GENIUS FORUMS

A things

BAM!

is an event

POW!

(or occurrence).

BLAMMO!!!1

GIGAUUMMJE!

clyde wrote:Steven;

Alan Watts was an early influence on my development. I now prefer (and believe he might as well): A things is an event (or occurrence).

Yes, it's dinner time here. Chow!

clyde

Right on!

clyde wrote:OK, I understand now that you did not mean two components but two views, a physical view and a mental view. You seem to believe that one view, the mental, is preeminent over the other physical view. Why? They are both merely views and one view may be more useful in some circumstances and the other view may be more useful in other circumstances.

The mental view is closer to the truth. The physical view has no basis. If we think about cause and effect and how things come from and affect other things, we can see that physical things aren't really physical things, but illusions created by the senses. In other words, things have no boundaries between them. The boundaries are created by the mind.

More troubling (to me) is that you seem to equate (confuse?) logical and mental. I understand mental as including imagination, memory, thinking, reasoning (logic), etc. How are you using these terms?

I suppose I am confusing them, but all those things you mentioned are part of logic. Logic occurs in the imagination, memory is more or less what logic is, thinking is a psychological process that's often necessary to arrive at logical thought, reasoning is logic, like you said.

Matt;

You wrote,

Causation is thingness, and the particular way the universe functions is merely an idea, a thing, and therefore it falls within the realm of causation. So, causation doesn't function in any particular way. Functionality only comes about when we limit the realm of causation for practical purposes.

What do you mean that function is “merely an idea”? Are you positing a “mind only” view; i.e., every occurrence is an occurrence in your mind or a universal mind? What does it mean that “causation doesn't function in any particular way”? Is causation random? If not, then it functions in a very particular way.

clyde

Matt;

You wrote,

The mental view is closer to the truth. The physical view has no basis. If we think about cause and effect and how things come from and affect other things, we can see that physical things aren't really physical things, but illusions created by the senses. In other words, things have no boundaries between them. The boundaries are created by the mind.

Why do you assert that the mental view is closer to the truth? Neither the mental view nor the physical view has a basis. All things, including physical things, mental things, causation, views, etc., arise together – or not at all.

HINT: We have preferences. We imbue things with special status. When we cease doing so (become unattached), we see reality as it is.

clyde

Clyde,

Matt: Causation is thingness, and the particular way the universe functions is merely an idea, a thing, and therefore it falls within the realm of causation. So, causation doesn't function in any particular way. Functionality only comes about when we limit the realm of causation for practical purposes.

Clyde: What do you mean that function is “merely an idea”? Are you positing a “mind only” view; i.e., every occurrence is an occurrence in your mind or a universal mind?

I'm positing a "Totality only" view. The mind is part of the Totality, and the physical world is in the mind.

What does it mean that “causation doesn't function in any particular way”? Is causation random? If not, then it functions in a very particular way.

No, you can't study causality by looking at how it functions because your interpretation of what is functioning and how is based on your understanding of causality. Causality is what is fundamental, not functionality or anything else.

Clyde,

Matt: The mental view is closer to the truth. The physical view has no basis. If we think about cause and effect and how things come from and affect other things, we can see that physical things aren't really physical things, but illusions created by the senses. In other words, things have no boundaries between them. The boundaries are created by the mind.

Clyde: Why do you assert that the mental view is closer to the truth?

Because the mental world is logically larger than the physical world. That is, there are more things in it because all physical things must exist in the mind or they wouldn't be experienced and thus wouldn't exist.

Neither the mental view nor the physical view has a basis.

The mental view has its basis in experience. There's no doubt that we are experiencing things. We fall into doubt when we go one step further and posit that things are physical. There's no way to prove that. Reality could be a gigantic computer simulation with no physical objects to be found anywhere. All we really have to go by is what appears in the mind.

All things, including physical things, mental things, causation, views, etc., arise together – or not at all.

Things arise when they are caused to arise. Causation never arises or passes away for obvious reasons.

HINT: We have preferences. We imbue things with special status. When we cease doing so (become unattached), we see reality as it is.

Yeah, I'm not disputing this. The question is how.

In other words, things have no boundaries between them. The boundaries are created by the mind.

What you said is the one sided non-dualists perspective and is thus not entirely true. Not incorrect as such, but just not an absolute truth.

Nothing is created by the mind unless it is caused to be created. We have been caused to notice dualistic differentiation, therefore things exist. What does not fully exist is an objective boundary or form, but this still leaves the causal action which can be different from one local to another. There is a partial boundary - not a linear type boundary though, it is not a black and white type boundary.

For cause and effect to work, it is essential that some form of boundary in is place. Without boundaries everything would be instantaneous - how could it not be?

Objective form partially exists (exists to a degree), otherwise there would be no manner in which language could occur.

I regard this whole business of not encompassing both views as the major prevailing error of the QRS mindset - it is the cause of an incredible amount of wasted discussion as it leads people to think absolute truths can be one sided. On the other hand the mere fact the subject is repeated is causing me to develop more accurate truths.

Later Edit:

Since writing the above I've changed my mind on what Matt said (and some of what I've said above). It is not correct enough to be considered correct.

There are boundaries between things. They are just fuzzy boundaries. Fuzzy as in "Indistinct or hazy in outline".

Every effect IS a boundary - every effect is an observer's acknowledgement of differentiation.

The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing, is caused by the pseudo merging action of the two opposing forces. It is a pseudo merging because they cannot actually merge into one, being opposite in nature, they can only cause "one". The boundary forms because they cannot truly merge - they are blocked by merging because they cannot be other than what they are. Every layer of this pseudo merging is a potential property to an observer.

