that I have named _logical conservation laws_ , which are the basis of the logical structure and probably the main achievement of this work in all its aspects. This is isomorphism! It certainly is not something that the scientific and technological communities are looking for because there are no hints to its existence within the phenomenological world. That is, it is not a phenomenological principle, but it might generate all kinds of phenomena.

First, let's see what is meant by ordinary conservation laws. In physics, these are basic laws that determine which processes can or cannot occur within Nature. Each law maintains that the total value of the quantity governed by that law (i.e., mass, energy, momentum, charge, etc.) remains unchanged during physical processes. Conservation laws have the broadest possible applications of all laws in physics, and consequently, they are considered by many scientists to be the most fundamental laws in Nature. Briefly stated, we can say that conservation laws are empirical (phenomenological) laws that we use to "explain" consistent patterns in physical processes.

In light of this observation then, what is a logical conservation law? It is the conservation of logical principles rather than of physical constants. It is the essence of the logical structure. This is how SHET posited this idea long before we had its realization: **"The right infinitesimal gauge transformation is like a rotation around an axis. This axis is usually considered to be a given, unchanging magnitude that conserves the invariance of the theory. In this case, however, this unchanging magnitude is indefinite. How can a magnitude be indefinite? By not being a real physical magnitude, but rather, a logical principle, which is isomorphous to all the generating principles. This logical principle is the '** _if_ **' so and so, '** _then_ **' something that is almost its opposite, like a second-degree paradox, a dynamic harmony."** The idea of a second-degree paradox as the basis of the process of definition was put forward in Part 7.

Later we made some progress and we found the basic mapping that was the realization of this idea. Let me quote a session I received from SHET through Clara that summarizes and gives a deeper insight into the above consideration. I have omitted technical details:

"In your language, within any known phenomenological conservation law, what is being conserved? If you think in _stills_ , the answer will be this or that constant — different things. But in your language, what is being conserved, which is the same, no matter the phenomenology with which you are dealing? It is a process, which when stabilized is the same recurring event, which regulates its variables to define that stabilized object. So, when _A_ is its own function, that tells you that when _A_ is stabilized, it is a conservation law. No, it is THE conservation law, as long as you don't get into the longer sentence necessary to define what _A_ or its constituent functions are. So it matters not through which representation you reach the formulation of the loop — when it is formulated as you now have it, it represents all possible conservation laws.

"How can you translate this concept into the physical world? The reason physics has not produced a unified theory, but is instead a patchwork of different theories, is because each conservation law is defined by its object, by what is being conserved instead of defining through the logic of what conservation laws mean. Physics presently defines the _what_ and the specific _how_ — the equation of this or that conservation law without that definition being a representation of a more generalized logical structure, which must be a loop. In such a loop you can connect all conservation laws by showing how the conserved value is a stabilized process, the function of its variables.

"Usually, conservation laws in conventional physics are linear expressions, and this is what misleads you. What you need to understand is that you do not translate the conservation laws to the loop language, but rather, you translate the linear approach to a non-linear one with the same results. And then, it won't seem such a difficult task. Applying the " _if-then_ " procedure can help here.

"When you speak of language, you are speaking of a non-linear interactive process, whereas physics, math, and most everything else use an external description aiming at objectivity and precision. So what you need to translate first of all is the approach, and the rest follows. As an exercise, you can try with the simplest equation: translate it into the non-linear language in order to gain some expertise... In your translation exercise, see what is being defined by which variables, and see how you can make it be defined by its function(s)...

"You only have to become adept at understanding what a certain conservation law means in your terms. You have all the tools for it. Later, you might want to include mathematical objects, knots theory, and what not — through this language you can unify everything and also show direct correlations as well as what transformations are needed where no such direct correlations are possible. Blessings."
Section 5: The Black Box as a Logical Gate

Since the mapping can generate any number of parameters, and since any segment of the mapping can create the input parameters for the generating of the next segment (which in turn generate as an output the parameters that become the input parameters for the generating of the next segment), we can consider the mapping to be the realization of the logical structure as a black box. It gets input parameters and creates output parameters. The term black box is quite suitable, since what matters is not so much what is going on inside the black box, but rather, the structure of its inter-actions with itself and anything external to it, or in other words, its function. **"The control mechanism is the structure. You could look upon it as a black box: whatever goes in and whatever comes out may change, but the black box remains — the black box is the structure. Or to be more precise, the structure is the dynamic between significance (parameters) and structure that preserves the structure. Lawfulness is lawfulness of structure."**

The black box consists of processes that are themselves black boxes (self-similarity). Using the zoom-in technique, any segment can be divided to sub-segments and sub-sub-segments, etc. Once so divided, the dynamic of a segment is described in terms of the non-linear dynamics of its sub-segments. How a given segment can be constructed from its constituent sub-segments is not unique. However, the same pattern can be the result of different generating principles. Differently constituted segments, that nevertheless embody the same pattern, will exhibit different evolutionary possibilities (which means that the patterns are identical, but the structure of their infinitesimal tails is different).

To summarize: There are endless ways to generate a given segment (pattern). First, by defining a generating principle that creates the pattern as a whole, without assuming it consists of sub-structures. Second, by generating it through its constituent elements, which are not unique. The multitude of generating principles is unified within one worldview when we formulate the segment as consisting of sub-segments together with the inherent dynamic transformations of the system from within the system, between the different possibilities of how the overall segment is constructed (meaning, transforming the system from being generated by a certain generating principle into being generated by another generating principle). This in turn introduces a system wherein the zoom-in and the fractal means of evolution are not merely the attributes of the process (significance) but also of the lawfulness itself. This enables the system to change itself from within the system. And since this same consideration is true for any sub-segment or sub-sub-segment, it also explains why even the simplest object is a complexity that can be divided infinitely into its constituents, while any such part of the segment is the whole looking from the point of view of its function (its lawfulness).

Another session unfolds this very same idea in slightly different terms. It is of interest to mention, however, that this session was given long before we had any realization of the mapping. It might seem that the session merely enhances and summarizes what we already know. In reality, however, it was the other way around. Like so many other sessions, this one created the framework for thinking differently and trying to interpret the written words, which eventually collapsed the formal description of these words through the mathematical formulation of the mapping. My experience with SHET taught me, however, that in these sessions there are always additional layers to be found.

