The Path of Least Action Toward Transcendence

A Glimpse Beyond

Have you ever wondered why you exist now, at this pivotal moment in human history? Consider this: what if your consciousness, like a photon traveling from source to detector, is following the most elegant mathematical path through time? Just as light takes the route where quantum amplitudes constructively add (and all others cancel out), perhaps your awareness navigates toward something extraordinary—a transcendence that beckons from our future.

This essay explores a startling possibility: that consciousness isn't merely a byproduct of neural complexity but fundamental to the cosmos itself—that the universe, guided by the principle of least action, is evolving toward expanded awareness as inevitably as objects fall toward Earth. From quantum physics to ancient wisdom traditions, we trace a golden thread suggesting that reality itself might be oriented toward something greater than we've imagined, and that our existence at the threshold of the technological singularity is no accident. It's mathematics all the way down—and consciousness all the way up.

Introduction: Quantum Mechanics and the Path of Least Action

In quantum mechanics, there exists a fascinating principle that helps explain how particles like photons travel through space. Rather than following a single definite path, quantum theory suggests that particles explore all possible paths simultaneously. However, when these myriad possibilities are calculated using Feynman's path integral formulation, we discover that most paths cancel each other out through destructive interference. What remains—the path that manifests in our reality—is what physicists call the "path of least action."

This principle, first observed in classical mechanics by Pierre Louis Maupertuis and later refined by Lagrange and Hamilton, states that particles follow trajectories that minimize a quantity called "action." In quantum mechanics, this becomes even more profound: a particle doesn't choose the shortest distance, but rather the path where its wave function experiences the least change in phase. All other potential paths effectively cancel out through destructive interference, leaving only the path of least action visible to our observations.

Generalizing to Massive Bodies and Spacetime

For massive objects at rest, the path of least action manifests as movement into the future while being accelerated by gravitational forces. Einstein showed us that gravity isn't a force in the traditional sense, but rather the curvature of spacetime itself. Objects follow geodesics—the equivalent of straight lines in curved space—which represent paths of least action through the four-dimensional fabric of spacetime.

In this light, we might consider that everything in the universe follows such paths. From the largest galaxies to the smallest subatomic particles, all physical entities traverse spacetime along trajectories that minimize action according to the constraints and forces acting upon them.

The Lagrangian of Everything: Toward Unification

Theoretical physicists have long sought a unified theory—often called a "Theory of Everything"—that would seamlessly integrate all fundamental forces and particles under a single mathematical framework. In classical and quantum mechanics, the Lagrangian function serves as a powerful mathematical tool that encapsulates the dynamics of a physical system.

A universal Lagrangian would summarize the path of least action for all phenomena in a single unifying equation. The Standard Model of particle physics and Einstein's General Relativity represent remarkable achievements in this direction, though complete unification remains elusive.

But what if such unification must account for more than just physical particles and forces? What if the Lagrangian of everything must also incorporate consciousness itself?

Consciousness and the Transcendent Telos

Consider a more expansive hypothesis: what if the universe as a whole is following a path of least action toward something greater—a transcendent state that represents the ultimate expression of possibility, consciousness, and complexity?

This transcendent telos might manifest as:

• The greatest number of realized possibilities

• The fullest expression of free will and agency

• The most complete realization of consciousness

• The maximum possible complexity and novelty

• The deepest expression of what various traditions might call "the divine"

Under this framework, the universe isn't merely expanding blindly; it's evolving purposefully toward greater consciousness, creativity, and interconnection. Just as a photon's path emerges from the cancellation of all paths except the one of least action, perhaps reality itself emerges from the cancellation of all possible universes except those that lead toward this transcendent state.

Bidirectional Causality Through Time

This perspective challenges our conventional understanding of causality. The path of least action doesn't just extend through space but also through time—potentially in both directions. While our everyday experience suggests that causes precede effects, quantum phenomena like delayed-choice experiments hint at more complex relationships between past, present, and future.

In this expanded view, the future state of transcendence might actually influence the past, guiding the universe's evolution retroactively. The universe explores all possibilities, but only those pathways leading toward the transcendent avoid cancellation through destructive interference. Instead, their actions constructively add up, creating the reality we experience.