The reason the boundary between things is fuzzy is that the form of things is absolutely fuzzy. Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced. This proportion is what we call causes, and depending on what it is relative to, it can be up to near 100% of either force. At 100% it would revert to its infinite state, but I doubt it can be caused to be entirely pure - once it has relativity to what it is not, then it cannot be made not-relative by what it is relative too - hence what we can scientifically observe as the expansion of the universe and imagine as the unlimitedness of the totality. The sum of the balance portion and the cause portion is a property-in-action. Each layer balances out with another layer, which means they have a dualistic existence - in a linear sense or 'on a spatial plane' each successive layer is opposite in causal type to its precursor, however in a non linear sense there can be successive layers with the same dominant causal form. When viewing a thing the sum total of these variations in causal form and the depth of the layers are just too complex for our brains to conceptualise, even if we could see every layer - it is actually impossible for any entity to fully conceptualise. Thus fuzziness enters the picture. We remove this to some extent by focusing only on the dominant overall patterns useful to us and ignore the rest. An apple in sunlight or in shade is just an apple.

Space is the only boundary that is not fuzzy. It is the only infinite physical property because it is the foundation layer in which the expansionary force and contracting force forms a perfect 50/50 balance. In all other things the ratio, even in what I am referring to as balanced units, is either less than or greater than 50%. Balanced units are just where the ratio is close to 50%. Every layer causes a spatial contraction or expansion. In terms of matter we are observing a deeply layered entity, whereas energy is less layered, it has fewer internal relativities and thus is viewed as taking up more space.

Universal constants are just collections of relative synergy formed over time. Post space, I imagine light is the next layer to form. I've been lead to believe light is on the electromagnetic spectrum, but at present I'm starting to have doubts. I think the electromagnetic spectrum may be just the outcome of lights causal effect on things. Light is the great universal separator because it can get into all physical things, even things like radiation, and break them apart. It can only do so because it is at the most fundamental physical level. Other forms of waves have similar effects, but light is so pervasive I feel it may be the most fundamental of these forms of existence.

Once one constant exists - other than space - then others will form as a result. Every layer represents a constant - which means there are far more than scientists currently acknowledge. Every property is a constant. The universe is in a constant state of forming the initial constant, which causes subsequent constants on each layer.

The mind does not create boundaries, they just exist, however it is caused to create the definitions it uses for such boundaries. Nor does it create existence, it is caused to define by exclusion. The fact that only that which appears to a mind can exist for that mind is irrelevant - it is a red herring (at this level anyway, not so for beginners).

Jamesh;

Reflect (pun) on this: Space and light arise together.

clyde

Jamesh wrote:In other words, things have no boundaries between them. The boundaries are created by the mind.

[snip]

Later Edit:

Since writing the above I've changed my mind on what Matt said (and some of what I've said above). It is not correct enough to be considered correct.

I'm just going to reply to this part, then. Let me know if I snipped out anything important.

There are boundaries between things. They are just fuzzy boundaries. Fuzzy as in "Indistinct or hazy in outline".

That's fine. I don't think of them as anything but fuzzy and only sharpened to the degree that's necessary for the purpose to which they are put.

Every effect IS a boundary - every effect is an observer's acknowledgement of differentiation.

I'm not sure what you mean here, but it sounds like you mean that everything is boundaries, and I would agree.

The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing,

Except for there are an infinite number because parts are just something that we make up. That's not to say that they're not real, though. I could look at an apple and mentally split it into a top part and a bottom part, and they would be imaginary, yet as real as the apple itself.

The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing, is caused by the pseudo merging action of the two opposing forces. It is a pseudo merging because they cannot actually merge into one, being opposite in nature, they can only cause "one".

That's because you've invented these opposing forces to be forces and to be opposing to each other. It's just something you made up.

The boundary forms because they cannot truly merge - they are blocked by merging because they cannot be other than what they are.

Can the boundary not form because the forces cannot merge, or can the forces not merge because the boundary has been formed? In other words, you could have made up the boundary and then made up the forces to fit the boundary.

Every layer of this pseudo merging is a potential property to an observer.

I don't know what you mean by "layer" here.

The reason the boundary between things is fuzzy is that the form of things is absolutely fuzzy.

Yeah, and that includes our thought processes. When we think of a physical boundary we can always continue refining it to be more exact. Only boundaries created with pure logic escape this limitation.

Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced.

You're losing me totally here. I don't know what you mean by "balance" or "proportion". I don't know what these terms refer to, I mean.

I'll have to continue this later...

This proportion is what we call causes, and depending on what it is relative to, it can be up to near 100% of either force. At 100% it would revert to its infinite state, but I doubt it can be caused to be entirely pure - once it has relativity to what it is not, then it cannot be made not-relative by what it is relative too - hence what we can scientifically observe as the expansion of the universe and imagine as the unlimitedness of the totality. The sum of the balance portion and the cause portion is a property-in-action. Each layer balances out with another layer, which means they have a dualistic existence - in a linear sense or 'on a spatial plane' each successive layer is opposite in causal type to its precursor, however in a non linear sense there can be successive layers with the same dominant causal form. When viewing a thing the sum total of these variations in causal form and the depth of the layers are just too complex for our brains to conceptualise, even if we could see every layer - it is actually impossible for any entity to fully conceptualise. Thus fuzziness enters the picture. We remove this to some extent by focusing only on the dominant overall patterns useful to us and ignore the rest. An apple in sunlight or in shade is just an apple.

Space is the only boundary that is not fuzzy. It is the only infinite physical property because it is the foundation layer in which the expansionary force and contracting force forms a perfect 50/50 balance. In all other things the ratio, even in what I am referring to as balanced units, is either less than or greater than 50%. Balanced units are just where the ratio is close to 50%. Every layer causes a spatial contraction or expansion. In terms of matter we are observing a deeply layered entity, whereas energy is less layered, it has fewer internal relativities and thus is viewed as taking up more space.

Universal constants are just collections of relative synergy formed over time. Post space, I imagine light is the next layer to form. I've been lead to believe light is on the electromagnetic spectrum, but at present I'm starting to have doubts. I think the electromagnetic spectrum may be just the outcome of lights causal effect on things. Light is the great universal separator because it can get into all physical things, even things like radiation, and break them apart. It can only do so because it is at the most fundamental physical level. Other forms of waves have similar effects, but light is so pervasive I feel it may be the most fundamental of these forms of existence.

