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Indra's WebGlobal—pertaining to the whole world; worldwide; universal. Dictionary definitionsaside, to be global is to pertain to everything at once, individually, in groups, in hierarchies, andfinally in an all inclusive whole. Globality is the state of being global, not to be confused withglobalism, the geopolitical idea that each nation's sphere of influence is the entire world.Although these concepts are related, globality is a nonpolitical idea of interconnectedness on alllevels, be they economic and political, spiritual and social, as well as the mere physical andcorporeal.Everything in our world is part of globality. This is not limited to things actually on theglobe. The sun and the moon, for example, tie into the all-encompassing idea of globality. In allactuality, the entire universe can be considered as part of our global, or rather universal,existence. However, this idea can for now be left out of a definition of global. It would seem, atfirst glance, that the primary operators, or functional components, of globality are humans andother beings. But this a human-centric idea, and is ultimately incorrect. The view point comesfrom the fact that as humans we have only one perspective on the world around us, a perspectivefrom within ourselves—a human perspective. Thus, it is reasonable that the world view we haveis usually from an internal perspective. Avoiding this perspective and viewing existence asobjectively as possible, although a difficult proposition at times, is key in understanding the truenature of what it means to be global.On the most basic level, it thus appears as though humans, and to a lesser extent other  beings, such as animals, are the main functional element in globality. Global interactions occur as relationships between such beings. For example, there is a relationship between siblings thatappears only to able to exist between two such individuals, and that the relationship could notexist between, say, two apples on a tree branch. In this case, it is not the complex humanrelationship that is in question, rather the fundamental connection between two objects, or twooperators of a global existence. Such a relationship does in fact exist between the apples, and it isidentical to all binary relationships in our existence.This effect is hardly noticed in day to day activity, and it is largely ignored. Thus, themore complex but less fundamental effect of human relationships becomes prevalent. It is on this basis that the human becomes the central figure in a more complex but less universal approach toglobality. Humans are the central figures in such an approach, and without them there would beno possibility of a global existence. It is, therefore, folly to hinge the idea of globality on themere social interactions of humans within the spectrum of existence. One must look beyond therelationships of humans to humans and of people to their surroundings. All relationships are vitalto the understanding of globality.With this concept understood, one can see that there is no inherent need for humans toexist in order for globality to exist. Humans are certainly a part of a global view of existence, buthumanity is also not an essential part of this existence. Thus, to be global goes well beyond meresocio political constructs and frameworks of interactions. It goes into the realm of existenceitself. To be global is to go beyond all social interdependencies and systems. It is a manner of  being, not just for individuals, or for humanity as a whole, but for the world and the universe inall its infinity. Globality is the interconnectedness of everything that always was, is, and will be.The explanation for this comes in the form of a simply elegant and staggeringly poignantmetaphor—Indra's web.Indra's web illustrates a number of ideas about interconnectivity as an integral part of 
 
existence and the universe. The idea of the web itself comes in a number of slight variations. Butit goes mostly as follows: the web or net is infinite and spans in multiple dimensions—it is notflat like a normal spider's web. On each vertex of the web there is a jewel or a drop of dew— these, by virtue of the web being such as it is, are infinite. The drops of dew or jewels reflect andrefract light mirroring each other infinitely. Each drop of dew reflects the light from all other drops of dew, and likewise, each drop of dew is reflected by all other drops of dew. Everythingon Indra's web is in complete interconnection.As in the concept of the web, everything in our world is interconnected in the samemanner. Every single facet of our existence reflects and interacts with every other facet in anendless cascade of connections. There is nothing in the universe that is not connected toeverything else. And certainly everything on earth is connected in such a fashion whether we perceive it or not. This goes beyond the idea that people are the only points of interconnection ina global state of being. Instead of just people being the nodes for connections, everything inexistence is a point of transmission for a connection between all other objects.Similarly, it is not the mere connection that exists between all things that is important, butalso the fact that all things must be connected in order to exist. In the example of the web, it isimpossible to block a drop of dew from interacting with all other drops of dew. There is no way asingle drop can avoid other drops. In this sense, all other drops are responsible for giving any one particular drop its existence. Each drop's existence depends on all other drops, and all other drops' existences depend on any particular individual drop. The drops cannot originate on their own—they all need each other in order to define their own existence.This idea is known as inter-relational co-origination. It is the idea that nothing can bewithout everything else. Everything contributes to the existence of any one particular object. Anobject does not merely exist within itself. It derives its existence from everything else in theuniverse. A sphere in a void