Formlessness (inside & outside)

[guest_of_logic]

Um, no. Eventually you are going to reduce cheese down to atoms, at which point it would obviously cease to be cheese!

Not until he eats it! (Wow. Where is this conversation going and why?)

"Dividing" cheese into atomic structure is about that part of cheese known by definition as the smallest recognised division of a chemical element (a substance) (e.g., hydrogen and oxygen atoms) shared with other "not cheese" forms of matter. So, you haven't really "reduced" the cheese from cheese to an atom (the cheese still exists until its broken down by, say, unnatural human causes such as saliva, or natural causes such as mould...), you've merely further defined it in the context of chemical structure.

That's some convincing reasoning. So cheese can be an atom. Riiiiiiiiiight. Good to know. That'll be handy for me next time I'm at the supermarket looking for cheese. "Please provide me with two billion atoms of carbon and four billion atoms of hydrogen and ..." Sorry? Oh, yeah, that's cheese I'm after.

[Leyla Shen]

Are you people alright, or what?

Clearly not!

[Jason]

This "discussion" is giving me déjà vu.

[Nick]

I don't understand why you think imagining divisions is more crucial than actually splitting things apart using physical effort.

I don't understand why you don't see the significance in the fact that any example you come up with means nothing outside of consciousness. Without consciousness, an object itself never arises, let alone the question of whether or not it can be split in half.

You said that all things are always being created and destroyed. My response is that there may be some things which are not created and destroyed. It was a perfectly reasonable response.

Again, the question of whether or not something can be "physically created or destroyed" has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

Something can not exist at two points in time simultaneously. It would be a blatant violation of A=A.

Isn't it possible that these seemingly separate 'two points in time' are really two parts of the same whole?

I'm not sure what your point is in relation to what I said here. Being two parts of the same whole in no way implies that the two parts are actually the same thing.

Dividing atoms is not dividing cheese. If you've reduced cheese down to atoms, then you've eliminated the cheese.

The cheese has not been "eliminated", you are just defining it differently, which goes back to my main point about the importance of the fact that the observer defines an object into Existence, and without an observer, there would be nothing in Existence.

I'm not asking you to believe that. I'm pointing out the simple fact that each moment in time is defined as such by an observer, and we can potentially divide each moment in time into smaller and smaller increments and vice-versa.

We can divide cheese down to smaller and smaller increments - but eventually you have eliminated the cheese. Likewise, time may be like cheese in the sense that you can only divide it up so much. Eventually time stops.

So things can just disappear, and time can some how stop if we divide it a certain number of times? Tell me then, how many times can we divide something before it disappears? You must see the ridiculousness in what you are saying. If the cheese were eliminated the way you say it would be, that would mean the cheese never existed in the first place, and likewise if we divided time to a point where it was eliminated, that would mean time never actually existed. If these things do not exist at a certain point, then what is supporting them to exist at the present point? The answer is nothing and they wouldn't be able to exist at all. Since these things obviously do exist, what you are saying is pretty much crazy talk.

Your mission to discover a "fundamental particle or essence" to reality is a fallacy. This is the doctrine of Emptiness.

[Leyla Shen]

The thing is, there has to be a definite congruence between one’s definition of a thing and what one conceives in consciousness to be the objective existence of that thing for it to be considered to have met the criteria of truth and reality. This is, in essence, the very same thing I have been pointing to in Marx for, oh, the last 500 years—that there exists no abstract/concrete dualism in reality aside from as the active aspect of consciousness. When one is pondering, for example, a hypothetical or theoretical framework of any thing or system of things, it is necessarily hypothetical and theoretical for that reason. Similarly, it is necessarily impossible for a concrete object to exist outside of consciousness since it is what we call consciousness (the abstract component of a consciousness/concrete universe duality) creating the distinction in the first place.

This is why Marx can rightly say,

“Inasmuch as philosophy as will turns toward the world of appearances, the [philosophical] system is reduced to an abstract totality and thus becomes one side of the world confronted by another side. Its relation to the world is a reflexive relation.”

(One damn sentence, begging to be properly realised...)

[Loki]

I don't understand why you think imagining divisions is more crucial than actually splitting things apart using physical effort.

I don't understand why you don't see the significance in the fact that any example you come up with means nothing outside of consciousness. Without consciousness, an object itself never arises

Arises? There's a difference between an object arising and an object being.

You said that all things are always being created and destroyed. My response is that there may be some things which are not created and destroyed. It was a perfectly reasonable response.

Again, the question of whether or not something can be "physically created or destroyed" has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

You originally said that all things are perpetually being created and destroyed for eternity.

Something can not exist at two points in time simultaneously. It would be a blatant violation of A=A.

Isn't it possible that these seemingly separate 'two points in time' are really two parts of the same whole?

I'm not sure what your point is in relation to what I said here. Being two parts of the same whole in no way implies that the two parts are actually the same thing.