Once one constant exists - other than space - then others will form as a result. Every layer represents a constant - which means there are far more than scientists currently acknowledge. Every property is a constant. The universe is in a constant state of forming the initial constant, which causes subsequent constants on each layer.

The mind does not create boundaries, they just exist, however it is caused to create the definitions it uses for such boundaries. Nor does it create existence, it is caused to define by exclusion. The fact that only that which appears to a mind can exist for that mind is irrelevant - it is a red herring (at this level anyway, not so for beginners).

Jim,

Actually, I would like to reply to a couple points that I snipped out.

Nothing is created by the mind unless it is caused to be created.

I agree, but the word "created" is only a figure of speech, really. It always refers to only one cause out of many, so I don't think I was stretching the meaning of that word at all. This isolation of a single cause is something totally contrived by us. Each effect is the result of an infinite number of causes and each cause is responsible for an infinite number of effects.

We have been caused to notice dualistic differentiation, therefore things exist.

Yeah, but don't forget that causation only exists in the mind. Outside the mind there are no things, and if there are no things, there can be no causation, since there would be nothing for causation to work with. So, from a psychological perspective, differentiation arises first and then we draw the conclusion that it was caused.

What does not fully exist is an objective boundary or form,

Existence is an either/or, logical deal. There's no such thing as something that partially exists. Something half-formed can fully exist, but nothing can half-exist. "Full" existence is the only option.

but this still leaves the causal action which can be different from one local to another. There is a partial boundary - not a linear type boundary though, it is not a black and white type boundary.

I'm not sure what you mean here. It looks like you're talking about fuzzy boundaries?

For cause and effect to work, it is essential that some form of boundary in is place. Without boundaries everything would be instantaneous - how could it not be?

Everything is instantaneously changing, so everything is instantaneous in that way.

Sorry Matt, I've gone way overboard in responding again and you'll lose interest. So be it. While I would like you to at least read it all, don't feel obligated to respond.

I've yet to read your later post, as only just logged on.

Jamesh wrote:
The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing,

Matt: Except for there are an infinite number because parts are just something that we make up. That's not to say that they're not real, though. I could look at an apple and mentally split it into a top part and a bottom part, and they would be imaginary, yet as real as the apple itself.

Nope, parts are not just something we make up, they are something we are caused to define. What we “make up” must be caused by differentiation that we notice.

Via generalisation of empirical observation, we can also apply differentiation we see in other things, to things where there is no significant differentiation – but there is still differentiation.

Instead of the apple lets just call it a black circle (there is too much differentiation between the top half of an apple and the bottom). We divide the circle in some fashion, for some purpose, lets just say we draw a line horizontally through the centre. There appears to be no differentiation between the two halves, but there is. All that surrounds the circle on the top half is different to the bottom half. OK, so next we place the black circle on a huge white wall and compare the two halves from only a few centimetres away. There is still differentiation – our bodies know by gravity, what is up or down, our brain can differentiate. OK, so next we place the black circle on a white wall in zero gravity on a spaceship 10 light years away from any matter. There is still differentiation. The differentiation in this case refers to location of one’s eyes to the image – there is still and up or down differentiation relative to this.

It is this that causes us to “make up” parts, but as you should see they aren’t made up at all.

Quote:
The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing, is caused by the pseudo merging action of the two opposing forces. It is a pseudo merging because they cannot actually merge into one, being opposite in nature, they can only cause "one".

Matt: That's because you've invented these opposing forces to be forces and to be opposing to each other. It's just something you made up.

Trueish, but it is made up in the same way as the phrase “cause and effect” is made up – it is based on something real, and something that is dualistic. Is not an effect a form of opposition to a cause? The cause is the action, the power, the reason, while an effect is non-action, static or powerless and not requiring a reason-in-the-moment (in the sense that if we seek a reason we are moving over to the domain of causes, rather than an effect).

The reason they HAVE to be forces is because nothing is actually static. Even space is not static – a thing can travel through it or atop of it in any direction. If it was static, Einstein’s theory of space-time would fall completely apart. It is the least static thing of all as it offers no resistance, and resistance is just boundedness.

I call them forces because it is a convenient way to explain why everything moves and is empty of any fundamental units of solid material.

Quote:
The boundary forms because they cannot truly merge - they are blocked by merging because they cannot be other than what they are.

Matt:Can the boundary not form because the forces cannot merge, or can the forces not merge because the boundary has been formed? In other words, you could have made up the boundary and then made up the forces to fit the boundary.

The boundary is not a non-dualistic thing. It is like any other thing – it is non-inherent. It does not actually have a self-caused existence or any true existence at all, though it exists as an artificial concept – a concept that occurs because we artificially add parts together and call it a thing. The boundary only exists as a coincidental outcome – as an effect, albeit an intrinsic effect. Effects only exist (in any fashion) to observer, causes do not. There is nothing other than causes.

I made the forces up first. Why, because these forces describe the most fundamental nature of change. I was trying to come to grips with the term “formlessness”, a term that I consider a little nonsensical – one cannot use the word formless and still be talking about things.

So I imagined CHANGE without the baggage of form, or more accurately with the least amount of sensory form (colours, particular shape, heat, mass etc). I imagined the generic change.

If you do this then what do you come up with? You come up with the fact that over any period of time things are expanding or contracting. What causes them to expand or contract – something inherent and intrinsic to the thing. Lets call this generic concept “A”.

Being generic “Not-A” is kind of irrelevant as there must be power in all things. Of course in reality Not-A is a cause of change to things, but this causal RELATIVITY from thing to thing appears post the most fundamental level of all.
So A contains an inherent ability to either expand or contract. The nature of A is thus dualistic. If the nature of A is dualistic, then the nature of what caused A must also be dualistic.

