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Andy P's avatar

Interesting that this came out on the feast of St Macarius the Great, who the Orthodox celebrate today:

"As there is one soul in all the members, which operates aloft in the brain, and also moves the feet beneath, so the Godhead contains all creatures, the heavenly, and those under the bottomless pit, and is everywhere fulfilled in the creation, although it transcends the creatures, because it is infinite and incomprehensible." - St Macarius the Great

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skaladom's avatar

In the words of glorious Gong, You are I and I am You. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IuLoY5phOkg

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Derek Neal's avatar

I can't believe CostCo has gotten into academic publishing!

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jonW2248's avatar

The "punchline", that there is only one of us, is shared with the surprisingly touching short story by the author of The Martian, Andy Weir, called "The Egg", which can be read legally and without cost in its entirety online.

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Michael Vegas Mussman's avatar

Fun surprise to wake up to this story this morning. Strong notes of Borges's Garden of Forking Paths.

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A Citizen's avatar

Bravo. The questions raised are stimulating. I myself have asked Dr. Gideon-Su to restrict my own file to the subset representing only those in which a particular 10 billion zinc atoms were lost at the moment of my "conception" in 1955. https://www.anl.gov/article/stunning-zinc-fireworks-when-egg-meets-sperm. This massive reduction (representing a near infinitesimal slice of my file) still produces a massively humbling range of results, even though I accept that it is a tiny fraction of the range of my actual reality, which, as you and Dr. Gideon-Su point out, is all of reality. Thanks.

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