{Connexum}

not the essay, just the idea

not the notion that everything is connected, that is not new

and not the question

how connected is everything

but the question

how

if everything is connected

is everything connected

if things are connected

there must be something that connects them

 

and for many things that are connected

we know what that is

we can see it, measure it, build it, make it

we can name it:

the axles the shafts

the electric current the

data the code the signal

 

but what about things that are connected and we

don’t know what it is that connects them

what about

quantum entanglement

for example

the

spukhafte fernwirkung

albert einstein’s

 

there is no doubt that things are connected of which

we don’t know how this is

and

if things are connected

there has to be some thing that connects them

even if that is

a thing we have not yet detected

a thing we have not yet detected and so not yet given a name to

a thing we have not yet detected but may yet find

we can find

 

that would give us

three things in principle:

energy

information

and the third thing

the thing that connects things

for which we don’t yet have a name

but we have

maybe

names

for manifestations of it

the strong and weak nuclear forces

the electromagnetic force and the force of

gravity

 

what if these forces are to the third thing as

light sound heat motion are to the first (energy)

and as

data code and semantic content are to the second (information)

what if that third thing is a thing in itself

that exists and that is partly

as yet only partly

understood

 

as humans we like sets of threes

trios, triumvirates, trinities

they give us a deeper reality

 

at first glance we seem to be living in twos

in the binaries of

male/female

plus/minus

hot/cold

dark/light

day/night

yes/no

1/0

 

but it only takes one thought to know

that neat and simple as this looks and sounds

it is patently not how it is

 

our reality

here too

needs a third layer each time:

 

male/trans/female

plus/neutral/minus

hot/tepid/cold

dark/twilight/light

yes/maybe/no

1/anything in between/0

 

even yin and yang are not a duality

but a symbolic expression of the way apparent opposites complement each other as part of

the same

 

and this

is when it gets really interesting, when

dualities are not augmented by that which is in between

but are understood as the whole:

 

yin/same/yang

 

for which the quantum equivalent then could be

on/on-and-off-at-the-same-time/off

 

what if

we’ve always known this and have expressed it in many ways

the elements of

the same the other and the essence

in plato’s timaeus

the father the son and the holy spirit

anicca, dukkha, anattā:

impermanence

suffering

non-self

 

what if that third thing

the essence

the holy spirit

the non-self

is

in principle

the thing that connects

everything

the third thing

the thing for which we don’t yet have a name, a

 

connexum?