Quote:
Every layer of this pseudo merging is a potential property to an observer.

Matt: I don't know what you mean by "layer" here.

Neither do I, except in an extremely abstract sense. By layering I mean the grouping together of that which is “causally alike” on differing spatial planes.

I guess, this is where “Nowhere Mountain” comes in, to some extent. I cannot actually picture it in a manner in which it could be explained – but empirical observation and logic tells me there is layering. Without layering there could be no things, as universal constants (like an oxygen atom is a certain size) would be impossible without some form of layering. In the effect sense, everything would be completely chaotic, though still causally determined – nahh (excluding the formation of space, which is perfect) things or complexity of any type, could just not form.

Quote:
The reason the boundary between things is fuzzy is that the form of things is absolutely fuzzy.

Matt: Yeah, and that includes our thought processes. When we think of a physical boundary we can always continue refining it to be more exact. Only boundaries created with pure logic escape this limitation.

Conceptually the Expansionary and Contracting forces are created mostly by the use of logic. Binary logic obtained via the observation of the duality of things. The boundary I refer to, is significantly formed via “a priori” logic.
I can’t actually see these forces as separated or distinct entities, so they have to have resulted from logic. For me I am slowly removing my own mental fuzziness in relation to the process of the totality, but in no way can I know or describe the domain of the infinite in the manner in which we know things, except by abstract generalistic terms.

In reality we can only describe things that change, we can’t describe things that do not change. That which is infinite does not change, but infinity can be bounded. If there was no binding of infinity there would be no things.

People need to get out of their heads the phrase used here, “infinity is unbounded and formless”. That is simply impossible. If there is something, anything at all, then everything else must be bounded by this something.

Quote:
Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced.

Matt: You're losing me totally here. I don't know what you mean by "balance" or "proportion".

Ok, it aint easy. Balance is where in a non-dualistic sense “the power of one form of infinite force is caused by a power of an opposite type, to use almost all its causal potential in the direction of its causal opposite”. OK, that is a horrible definition, less clear than mud. Need an example. Umm.

OK, about perspective

Picture that a cube shaped spatial hole of nothingness suddenly appears anywhere in empty space (ignore for the time being that nothingness is an illogical concept in terms of reality). There is the phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum”, so the surrounding space will attempt to immediately fill this hole. To do so it would have to somehow stretch out. Space is space only, not something else, so it would have to expand to fill the hole.

Now the problem here is that we are just looking at it from one perspective, there exists an opposite equally valid perspective, namely that the hole itself has the power to draw in the surrounding space. The very nothingness of the hole is a causal agent. It has to be because if there was no hole, there would be no cause for the surrounding space to expand.
Which of these perspectives is correct? – Each perspective taken alone is not, but taken both they are. The nature of everything is dualistic in this fashion.

Now from this picture take away the form related concepts like holes, nothingness and space, but retain the actions of something causing something else to pull that which surrounds it, inwards, while at the same time something is causing something else to expand out into something. All you are doing is conceptualising the process. At the point in which this process stops, then you have balance. You have a causal equalisation.

A couple of other points

Only where we see, or via tools are caused to see, things moving or changing can we actually observe anything. This means that nothing we know of is truly static. The degree of staticness of a thing is really only the degree that is internally balanced, rather than ever being perfectly balanced.

Anything that does not move or change does not exist as a thing. If something were absolutely solid then it would be completely static.

This is proof that there are no fundamental solid units of existence and that the basis of existence must be active by its very nature, in other words it is force like.

We can see that change is variable. A thing can decay slowly by normal environmental causes and/or it can be made to disintegrate rapidly or even explode by less common forces - a rock on an active volcano would be a good example. If it is variable it is caused to be variable. It is caused to be variable by forces.

We can see that change is variable and relative to one's perspective. Although the changes to our skin are rapid we don't really have the perspective to notice this - we would however if we had the perspective of the skin using a microscope.

A closer to real life example.

The Planets versus the Sun. The Solar System versus the Galaxy. From the big perspective, the length of time this battle has been in this approximately static formation tells us that it is a pretty balanced fight. It is somewhat static because the power of forces even each other out to a degree. We orbit the sun, rather than falling into it, because of a balancing of the gravitational force with the earth outwards pushing momentum as it moves around the sun. The earth wants to expand out, but is kept in place to an extent by the gravity, the contractionary impact of the sun and other planets, and kept together by the gravity of its parts. The sun is in the same boat. The solar system and every part within is also subject to the gravitation in the rest of the galaxy.

Gravity is a fuzzy cause. The closer an object is to another the stronger it's causal power is. One has to ask by what miracle then did earth just happen to be in the right gravitational location. By a gradual balancing out process of course. The strength of the inwards gravitational pull is now almost equal to the outwards pull, so we orbit rather than merge into the sun or fly off into the galaxy. The Expansionary force is near 50/50 balanced with the Contracting force on the spatial layer of the solar system. For all matter, the atomic level is another spatial plane, another universe really, in which time runs at a different speed - but if it hold an atomic form then it too is near 50/50 causally balanced. The electromagnetic spectrum is another layer, it is the universe of force waves.

[Incidentally, don’t be surprised if scientists one day find that the electromagnetic spectrum [as we know it now] only appears post the formation of matter [as in atomic structures], and that this is why the universe expands - the force wave layer requires more spatial territory and comes after matter because for it to be formed it has to be opposite to what matter currently is. Perhaps we cannot see the parts of atomic matter because it's nature is also opposite to that of matter.

Actually this would make sub-atomic content and electromagnetic waves equivalent, the only difference is that one is mainly existing in a balanced format, the atom, and the other is less bounded and thus operates at a far faster speed and is more expansive. As far as I am aware we do not have much trouble observing the electromagnetic spectrum emanating from atoms, you know radiation, light - some form of which is always doing so].

