chikoka wrote:cousinbasil wrote:
The party line is that the Totality neither exists and nor does it not exist
This clearly violates A = A logic ,which i thought was what this whole forum was based on.
Exist = not exist or exist not = to exist.
What do you mean by exist.
I hold no special meaning for the term "exist" - I use it as most people do.
That the Totality neither exists by any definition of “exist,” nor does it not (
by using the same definition), is in no way a violation of what this forum is based on. It is a logical necessity, if you insist upon relying upon logic at all times and in all things. Do a search - this is not my conclusion, but one put forth by David, Dan, and Kevin in their turns. They are not making things up – they are merely relying upon logical reasoning. Since A=A implies "A is A
and not something else," we cannot consistently apply this definition of a thing's existence to the existence (or not) of the Totality, as the Totality is utterly everything and has no dualistic representation such as A=A. Therefore, our carefully constructed and preciously guarded definition fails here (the belly-button). So we cannot say the Totality exists. And neither can we conclude that the Totality does not exist, since any arbitrarily chosen part of it does exist, and it can be considered as being composed of those parts.
But maybe this is too narrow a view? I am thinking of a square circle. Logically, this cannot exist. Does a square circle belong to the Totality? Notice I did not claim to visualize the square circle. Is it a thing in the same sense we have been using the term "thing"? In that case, if we choose a part of the Totality arbitrarily, that part may exist or it may not.
I am not sure this forum’s reigning philosophy is very clear on this. Are thoughts "things"? Surely they must be included by "utterly everything." It has been amply demonstrated that all things are thoughts, in the sense that a chair as a thing in itself is unknowable, while our perceptions of the chair give it existence.
But there are ideas which do not point to a thing in itself. Take the square circle. I can say quite logically that “the square circle = the square circle.” It is itself, and not a normal circle, say. Does that mean it exists?