You're missing my point about time. Two seemingly separate points in time, from a higher perspective, are actually a single point of time.

e.g., I may be in Florida, and my friend may be in California. From where I'm standing in Florida, it would be impossible for to California appear simultaneously with Florida. However, move higher (up in space via satellite) and Florida and California can appear simultaneously.

Dividing atoms is not dividing cheese. If you've reduced cheese down to atoms, then you've eliminated the cheese.

The cheese has not been "eliminated", you are just defining it differently, which goes back to my main point about the importance of the fact that the observer defines an object into Existence, and without an observer, there would be nothing in Existence.

Crazy talk!

I'm not asking you to believe that. I'm pointing out the simple fact that each moment in time is defined as such by an observer, and we can potentially divide each moment in time into smaller and smaller increments and vice-versa.

We can divide cheese down to smaller and smaller increments - but eventually you have eliminated the cheese. Likewise, time may be like cheese in the sense that you can only divide it up so much. Eventually time stops.

So things can just disappear, and time can some how stop if we divide it a certain number of times? Tell me then, how many times can we divide something before it disappears?

Dude, I'm not Einstein. All I'm doing is showing you how you can't be so certain.

You must see the ridiculousness in what you are saying. If the cheese were eliminated the way you say it would be, that would mean the cheese never existed in the first place

Ridiculous. The configurations of parts create the cheese. By cutting up the cheese, you destroy the unique configuration, and thus you destroy the cheese.

and likewise if we divided time to a point where it was eliminated, that would mean time never actually existed.

Dude, you're not making any sense. A robot exists because of the way it's put together. If you take it apart, it ceases to be a robot. Just because you can dismantle a robot, doesn't mean the robot never existed to begin with! It's just sheer tom-foolery to think such a thing.

If these things do not exist at a certain point, then what is supporting them to exist at the present point?

Their configuration. Configuration meaning: a unique dance of energy.

Your mission to discover a "fundamental particle or essence" to reality is a fallacy.

How so?

This is the doctrine of Emptiness.

I read that stuff of Quinn's.

[Nick]

Arises? There's a difference between an object arising and an object being.

Arising, i.e. coming into being, and being never happen without an observer.

Again, the question of whether or not something can be "physically created or destroyed" has nothing to do with what I'm talking about.

You originally said that all things are perpetually being created and destroyed for eternity.

Correct, but when you refute this by talking about some imaginary entity that can't be physically created or destroyed by us (or nature), first of all there is no way you can ever be certain of this, and secondly just because something presents a persistent/consistent appearance, that doesn't put it outside the realm of causality e.g. destruction/creation.

Something can not exist at two points in time simultaneously. It would be a blatant violation of A=A.

Isn't it possible that these seemingly separate 'two points in time' are really two parts of the same whole?

Sure, if you want to define it that way.

You're missing my point about time. Two seemingly separate points in time, from a higher perspective, are actually a single point of time.

e.g., I may be in Florida, and my friend may be in California. From where I'm standing in Florida, it would be impossible for to California appear simultaneously with Florida. However, move higher (up in space via satellite) and Florida and California can appear simultaneously.

Yes, from a different perspective (a different way of projecting boundaries on to reality) one can potentially define any point or points in time as a single point in time, or any number of objects as a single object without limits, which is exactly what I've been saying the whole time. Perhaps now you might experience an epiphany.

Dividing atoms is not dividing cheese. If you've reduced cheese down to atoms, then you've eliminated the cheese.

The cheese has not been "eliminated", you are just defining it differently, which goes back to my main point about the importance of the fact that the observer defines an object into Existence, and without an observer, there would be nothing in Existence.

Crazy talk!

So when you define two points in time as a single point in time (like you said in your above response) are the two points in time "eliminated"? If so then the cheese is only eliminated as much as we decide to alter our perspective on reality, (which I completely agree with).

You must see the ridiculousness in what you are saying. If the cheese were eliminated the way you say it would be, that would mean the cheese never existed in the first place

Ridiculous. The configurations of parts create the cheese. By cutting up the cheese, you destroy the unique configuration, and thus you destroy the cheese.

Sure, if you want to define it that way.

A robot exists because of the way it's put together. If you take it apart, it ceases to be a robot. Just because you can dismantle a robot, doesn't mean the robot never existed to begin with! It's just sheer tom-foolery to think such a thing.

Again, this should show you exactly why it is the observer who decides how to divide things up allowing them to exist.

If these things do not exist at a certain point, then what is supporting them to exist at the present point?

Their configuration. Configuration meaning: a unique dance of energy.

Dude, give me a break. Don't you get it yet, it is the observer that is supporting an entity to exist at any moment and in any form.

Your mission to discover a "fundamental particle or essence" to reality is a fallacy.

How so?

See everything I said above, or better yet, see everything you said above. Or perhaps you could give me an example of something existing outside of consciousness?