Anyway back to business. I said "Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced". You also didn’t get the "proportion" bit.

Ok, we have a molecule of H2O, and we have a powerful microscope that can see up to a zillion times enlargement. We first look at all parts of the H2O at the zillion times enlargement. It's a magical microscope so our observation has no impact - it does not cause the nature of what we are observing to change. What we will see is a hell of a lot of empty space and most probably nothing else. However this empty space is not empty space at all, is the proportion of the atom where the expansionary force is significantly dominant. At no stage will we see either the contracting force or expansionary force in their true form, as they are physically formless - we've never been able to observe forces, we only ever observe what results from these forces. I strongly suspect that where the ratio of one to the other is high, as is the expansionary force in terms of electromagnetic waves, or the contracting force in a black hole for example, that the pure strength of the force repels the light (high expansion ratio) or causes it's destruction (high contraction ratio).

If we say "fuck that, I can't see anything", so we start to wind the enlargement back to a billion or a million times - we should start to actually see things. Now the thing to note here is what we will be seeing is only that part where there is equality of causal power - and of what we see, we will only actually see that for which our observation method causes something balanced to become imbalanced, say by the intrusion of concentrated light from the microscope (if it was still balanced we couldn’t see it, as too little would be emanating form it). We will see things only because of the depth of the patterns of balance verus non-balance allows the kind of three dimensional depth of vision that we require. Only at the lower enlargement levels will sufficient light - or electromagnetic waves for our scientific tools - be reflected back to us for our eyes/brain to be able to determine differences.

Jamesh wrote:Jim: The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing,

Matt: Except for there are an infinite number because parts are just something that we make up. That's not to say that they're not real, though. I could look at an apple and mentally split it into a top part and a bottom part, and they would be imaginary, yet as real as the apple itself.

Jim: Nope, parts are not just something we make up, they are something we are caused to define. What we “make up” must be caused by differentiation that we notice.

Right. Saying that something is "just made up" is a pretty lame line of argument, but I was just trying to crack open the issue.

Of course we are caused to think the things we do. No argument there.

But.

I think the distinction of something being "made up" is a valid one. If the data our senses present to us changes at a certain rate, and our objective interpretation of that data is changing faster than the data, then I think it's fair to call our interpretation "made up". I'm not saying that the specifics of the interpretation are not caused, I'm just saying that the specifics are created and destroyed faster than the things in the brute sensory experience.

For example, we look at the apple for one minute, and the top and bottom parts of the apple exist for the duration of our imagining of them, like 5 seconds or something. The top and bottom parts are just something we made up. The two parts were caused by our discussion instead of by our senses as the apple was.

Yet, is the discussion more or less real than the data coming in from our senses? If the discussion is just as real, then the apple is just made up as well.

More later.

Jamesh wrote:Jim: The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing, is caused by the pseudo merging action of the two opposing forces. It is a pseudo merging because they cannot actually merge into one, being opposite in nature, they can only cause "one".

Matt: That's because you've invented these opposing forces to be forces and to be opposing to each other. It's just something you made up.

Jim: Trueish, but it is made up in the same way as the phrase “cause and effect” is made up – it is based on something real, and something that is dualistic. Is not an effect a form of opposition to a cause?

I'd say it's a lack of opposition that leads to a cause becoming an effect. An opposition to a cause would actually be another cause. Unless you're speaking psychologically, then I suppose the psychological contrast between the effect and its cause could be called opposition.

The cause is the action, the power, the reason, while an effect is non-action, static or powerless and not requiring a reason-in-the-moment (in the sense that if we seek a reason we are moving over to the domain of causes, rather than an effect).

The reason they HAVE to be forces is because nothing is actually static. Even space is not static – a thing can travel through it or atop of it in any direction. If it was static, Einstein’s theory of space-time would fall completely apart. It is the least static thing of all as it offers no resistance, and resistance is just boundedness.

I think it depends on how you think about it. I think of space as nothingness with the things floating around in it. So, space is always everywhere. I don't think this point of view affects Einstein's theory because scientific theories are based on the study of matter, not space, so all of the effects outlined in his theory could apply solely to the objects themselves and saying that "space bends" or something could just be seen as a convenient way to explain a complicated concept. I really don't think it can be proven that space itself changes.

Beyond that, I agree that nothing is static.

I call them forces because it is a convenient way to explain why everything moves and is empty of any fundamental units of solid material.

I don't think it explains very much to be honest with you. I'd say matter has force, but to say that it is force doesn't gel with what we know about the things we usually call "forces".

Jim: The boundary forms because they cannot truly merge - they are blocked by merging because they cannot be other than what they are.

Matt: Can the boundary not form because the forces cannot merge, or can the forces not merge because the boundary has been formed? In other words, you could have made up the boundary and then made up the forces to fit the boundary.

Jim: The boundary is not a non-dualistic thing. It is like any other thing – it is non-inherent. It does not actually have a self-caused existence or any true existence at all, though it exists as an artificial concept – a concept that occurs because we artificially add parts together and call it a thing. The boundary only exists as a coincidental outcome – as an effect, albeit an intrinsic effect. Effects only exist (in any fashion) to observer, causes do not. There is nothing other than causes.

I made the forces up first. Why, because these forces describe the most fundamental nature of change. I was trying to come to grips with the term “formlessness”, a term that I consider a little nonsensical – one cannot use the word formless and still be talking about things.

I conceive of formlessness as something behind things, like another facet of them or another dimension or the noumenon or something. I think all it really means is "lack of attachment to form". It is both a mental and physical reality, but it can't be understood by studying physical phenomena.

So I imagined CHANGE without the baggage of form, or more accurately with the least amount of sensory form (colours, particular shape, heat, mass etc). I imagined the generic change.

If you do this then what do you come up with? You come up with the fact that over any period of time things are expanding or contracting.

No, you haven't abandoned form completely. No things means no things - at all. You can't analyze it. So, what you're really doing is conceiving of things in a different way and analyzing them.