"Indeed, different generating principles can create the same pattern with different evolutionary possibilities. The transitions between the different generating principles can be achieved by infinitesimal gauge transformations. That is, you can travel between different frameworks of evolution patterns in close circuits: periodic processes, strange attractor-like processes, chaotic or infinite evolution processes, which describe different loops or stabilizations. Consider this a very ordered chaotic labyrinth in which you can comfortably control your direction by controlling which generating principle stabilized a given pattern by utilizing the right infinitesimal gauge transformation.

"The right infinitesimal gauge transformation is like a rotation around an axis. This axis is usually considered to be a given, unchanging magnitude that conserves the invariance of the theory. In this case, however, this unchanging magnitude is indefinite. How can a magnitude be indefinite? By not being a real physical magnitude, but a logical principle, which is isomorphous to all the generating principles. This logical principle is the ' _if_ ' so and so, ' _then_ ' something that is almost its opposite, like a second-degree paradox, a dynamic harmony."

"This preserves the conformal invariance of the whole, whereas each generating principle is different. That is, the viewpoint that defines, which collapses something to be a physical magnitude, is that looking that establishes different physical magnitudes. As the isomorphous logical structure is invariant, and the whole is the generalized isomorphous inner logic that remains invariant and indefinite, it does not matter how various the collapsed expressions are. Thus, each viewpoint in itself is the whole. However, while interacting with other viewpoints, it is different.

"The infinitesimal gauge transformations can be performed through and by the infinitesimal tails, which render the pattern that generated them meaningful. They always act backward so there should be something forward.

"When you assert that the invariant magnitude is a logical principle (which is an indefinite physical magnitude), then you don't confine yourself to creating a class that includes all classes, you don't create an absolute magnitude that your theory has to obey. Instead, any physical magnitude becomes like any other, which you can control and manipulate. Your question should be then: Why are certain physical magnitudes that have been measured phenomenologically more meaningful than others? Add to this question another one: Could there be other consistent worlds with other such physical magnitudes? Have fun."

The black box can interact with itself and with systems external to it. It interacts with itself when some of its output parameters are re-inserted as input parameters, or to be more precise, it interacts with itself when the input parameters are functions of its output parameters. When an input parameter becomes a function of one or more output parameters, a loop is closed. There might be any number of closed loops. The way the loops are closed defines the boundary conditions of the dynamic (again significance) generated by the black box. In principle, any kind of problem or phenomenon can be translated into such boundary conditions. Once such translation was preformed, the dynamics generated by the black box stabilizes some of the output parameters as the solution of a given problem or as the fields describing the dynamics of certain phenomena. In more prosaic terms, all that is needed in such a system is to re-phrase the question (problem) in such a way that it can be "under-stood" by the system, which in turn prompts the system to go through a process that eventually leads to the desired answer (solution).

The main universal attribute of the black box is its aspiration to achieve stabilizing whatever it interacts with, whatever boundary conditions were imposed on it. As we shall see, when the "tendency to achieve stabilization" is replaced by the "tendency to re-establish consistency" (in our framework, the first assertion is a realization of the second), it will become even more apparent why we are speaking about logical conservation laws.

The black box is the universal lawfulness, THE logical conservation law. Different profiles or cuts are the different boundary conditions, different realizations of THE logical conservation law expressed as a specific logical conservation law.

"There you can solve the problem or fulfill the desire by using the cut (boundary conditions) that precisely controls the system in such fashion that satisfies the requirements. That's why the different profiles are different worlds, wherein each world is governed by a different conservation law (meaning, different realizations of THE conservation law). Think: What is conserved in relativity? What is conserved in quantum theory? (Once you consider several conserved elements, try to generalize them into one idea to get the picture.) The power of this worldview is tremendous: that's why different profiles might be inconsistent when you try to conserve all parameters of the cuts (which is trying to conserve significance). Nevertheless, physical world action is a choice, and the choice actually is the profile: which conservation law you choose to abide by. Different cuts might be incompatible, one with the other; nevertheless, all of them together are that meaningless wholeness, which is the potential of any such cut retromorphously."
Section 6: The Mapping in Action

To understand how re-establishing the consistency of a system can be equivalent to stabilization, how a given problem can be translated into the boundary conditions of the black box, let us take a simple example: Let's assume that we have the following two postulates:

1. X-1=0

2. _X_ is an output variable of the black box.

Although we are dealing here with the simplest equation, the generalization of the following argumentation into more complicated equations or sets of equations is straightforward.

It can be said that the black box starts to generate processes when some initial inputs are inserted, and further, that the closure of some loops perpetuate the generation of these processes. We said that the main attribute of the black box is its aspiration to achieve stabilization. In general, stabilization means repetition of a certain pattern. For instance, the same numerical value at each step is the definition of a fixed point. If the mapping of some parameters returns to the same numerical value after a given number of steps, then this is the definition of a periodic process. Let us denote one of the input parameters by _g_. This parameter is not closed in a loop yet, i.e., it is not the function of any of the output parameters, but rather, a constant, or to simplify things, let's assume that this constant is zero, _g=0_. _X_ is one of the output parameters, which is not yet utilized to close a loop. When the system is initialized in the above manner, the process dissipates until it settles into a recurrent pattern. To simplify things further, let's assume that eventually _X_ settles into a fixed point. (In the real mapping, the dynamic parameters **—** when stabilized **—** behave more like periodic patterns than fixed points. But then, we can always use the fact that a periodic pattern is a fixed point if viewed in step with its periodicity. In our most simple example, however, we will look for a solution that is a fixed point. And since our description is schematic anyway, we will ignore these technical details.) There is no reason why the fixed point to which _X_ settled will be equal to _1_. Remember, the principle of the black box only says that it will stabilize into a fixed point — it says nothing about its value. If _X_ is not equal to _1_ , then this implies that _X-1_ is different from zero, which is in contradiction with the first postulate, which implies inconsistency. This is an inconsistency from our point of view. We know that there is contradiction between the postulates and the output of the black box. Does the black box "know?" Not yet. So, let's see how we can bring this to its "attention."

