BREAKTHROUGH: THE COMMON DENOMINATOR FOR THE HUMANITY

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Surrendered to abyss? As the Third Millennium gathers momentum, many of us have experienced the feeling that Humanity isn’t doing so well. That she is tired and has come to a standstill, instead of continuing her journey up the serpentine road of progress; or maybe she is lost and is herself unaware she is sliding backwards into yesteryear, into the loop down which she thought she would never see again, not unlike the third decade of the past century. She is tired and still divided into many fractions without a common denominator ̶ blocks, states, nations, religions, regimes, class.. ̶ that cannot be added into a whole number; still drowning in antipathy, greed and ignorance; slipping into the contagious thinking of Great Nations; surrendered to everything ̶ even the possibility of a new World War. This is not her first standstill and confusion. The numerous previous occasions are marked by grandiose wars and crises that destroyed countless lives. What is Humanity lacking, which causes it to tire and subside? It is, surely, the basic necessity for ascent of that serpentine road: motivation that can only be acquired with understanding the reasons for her being there, for her upward journey and what awaits over there, at the top. Yet again, we find ourselves without a vision ̶ not for a single nation (to become the most powerful?), not for a whole of religion (to become the only true one?) nor class (to make the rest of Humanity its servants?). Yet again, the clattering flock of fractions is unable to understand itself as One whole number. For the sake of truth, it must be said ̶ certain pioneers are abandoning the flock, taking a step into the next winding of the serpentine. Not the inventive futurists, not the dreamers seduced by mystique, but the most pragmatic leaders of Humankind ̶ entrepreneurs. Consider M. Zuckerberg and Y. Milner, who joined S. Hawking, the leader of the physicist community, for the Breakthrough Initiatives ̶ with the goal of the Breakthrough Starshot to reach Alpha Centauri, the star system closest to us. It’s not their courage in the fields of technology and science that is the most impressive; even more valuable is the understanding of Goal and meaning that these people possess. Here are the words from the presentation of this project: ‘Are there habitable worlds in our galactic neighborhood? … And can we think and act together – as one world in the cosmos?’ (https://breakthroughinitiatives.org/About ). This is a vector towards the Goal, the next curve of the serpentine! And these are not fantasies of daydreamers. It’s an actual reality: pragmatic entrepreneurs invested heavily in this plan which is being brought to life, not just dreamed or spoken about. What great and deep abyss there is between the Humanity reconciled with its retreat into the past and the ‘as one world in the cosmos’! Between the cacophony of the incalculable fractions incapable of being ‘one world on Earth’ and one whole Number ̶ The Humanity as an equal part of ‘one world in cosmos’. There is a fulcrum! Considering this, it is impossible not to contemplate the most essential percept ̶ our (as Humanity, not as separate humans) purpose and meaning of Being; the meaning of Being established on that which we are already capable of comprehending in the third millennium; the meaning, which would become our common denominator and vector of the future, which would gather us into One, highlight our main priorities, urge the consolidation of intellectual, material and financial resources. 2

This is by no means at attempt to make everyone same and uniform. Religious wars already tried that, with their goal of make everyone follow a single faith. The communism experiment, which cost hundreds of millions of lives and rivers of blood, already tried that ̶ make everyone identical. The march of the “Great Nation”, which hoped to make the whole world abide by one order, already tried that and in the process lost as many lives. The current knowledge of herself and the Universe at Humanity’s disposal enables us to look at that serpentine of evolution without a mysticised fear, without dread of supernatural powers or aliens, from a great distance ̶ both from physical infinity and the eternity of time. And it needs to be looked at, for us to understand where it’s taking us from, and where it is leading us to. It appears everything is very uncomplicated. What do we know about The Beginning? We know there was the Big Bang; eventually something before it. And what is happening Now? We know that, too: the Universe is expanding and dispersing at great speed, and its energy is fading. And what awaits in the future? We know that: the final light of the Universe will go out and cool ̶ not unlike the sparks of fireworks; the endless space will be overwhelmed by darkness and absolute cold. Even if our Big Bang was preceded by other Big Bangs, or if it will be followed by other ones, fundamentally it changes nothing; then the Universe is an endless festival of fireworks, rather than a single dead and chaotic display. There is, in essence, nothing else happening, just (always another?) Beginning and (always another?) End. Whatever happens in between them is insignificant, because it does not affect either the Beginning or the End. Thus perhaps attempts to change ourselves are meaningless? Perhaps the truest meaning of Human Being is precisely to take from today that which is going to make pleasant our temporary presence here and now; either way, the End will be the same, and any day could be the very last one. So what if we tumble about, fight a few wars, decrease our population, redistribute the wealth, slightly slide backwards down the serpentine and then crawl up, until the next slip and backward roll; and so till the very End. But let us not rush to put that final full stop; couldn’t there exist something meaningful? In the endless timeline of the Universe, in the small snip between routine the Beginnings and the Ends, let’s find that briefest of moments in which a tiny speck flashes ̶ The Earth! Here! Here the most essential of happenings took place ̶ the metamorphosis of the lifeless Universe; the inanimate Matter became Life ̶ the very First Cell! And that is not all. The Universe ̶ metamorphosed into the Life ̶ advanced so far it learned to think, it got a consciousness! And so it gained a chance: by further advancing along a consecutive chain of metamorphoses and filling its colossal lifeless body with the life and consciousness, to develop an ability to understand all of itself, its laws of Being, and to maybe someday transform the meaningless, firework-like cycle of its existence ̶ of endless Beginnings and Ends. Perhaps this is the only such accident in this chain of Big Bangs, the only chance for the Universe! It is possible that apart from us, there haven’t been any other intelligent beings in the cosmos, not in the past, now or ever in the future. How vitally important our recent link of the chain of metamorphoses becomes, when seen from such perspective! What huge responsibility for us, The Humanity! Doesn’t that give a deep meaning to our Being? Not of a separate human, or a nation, or religion, or regime, or class, but of the whole another form of the Universe’s metamorphosis here, on Earth, that is starting its journey towards the summit of the Evolutionary serpentine, where it will have tamed the chaos of fireworks and crossed the abyss of the End. 3