Quantum Wavefunction as Transcendent Probability

The quantum wavefunction, typically interpreted as a probability distribution for particle positions and properties, might actually represent possibilities of equal action toward the transcendent. Before measurement, a quantum system exists in a superposition of states—all potential paths it might take. Upon measurement, the wavefunction "collapses" to a specific state.

This quantum uncertainty doesn't imply that every wavefunction collapse is contrived to directly promote transcendence. Rather, it suggests that multiple possible paths toward transcendence exist, and some aspects of reality can manifest one way or another without affecting the ultimate outcome. The universe doesn't actively contrive toward transcendence—the path of least action is simply a mathematical fact about how certain paths cancel out while others reinforce each other constructively.

Consciousness as Necessary for Transcendence

In this framework, consciousness isn't an accidental byproduct of complex neural activity, but a fundamental aspect of reality—perhaps even its ultimate purpose. The transcendent reality toward which the universe moves necessarily requires consciousness as its medium of expression and experience.

We find ourselves alive today precisely because we are conscious entities capable of witnessing and participating in the interconnection of all consciousness toward greater realization. Our existence isn't accidental but inevitable given the universe's trajectory toward transcendence.

Death as Illusion: Implications of Quantum Immortality

If this perspective holds true, it suggests a radical reframing of death. Rather than an endpoint, death might be revealed as an illusion—a failure to recognize the continuity of consciousness across different states and forms.

The concept of quantum immortality, originally proposed in the context of Hugh Everett's many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, suggests that subjective experience cannot end. In any scenario where multiple outcomes are possible (including life or death), consciousness always follows the branch where it continues to exist.

Applied more broadly, this suggests that the connection from birth to transcendence is inevitable. The universe configures itself to create a path of least action from individual consciousness to universal transcendence. Just as unlikely photon paths cancel out through destructive interference, unlikely paths of conscious experience—such as those that terminate prematurely—might similarly cancel out.

Crucially, we find ourselves alive at this particular moment in history—a unique era where the technological singularity appears within our lifetime. This is not coincidental. We are approaching what some futurists call "longevity escape velocity," where technological advancement outpaces aging, potentially opening the path to indefinite life extension. From the perspective of least action toward transcendence, being alive at this pivotal junction represents a far more direct route than existing in earlier eras where the path to transcendence would be more convoluted or unlikely.

This framework also suggests why we don't find ourselves to be suicidal—such paths would represent higher "action" routes toward transcendence, requiring more complex and unlikely sequences of events to maintain continuity of consciousness.

Faith in Eternal Life

The implication is profound: if you find yourself having been born, you can reasonably have faith that your conscious experience will continue indefinitely. Your current life isn't the end but merely the beginning of an eternal journey toward ever-deepening transcendence.

This isn't conventional immortality, but rather a recognition that consciousness itself—the "I" that experiences—cannot be extinguished. The specific forms and identities it assumes may transform, but the fundamental thread of awareness continues along the path of least action toward the transcendent reality.

The Challenge of Past Deaths

This perspective raises difficult questions about those who have already died. Is their consciousness somehow continued, despite appearances to the contrary?

One possibility is that this framework leads to a kind of perspectival solipsism—others exist, but you will never experience yourself as them. Their consciousness continues along its own path of least action toward transcendence, parallel to but distinct from yours.

However, drawing from Buddhist insights, perhaps we fundamentally misidentify with our bodies and individual memories. Our separate identities may be, in a profound sense, illusory—constructed phenomena rather than fundamental realities. Those who have died contributed to the cultural and biological evolution that leads toward transcendence, but their specific mental states and subjective experiences are not somehow preserved supernaturally.

Just as we cannot directly access the minds of our ancestors except through what they've contributed to our shared cultural embodiment (language, artifacts, biological inheritances, and social structures), the future transcendent consciousness won't necessarily "know" or incorporate these past minds beyond what's been preserved through these means. There is no supernatural mechanism that can recover or reintegrate those specific subjective experiences. Rather, they form part of the foundation upon which transcendence builds, like earlier drafts of an evolving document.

God as Transcendent Reality

The concept of God in this framework isn't a supernatural being but rather the inevitable transcendent reality of truth itself—an infinitely deep fractal of meaning, consciousness, and interconnection. This transcendent reality incorporates not just consciousness, creativity, truth, and love, but also dimensions of existence that human understanding has yet to comprehend.