What causes them to expand or contract – something inherent and intrinsic to the thing. Lets call this generic concept “A”.

Being generic “Not-A” is kind of irrelevant as there must be power in all things. Of course in reality Not-A is a cause of change to things, but this causal RELATIVITY from thing to thing appears post the most fundamental level of all.
So A contains an inherent ability to either expand or contract. The nature of A is thus dualistic. If the nature of A is dualistic, then the nature of what caused A must also be dualistic.

Right, I agree with this part, as far as it goes.

Jim: Every layer of this pseudo merging is a potential property to an observer.

Matt: I don't know what you mean by "layer" here.

Jim: Neither do I, except in an extremely abstract sense. By layering I mean the grouping together of that which is “causally alike” on differing spatial planes.

I guess, this is where “Nowhere Mountain” comes in, to some extent. I cannot actually picture it in a manner in which it could be explained – but empirical observation and logic tells me there is layering. Without layering there could be no things, as universal constants (like an oxygen atom is a certain size) would be impossible without some form of layering. In the effect sense, everything would be completely chaotic, though still causally determined – nahh (excluding the formation of space, which is perfect) things or complexity of any type, could just not form.

Okay, I can't figure out what you're talking about with this "pseudo-merging". Let me relay what I'm getting out of it back to you, and then you can correct my mistakes.

When two objects touch, like a cup sitting on a table, they act like one object, except for the force of the table and the force of the cup act against each other, so they can't merge together like they would if they were both liquid.

So, since they can't merge, the two forces form a 50/50 balance that keeps them static. If they did in fact begin to merge, that would mean the balance has tipped in one direction and one object's force is giving way to the other's. At the extreme end of the proportion would be the entire universe acting on nothing (I'm really unsure about that part).

By "layers", I can think of conceptual layers formed due to differences in scale, like the visible cup and the table form one layer, one realm; and the cup's molecules and the table's molecules form another conception of the situation. There are perhaps others.

Or maybe you're the concept of layers to explain multiple properties of objects? I personally think that properties are just different types of boundaries. I don't think another category is necessary.

You know, I think your writing would be easier to read if, when you introduced some weird concept, you explained the reason why you're bringing it into the fold and what it's supposed to account for. That would help a lot, I bet.

Jim: The reason the boundary between things is fuzzy is that the form of things is absolutely fuzzy.

Matt: Yeah, and that includes our thought processes. When we think of a physical boundary we can always continue refining it to be more exact. Only boundaries created with pure logic escape this limitation.

Jim: Conceptually the Expansionary and Contracting forces are created mostly by the use of logic. Binary logic obtained via the observation of the duality of things. The boundary I refer to, is significantly formed via “a priori” logic.
I can’t actually see these forces as separated or distinct entities, so they have to have resulted from logic. For me I am slowly removing my own mental fuzziness in relation to the process of the totality, but in no way can I know or describe the domain of the infinite in the manner in which we know things, except by abstract generalistic terms.

Well, there can be no "process of the Totality", because in order for a process to exist there would have to be something that would be a non-process, and that puts you back into the realm of finite things.

In reality we can only describe things that change, we can’t describe things that do not change. That which is infinite does not change, but infinity can be bounded. If there was no binding of infinity there would be no things.

The binding, though, is the infinite presenting the illusion of binding parts of itself to a particular part of itself (a consciousness). The actual infinite isn't being bounded in any way. I mean, consciousness, the binding, is part of the formless flow of the infinite. It's because it is only a part of this flow that it can perceive boundaries. The boundaries only exist from a particular point of view.

People need to get out of their heads the phrase used here, “infinity is unbounded and formless”. That is simply impossible. If there is something, anything at all, then everything else must be bounded by this something.

It's true that we're trapped inside consciousness, but that doesn't mean that we can't talk about what's outside of it, in order to point to it, even though it's inaccessible. The physical evidence of cause and effect points directly to the fact that physical objects are just illusions.

Jim: Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced.

Matt: You're losing me totally here. I don't know what you mean by "balance" or "proportion".

Jim: Ok, it aint easy. Balance is where in a non-dualistic sense “the power of one form of infinite force is caused by a power of an opposite type, to use almost all its causal potential in the direction of its causal opposite”. OK, that is a horrible definition, less clear than mud. Need an example. Umm.

Is this balance related to Isaac Newton's laws of motion?

OK, about perspective

Picture that a cube shaped spatial hole of nothingness suddenly appears anywhere in empty space (ignore for the time being that nothingness is an illogical concept in terms of reality). There is the phrase “Nature abhors a vacuum”, so the surrounding space will attempt to immediately fill this hole. To do so it would have to somehow stretch out. Space is space only, not something else, so it would have to expand to fill the hole.

Now the problem here is that we are just looking at it from one perspective, there exists an opposite equally valid perspective, namely that the hole itself has the power to draw in the surrounding space. The very nothingness of the hole is a causal agent. It has to be because if there was no hole, there would be no cause for the surrounding space to expand.
Which of these perspectives is correct? – Each perspective taken alone is not, but taken both they are. The nature of everything is dualistic in this fashion.

Now from this picture take away the form related concepts like holes, nothingness and space, but retain the actions of something causing something else to pull that which surrounds it, inwards, while at the same time something is causing something else to expand out into something. All you are doing is conceptualising the process. At the point in which this process stops, then you have balance. You have a causal equalisation.

That sounds like Newton's third law of motion: every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

A couple of other points

Only where we see, or via tools are caused to see, things moving or changing can we actually observe anything. This means that nothing we know of is truly static. The degree of staticness of a thing is really only the degree that is internally balanced, rather than ever being perfectly balanced.

Okay, that makes sense to me.

Anything that does not move or change does not exist as a thing. If something were absolutely solid then it would be completely static.

That doesn't make sense, unless you're proposing another state of matter...but that would still be a thing so I don't know how you could come to such a conclusion. I don't think anyone has ever witnessed this and I don't even think it's possible for something to be completely static, except maybe at zero degrees Kelvin.

