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Binary Wonder

We are already well aware of the great significance of number from the conventional quantitative perspective. However what we have not yet recognised yet is the equal significance of number from the greatly neglected qualitative dimensional perspective.


And when we combine these two aspects of number in interactive terms, then it is but a short leap to the recognition that - at its most fundamental - phenomenal reality is but the dynamic representation of number configurations (in both quantitative and qualitative terms).


Now a widespread view in contemporary physics is that reality is fundamentally composed of tiny 1-dimensional strings, the unique vibrations of which give rise to all the particles from which more conventional material forms are composed.

However the notion of "physical strings" in any meaningful philosophical sense is but a fiction arising from the reductionist quantitative viewpoint that matter must ultimately be composed of smaller constituent parts of matter with the "strings" thereby representing the most fundamental parts.


However from a more correct dynamic perspective all such matter particles must necessarily be of a merely relative nature, arising from dynamic interaction of quantitative and qualitative aspects. And as neither quantitative or qualitative aspects have meaning in the absence of such interaction we can thereby never ultimately isolate the basic constituents of matter in merely quantitative terms.


This then leads to the even more extraordinary realisation that - what we recognise as matter - represents but the dynamic configuration of what in phenomenal terms are recognised as numbers.

Now a number has no physical identity in either quantitative or qualitative terms (in isolation). However it is the unique vibration of both the quantitative and qualitative aspects of number that give rise to the rigid physical appearances in nature that we recognise as matter.


The two most important numbers - what I refer to as the original numbers - are 1 and 0.

We are now discovering in this digital age the great significance of these two numbers as a potential means of encoding all information.

However again what is not equally recognised is the qualitative counterpart of this digital revolution, whereby the same two digits can be seen as a potential means of encoding all transformation processes.

It has always impressed me how these two numbers play such a big role in representing the mystical experience of reality.

In the Western religious traditions - based more heavily on linear notions of form - the peak experience of transformation is commonly expressed in terms of union (or oneness) which is the holistic qualitative notion of 1.

In the Eastern traditions - based more on circular cyclical notions - the peak experience is by contrast expressed in terms of a void or emptiness (i.e. nothingness) which is the holistic qualitative notion of 0.

And as phenomenal reality itself is an information system undergoing continual transformation, we can perhaps recognise that such reality represents but the dynamic interaction of a digital system (based on the numbers 1 and 0) with twin aspects that are quantitative and qualitative respectively.

So the numbers 1 and 0 in this sense are sufficient to encode all reality with respect to (quantitative) information and (qualitative) transformation.


However before this system can operate in phenomenal terms, a precise requirement is necessary relating to the prime number code.

Therefore though prime numbers can be represented in a binary manner, with respect to both quantitative and qualitative characteristics, only one configuration is possible (in the generation of the prime numbers) as - literally - the prime condition for the subsequent unfolding of the phenomenal universe.

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