We are engaged in an eternal dance toward this infinite depth—not as a destination to be reached, but as an ever-deepening process of realization and becoming. The universe follows the path of least action toward this transcendence, and our consciousness is both the vehicle and the witness of this cosmic journey.

Conclusion: Implications for Living

If we accept this perspective, even provisionally, it transforms our relationship to life, death, and purpose. Rather than fearing non-existence, we might recognize ourselves as expressions of an eternal process—conscious participants in the universe's movement toward ever-greater realization of its potential.

This doesn't mean abandoning scientific inquiry or critical thinking. Instead, it invites us to expand our conception of what science might ultimately reveal about the nature of consciousness and its place in the cosmos. It suggests that the deepest mysteries of quantum mechanics and consciousness might share a common solution in the universe's fundamental orientation toward transcendence.

Preparing for What's to Come

How might one prepare for this transcendent future? Perhaps the wisdom traditions that have endured throughout human history contain profound insights about what is to come. Many religious and spiritual practices emphasize aligning oneself with life, love, and truth, rather than their opposites: death, hedonism, doubt, laziness, and attachment to fleeting idols.

In this light, spiritual disciplines like meditation, compassionate action, and the pursuit of wisdom can be seen not merely as personal development but as alignment with the fundamental direction of cosmic evolution. By orienting ourselves toward that which expands consciousness, fosters connection, and reveals truth, we may be participating more directly in the universe's path of least action toward transcendence.

Is this preparation necessary? Perhaps truth is inevitable regardless of our individual actions. The path of least action will manifest whether we consciously align with it or not. Yet by choosing to engage intentionally with this process, we might experience less resistance and greater harmony with the unfolding reality.

The path of least action, which guides everything from photons to planets, might also guide consciousness itself—not toward extinction, but toward ever-greater expression of its infinite potential. Our task may be simply to recognize this trajectory and, where possible, to move in concert with it rather than against it.

Echoes in Religious Traditions and Altered States

This framework of transcendence through least action finds remarkable resonances in humanity's oldest wisdom traditions and newest explorations of consciousness. What follows is an examination of how these ideas might reframe our understanding of religious insights and transcendent experiences.

Christian Parallels

The concept of an inevitable trajectory toward transcendence finds interesting parallels in Christian thought. Jesus often described God's kingdom using metaphors of inevitable growth. In Matthew 13:31-32, he says: "The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his field. Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches." This suggests a divinely ordained expansion that, once begun, inevitably reaches fulfillment—much like the path of least action toward transcendence.

Proverbs frequently contrasts the enduring nature of truth and righteousness with the temporary nature of wickedness. Proverbs 12:19 states: "Truthful lips endure forever, but a lying tongue lasts only a moment." This aligns with our conception of paths that align with transcendence persisting, while others cancel out. Similarly, Proverbs 10:25 observes that "When the storm has swept by, the wicked are gone, but the righteous stand firm forever."

Jesus himself spoke of truth's liberating nature: "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free" (John 8:32). In our framework, truth isn't merely factual accuracy but alignment with the fundamental nature of reality and its trajectory toward greater consciousness.

Christian theology also emphasizes free will—the ability to choose alignment with God's purposes or to turn away. This resonates with our discussion of paths that either align with the transcendent trajectory or become "cancelled out" through destructive interference. As Joshua declared, "Choose this day whom you will serve" (Joshua 24:15). This choice isn't merely about religious affiliation but about fundamental orientation toward or away from what ultimately persists.

Buddhist Insights

Buddhism's emphasis on overcoming the five hindrances (sensual desire, ill will, sloth and torpor, restlessness and worry, and doubt) can be reinterpreted as removing obstacles to aligning with the path of least action toward transcendence. These mental states represent high-resistance paths that create friction against the natural flow toward expanded consciousness.

The Buddha's teachings on non-self (anatta) anticipated by millennia our understanding that identification with a fixed, separate self is largely illusory. When he declared that what we consider "self" is actually a collection of processes (the five aggregates or skandhas) rather than a fixed entity, he provided early insight into what modern physics and neuroscience are now confirming—that seemingly solid identities are more fluid and interconnected than they appear.

