We need also to be able to think holistically in terms of overall behaviour as well as reductively in terms of

We need also to be able to think holistically in terms of overall behaviour, as well as reductively in terms of parts.The key to the new thinking will surely lie in being able to deal with patterns of holistic behaviour, and the key to understanding such pattern-generation will lie in a suitably enhanced and generalised concept of information, the means by which patterned behaviour can be specified and described in dynamical terms. I believe that by the end of the 21st century, information will have taken its place alongside energy as an indispensable category for the understanding of nature.We human beings are psychosomatic unities, a package deal with mind and matter in an inseparably complementary relationship to each other. This is a conclusion that would not have surprised the writers of the Bible.In a famous phrase, they thought of human beings as “animated bodies”, rather than “incarnated souls”. We are risen beasts and not fallen angels trapped in the flesh. If Christianity has often seemed to have bought into a dualist account of human nature, that has been because of platonic influence on its development, rather than being drawn from its scriptural roots.If human beings are psychosomatic unities, what then has happened to the soul? Has it been lost altogether? I do not think so The soul stands for what one might call “the real me”. The “real me” is not the matter of my body, but it is the almost infinitely complex information-bearing pattern in which that matter is organised That pattern is my soul , the carrier of continuity..

It was only a few weeks ago that commentators were shaking their heads over the almost invisible nature of the resistance to war How things have changed. At the moment, we can only guess at the size of tomorrow’s protests, but anecdotal evidence is talking big. And let’s not kid ourselves; however big this one is, it isn’t suddenly going to shift the international situation into a new key. Obviously, war is pretty much inevitable, and has been for a long time, well in advance of the current diplomatic showdowns. But that doesn’t mean the protest is pointless, either in the short or the long term.When the number of people behind a protest is so large, this sort of straightforward march comes into its own. More unusual protests, such as delegations to Iraq, have been helping to raise awareness of particular issues, such as the plight of civilians. And more confrontational protests have also begun, and will develop further with the beginning of the war.

The tolerance for direct action has been growing over the last few years, and already more than 4,000 people in Britain (including myself) have signed a pledge to support civil disobedience, such as blocking roads, when the war begins.But right now, a straightforward show of people out marching makes a very straightforward point very well: that the politicians are out of step with the people. In Britain, recent polls symbolise a crisis of legitimacy for our Government that, come tomorrow, it will have to work hard to dismiss The march represents the people; the Government does not. According to a midweek BBC poll, the march represents about 90 per cent of the people in Britain (unless the UN gets behind war) and the Government represents about 10 per cent.Because of this massive public support, even its opposers are finding it hard to marginalise the march. As we all know, peace marchers in the Sixties were a hippie rabble, and those in the Eighties were scruffy dykes; but who do we have here? Since even Daily Telegraph commentators are saying that they and their friends will be there, it could be anyone. Even people who believe that war may ultimately be necessary, depending on how things go with the weapon inspections, will still go on the march to put the case that more time is needed right now.

The few journalists who are totally against the march are trying to tell us that it will be dominated by old-style Trotskyites or new-style anti-Semites, but that is pretty weedy scaremongering.I’m not saying that the march will change anything on its own. But I am saying that although the journey towards war seems inexorable, this protest is not meaningless. Whatever Hans Blix says to the UN today, the negotiations for and against the war will continue for a little longer. So the march will at least remind some belligerent politicians that their power base can slip away.