This is proof that there are no fundamental solid units of existence and that the basis of existence must be active by its very nature, in other words it is force like.

Well, I think you need to provide some evidence for the previous point first before you go saying it proves anything :-)

We can see that change is variable. A thing can decay slowly by normal environmental causes and/or it can be made to disintegrate rapidly or even explode by less common forces - a rock on an active volcano would be a good example. If it is variable it is caused to be variable. It is caused to be variable by forces.

I agree.

We can see that change is variable and relative to one's perspective. Although the changes to our skin are rapid we don't really have the perspective to notice this - we would however if we had the perspective of the skin using a microscope.

I agree here too. Even the length of our lifespan could be considered part of our perspective and a factor that forms it. I guess it can't be proven, but you know damn well that time moves a lot more slowly for little bugs. I know time moves more quickly for me now than it did when I was a little kid.

A closer to real life example.

The Planets versus the Sun. The Solar System versus the Galaxy. From the big perspective, the length of time this battle has been in this approximately static formation tells us that it is a pretty balanced fight. It is somewhat static because the power of forces even each other out to a degree. We orbit the sun, rather than falling into it, because of a balancing of the gravitational force with the earth outwards pushing momentum as it moves around the sun.

But really, isn't this balance only an illusion created by our fast and short perceptions of time. If one second of our time was equivalent to a huge amount, like a million years, then I bet it wouldn't look balanced at all. The earth might get sucked into the Sun in an hour or two, or the planets might go flying off into outer space, the Sun might explode or whatever.

The earth wants to expand out, but is kept in place to an extent by the gravity, the contractionary impact of the sun and other planets, and kept together by the gravity of its parts. The sun is in the same boat. The solar system and every part within is also subject to the gravitation in the rest of the galaxy.

Gravity is a fuzzy cause. The closer an object is to another the stronger it's causal power is. One has to ask by what miracle then did earth just happen to be in the right gravitational location. By a gradual balancing out process of course. The strength of the inwards gravitational pull is now almost equal to the outwards pull, so we orbit rather than merge into the sun or fly off into the galaxy. The Expansionary force is near 50/50 balanced with the Contracting force on the spatial layer of the solar system.

I actually don't believe there is such thing as a perfect 50/50 balance. That would be like finding a perfect circle in nature or something.

For all matter, the atomic level is another spatial plane, another universe really, in which time runs at a different speed - but if it hold an atomic form then it too is near 50/50 causally balanced. The electromagnetic spectrum is another layer, it is the universe of force waves.

Okay, you seem to be using the word "layer" to represent different perspectives.

[Incidentally, don’t be surprised if scientists one day find that the electromagnetic spectrum [as we know it now] only appears post the formation of matter [as in atomic structures], and that this is why the universe expands - the force wave layer requires more spatial territory and comes after matter because for it to be formed it has to be opposite to what matter currently is. Perhaps we cannot see the parts of atomic matter because it's nature is also opposite to that of matter.

Actually this would make sub-atomic content and electromagnetic waves equivalent, the only difference is that one is mainly existing in a balanced format, the atom, and the other is less bounded and thus operates at a far faster speed and is more expansive. As far as I am aware we do not have much trouble observing the electromagnetic spectrum emanating from atoms, you know radiation, light - some form of which is always doing so].

Can't figure out what you're talking about.

Anyway back to business. I said "Between every boundary of 50/50 balance there exists a proportion that is not so balanced". You also didn’t get the "proportion" bit.

Ok, we have a molecule of H2O, and we have a powerful microscope that can see up to a zillion times enlargement. We first look at all parts of the H2O at the zillion times enlargement. It's a magical microscope so our observation has no impact - it does not cause the nature of what we are observing to change. What we will see is a hell of a lot of empty space and most probably nothing else.

Well, they say that electrons form a cloud around the nucleus of an atom, so....

However this empty space is not empty space at all, is the proportion of the atom where the expansionary force is significantly dominant. At no stage will we see either the contracting force or expansionary force in their true form, as they are physically formless - we've never been able to observe forces, we only ever observe what results from these forces. I strongly suspect that where the ratio of one to the other is high, as is the expansionary force in terms of electromagnetic waves, or the contracting force in a black hole for example, that the pure strength of the force repels the light (high expansion ratio) or causes it's destruction (high contraction ratio).

If we say "fuck that, I can't see anything", so we start to wind the enlargement back to a billion or a million times - we should start to actually see things. Now the thing to note here is what we will be seeing is only that part where there is equality of causal power - and of what we see, we will only actually see that for which our observation method causes something balanced to become imbalanced, say by the intrusion of concentrated light from the microscope (if it was still balanced we couldn’t see it, as too little would be emanating form it). We will see things only because of the depth of the patterns of balance verus non-balance allows the kind of three dimensional depth of vision that we require. Only at the lower enlargement levels will sufficient light - or electromagnetic waves for our scientific tools - be reflected back to us for our eyes/brain to be able to determine differences.

Bbbbbbbbbbbbbb

Matt: On this topic I like to wait until I feel like responding, partly because I know I'll go into brainstorming mode. This is mainly about space, sorry I might or might not get to the other points you raised.

Jamesh wrote:
Jim: The boundary between things, which by necessity includes every possible part of every thing, is caused by the pseudo merging action of the two opposing forces. It is a pseudo merging because they cannot actually merge into one, being opposite in nature, they can only cause "one". Matt: That's because you've invented these opposing forces to be forces and to be opposing to each other. It's just something you made up. Jim: Trueish, but it is made up in the same way as the phrase “cause and effect” is made up – it is based on something real, and something that is dualistic. Is not an effect a form of opposition to a cause?

Matt: I'd say it's a lack of opposition that leads to a cause becoming an effect.

Effects are "made up" through the mind. Causes do not become effects, rather the observation of causal relativity can be named "effects".

