I still have a few hours before I go on my trip… and of course, I could not resist, to the point of canceling my trip when reading recent posts... well...
BH: There is no such thing as empty space. A vacuum is a mental construct and does not exist in the phenomenal world.
If vacuum is a ‘mental construct’, then so is that which one considers a ‘non-vacuum’; which leads to two things… one that since absolutely
everything is a
‘mental construct’, so that particular aspect becomes absolutely redundant, or irrelevant, or inconsequential, or not worth considering it as any different than a phenomenal world, for then what exactly is the
idea of a
‘phenomenal world’ but a
mental construct too.
One needs to at least be consistent in ones thinking to make some logical sense "in" the “world” we live in, and I have reason to believe that existence has to necessarily be logical to its core.
And secondly, if there is no such thing as empty space, and that is say final, then it only makes logical sense to intelligibly talk about what
we are left with… that being the conscious and (even be it) “mental” differentiations that lead to coherent and logical outcomes, like running like hell in the face of eminent danger, even if that is a “mentally constructed”….. I don’t know what… an “idea”? Then I say Thank God for ideas!
BH: In a very real sense, the world in which we live demands that the smallest number is three. Because any external entity requires another entity which it is not so that A=A holds; it also requires the existence of at least one consciousness to which the realization that A=A occurs, i.e., it requires an observer.
Firstly, philosophically speaking, I don’t see the possibility of any other world, so saying ‘the world in which we live’ does not make much sense then; secondly, not necessarily three, but just two – a self that can interactively reflect upon its self because of that which has to necessarily
not be that self, and vice versa of course. Fundamentally, a third “thing” is not necessary for A=A to hold true, unless one assumes such ‘interactivity’ of any two things to be a
third "thing", but that exactly is what
existence is, hence not a “thing” in the ordinary sense of the term. All that is fundamentally needed is the observer and the observed – just two; otherwise, no existence, which is not a third thing, for there is nothing that could be compared to such a system, for nothing could lie beyond such a system, aka, causality.
I don’t see ‘from one come the two, and from two come the ten thousand’, but, ‘from two come the ten thousand, and the one, and or the zero'. (
Jehu, you reading this?) Without the two, there can’t be a one or even the sense of existence to begin with, and existence is not a “third” thing, but simply the sense of that sensually felt logical and coherent interaction of just two things.
On Observer; what exactly is it that
observes, or thinks that an
observer is necessary, other than the
observer ITSELF!? We erroneously assume that there is a third thing when we say it is
"MY" mind, for what exactly is it that thinks it is
MY mind, other than that very particular
processing system that has the capability and calls or names its self as “mind”. This very mistake of assuming that there is some third thing hidden behind
the mind, which reflects in thinking/saying “my” mind, is what I think gave rise to the idea of a soul or spirit, which must have then become the tool of the strong and those that did not actually believe in it, and used it to control and rule others. Brilliant for its time!
John: Here is how we perceive it: we are either 1/2 of a human being or we are two human beings in one body. We do not have an integrated singular personality.
With all due respects, It is however the ‘personality’ that makes one person different than another, and logically it is impossible for even a single dust particle to be absolutely identical to another; if nothing else, then they cannot logically occupy the same space/time point of being, and hence are being
compared to begin with.
David to Loki (before Loki made a typing mistake): Each molecule within a chair is surrounded by space. Should a carbon-based molecule, say, situated at the very edge of what we call a "chair", be considered part of the chair or separate from it?
That would hinge on what one means by ‘separate’, otherwise the molecule sensed as the edge of the chair has to necessarily be DIFFERENT than that which we sense as NOT the CHAIR, so the use of the word “separate” seems to be unnecessary, or say an introduction of a red herring, or a rainbow trout... perhaps? I really don't know.