Let us now close the loop between the output _X,_ and the input _g_ in a way that, on the one hand, will "indicate" to the black box the existence of the inconsistency, and on the other, will initiate a process that will re-establish consistency. One way to generate consistency is by redefining the value of the input parameter _g_ in each step (by continuously adding the value of _X-1_ ). Initiating this procedure destabilizes the overall process. Remember, the black box was stabilized for _g=0,_ and now _g_ is being continuously changed, which generates change in the output _X_ , which changes _g,_ etc. _g_ will cease to change only when _X_ gets the numerical value _1_ , because the addition to _g_ (which is _X-1_ ) becomes zero. Because of the aspiration to achieve stability, _X_ eventually settles into the fixed point _1,_ which is the only fixed value that can stabilize the system within a closed loop within the above-mentioned boundary conditions, and thereby, re-establish consistency. Figure 15 shows how a profile of the mapping is going through destabilization and how re-stabilizing the process includes the process that solves the equation _X-1=0_ as a sub-process. Figure 16 shows a less simple example: the solution of the differential equation of the harmonic oscillator. Differential equations are mathematical objects used in physics to model the dynamic of phenomena. Harmonic oscillations are the dynamic oscillations of a spring. The mathematical function that represents the oscillations of a spring as a function of time is a sine function, which is actually the solution of the differential equation of the harmonic oscillator. Figure 17 illustrates two important issues: The first one shows that any point on a profile of the mapping can acquire any numerical value according to the boundary conditions imposed on the mapping. The second shows that the mapping can generate segments of non-periodic processes; however, it does so by creating the same segment time after time in a periodic manner.

Now it becomes clear why stabilization is consistency and destabilization is inconsistency within this kind of realization of the logical structure, and why the aspiration to achieve consistency is a much more powerful tool than consistency itself. This simple example also explains why something new to the system is inconsistent with the system (destabilizing the system) at first, and then it is integrated into the system to be an integral part of its own structure by stabilization and re-establishment of a new level of consistency (as was shown in several chapters to be the rationale in the case of human experience).

Consistency has meaning only within a given framework. Objects having consistent relations within a given set of postulates will become inconsistent when these sets of postulates are replaced by others. If the relation _X-1=0_ , which we used in the above example, is replaced by _X-2=0_ , the previous consistency will disintegrate, the system will destabilize and then re-stabilize on a new fixed point with a value of _X=2,_ establishing consistency with the new postulate _X-2=0_ (see Figure 15). In more general cases, the postulates themselves are not necessarily determined in advance, but can be defined dynamically through the process of stabilization. In such cases, the notion of postulates loses its validity. The linearity and hierarchy of conventional logic, wherein any theorem is implied by the postulates and not vice versa, falls apart. It is no longer clear what defines what, what implies what, who is the definer and who is being defined. In that sense, SHET is not axiomatic. In that sense, the process of definition defines both the perceiver and the perceived.

An equation is a kind of relation (i.e., a relation between a number and a variable). Not every problem can be formulated in terms of equations. However, most problems can be reformulated in terms of relations, which — in principle — can be imposed upon the black box so it will stabilize on the fields that fulfill those relations. More complex problems will stabilize on periodic processes or other types of recurring patterns.

We assumed the existence of logical mechanisms that we called "black boxes." The entire purpose for a black box is to stabilize whatever it interacts with. We have shown how mechanisms with this attribute can be utilized as logical gates that tend to establish consistency with any external relation (the equation in our example) that was imposed upon them. However, so far our description did not reveal the full richness of the black box. Mechanisms claimed capable to describe the basic structure of any existence are supposed to have infinite richness, supposedly incorporating the indefinite as an integral part of their fabric, and apparently classifying all possible dimensionalities and topologies, and much more. In a sense, everything would be a black box if we only knew how to look. It is like finding the whole world in a grain of sand or all eternity in a moment. Then how can we find the whole structure in a stabilized object? Where can it be found in the phenomenological world?
Section 7: Blessed Noise

Every engineer has to struggle with noise in the system he builds, measures, or tries to control and manipulate. His best hope is that the noise will be negligible, or at least, relatively small compared to the main signal. He knows that the noise is unavoidable. On the other hand, every scientist knows that any measurement is an average. To measure something with higher resolution means to take an average during smaller time intervals. The problems of noise and resolution (the average) seem to be the two main sources of our inability to measure anything with absolute accuracy.

One can find exact periodicity, exact symmetry, etc., only in mathematical structures. The uncertainty about what a specific phenomenological value is implies that, in Nature, one will only find _almost_ symmetry, _almost_ periodicity, and so on. There is a possibility to parameterize this uncertainty. Such a parameter can be the difference between two different averages (measurements in different resolutions) or the difference between two almost equivalent points in an almost periodic process. Since there are endless ways to execute the average, the number of such parameters is infinite. The parameters, that are supposed to vanish under the hypothetically ideal circumstances within the usual paradigm, are not just some inconvenient, yet unavoidable, small perturbations around the main course of phenomena; but rather, these are the traces of the processes that create phenomena, the output parameters of the black box. In a non-linear world, wherein definition is discretization, discretization is averaging, and how we average defines (non-linearly) what is being averaged, it could be said that how we attain the average defines what is being averaged (defined).

The black box is neither a phenomenon nor an event — it is the structure. The aspiration to achieve consistency, stabilization, is an abstract notion realizable through an infinite number of routes. Being qualitative potential, any realization is a specific mode, and such a mode is a multidimensional entity. A lesser dimensional cut of this entity can become the phenomenon. On the other hand, the phenomenon contains within its little discrepancy the _almost_ values, those infinitesimal tails that are the history of its becoming and the traces of the structure that stabilized into being the phenomenon. Knowing the structure enables us to activate the infinitesimal tails to control and manipulate the stabilized process (which is the object), or to destabilize and then re-stabilize it to be a new object or a different mode of the same object.

The possibility to control any complex system by means of the mapping is due to another peculiar attribute of the black box. Not only is the structure of the black box self-similar (i.e., it creates itself by almost replicating its own structure), but it also replicates its structure into any system with which it interacts. If we create a feedback between a black box and a system external to it, then the structure of the black box will be copied into the external entity. This means that the aspiration to achieve stabilization, and the possibility to destabilize and then re-stabilized the system in a different mode or a new order, is possible by utilizing the rules of the original mapping. The deeper reason for why this is so is the isomorphous nature of the logical structure, which is the self-same structure that created the phenomenon (any phenomenon). Only something that is there latently, or potentially if you wish, can be activated.

"Your picture is correct regarding the interaction of the mapping with the external and thereby defining the external that defines the mapping. You should know, though, that such a picture of your black box has tremendous beauty: it is symmetric in a very peculiar way. If you consider the black box and the external entity as two different systems interacting the way you suggest, then from a certain point on you can take any function, or any parameter that you use in both systems, and it will be a mapping in itself, similar in structure to your mapping. That is, any path made toward stabilization in this constellation can be looked upon as mapping... Both map the same system from different viewpoints. This is a kind of symmetry in different dimensions."