A baby in its cradle does not understand that an egg laid in the bark of the tree, a greedy caterpillar on the leaf and the freely roaming butterfly in the sky are the same animal. Are we not such children in our essence, incapable of understanding and admitting our true place and Mission: we are but another stop in the chain of the Universe’s metamorphosis? Therefore the words ‘one world in cosmos’ is not merely a nice phrase, but a Breakthrough which has been set in motion, a powerful strike of a maturing butterfly through a thousand year old cocoon of understanding its self which is still enveloping the consciousness of Humanity. Watching Humanity today, descending backwards, it is impossible not to exclaim about the meaning of our Being: the enormous Responsibility we carry on our shoulders to protect the Universe from suffocating inside the moldy cocoon of Ignorance and losing its chance to achieve immortality. Do you think this sounds naive, foolish and without any connection to our daily reality? We can! Then try to take your mind to the point in Time, where the first cell was born under the conditions of immense pressure, somewhere in the bottom of an ocean of the Earth that yet had no atmosphere and was mercilessly mutilated by meteors, fire and lightning. Imagine yourself in her position ̶ microscopically tiny, completely alone and vulnerable. And then you are ordered, imperatively: ‘You will have to create a layer of atmosphere around this planet, become a multitude of plants and animals, rule over all the land and water; from the Earth’s natural resources, hidden in its depths, build cities, roads, cars, trains and planes; construct factories, learn to tame the energy of the atom…’ What would you have answered? That you, tiny cell, cannot compete with this hell of fire, lightning and vapours? That you are so pitiful and weak in your absolute loneliness? (Vladas Sturys. Nomus 2016 page 83; BookNomusAbout ) Which is more naive, foolish and further from daily reality ̶ to order a motionless and powerless microscopic cell to fundamentally change this hell of a planet from the very base and master atomic reactions, or to tell it, already controlling those atomic reactions after many metamorphoses: ‘Well done, but this is merely a beginning, you will have to learn to master the multiple forms of energy that exist in the Universe and so make it ever living’? What the cell did to the chaos of fire and ice is no less tremendous than that which it still has to achieve in its future forms. Unless, of course, this metamorphosis will end with us, the Earth Humanity. Such is the evolutionary serpentine, the Earthly fraction of which is the length smaller than a blink of an eye; and our Today is just in a quarter left of that blink ̶ when the dying Sun will pull the Earth and all things living on it closer into its burning embrace. But that time could also be significantly shorter. The cornerstone So what awaits at the top of the serpentine path? Most likely, the summit does not exist at all; the barely visible conditional ‘tip’ is just a threshold to the infancy of the new, immortal Universe; the Life will gradually permeate the whole body of the Universe (perhaps by lighting new stars, or resurrecting faded sky lights and dead planets to new life), just like it overwhelmed the immense body of Earth with an innumerable multitude of shapes coming from a first cell that was invisible to the naked eye. Today, it is impossible to foresee in what circumstances and into what shapes the Universe-Life will advance. But it is possible, and 4