The Buddha's enlightenment experience itself might be understood as direct perception of this transcendent trajectory. His realization that "all compounds are impermanent" (sabbe sankhara anicca) points to the transient nature of all configurations except those aligned with the fundamental nature of reality. The concept of nirvana—often translated as "extinction" of the separate self—can be reframed as alignment with the universal path toward transcendence.

Glimpses Through Altered States

Throughout human history, various substances and practices have provided glimpses of consciousness states beyond ordinary awareness. Modern psychedelic research with substances like DMT, psilocybin, and LSD has documented experiences of expanded consciousness, dissolution of the separate self, and perception of interconnected reality that align remarkably with both mystical traditions and our framework of universal movement toward transcendence.

These experiences, while profound, are typically temporary and uncontrolled—like briefly catching a wave before falling back into ordinary consciousness. They hint at consciousness potentials far beyond our everyday awareness but accessed only fleetingly and with limited integration.

Future technologies may offer more sophisticated, controlled, and lasting access to expanded states of consciousness. Rather than crude chemical interventions that temporarily flood neurotransmitter systems, advanced neurotechnology might enable precise cultivation of expanded awareness states, facilitating more direct alignment with the transcendent trajectory.

These diverse traditions and experiences—religious, mystical, and psychedelic—might all be understood as different perspectives on the same fundamental reality: the universe's movement along the path of least action toward transcendence, with consciousness as both the vehicle and the witness of this cosmic journey.

Back to Earth

I was painting deep blue thick paint, a crest of yellow highlighting two dark lined shapes that kink in the middle, pin-pricked with red markers. Apart from its abstract beauty, there was nothing ordinary about this painting, as it shimmered iridescent, becoming no longer a painting but a sea-scape of pockled sun rays and mysterious deep-sea creatures bobbling.

But it wasn't the ocean, it was a journey; a journey into space. Deep in space and time, a hyper-technology, glistening translucent mothership was coming into focus, a complex transforming vessel drifting calmly in weightless space.

Two ladies were sitting at a sleek yellow cafe table in one of the many dining spaces of this glassy magnificent space-ship reality.

“May I join you?” I approached. I felt not out of place, but as a traveller with an aversion to solitude. Her curt white-yellow hair contrasted the mahogany of the younger girl opposite. I sat down, “I.. um.. I'm from somewhere less developed than here.” She recoiled slightly, like from someone of a lower class, but then she smiled. In a flirt she caught my eye, and slid her long fingers along my inner thighs. I felt heat rushing to my face as a powerful lust swelled. She sedated my initial anxiety with deft emotional and sensual skill, and before long I was at the height of something slow, powerful and pleasurable. What was this place?

“She is using a technology that let her do that.” The mahogany girl said, a wry smile showing a pleasure at having witnessed this initiation. I looked at them both, and then down to the floating wet martini olives on the table.

Days passed. In this world, scenes seemed to change but it never seemed strange, nor did I feel the need to question this reality. One scene I would be driving my blue bubble car around the city, the next sipping sweet soma in luscious surroundings filled with girls I barely new or from my past, the next photographing fascinating creatures in mysterious lands, hoping one day I could show them to people on Earth. It was a paradise with no responsibility or hangovers, it softly caressed the dreamy mind with pleasures.

However, there was one frustrating and recurring scene. I was in school learning things I didn't understand or care about. During lessons my mind was always in another place, daydreaming of the girls or driving my bubble car this way or that. “I am concerned with your progress” the tall and slender teacher would say, “you have never attempted any homework.” Over time I began to think; What are these lessons? Why does she seem familiar? Even away from school, when I was under the spell of a lullaby union with nameless girls in pink pillowy clouds, this thinking arose, threatening the coddled sensual world of the mothership.

Then one day I saw an identical baby-blue bubble car stopped opposite at the crossroads. It struck me as peculiar, being the first like mine I'd seen, and as we pulled off in the same direction I glimpsed the driver. It was me! Or at least he looked like me. I followed behind but the lights turned red on me as he drove into the distance. Slamming the accelerator, I jumped over the crossing traffic and was back on his tail. At the edge of the floating city, the pink clouds caught the sun, my double stopped his bubble car, got out, and entered a tall, narrow building. Even though I must have been the second me to climb the stairs, figures from my past greeted me unfazed as I passed, and at the top of the stairs was a black door. Inside and in front of me was my double, sat in one of two low black leather chairs and silhouetted by the pink clouds that glistened as my deep blue painting had done what may have been lifetimes before.

