The Undivided Center
Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research) June 29, 2026 George Cherian
A speculative essay traces the movement between mechanistic and holistic explanations of reality, life, information, and consciousness, using the metaphor of a chaotic pendulum. It argues that physics has weakened the classical idea of independent parts through quantum uncertainty, non-locality, and Bell's theorem, extending this into biology via autopoiesis and dynamic regulatory networks. Consciousness is examined through neuroscience, meditation, psychedelic studies, near-death experiences, and terminal lucidity, suggesting it may not be reducible to mechanism. The essay proposes that information may be more fundamental than matter but does not solve the hard problem, pointing instead to awareness as the field in which everything appears. Its central claim is that mechanism and wholeness are two movements of the same inquiry orbiting an 'undivided center.'