This method is aimed at changing the system from within the system's internal structure. We externalize the structure by turning it into significance (which is the black box) as a means to activate and control the system's internal structure. This operation is very subtle, employing the almost negligible infinitesimal tails to manipulate and re-create the system. It cannot be emphasized enough that control of the most prominent elements and parameters of the system is achieved by — what seems to be — the system's tiny, negligible and chaotic parameters. The big influence of a small, negligible perturbation — the butterfly effect — is a well known phenomenon in conventional non-linear dynamics and chaos theory. Perhaps, it is the most figurative illustration of our jargon (now there is someone we can blame for the last hurricane in Florida). Although such phenomena are indicative of small, random fluctuations creating dramatic appearances in complex systems, like the weather, they are not indicative of how to use such phenomena to control the weather. In conventional physics, non-chaotic, stable phenomena are not considered to be influenced much by small perturbations. This conception changes, however, when we realize that even stable periodic phenomena come into being by stabilization of the underlying chaotic structure, and that through intelligently activating the infinitesimal tails (which are the traces and the means to activate the overall structure), we can control phenomena. Homeopathy, acupuncture, and other methods used in alternative medicine could also be indicative of the possibility of controlling complex systems (in this case, human physiology and psychology) by means of small, negligible influences. These methods, however, which are still somewhat controversial although also widely accepted, do not explain why they work and how to generalize them into more powerful methods of healing.

To demonstrate this idea, let's go back to the example introduced in Chapter 18. It was shown there how the regulation of a physiological system creates the framework within which life can exist. This regulation mechanism is not only part of our physiology, but — as was shown previously — also guides our cognitive activities, our psyche as well as the interaction between our psyche and physiology. Life is the process of regulation (synonymous with the process of definition), not a collection of sub-systems participating in a process. The sub-systems and their constituent sub-sub-systems are just elements (significance, parameters) in terms of which the overall structure, the process of regulation and definition, is being realized.

The principle of the black box suggests a new method of healing. This is how SHET put it:

"There are many different systems in the body, each having their own parameters, metabolisms, etc. All of them have to work well, each in itself, but that's not enough. They also have to work together as one system, one organism. As viewed by practitioners of Western conventional medicine, illness is in one or more sub-systems in an individual. And consequently, they try to fix that system, hoping the person will get well. You can take a different approach, which works much better, which fixes the overall system, and thereby, the particular system that is malfunctioning (in living organisms). Take several parameters from different sub-systems and make them work together by feeding the tails of one into the other to get all the selected parameters to become one stabilized system (not necessarily a sinus or fixed point, for it could be a stabilization that is like a strange attractor — remember the living organism has to interact not only with itself but also with the environment). Anywhere, in any environment where the system stabilizes (whatever attractor or chaotic oscillations around a fixed point), it is harmonious. That is, there can not be an overall parameter of how the system should be, only a structure of which harmonic dynamic the system should follow. As long as it does not explode but stays coherent (with enough pre-chosen parameters), you have done what you want."

As I mentioned earlier, there were those sessions that came out of the blue and created a new framework with which to think, which after quite a while unfolded into a more formal down-to-earth understanding. The previous session, however, demonstrates another aspect of the way SHET interacts with our world of ideas.

We were sitting in a café. At the time, I already had the mapping. My main effort was to develop algorithms in terms of the mapping to solve problems (I was working on how to constrain the mapping by proper boundary conditions in order to solve certain differential equations, for instance). We already had the general idea of how the structure of the mapping could replicate itself into external systems by interacting with them, but I was puzzled by the question of how to apply that knowledge and on what. I was looking for a system wherein the somewhat abstract general features were more important than its specific details, a system wherein the creation of correlations between its different parameters was more important than how the system created these correlations (anyway, how a complex system creates its correlations is not unique). I was looking for a system with the tendency to aspire to achieve balance and order, a system that would malfunction if part of its routes toward achieving the desired balance got stuck, a system complex enough that, when triggered, could find alternative routes to balance. While I sipped my coffee, human physiology came to mind as something that could fit all the above qualifications. I told Clara about this idea and argued that one could extract parameters like EEG, ECG, skin resistance, etc. from the body, and by extracting from these their infinitesimal tails one could try to correlate between them. I suggested using these parameters as the input parameters of our black box while taking some of its output parameters as a means to modulate an electromagnetic field, which would then be induced back into the body, closing the loop. This should create a higher correlation between the various sub-systems characterized by those parameters, which in turn would repair its malfunction. Of course, all this argumentation was based on the aspiration of the black box to achieve order and stabilization and its attribute of inducing its structure onto the system with which it interacted (in this case, the human organism).

I was not sure Clara understood the idea completely, and so a week later I returned to it. It looked then as if she had a revelation, as if she reinvented it, and then she came up with the above session. This session can actually be interpreted in several ways, and my above interpretation is merely one way. The session also implies that the black box structure is rather explicit in living systems, so the principle of the overall structure and the control of the system through its infinitesimal tails could be applied more directly, without using our external black box mapping as a control mechanism.

The ability of the structure to replicate itself into richer and richer expressions on different scales is the essence of self-organization and learning.

"What is self-organization? Creating a coherent significance? That's what most people believe. What's the difference between such a model and a more universally viable structure that can evolve and learn? Self-organization is not accidental, nor is it predetermined, but the creation of such structural integrity with such symmetry that can be homomorphous in its different transformations. Actually, learning is the carrying on of this aspect into richer and richer expressions on different scales."
Section 8: The Symmetries of the Mapping

A conceptual view of the model of reality based on the stabilization of chaotic dynamics in the space of light-like directions was introduced in Part 4. Conceptually, this is similar to the theory introduced so far in these pages. The main difference is that here we have more than just a conceptual view: we have the formal mathematical description backing up the concepts. Where-as in Part 4, the strange attractor and UPOs were used — which are significance — here we use a more structural concept to describe the same idea: the aspiration to achieve stabilization, which is the dynamic (structure) that stabilizes UPOs (the actualization) and destabilization, which is the dynamics (structure) that feeds the system back into its chaotic strange attractor (its potential).

There are two main approaches to imposing boundary conditions of a problem or phenomenon on the mapping: The first one is to use external means, whereas the second uses the internal overall symmetries of the mapping (by first classifying the structure of all the possible families of boundary conditions, and then utilizing the appropriate class for a specific problem).

Fixed relations are boundary conditions (Part 3). They can be imposed either by external constraints or they could be the result of the stabilization of another profile of the mapping. The latter means that the mechanism of imposing boundary conditions internally is the same mechanism that can unfix fixed relations and re-fix them as new boundary conditions. This mechanism is activated by and through the internal symmetries and the transformations of the mapping.