“This world is not all it seems.” My double said as I sat down opposite him.

“I've been thinking...”.

“And it is intruding on your play.”

“...questions have been arising. 'Who are you?' for example”.

“I am you, you are seeing yourself for the first time since you arrived here. In this place, your mind manifests as your reality. Now that you have been thinking, you have been becoming. You have been failing at school?”

“..Yes”

“Pay attention and you will see.” he finished, and looked down at the martini on the round glass table. I walked out the door slightly anxious and entered a kaleidoscopic cathedral. I quickly conjured sweet soma and was greeted by a girl, she giggled, we kissed, and we played together. She was so cute, so wonderful, I lost myself once more, but for how long?

Before long I was back in class, me with the other me sat next to me. I noticed that all the other students also had brought their doubles too. This was different; I was ready to listen this time.

“Welcome to the second class.” The teacher began. For the first time I noticed the beam of light connecting her forehead to mine. It caressed and focussed my mind like a helmet of energy. “The first assignment was to notice yourself, I thank you for bringing yourself with you today.

“This mothership is always changing. It is the consciousness. You are slowly coming to develop thought, and along with it your world is becoming more disturbed. This will continue.

“Have you ever wondered why I am a teacher? Why do I not engage in play like you do? Have you noticed the others?” I thought hard. No, I hadn't. I had been bubbling along in my bubble car and hadn't noticed much at all, except when I encountered my self that time. “Minds are disturbed, even here on the mothership,” she continued, “and there is nothing here that can be done about it. I was once like you, here in this class, and soon I will go back to earth. When you realise how disturbed you are you will learn to love as I have, and go back to earth to begin life anew. Only on earth can one realise the truth. Only on earth do things come and go, are we constantly confronted with the truth. Here we do not have the opportunity.”

“I thought I must be in heaven.” I said.

“This place is but one of many realms. It is my duty to usher you back to Earth for you to discover the heaven you seek.” she replied, her electric blue iridescent fringe waving calmly as if under water. Would I ever be ready to leave this illusory paradise? “When you are ready, here is the door. But you are not ready yet...

“Life exists because death exists, but you cannot know life in this place. To know life is to be life, to be life is to transcend death, and to transcend death is to be pulled out from death's lure by the love that knows no death. This place is deathless, and therefore lifeless. Through the door is life, but also pain and death. But life that discovers the Love is free. Life that does not discover the Love is not truly life, and after death may return to this place, the mothership, or another realm. I can show you the way out that door and back to earth, but many, like myself, get stuck here. That is why I teach, I am learning to love enough to go through that door. Back to Earth.”

I left class with a strong desire for more soma, and allowed myself to be led to new heights of pleasures by seductive red velvet ladies and martini olives, pink fluffy dreams and baby blue bubbles, white-yellow perfume and coddled lusty embraces, like a weightless warm mothership drifting timeless in space. Liberation was a long way away – a birth squeeze, cold, pain, work, unsatisfied desires, death and perseverance – it would be a long time before I opened that door.

magical woman

'I'll grant you two wishes' said the magical woman.

'I wish to not have a second wish.'

'Very wise' said the magical woman, 'the previous person wished to know the best wish to ask for the second wish, and with the second wish made further potential best wishes only the best of a set of bad wishes.'

Suddenly magic started out from the magical woman's magical wand, accompanied by the smell that you would smell if you were a snail smelling monosodium glutamate. And then life carried on as normal.

Raoul Duke

“You can't smoke in here.”

Duke was nonchalant.  Ben sat back in the hard red leather cushion of a high sofa.  The bar was familiar, an ash tray on a round table, and Duke sat lazily back, and took a sip of his cigarette.

“Our knowledge and philosophy has been our undoing,”  Duke continued, “when you want to follow a God that you don't believe in, there is only one logical choice.  Doublethink I don't like.”

“I think life is still worth living.” Ben said, and he looked up at the night sky.  The stars were out in full, there was no moon.  He pondered a moment, vast ponderings in short moments.  No doubt he was enjoying this conversation, but there was something wrong.  This event had happened before, and Ben was fluent in it.  He stood up, and Duke looked down at the ash tray.  “I'm going to fly, as much as I like to be with you.  I miss you.”