An opposition to a cause would actually be another cause.

Exactly, and that’s why I'm a dualist. That logic is where I started.

Quote:
The cause is the action, the power, the reason, while an effect is non-action, static or powerless and not requiring a reason-in-the-moment (in the sense that if we seek a reason we are moving over to the domain of causes, rather than an effect). The reason they HAVE to be forces is because nothing is actually static. Even space is not static – a thing can travel through it or atop of it in any direction. If it was static, Einstein’s theory of space-time would fall completely apart. It is the least static thing of all as it offers no resistance, and resistance is just boundedness.

Matt: I think it depends on how you think about it. I think of space as nothingness with the things floating around in it. So, space is always everywhere. I don't think this point of view affects Einstein's theory because scientific theories are based on the study of matter, not space, so all of the effects outlined in his theory could apply solely to the objects themselves and saying that "space bends" or something could just be seen as a convenient way to explain a complicated concept. I really don't think it can be proven that space itself changes.

Beyond that, I agree that nothing is static.

OK, but lets not get too bound up in established theories. I guess my purpose in writing what I do on this subject is not to explain fully, I don't have the skills, but to point to the possible cause of certain things we experience.

Space is a fascinating thing to think about at the fundamental level.

It exists, because we can attach form to it, in this case the form of emptiness.

It exists, so it must be caused.

It has no other attributes than what it is, namely space or space-time.

If it is spacetime then it is not an end result effect, they can’t exist, but an active causal agent that MUST cause something else.

If it is just empty space, then it still is space, it can be measured as empty space.

We determine the form of things by comparing the manner in which it is relative to other things.

We determine the primary, direct causes of effects by mentally breaking them apart, by dissecting them into other things and we rate the importance of these parts by the degree of causal power they have relative to the whole.

As space is a cause then we can dissect it. Now it does not have the form of typical matter, so we can’t use any of the normal dissection methods. Really we can only see that, on its own, it has one property (though others may form as a result of it being relative - it was caused so it has to be relative).
The one property that it does have is the ability to expand and contract non-spatially (lol) and when considered from the relative-to-other-things perspective it can also expand and contract spatially via Reverse Causality.

So you ask what the hell is this shit "to expand and contract non-spatially". Well it is something we can observe, however when we observe it we don’t realise just what we are observing. In space a thing can move in any direction. Up, down, across, back, forward, diametrically. In a sense, things move through space without any resistance (though it is really without much resistance, for instance, light can travel billions of miles without noticeably changing form).

As a caused thing, just like anything else it is impossible to completely define. What could explain this ability that it has, the ability to provide a foundation upon which objects can travel across somewhat unimpeded? [as an aside, the speed of light and dark matter are probably more related to the degree that it does impede, rather than any form of actual matter]
The ability can be defined by my Expansion and Contraction theory. Segmenting space into parts leaves one with only two possible parts. 1 fundamental property = two fundamental parts. Now Expansion and Contraction are forces, they have no matter so the concept of them taking up space cannot be applied to them. One can only abstractly visualise them, perhaps even something as simple as thinking of the expansionary force as a hand opening, and the contracting force as your other hand closing, but without any actual hands, just the action, may be of help.

The next conceptual step is to overlay the forces.

We are talking about space here, so it is everywhere, it is not just outside of things, it is within every part of everything. It is what allows dimensions. When I use the word overlay above, that’s too undescriptive - you are placing one non spatial infinite thing within, on top of, underneath and outside another. For the sake of conceptual convenience, lets say we are completely merging the two forces into the "almost-perfect infinite singular cause" that we call space. What this means is that any object travelling within this space, has no boundary, no resistance in any direction, things are always moving through this unity without being significantly affected by the underlying causal nature of the two forces.

When things move through space, there is an effect (outcome) however, a reverse causality effect, some of the causal nature contained in the travelling object is always being released from the object. In fact this is very significant, but not in terms of our personal observation of things. That objects release forces is vital for movement, without releasing such forces they would not move at all. Movement occurs because the forces within things changes the (near) perfect balance of pure space into a less perfect balance, and one of the underlying fundamental causes will become causally dominant, changing the shape of the spatial area, which shifts the object relative to its previous configuration within the Totality - it moves.

The concepts of momentum and velocity, also include the objects relativity set - namely how the object must react relative to its closest opposing causes, in a sliding scale right down to its furtherest opposing forces.

The direction of an object is opposite to the side of the object that is emitting the most expansionary force. Thing are not directly "pushed" into movement. When an object hits another, causal flows are interfered with causing a release of the expansionary force that expands the spatial area of contact, resulting in a higher spatial contraction ratio in the area directly "next" to this spatially expanding area. There is change, but it is change in the form of equal and opposite reactions. There is an equal sum of causal action but opposite outcomes. In terms of reality it means there is no addition or loss overall to the totality, it means permanency of causes.
In other posts have talked about this thing I call the boundary.
A causal boundary of variation between the two forces. This boundary is the one thing, it is the form of all things, but it is not the actual causal foundation of all things. In the same way as the Totality must always exist, and causes always exist, so to must this boundary.

At any time, Space is merely that portion of the boundary that is most perfectly balanced.

This sort of stuff is a lot more useful than Einstein's accredited work, not that he was wrong. It unites everything is a simplistic fashion, whereas his theories contain concepts that are too highly defined and in doing so they prevent people from seeing the interconnectedness of all things. They require the application of complex mathematical concepts, a lot of definitions, and, at least in non-scientists, I feel they confuse the brain, it has trouble holding all these definitions together and of making them a conceptual set - the frontal lobes just can’t handle it all at once. One loses or just does not obtain the deep feeling of knowing that I am slowly obtaining via this examination of reality. Sure I’ll never reach a point where I can define the infinite, I'll never be able to say why causality exists, but big deal no one else has or will either. It just seems better to have to resort to faith, at more defined level, it's a smaller leap.

Enough already !