"The cuts, the precise conservation laws with which you can control the system, are your parameters. To define those parameters you've got to use 'external' means, and it matters not how they can be obtained from the system. For elegance, you can show that later. At this time you can invent them by deciding what you want conserved, and then, that's your parameter. Finding it as the natural outcome of the system is a too lengthy procedure, and when you have it, you can show how it can be derived from the system."

The main effort in the research at present is to find these overall classifications based on the internal symmetries of the system.

"When you understand this symmetry better, you'll be able to apply better control to the system because you'll know the system's many laws of symmetry that are easy to work with and that can do transformations. The present picture is very nice and workable. Multidimensional problems often mislead you to search for the solution, whereas when you can turn something within its symmetry, you can better understand how your solution looks in the different 'rotations.'"

It is sufficient to say that, at this stage, there is a very strong indication that the symmetries that can classify the overall structure are connected to the spin structure and the symmetries that define the space of light-like directions. On the other hand, these are also connected to the symmetries of two-dimensional conformal fields (see "God and Mickey Mouse" in Chapter 28).

"When you become familiar with how you can invent conserved values, you will see that this has to do with conformal invariance through which you can prove that the conserved values do indeed derive from the system. You show that retromorphously."

And from another session:

"When you can formally describe the symmetry of the zoom-in, as you call it, which means, if you understand that whatever carries the tag of a defined object (and thus is labeled external) is actually so by being given meaning as such from a defined viewpoint, then you can see that the light-like directions are the symmetrical space wherein everything is still internal, the fabric of the logical structure. Showing precisely how these can gain externalization is showing the different masses. Further, their relation to the logical structure from where they emerged must be a constant, a basic parameter by which they can be externalized."

If indeed the non-local space of the light-like directions is both the fabric of the logical structure and the means to create our physical reality out of that same logical structure, as was discussed in Part 4, and if the traces of the structure in phenomena are both the means to control the phenomena and also serve to carry within their structure the non-locality of their inner space, then non-locality should appear not only in the microscopic world but in the macroscopic as well. Telepathy (i.e., when a mother feels her child is in danger) might correspond with such phenomena. Further, the notion of a collective consciousness as something that both shapes the individual consciousness and is also shaped by the individual consciousness gains new meaning. This is not just being the branches of the same logical tree, but also being different branches of the same non-local internal core that connects everything to everything else, which in turn sheds new light on the ideas of response-ability and responsibility (Part 4).
Section 9: Creation and the ADAM KADMON Principle

The second law of thermodynamics, which is also referred to as the law of entropy, states that a system will almost always be found either in the state of maximum disorder or moving towards it. Entropy is a measure of disorder, and it can be said that according to the second law in any macroscopic process the total amount of entropy is always increasing. Since existence is order (or rather, the aspiration to achieve order), this tendency in Nature to macroscopic uniformity and microscopic disorder should have a counter tendency to order, if one expects existence and life, which gives creation meaning, to not be a momentary fluke. At present, there is no known universal counterpart to entropy. Scientists, in the field of complexity feel the need for such a universal counterpart; however, their wish has not been fulfilled by any discoveries in their research.

I'm of the school of thought that life and organization are inexorable,' he (Los Alamos physicist, Doyne Farmer) says, 'just as inexorable as the increase in entropy. They just **seem** more fluky because they proceed in fits and starts, and they build on themselves. Life is a reflection of a much more general phenomenon that I'd like to believe is described by some counterpart of the second law of thermodynamics **—** some law that would describe the tendency of matter to organize itself, and that would predict the general properties of organization we'd expect to see in the universe.'

"Farmer has no clear idea of what this new second law would look like. 'If we knew that,' he says, 'we'd have a big clue how to get there. At this point it's purely speculative, something that intuition suggests when you stand back and stroke your beard and contemplate.' In fact, he has no idea whether it would be one law, or several. What he does know, however, is that people have recently been finding so many hints about things like emergence, adaptation, and the edge of chaos that they can begin to sketch at least a broad outline of what this hypothetical new second law might be like.lxiv

The law, which is the core of the black box, the aspiration to achieve consistency, stabilization, organization and order in our work, is a serious candidate to be the universal counterpart of the law of entropy.

Any existence is the result of the competition between these two tendencies toward order and disorder (not unlike the basic aspirations in Freud's worldview, Eros and Thanatos: love and death). Total disorder is randomness while total order is exact symmetry. Both extremes are non-existence. Existence is in between. One can find exact periodicity, exact symmetry, etc. only in mathematical structures. In Nature, we will merely find _almost_ symmetry, _almost_ periodicity, etc. This uncertainty in what certain phenomenological values are is not merely an unavoidable occurrence that we have to live with, an inconvenience, but the very means whereby we can control and manipulate any system or object. The probable evolutions of a system are encoded in this uncertainty, and the output parameters of the black box can be extracted from it. Remember that anything would be a black box, if we only knew how to look at it, and any simple process could be the result of the stabilization of a complex mapping. Such a structure wherein the part, the object, includes the whole structure and the internal space that enables us to activate the lawfulness of re-creating specific instances by targeting specific meaningful constellations from the meaningless everything-with-everything connection, is indeed a new paradigm.

That the stabilization of a certain profile from the overall amorphous structure is due to boundary conditions, which are the result of the stabilization of another profile of that same structure, etc., is the ADAM KADMON principle in action. All creation is the result of such processes. The act of heralding is but the triggering of this indefinite process by means of the boundary condition (questions) that stabilize one of its profiles and thus yield the desired answer. That explains how the act of heralding and its result, the logical structure, are one and the same structure. Hence, ADAM KADMON, the infrastructure that teaches itself, gains extraordinary meaning.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Clara Szalai is a noted philosopher, author, speaker, consultant, and the creator of the philosophy known as Holophany, which is attracting worldwide interest. She is the author of _The God Maker: How God Became God_ and is a frequent guest speaker. The author, who is passionate about all living creatures, resides in Israel with Sheike and a large family of beloved animals.

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GLOSSARY

A

_Abstraction_ — The logical structure of an object, which is a dynamic pattern that includes all possible realizations of that object.

_ACHARAIYUT/ACHERIYUT_ — (אחריות) — Responsibility in Hebrew, or rather response-ability. ACHERIYUT (the same spelling in Hebrew) is otherness, the cognizance of the other in you.

_ADAM KADMON_ — ((אדם קדמון — Primordial Man in Hebrew. According to the Cabala, the infrastructure of all Creation. SHET.

_All-That-Is_ — 1. The indefinite in its basic creative aspect as a paradox.