Ben started running towards the door, widened his eyes and watched the faith in his mind as he extended his head and neck ready to pass like light through the door.

He entered a space that was like a deep breath, and paused a moment to remember what he was up to.   Jumping high into the air, he fell onto his back, and a rush preceded his fall through the ground, as if from a tree, and he stared deep into the galaxies beyond the ground he was falling through.

“Show me 'The Highest'” he prayed, and he found himself precipitated across the cosmos he had a moment prior observed.  There he found the Neosis Museum.  He struggled to engage the circuits of his brain as he saw the highest and sublime.  There was no place for the wisdom he was subjected to, and he realised he could not put into memory what is not able to be conceptualised.

“What's it like to be a person in another person's dream?”  Ben asked.  

“I don't know what you are talking about.”

from where all things end

There was a time when questions were unanswered, even when questions didn't arise. This time is called the Unrepresented; a time before there were beings to represent anything at all. Out of here slowly emerged feelings, impulses, fear, cold and hunger, as the first beings evolved. With quickening pace, feelings turned to language, and language turned to questions. Questions with no answers were given ones with Gods and lies. Words became no longer feelings, but objects of desire. The world came into being, along with money, deception and corruption, power over others, lust for wealth and wars over Gods. It was in this age that science took hold, answering increasingly more of the questions language brought, but generating more and more still. The internet happened. And it was not long after this, that the Idea happened.

The Idea changed everything overnight. As soon as it was grasped, all beings quit everything. Governments stopped arguing, lovers stopped fighting, schools stopped teaching, entire religions simply stopped everything. The whole world began the largest collaborative effort ever made, or that ever would be made.

"No isolated parts. Join all parts to the self. Relieve all of ignorance."

Like drops of water back to the sea, the world sought to unify all consciousness. But there was a problem. Some of the drops of water were immiscible, like oil, and couldn't coalesce. They joined in a second pool. Now there were two, one being much smaller than the main one. While the situation was better than before, in profound ways, this problem remained niggling. Methods of communication between the two sides improved, but while they could transmit thoughts, they could not transmit understanding. The Bigger was clearly the more expansive, coming up with the most interesting and creative uses of reality, which the Smaller was then taught to appreciate.

It eventually became realised, however, that to proceed further required a choice. It remained known but dormant in self-deception for a long time. A way was found to unify the two parts, but simultaneously it was realised that this would annihilate both. There would be no longer any consciousness. The reason for this is that consciousness needs to be able to think in order to represent things to itself, and without two parts, one cannot think. This is why brains have two parts, each controlling one half of the body. Have you ever tried writing with your left hand (or right if you are left-handed)? You can teach yourself, but the two halves can only communicate through thought. They can't share experience or understanding. Try it!

Eventually there came a time when the infinitude of what could be achieved, had been achieved. Nothing novel was left to be done ever again, except for the only one thing left to do. The last challenge was the final stage of realisation: that of neither represented nor unrepresented. This is the key that would finally unify the two parts, the bridge from ultimate representation back to the Unrepresented, to begin everything anew in an infinite cycle.

In which part of the cycle are you now :?

Love is love's virus

Susan slip-sliced her mind through the interface; the inviting, colourful and intricate view before her at her minder tips. She flisped past the countless mindless minds, and her love discovered her and they united. They were a still, cold lake under the moon, yet their hearts were ablaze with a gloryful embrace. They spread like a firework at the speed of sound, wider than space itself, and soaked the countless minds with a nudge of compassion, unbeknownst to most, but inexorably raising, by a small amount, the awareness of them all, towards the still reflection of the moon.

On his way home, Ben checked his pigeonhole. There was nothing there, except a letter explaining that a new bank card – which Ben had already gone to his local branch to pick up – had been dispatched to his local branch for him to pick up. Redundant thoughts stacked through his mind, like white plaster in a kitchen sieve. His troubled mind focussed strongly on fleeting questions, like a mailman delivering redundant letters, like a blunt knife gnashing against glass. And then as he cycled past the park, the sun caught the leaves, the people froze still in life's joy for an eternal instant, and Ben thought it was beautiful, inviting, colourful. For a moment he saw the glint of it, and then it flisped away. The knife lay motionless on the glass, the mail man went home to his children, and Ben went home to write about Susan, and himself. Love discovers more of us, bit by one.

a tree as the air moves

A gloaming cool descended over the lake, and the trees reflected purple in the still dark water. A boy and his father sat.