defines the void, but also the void defines the sphere. Without thevoid, there could not possibly be a sphere. With this in mind, it can be seen that existence itself isdetermined by the entirety of a system. Every component of existence contributes to theexistence of every other component. Nothing could be without everything else.This concept stretches well beyond the scope of what it means to be global. The idea of inter-relational co-origination describes the entire universe. However, the system of interconnectedness can be scaled down to any particular size. Thus, one need not have to takeinto account everything that has ever existed and will ever exist. Focus can be brought to closedsystems within the greater universal whole. In the idea of globality, one of these systems is theworld we inhabit. One can observe the effect of inter-relational co-origination on earth andwithin our societies without having to take into account the unfathomable infinity of the entireuniverse.This is at first counterintuitive. Another fact regarding Indra's web and inter-relational co-origination is that due to the nature of the interconnectedness of all things, no one thing and noone connection holds more bearing or weight on existence than another. The web exhibitssupersymmetry. That is, all parts of the web have an antithesis at all times, they are equal at alltimes. Likewise, there is no center in the web, no point of origin or of beginning and end. Withthis in mind, with the act of isolating a single part of the web in the form of a system, such as theearth and our society, a paradox arises. If no single part of the web holds any more effect onanother then how can any single part be taken out of this context. This causes the bigger pictureto be missed. Ignoring the bulk of the cosmos in all its vastness in order to focus on a singleminute part goes against the idea of the web.
 
However, further reasoning into the paradox will show that this is in fact possible. Sinceall parts of the web are equal to all other parts, no matter how they are divided, the entire cosmoshas no more bearing on the web than any one isolated part. In this way, the earth and itsinhabitants can be isolated into a manageable chunk that is no more or less important thananything else in the universe.Furthermore, one must take into account again the human perspective. Although we are atall times affected by all other objects in existence, we can only perceive what we know, e.g. wecan only experience the part of the web most immediate to us. Any part beyond our scope of things affects us nonetheless, but we cannot aware of this effect at all. This limit of human perception can be described by placing a person at any given point of the web. With our humanlimit on understanding of our surroundings, a person could only see so far along the web. Nonormal individual could grasp the entirety of the web at once, and certainly not understand all of its plethora of connections. With this focusing of the web onto a global scale, discourse becomesmuch more manageable.As in the above example, all things within the global web of inter-relational co-origination are equal to one another. A grain of sand on a deserted beach is as much a part of theglobal order of things as a dictator on the verge of war. At first glance this statement seemsabsolutely absurd. But in accordance with the principle of inter-relational co-origination the grainof sand being as interconnected as the dictator holds as much an effect on everything else as doesthe dictator. The dictator appears to our perception to hold more bearing on things than the grainof sand. But this is a mere construct of our perception of what actually exists. We perceive highcomplexity relationships, but ignore the simple binary relationships that make up the web. If these relationships are summed, they would be equal between the dictator and the grain of sand.Again, it can be seen that the tiniest of parts of existence affect all other parts. A realworld example of this is the concept within chaos theory known as the butterfly effect. Theillustrated point of the butterfly effect is essentially that a butterfly flapping its wings on one sideof the globe can set of a chain reaction that causes a tornado much later in time and far from theoriginal flapping of the butterfly's wings. When viewing the flapping of a humble butterfly andthe fury of a tornado there is hardly any connection in the mind that the former could be a causeof the latter. However, over time the minute effect of the butterfly can escalate into something as powerful as a tornado. Such chaotic systems are also shown in the mathematical theories behindthe Lorenz Attractor. The Lorenz Attractor shows how a tiny change in an equation can haveresults of a magnitude many times greater than the initial change.All this is in accordance with the idea of the web and inter-relational co-origination.Everything is equal to everything else, and as such everything has the potential for great change.Somethings or individuals may only be perceived by people as being more or less influential onthe state of things as a whole. But this is only an illusion in our minds. The reality is thateverything is equal. The social implications of this are that no one thing or being has any more or less worth than any other particular thing or being.These implications are far-reaching. By this measure an illiterate waif in a third worldcountry has the same amount of influence on the world and worthiness of existence as the leadersof the greatest of nations. Likewise a saint is no more or less valuable than a criminal. There isno real relative value among the constituents of the world. All people and things are equal. Thismay at first seem strange, but the ascribed value given to everything is not zero. Rather everything is infinitely valuable. As all things are interconnected and all things are equal, theyare all of the utmost importance.
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02 / 17 / 2011This doucment made it onto the Rising List!
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