What If Our First Separation Never Really Ended?
Decimals of belonging: Fragments of an ongoing process
When I observe that first farmer who drew a line in the earth of the Fertile Crescent 10,000 years ago, I see the beginning of a story that speaks to me of ever larger infinities. That furrow was like an integer: clear, defined, seemingly as simple as 1, 2, 3.
First, I must reveal a mathematical secret: between 0 and 1, there are more decimal numbers than in the entire infinite sequence of integers. It is an infinity larger than another infinity. This mathematical truth illuminates the nature of our dualistic thought and its evolution in human history.
The original separation - here/there, mine/yours, internal/external - reminds me of integers: precise, discrete, non-negotiable. Like the jump from 3 to 4, with no possibility of stopping halfway. A border is 1 or 0, inside or outside. But when I peer into modern human thought, I see it pulsing like infinite decimals, 0.157893411..., revealing a dizzying complexity far beyond the original dualism.
Expansion
This expansion of dualistic thought manifesting everywhere throughout history. In early agricultural societies, the world was divided into simple opposites: day/night, summer/winter, and friend/enemy. But with the evolution of civilization, every dualism expanded into ever-larger sets of distinctions. The sacred and the profane fragmented into a kaleidoscope of beliefs: from simple animism to theological systems of vertiginous complexity, each vibrating at unique decimal frequencies: 0.314159265, 0.271828182, 0.577215664...
I see this expansion of dualism also in social structures. From the simple inside/outside of the Neolithic village, we passed to increasingly articulated hierarchies: classes, castes, ranks, and titles. Every social position pulses with its unique decimal number: 0.0013579 for those at the margins, 0.1134927 for the middle class, 0.7071067 for the elites. But these numbers are never fixed; they multiply into new distinctions.
In politics, the primitive dualism of friend/enemy evolved into ideological systems of increasing complexity. No longer just right and left, but a vortex of positions dancing between 0.618033988 and 0.4142135623. Every political movement generates new currents, every current new faction, in a progression that recalls Cantor's transfinite sets.
Primitive societies
Love itself shows me this historical evolution of dualistic thought. In primitive societies, it was a simple yes or no, a binary social contract. Today it vibrates in infinite decimal nuances: 0.0234567891 for an emerging attraction, 0.1123581321 for an adolescent passion, and 0.8675309 for a mature love. Each number tells a unique story in this ever-expanding spectrum of emotional possibilities.
Technological dualism follows the same expansion pattern. From the simple tool/non-tool, we passed to ever more refined categories of instruments, up to the digital world where 0 and 1 generate universes of complexity: 0.1134927412, 0.2319845673, 0.3577210456...
The modern cultural identity reflects this historical expansion of dualisms. No longer just us/them, but an ever richer interweaving of belongings: 0.3141592653 of ancestral roots, 0.2718281828 of global culture, 0.6180339887 of digital identity. Each decimal number is a door to new dimensions of meaning.
Fractal spiral
I observe this system expanding like a fractal spiral through history: from simple agricultural division to the complexity of modern metropolises, from tribal dichotomy to the richness of multiculturalism, and from barter to crypto trading.
Our artificial intelligence, daughters of this historical process, still chase the binary logic of integers. But I see human reality pulsing in ever more complex decimals, 0.3333333..., 0.1415927..., 0.7777777... A flow of distinctions that no binary algorithm could ever completely capture.
True understanding lies in recognizing this historical expansion of dualistic thought, not in returning to a primitive simplicity, but in seeing beyond it. That first furrow in the earth still speaks to me, not only of division but of something deeper that precedes it.
And…so?
Behind this infinite proliferation of distinctions, numbers, and borders, there exists an older and truer truth: the fundamental unity from which everything emerges and to which everything returns. Like the one that contains all numbers, like the infinite space that embraces every point, this unity is our true nature, the universal family from which we have only temporarily forgotten we are part.
The mathematics of infinities paradoxically shows us the way back: the deeper we venture into the depths of complexity, the closer we come to understanding that every distinction is illusory, every separation temporary. We have always been and will always be one. It is to this awareness that we can and must now return.
Feel free to leave a comment.
I have woven tales for anyone who cares to read them. My books await you on Google Books. Check also my stories on Medium.com.
I am eager to participate in research and produce content on Cross-Cultural Philosophy. Considering the many philosophy professors following Learn Vedanta Substack from universities across the five continents, I would be truly honoured to be involved in projects, as I have been recently approached. Please feel free to contact me.
I would be honoured if you considered subscribing to the Premium Contents of my Vedanta Substack and leaving feedback, comments, and suggestions on this page and by writing to me at cosmicdancerpodcast@gmail.com.
Visit my BuyMeACoffee page.
Thanks for reading.