imperative, to name the reason and goal that should motivate and push it up the evolutionary serpentine: to achieve Immortality. Immortality?! But its inception is already in motion! Isn’t this the elusive Common Denominator?! The concept of Immortality has been flickering in the Human consciousness for a very long time ̶ in religions, arts and sciences. Unfortunately, instead of uniting Humanity, it continues splintering it into irreconcilable fractions. Perhaps the Immortality (not mine or yours, but that of the Universe) is that cornerstone upon which the blocks, states, nations, religions, regimes, class, separated by Humanity-shattering conflicts, could place their hands and begin building the edifice of Harmony? It would take so little to start: to boldly name the real present-day subject of Immortality. Not a single Human seeking to be rewarded with eternal happiness after the End! But The Humanity as tiny but crucial link in a chain of metamorphosis of the Universe that must fulfil its colossal Mission before the End is there. Just those blocks, states, nations, religions, regimes, class before to place hands on the cornerstone need to switch the hidden mode of the consciousness from ’take’ to ‘give’. Then the walls dividing the disagreeing fractions will start to fall; they are already slowly crumbling in the advent of a new, virtual space into which the younger generation of Humanity is intensively moving. Above every of us After the publication of the book Nomus (the guy, one of the millions of the virtual generation, Generation Z, inhabiting the new – the Virtual space, where borders and distances are negligible, discovered the true origin and the Mission of The Humanity) the debates with its readers presented both positive feedback and critical evaluations, most of which focused on this: the self-concept of Humanity is not an urgent pragmatic issue; it is more important to address the tangible challenges Humanity is facing here and now ̶ crises, poverty, social inequality, illiteracy, epidemics… It’s true, these challenges are undeniably important and urgent. But they would be much easier to solve effectively if the Humanity would fundamentally change the understanding of itself; this would incite the shift in its Goals, priorities and, consequently, budgets, strategies and plans ̶ all the things that affect the crises, the poverty, the inequality, the illiteracy and the epidemics. The resources of Humanity ̶ intellectual, material, spiritual ̶ is this not the most pragmatic issue that could ever be considered? The aim of this piece certainly isn’t to suggest an immediate dissolution of blocks and unions, renunciation of borders, languages and religions. The political, economic, spiritual and cultural diversity of Humanity is an immense accumulated wealth and a basic requirement for progress. Aim of this piece is rather to invite every Human Being to realise that above every of us, who are so different, floats the Breakthrough, the Common Denominator: We, the Humanity, are the latter link in a chain of Universe’s metamorphosis towards an immortal entity; and we carry full responsibility for the continuity of this chain.

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A switch in the center of the Universe And after that realisation we must raise our heads, open our eyes and face the ascending serpentine path on which we are stuck, or maybe even descending backwards. And once we see the serpentine path, we need to understand that we carry an incomparably greater duty than that to our block, our country, nation, religion, regime or class; that the time we can waste standing in one spot or moving backwards is very limited, and likely much briefer than we think. Could a force exist that might flick that switch of consciousness of the Humanity from ’take’ to ‘give’? It does! That switch is not hidden in some planet or cosmic ship of Aliens, or some Earthly parliamentary house, temple, atomic bunker; it is deep within the most perfect point of the Universe ̶ every one of us. This switch may click only if it is resolutely started to be pressed at least by the one of us and being joined by friends, colleagues and family members to do the same. In the new borderless living space of Humanity ̶ the virtual world ̶ the efforts of every human may strengthen millionfold when supported by others. This way of coexistence is called stigmergy and is best illustrated with the example of social networks, which are incomparably more capable to moving the vision of self-concept to the position of highest priority on Humanity’s agenda than any UN commission, G7 or G20. People (scientists, musicians, TV and film stars etc.) who have amassed multimillions of followers have an especially prominent position in the virtual world, and their word is often more important than the promises and oaths of political heavyweights. Without any doubt, Mark Zuckerberg is a leader among them; his manifest ‘Building Global Community’https://goo.gl/qhbfmK (declared 16th February 2017) is a great example to be followed by other well-known members of the virtual society. It would be best to end with another extract from Nomus, which illustrate well the miniature with metamorphosis of the human-butterfly at the top of this article: A little time passed and the newborn stretched out his legs, looked at the wings, moved them about, visibly surprised that this beautiful butterfly was actually him. He appeared thoughtful and looked up at the Emptiness, focusing with the hundreds of compounds of his eyes. The Brilliant Light, coming from inside him, grew brighter. The eyes, greedily absorbing the blizzard of fire and plasma, were full of Desire. Only it was already a different Desire, not the Greed that I had seen in the faces of the puppets starving for the sweet mucus poured by the Money. This was more akin to the Passion of a sculptor looking at a chunk of clay that will certainly become a masterpiece. The pulse of the Brilliant Light grew stronger. The antennae shivered with excitement. He slowly stretched out the taut and strong wings, moved them about. Then without any spring, without fluttering, he floated upwards, turned into a cloud of Brilliant Lights and… dispersed in the Emptiness. (Vladas Sturys. Nomus 2016 page 137; BookNomusAbout ) Let us make a Breakthrough: Humanity’s agenda!

move the Common Denominator to the first position on

by Vladas Sturys Facebook Page Humanity’s Common Denominator https://www.facebook.com/HumanityCommonDenominator/ Facebook Group #Humanity’sCommonDenominator https://www.facebook.com/groups/1867440700205762/ Twitter: @ Humanity CD Inspired by the book Nomus BookNomusAbout

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