A recent article called “All Is One” in the online magazine “aeon” presents an excellent overview of the scientific and philosophical schism between what is called “monism” and its dialectical opposite “dualism.” If you are interested in the nature of reality and the history of the argument over whether or not there is a single, unifying reality behind all of the apparent differences we see around us, you should check out that article. I have included the link here in this podcast transcript that you can find either at Gnostic Insights dot com or the transcript on Substack . As so often happens, my brother read the article first and forwarded it to me. After I read it, we had a good conversation about certain concepts in the article. By good fortune, we had the zoom app running during our conversation and I was able to preserve our discussion to play for you today. There are two reasons why I want to share the audio of that conversation with you. One reason is the content—Bill had a good gnostic insight he wanted to get across to me, and that is presented to you here. The second reason is that I want to share with you the process by which my brother and I discuss these deep thoughts. I consider our discussion process an ideal model for how philosophical discussions should take place, although they rarely do because of ego. I think of our philosophical discussions as an example of the Simple Golden Rule. We are both arguing not from a position of ego, but from a shared exploration of truth, and gnosis is the object in the middle we are both working on to level up. The discussion isn’t polite in the sense that there are plenty of interruptions and disputes, yet no negative or egoic emotions, only love and laughter. Keep in mind that Bill is a professor emeritus of Philosophy, and I am a Ph.D. rhetorician and university lecturer, so you can imagine we have both seen our share of unpleasant and offensive philosophical disputes in the halls of academia. Our conversation is how I imagine such talks should proceed for the benefit of all. Let’s begin with the beginning of the aeon article by Heinrich Paes, a professor of theoretical physics at TU Dortmund University in Germany. He says, ‘From all things One and from One all things,’ wrote the Greek philosopher Heraclitus some 2,500 years ago. He was describing monism, the ancient idea that all is one – that, fundamentally, everything we see or experience is an aspect of one unified whole. Heraclitus wasn’t the first, nor the last, to advocate the idea. The ancient Egyptians believed in an all-encompassing but elusive unity symbolized by the goddess Isis, often portrayed with a veil and worshipped as ‘all that has been and is and shall be’ and the ‘mother and father of all things’. Let me jump in here to say that we Valentinian Gnostics would identify this One as the Father rather than Isis. Back to the article: This worldview also follows in straightforward fashion from the findings of quantum mechanics (QM), the uncanny physics of subatomic particles that departs from the classical physics of Isaac Newton and experience in the everyday world. QM, which holds that all matter and energy exist as interchangeable waves and particles, has delivered computers, smartphones, nuclear energy, laser scanners and arguably the best-confirmed theory in the entirety of science. We need the mathematics underlying QM to make sense of matter, space and time. Two processes of quantum physics lead directly to the notion of an interconnected universe and a monistic foundation to nature overall: ‘entanglement’, nature’s way of integrating parts into a whole, and the topic of the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics; and ‘decoherence’, caused by the loss of quantum information, and the reason why we experience so little quantum weirdness in our daily lives. Again, let me interject by suggesting you read my article “Quantum Entanglement and Karma” on my Simple Explanation blog, originally posted May 13, 2011. The link is in this transcript. Quantum Mechanical entanglement at a distance Now, back to the aeon article. Yet, despite the throughline in philosophy and physics, the majority of Western thinkers and scientists have long rejected the idea that reality is literally unified, or nature and the Universe a system of one. From judges in the Inquisition (1184-1834) to quantum physicists today, the thought that a single system underlies everything has been too odd to believe. In fact, though philosophers have been proposing monism for thousands of years, and QM is, after all, an experimental science, Western culture has regularly lashed out against the concept and punished those promoting the idea. The article then goes on to describe the long and torturous history of the clash between monists and dualists in both philosophy and religion. Quote, Even then, Christianity adopted Platonic ideas by identifying the monistic ‘One’ with God. But Christianity drew also on dualistic philosophies such as Ma
