Synthesis: The Journey
Background: The Journey to Synthesis
I grew up in a working-class, atheistic home in Leicester, England. Church wasn’t a part of our lives. My father was a carpenter, social, outgoing, and often found in various pubs. He was also a bit of a playboy, frequently straying, which my mother knew but tolerated. My mother was a simple woman, never speaking of anything of substance. We weren’t particularly close, and in retrospect, I realise there wasn’t much affection or bonding with my mum. I was definitely my father’s son, and it was a very patriarchal environment. In our extended family (of Irish descent) the men were very much the dominant figures, and we followed suit. If couldn’t have been any other way. They ensured it. One example would be that very rarely, maybe once or twice in total, my dad and uncles would come back drunk and make me and my twin brother fight. “Where are the boxing gloves?”, they’d ask. We weren’t daunted. In fact, we enjoyed it - we’d always fight anyway and it was a tough neighbourhood. We weren’t meek. It wasn’t allowed.
Both my brother and I had an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, constantly teaching each other, bouncing ideas off one another. And along the way, a deep curiosity began to emerge - about politics, philosophy, religion - a yearning to understand the world in a more meaningful way. Despite this, no one around me seemed to share this intrigue. My school didn’t teach these subjects either, and I felt isolated in my curiosity somewhat.
In my twenties, that curiosity only intensified. Through a work mentor, I delved into philosophy - Nietzsche, in particular - as well as politics and ideologies, trying to make sense of the things and to find something that resonated.
I had two daughters and I won custody of them, becoming a single parent. Alongside raising my children, I developed my career, eventually becoming a CTO in the tech industry (albeit at a start-up). On paper, everything was progressing - I had the job, the status - but inside, something was still missing.
It was during this time that I had a transformative dream - Jacob's Ladder (or in this case James’ - same etymology as Jacob) . The dream wasn’t just a vision, it was a calling. It wasn’t a stone staircase to heaven; it was a burning, living bush. The branches reached from earth to eternity, pulsing with life. Visions of the Haredim and their vitality accompanied this. A voice spoke, it said one thing: “Life is Good.” It wasn’t a platitude - it was a command, a truth embedded in the very fabric of existence. I woke up changed, deeply moved.
I dove into Judaism - not for the rules, but for the roots. Torah spoke to me in ways no other text had before after this dream. Genesis 1:31-“God saw it was very good”—wasn’t just poetry; it was ontology. Deuteronomy 30:19-“Choose life” - wasn’t merely advice; it was logical, a guiding principle. This motif is repeated, again and again and again.
Fertility rates became a focus. It was clear there was a difference between secular groups and the religious. I dug in further. I explored the other Abrahamic faiths, but something always felt off. The dogma seemed arbitrary - especially considering I owned copies of both Thus Spoke Zarathustra and Beyond Good and Evil. I couldn’t ignore the fact that the fertility rates of these religious communities were much healthier. It weighed hard on me. I attended a few Christian meet-ups, but by then, I was already deep into religious studies and clearly understood more than they did. I realised that they couldn’t offer the insights I was looking for - it was just blind faith for the Christians in the group.
Through my work, I had the opportunity to meet a bishop and even be invited into his home. It was a day I thoroughly enjoyed. He was very bright a not your usual Bishop. He was worldly but grounded. We partied together, and he was happy to be among the guys having a few drinks. We talked about the parallels between the three main Abrahamic faiths, with much of our discussion focusing on Israel and the Third Temple prophecy (Ezekiel). His views on the temple echoed mine, this was clearly a special place in the world. Despite this, I couldn’t find any clear answers.
None of the religions seemed to hold a monopoly on truth. This led me to search for patterns, seeking common threads across these traditions - shared structures underpinning their myths, beliefs, and stories. This wasn’t about finding God in a church or synagogue. It was about recognising God as life’s engine - existence affirming itself through every cell, every choice, every struggle. I could see this was plain but couldn’t tie things together. I couldn’t articulate it.
I stepped back for a few years, trying to clarify my thoughts. I dated many women who were childless in their 30s. It wasn’t a happy place, for any of them and I found myself encouraging each one of them to “Choose life”. The world would be a better place with more people like me and you in it, I’d say to them. They always agreed but never acted on it - an exception being a dear Italian friend of mine I had the pleasure of spending time with in Milan (good for you, Angelica).
Ultimately, the dream and my journey led me to writing The Hedge, my first attempt to map the patterns I saw across philosophies, religions, and systems. But it wasn’t just a book - it was a framework, an evolutionary systems model, a way to tie Nietzsche’s will, Spinoza’s substance, Hegel’s dialectic, and Torah’s covenant into one central truth. I wasn’t chasing dogma - I was chasing the pulse beneath it all - driven by my dream.
A significant turning point came when, while writing The Hedge, I found myself in an intense online argument with a rabbi. We were discussing Torah, logic, and everything in between. Frustrated by his constant framing of me as naive follower of Jesus (which wasn’t true…), I posed a simple but powerful question: “Does Judaism accept the axiom: Life = Good, Not Life = Bad?” I laid it out: it’s not my belief - it’s a fact, rooted in Genesis’ breath (2:7), I pointed to Torah’s spine: “Choose life, that you and your offspring may live” (Deut. 30:19).
He paused, dodged the question, but then, after many attempts to get him to, he agreed.
It was electric - not because I had won the debate, but because I had found the answer I had been searching for. In that moment, the axiom was born - not just in faith but in reason. Life isn’t just good - it’s the only frame where good exists. That’s when the Synthesis framework began to take shape.
From there, I didn’t stop - I tested the axiom everywhere: philosophy, science, religion. With AI tools - Grok, ChatGPT (setting them up to debate each other - it was like watching grandmasters duke it out - no stone was left unturned), and others - I tore through Spinoza, Nietzsche, Kabbalah, Dawkins, Plato, Jorjani, even Crowley - literally everyone. Looking for cracks - stress testing the logic in the extreme. There weren’t any. The logic was irrefutable. The axiom held no matter what I tried. It explained everything:
Why religions endure: they are tools of life, aligning us to grow (Torah’s law, Islam’s order).
Why nihilism fails: it denies life, so it dies out.
Why we fight: tension - aligned vs. unaligned - drives evolution, like the bush’s fire refining without consuming.
I named it Synthesis. It’s not a religion or a theory - it’s a process. Life is the root of value, and “Life is Good” is its logic.
I’ve built a website, a digital garden where the axiom will live. An AI, the Garden Warden, will answer the question, “Is this good for life?” for anyone, from kids to scholars. It’s not a just a book - it’s a process, like Torah’s debates or life’s mutations. This is my journey, from a Leicester lad asking why, to a dad fighting for truth, to a voice for life itself.
I’m answering the call with every breath. “Life is Good” isn’t a slogan, it’s the root of everything, and I’m here to show the world how to live it, fire and all
Synthesis is just the beginning. The truth doesn’t hide; it grows.
https://synthesislifeisgood.info/
– James Dean Conroy
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