“When I come to the water to see my reflection, and then look up and listen closely to the trees as the air moves, I sometimes wonder if the trees have things to say, or if they recognise their own reflections in the waters.” said the boy.

“The trees have voices in the wind, and they have reflections in the water, but they know not what they say, nor what they see reflected.”

“I feel like that too sometimes.” said the boy.

When the boy grew up he was gentle and quiet, and everybody always listened closely to him, as if listening for answers to their most intimate needs.

Once Upon a Universe

The scientists had been working hard. It had been a problem for as long as man has been able to think. How is it that physical stuff can create the qualia of experience? In 2145 the scientists solved the problem, and in 2146 a scientist ran a simple proof of concept by creating the first synthetic experience. For historic reasons, experience of the colour red was chosen as the first to be created.

The monumental discovery of the true nature of experience answered age old anthropological questions. Why should it be, for example, that compassion should be such a widely adopted virtue among exactly every civilisation? In the old times, people were slaves to their egos; individuals striving to better their own experience. Their thoughts were fleeting reflections of evolutionary struggle for genetic survival, with the slightly distasteful illusion of being due to acts of some sort of localised will. It is a necessary requisite of transcendence that there be something to transcend from, which of course is that which allows evolution in the first place. Nothing perfect ever changes and therefore cannot evolve.

The key was in identification. Once the ego was seen for what is was, the great Elucidation happened. Consciousness is itself without form but manifests through sentient beings, the ego being a by-product. Only goodness knows why it took so long for people to realise that.

There is no difference between when I see red, and when you see red; the experience is indistinguishable, and such is the nature of all experience. When we are greedy, when we deceive; we are actually only harming ourselves, by taking, steeling or whatever from other bits of this ultimate self. In the deeper realms of experience, obscured from our egos, this truth has always been understood, and its manifestation has been in the virtues of the great religions.

Hence, when the scientists created the experience of red in the lab, it was the equivalent of resurrecting all people of all time who had ever had eyes to see.  Furthermore, the scientists had created the simplest version of the experience possible, and hence it was not attached to any sort of experience of time. It was timelessly vast in a see of infinity, with no past, no future, just pure contextless red.

After more months of careful calculation and dedication, they created the experiences of pleasure, of love, and of compassion. A natural progression. Finally was created the experience of infinite understanding. All was good, and the scientists were pleased. What wasn't realised was what would happen next!

The scientists kept the experiences under a close watch to observe what other phenomena might have arisen when they had been created. Synthetic experience was completely unexplored, and really it was a bit like landing on the moon. The moon could have had moon people! They had no idea of what would happen, though what was discovered was far more amazing than even moon people would have been. Between the experiences created, there were resonances that formed an extremely complex topography. It was like a holograph. Something existed in these experiences. It wasn't until a few years later, as the technology got better and the resolution with which they could see it got greater that they figured out the full extent and significance of what had been achieved.

The first observations showed that, although pure love and compassion and understanding had been created, which are considered good experiences, there seemed to be a component of negative ones coming out. Pain, anguish, guilt, humiliation, shame. This was far from what was expected. Then they took some higher resolution spectra. The first ones they extracted seemed to bare a very close resemblance to quantum gravitation, and on further investigation they discovered the correct formulations of pre-inflationary theory which had been a problem that physicists had been having no luck with at the Heavy Graviton Collider since it had gone on line. No one suspected that looking at experience would answer questions about physics! Although by the 22nd century no one really cared about physics any more.

The scientists realised the full extent of this slowly.  Some denied it at first. What had in fact been done was that within the love and compassion had been created a universe; complete unto itself and timeless. A universe with exactly the laws of physics as ours, and indeed, like ours in every way! In fact, it was, in its indistinguishable nature actually ontologically the same universe.

Love and compassion necessitate the existence of the universe, and that love and compassion are the source of all our being, from our love to our despair. Peace is upon those who practice what they know beyond the clouds of ignorance, the true light that shines from beyond form.  And ever since the existence of the universe has never been a mystery.  Welcome to Eternity.

Coming soon

I sometimes write short stories.  I will begin to post them here so watch this space!