_Almost_ — The interface between being and non-being. See also _Infinitesimal tail_

_Attention_ — Energy.

_Awareness_ — 1. The harbinger of perception; relating. 2. That flexibility, which can both fix and unfix fixed relations and thus enhance one's space of action.

_Awe_ — The experience of the merging of the Immanent with the Transcendent.

_Axiom_ — An intuitively stated self-evident truth.

B

_Belief(s)_ — 1. A specific way of relating to something, which gains expression as a certain behavior pattern. 2. Those relations or sets of relations that create the framework of our conduct and what there is, as we observe it. 3. Our perception of how things are; ways of relating to things, the _value_ content. Beliefs are neither right or wrong, nor are they true or false, but those attitudes that freeze processes into _stills_ stating how things are from a certain point of view. Beliefs create reality through their structure, not by their significance.

_Bubble syndrome_ — The state that forces one's attention back onto himself.

C

_Change_ — The result of either comparison in time (comparing one state to a previous state) or a comparison in multiplicity (between two or more co-existing states).

_Complexity_ — 1. True complexity is complex all the way through, with no starting point and no possibility of reduction. It is the dynamic of interacting non-linear processes preserving consistency. 2. Complexity is not the interaction of many simple elements, but the braiding of different lawfulness.

_Consciousness_ — 1. The isomorphous structure of the process of definition, which brings about perception and experience. 2. That lawfulness, that logical structure, that enables random meaningless dynamics to gain meaning and form. 3. That viewpoint that relates, which means, it perceives whatever it relates to as having meaning. The creative act of defining creates the creator that defines, which is the consciousness. 4. The soul, which is not some invisible copy of one's body carrying one's identity, but the lawfulness of Creation expressed as one's individual qualitative essence. 5. That additional dimension that connects entities which are separate in the three-dimensional world.

_Consistency_ — A paradox in that it infers the necessity of defined conclusions in order to ascertain that they fit the premises, and yet these conclusions can only have meaning if they also have a structure. Structure necessarily means that it includes also the indefinite, in which case, the conclusions cannot be totally defined. So the only way to achieve consistency is by way of the dynamics of paradoxes.

_Continuous, the_ — Infinite resolution.

_Control_ — Does not mean to repress, suppress or annihilate, but to regulate, which can be in either direction: to increase, decrease or redirect.

_Creation_ — 1. The self-perpetuating dynamic aspect of the loop; it has no start in time and it did not end when there was something. Its self-perpetuating aspect is the uncertainty of sameness. 2. The process of definition.

D

_Definition, process of_ — The act of bordering a segment of the indefinite by means of parameters; the act of defining is explicitly inclusive and implicitly exclusive.

_Difference_ — A relation establishing multiplicity.

_Dimension_ — The range over which something defined extends, which could be, for instance, space or time.

_Discretization_ — 1. The act of creating separate sequential measurable entities within a continuous field. 2. Defining. 3. Parameterization.

_Dynamic_ — The process of relating.

E

_EICHUT_ — (איכות) — Quality in Hebrew. It designates one of the qualitative dimensions of the loop logic (representing non-being, potential, responsibility/response-ability, light, love, gravity, etc.)

_Emotion_ — Mainly, the expression of how we measure the reality we perceive as opposed to or in accordance with how it should be. Emotion can be looked upon roughly as a structure created by 1) beliefs, value judgments, condensed thought — the mental aspect, 2) the fused traumatic contents — the somatic aspect, and 3) the spiritual aspect, the ability to respond.

_Emotional deficiency_ — The unwillingness or inability to observe, which in turn leads to an inability to learn, which brings about a lessened ability to interact with the environment and erroneous decision-making.

_Emotional stability_ — The function of the ratio between stimuli and response-ability.

_Existence_ — 1. The process of defining the indefinite. 2. The logical necessity inferred by the loop.

_Experience_ — 1. The impact of something new on the system, which it tries to digest by adjusting itself to remain consistent while integrating the inconsistency it encountered. 2. Trying to define the indefinite unsuccessfully, yet assimilating the attempt.

_Externalization_ — The process of differentiation that gives meaning to what has been defined as different from other definitions. The externalization process is when the act of defining creates the threesome of the act of definition, the defined and what's beyond the boundaries of the defined. This separation is the externalization process, the foundation of further definitions and creation of meaning.

F

_Faith_ — The activity of interacting with the more indefinite aspects of existence rather than only relating to what one thinks one has succeeded to define.

_First Meaning_ — The self-aware God which is the fixed reference point for any possibility of meaning, which is the whole loop.

_Focus_ — 1. The measurement that collapses a potential into being. 2. The act of creating reality. 3. A way of relating; a definition which creates something definite from the indefinite.

_Fractals_ — Chaos theory: One fractal has no meaning, but rather, fractals are an evolution, becoming rather than being, a process of repetitive self-similarity. Although the basic pattern can be recognized while evolving, it is ever changing.

_Framework_ — The space of action formed by fixed relations.

_Freedom of choice_ — The ability to choose what price you are willing to pay.

G

_God_ — 1. See _All-That-Is._ 2. God is not a _still_ , but the lawfulness that creates itself, the Loop of Creation.

H

_Holophany_ — Manifesting wholeness.

I

_If_ — Boundary conditions that define the following _'then'_.

_Incarnation_ — Focus in time or space.

_Inconsistency_ — Conclusions definable to the degree of contradicting the premises.

_Indefinite_ — 1. Anything as long as it is not specified. 2. Anything that appears both within and beyond the borders of the definition and thereby rendering the border superfluous. 3. No border, no definition.

_Inference_ — The act of deriving a valid conclusion from true or false propositions.

_Infinitesimal tail_ — The discrepancy between the _almost_ values of a quasi-stabilized process.

_Integrity_ — The spiritual, mental, emotional and physical parts of one person directed in the same direction.

_Intelligent love_ — That balance wherein you are both connected to the God consciousness and also connect others by demanding responsibility.

K

_Knowledge_ — The definition that places outside its boundaries the unknown to give meaning to the known.

L

_Lawfulness_ — A repetitive pattern of action. Within the loop, the repetitive pattern of action is inferred by logical necessity.

_Listening_ — Everything that has to do with putting attention outside oneself. Can be achieved by being interested in the other instead of being interested in oneself.

_Listen stance_ — Listening, observing without any self-consciousness and without any definition or judgment.

_Logic, conventional_ — Valid or invalid reasoning related to true or false statements.

_Logic, loop_ — The dynamic structure of perception.

_Looker/lookee_ — Observer/observed.

_Loop, the_ — The logical science of Creation.

_Loop of Creation, the_ — The dynamic language, which not only describes notions or objects external to it, but actually unfolds them. The loop is not the description, but the thing itself. It is the language of perception, the language of meaning, the language of Creation; it includes the tools of definition in the definition.

M

_MAHUT_ — (מהות) — Essence in Hebrew. Connected to the First Meaning, it is a combination of both _howness_ and _whatness_. As the quantitative dimensions unfold, the _how_ and _what_ diverge and create each other.

_MAKOR_ — (מקור) — Source in Hebrew. It designates one of the qualitative dimensions of the loop logic (representing consciousness, liveliness, the manifest God, the process of definition, the formative essence of every existence, including every matter particle etc.)

_Meaning_ — 1. The significance gained by the process of definition. 2. Establishing relations of sameness and difference. 3. The recognition of a pattern of relations that, generalized to an abstraction, can have different expressions. In other words, the recognition of an abstract generalized significance as a result of a repetitive pattern, a group including similar concepts. 4. The recognition of an average. 5. There are two kinds of meaning: meaning that is significance, which is meaning in quantity (which has continuity in time), and meaning that is structure, which is meaning in quality (which has continuity in its logical evolution).

_Memory_ — The ability to re-create past states.

N

_Non-being_ — 1. The abstractification of totality taken to the extreme of the meaningless. 2. Total randomness, by virtue of being symmetry, without direction or preference (which is why existence is asymmetrical by necessity).

_Nothing_ — If I would define "nothing," then it would be something.

P

_Paradox_ — The dynamics of inferring the _then_ from the _if_ and vice versa, where the _if_ and the _then_ mutually exclude each other (are opposites or almost opposites). The contradiction between structure and significance that lead to each other.

_Paradox, first-degree_ — Within the _'if-then'_ logical structure of a first-degree paradox, the _'then'_ is the opposite of the _'if'_.

_Paradox, second-degree_ — Within the _'if-then'_ logical structure of a second-degree paradox, the _'then'_ is the _almost_ opposite of the _'if'_.

_Parameter_ — 1. Measurement by means of well defined relations. 2. The discretization of the continuous. 3. The means of definition.

_Perception_ — 1. Reality. 2. Interaction, relating. 3. Differentiation by means of parameters, a process of establishing relations between the observer and objects the observer considers external to himself, between the objects themselves, etc.

_Process_ — Becoming.

_Proposition_ — A sentence stating something, i.e., "all men are mortal."

_Pumpking_ — My gorgeous 20-pound black cat.

Q

_Quality_ — 1. That oneness from whence multiplicity emanates. 2. Inner order, shared by all quantity. 3. Potential as opposed to actual — the potential lacks form or resolution whereas the actual is form and resolution.

_Quantity_ — The measurable, the world as we experience it, the manifold.

R

_Relation_ — Reference that gives meaning to both the referring entity and also the referent.

_Retromorphism_ — 1. Defining in retrospect, turning non-being into the potential of whatever the observation is made from. It is creating the past from the present, creating the source from its outcome. 2. The basis of complexity.

S

_Sameness_ — A relation establishing identity.

_Self-confidence_ — The ability to not focus upon oneself, the ability to give others one's full attention.

_SHET_ — See ADAM KADMON.

_Significance_ — The _still_ emerging from the gestalt background when the process of definition interacts with the indefinite. This definition consists of parameters, which are the relations of the defined object with itself and the rest of the world. It persists by preserving its fixed inner relations through time.

_Something from 'Nothing'_ — It is the loop attributing meaning to 'Nothing' from something with the purpose of creating the something that created the meaning of 'Nothing' from this 'Nothing.' Formation.

_Stabilization_ — 1. Convergence of a dynamic process into a repetitive pattern. Creation of a repetitive pattern, i.e., a periodic process. 2. Stabilized means that its attributes define it, which include how it relates to others than itself.

_State space_ — A space that scientists use for their convenience in order to have a very special picture of the history of the dynamics of the system — for example, a mapping of velocity and position.

_Still_ — The description of something frozen, unmoving.

_Structure_ — 1. The lawfulness governing the emergence of meaning. 2. The repetitive _act_ of externalization, not the externalized indefinite.

T

_TIKSHORET_ — (תקשורת) — Communication in Hebrew. It designates one of the qualitative dimensions of the loop logic (representing relations, awareness, energy, etc.)

_Totality_ — See All-That-Is

_Truth_ — The belief stating how things are.

U

_Uncertainty_ — Unknowing.

_Uncertainty of sameness_ — The dynamics of a _still_. It is the indefinite within the definite.

_Unknow, to_ — 1. To cease being a separate entity who has opinions and judgment — it means to stop knowing about. 2. Refraining from the act of defining and thereby creating uncertainty.

V

_Viewpoint_ — A creature or pattern with a sense of self that is able to re-create the memory of its becoming.

_Viewpoint 1_ — Relations of sameness, an identity that becomes meaningful by relations of difference (Viewpoint 2).

_Viewpoint 2_ — Relations of difference.

W

_Wholeness_ — See All-That-Is

Y

_Youness_ — A fixed relation to the whole, the qualitative sum, the re-creation of your relations to the world and yourself; the path of changes following one's experiences.

ENDNOTES

i The story of how Descartes finally reached the conclusion that he also had a body can be found in Descartes' _Meditations_.

ii Some might claim that thinking and experiencing are one and the same. That is of course true in the case of those whose experience of sex is thinking about it.

iii In 1823 the Hungarian mathematician, János Bolyai (1802-1860) developed a non-Euclidean geometry that did not include this axiom.

iv The limit at infinity (the limit approaching infinity) is a mathematical term describing how, for instance, a polygon can be turned into a circle. You add more and more sides to a polygon within a circle (from square to hexagon, octagon, etc.), and when it reaches ' _n'_ sides (at the limit where _'n'_ approaches infinity), then for all practical purposes the polygon is a circle.

v Albert Einstein, _The Meaning of Relativity_ , MJF Books New York, pp.1-2.

vi Isomorphous means having the same logical structure in different representations.

vii The full description of how this happened, who or what SHET is, how I am heralding and why I was chosen as his herald is recounted in Appendix I.

viii Today, Rumania.

ix Classical, since in quantum physics this is not quite precise: two bosons can occupy the same state at the same time.

x _Ethics,_ by Spinoza _._

xi _Essential Sufism_ , Edited by James Fadiman and Robert Frager, Castle Books, 1997.

xii The reason this _must_ be so will be elucidated in Chapters 18 and 31.

xiii _Essential Sufism_ , Edited by James Fadiman and Robert Frager, Castle Books, 1997.

xiv Throughout this work I use the word _still_ , or _a still_ , as the description of something frozen, unmoving.

xv SHET means that focusing one's awareness at all precludes total awareness, which is no awareness because it lacks focus.

xvi Superposition, or wave function, also called the wave packet, is the sum of all the definite probable states (which can be characterized by a definite momentum or position, energy, etc.) in quantum physics. SHET claims that the quantum superposition is already a partial collapse and that there exists a more fundamental superposition, wherein these states are indefinite.

xvii See previous note.

xviii _Physics and Philosophy_ , by W. Heisenberg, Penguin Books 1990, p. 30.

xix Epistemology is that branch of philosophy that deals with the theory of knowledge, whereas ontology deals with the things themselves. Classical physics is ontological when it attempts to describe objective existence, whereas quantum theory, in its Copenhagen interpretation — more precisely Heisenberg's interpretation — dealing with the knowledge of the elementary particles, could _mistakenly_ be regarded as epistemological.

xx More about why there can be no proof of a defined reality outside the perceiver can be found in Chapter 32.

xxi Non-linearity means the kind of dynamic when system _A_ changes as a result of change in system _B_ caused by system _A_. Feedback is an example of such a non-linear interaction.

xxii Today mathematical axioms are more presupposed than asserted, more a convention than true or false. These modern pseudo-axioms are nonetheless problematic, as shall be recounted in the following.

xxiii In English, the word "truth" is a cognate of the Old Norse word " _tryggth,_ " which means faith, hardly a tool to prove consistency.

xxiv More about that in Chapter 80.

xxv Consider a dream, for instance; say, you dreamt about an elephant. For you, this symbolizes your mother. Still, you get nothing out of this dream until you realize that it means to you that you want to be like your mother. What the elephant meant was an obscurity, which then became a vagueness when you realized it was your mother. So what? Yet when you have discovered the hidden relation, that deep within yourself you would like to relate to yourself as to your mother, then that gives you a little something to hold onto.

xxvi Retromorphism means a state that gains form in retrospect. A qualitative state of potential becomes the potential of a specific existence in retrospect, when that existence looks back at its source and gives it meaning as its own potential.

xxvii This is described in more detail in Appendix II.

xxviii Another aspect of the traces of becoming is described in Chapter 51. See also Appendix II.

xxix Of course, the Hebrew ADAM (אדם) means 'man.'

xxx Commutative means that the order of operations is not important. For instance, a x b = b x a (or, 2x3=3x2). Non-commutative means that the order in which operations follow is important. For instance, a x b is not equal to b x a.

xxxi Mathematicians say that a quantity is invariant "under" a transformation; some economists say it is invariant "to" a transformation.

xxxii A _muon_ is an elementary particle with a mass 207 times that of an electron.

xxxiii If asked to define what Judaism deals with in a nutshell, I'd say, with relations between man and God and relations between man and man.

xxxiv See also Chapter 73.

xxxv Martin Heidegger, _An Introduction to Metaphysics_.

xxxvi Why and how a paradox creates, will be revealed in Chapter 81.

xxxvii The Lorenz transformation in special relativity takes us from one inertial reference system to another. An inertial reference system is a system that moves with constant velocity.

xxxviii A soliton is something like a tidal wave created by the non-linear interaction of many small waves thus united into a very stable structure.

xxxix Antonio R. Damasio, "Descartes' Error — Emotion, Reason and the Human Brain", Avon Books, 1994.

xl Since total randomness is non-being by virtue of being symmetry, without direction or preference, existence is asymmetrical by necessity.

xli Jewish American Princess.

xlii Aristophanes, "The Frogs," translated by David Barrett, Penguin Classics, 1964 — pp. 206-7.

xliii A massive observer means something that has mass, and therefore it propagates with less than light velocity.

xliv This is stated in a Cabalistic script of Rabbi Moshe Haim Lutzato, called _ADIR BEMAROM_.

xlv Eigenstate is the wave function that describes a possible (measurable) physical state. Superposition in quantum theory is the superposition of eigenstates.

xlvi The spin is internal to the particle, not occurring in space-time.

xlvii A similar idea was expressed by Roger Penrose in his twistor theory, which has similar symmetries to the light-like directions. Penrose and W.Rindler, _Spinors and Space-time_ , Cambridge University Press, 1986.

xlviii Bosons are massless particles considered to be responsible for the interaction between subatomic particles. They are considered to be the messenger particles because they are supposed to forward the basic forces of nature (the strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational forces).

xlix A lepton is a group of elementary particles in physics that includes the electron.

l The square root of 2 is an irrational number, which means, it can only be described by an infinite number of digits: 1.4142135623721....

li Imagine something that develops into something else, and _then_ into something else, and _then_ into something else. This development takes time, and at any given moment, you have only one component. If now you extract the time factor from this imaginary exercise, then you have 3 different objects simultaneously. Consequently, creating multiplicity minus time would be equivalent to the evolution of one element in time.

lii SHET is referring here to Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, which states that either the momentum or the position of a particle can be measured with definite certainty, not both of them. The more certain the momentum, for instance, the more uncertain the position, and vice versa.

liii Dr. Lafayette Bunnell was a member of the Mariposa Battalion formed in 1851 to capture Yosemite Indians.

liv Ecclesiastes means preacher, from _ekklesia_ in Greek, or assembly of citizens, from _ekkalein_ , to summon. Qohelet **—** קהלת— in Hebrew comes from Qahal **—** קהל, which means assembly, congregation.

lv Maimonides, _The Guide of the Perplexed_ , Hackett Publishing Company 1995 **—** pp. 51-53.

lvi My translation of ספר הזהר עם פרוש הסולם, ב, בראשית א, בראשית א

lvii E. Schrödinger, _What is life?_ , Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1944, p.70.

lviii Mae-Wan Ho, _The Rainbow and the Worm, The physics of Organisms_ , World Scientific 1993, pp. 70-71.

lix David Hilbert (1862-1943) — German mathematician.

lx For specific examples illustrating this point, see Appendix II.

lxi Genesis 4:25.

lxii For more information about ADAM KADMON, see the Prologue.

lxiii When the walls became solid again, I was dying of curiosity: did I really see the neighbors' apartments, or only imagined it? I found an excuse to get myself invited in, and lo and behold, what I saw through the transparent walls was real.

lxiv _Complexity_ , by M. Mitchell Waldrop, p.288.

