Everyone’s perception is “skewed” relative to everyone else’s… measurable in terms of different chemical constitutions, spatial and temporal circumstances etc. There is no “correct” set of sensory faculties and abilities to have, “correct” DNA, “correct” place to be, etc. because there is no necessarily universal goal. All lifeforms do not even have to survive, reproduce, exert its power etc. Often deviations from optimising these supposed biological imperatives turn out to benefit even those who are out there to survive, reproduce, exert power etc. It actually benefits lifeforms to be experientially distinct from one another, and to vary.
If their perception were not skewed - that is what would be an issue. We would all be the same and may as well be counted as the same lifeform, much more vulnerable to change and variation in our environment - a sure way to get yourself extinct.
No. I left that out, because I wanted you to bring it back to that point.
It’s the most crucial point, and it keeps referring me back to VO, or the post I posted in the Tower at BTL.
What is the logical proof that absolute homogeneity is impossible, besides that it can not be derived from the current state?
This comes down to your suggestion that “affectance” is ultimately one set, wherein all affectance is interconnected. Thus that no separate realms can exist “alongside” each other, never able to affect each other.
Yes but how are they not merely one blob or void? Why are they different states? I am talking about the infinitesimals of PtA as well as of particles - the particles bit you covered well enough (for me, for now).
I’m afraid to go there, as I’ll be ridiculed. But I’m saying it anyway - telepathy, to name one thing. I assume you don’t believe in it, and I assume RM does not explain it. So that’s a bit of a dead end - but VO allows for it very simply by putting values (i.e. “the stuff of relations”) to be logically prior to matter (matter can not exist without the stuff of relations) - so values do not have to travel through the medium of matter. Not saying that they don’t, just saying that VO allows for the relation to exist without having the density of matter.
It does not say where it comes from - I did not claim that. It says what is required.
What is required is a resistance, however minute - a ‘delay of change’, thus a “something”, a consistency of context.
VO explains how a consistency would have to operate. It has to ‘refer to itself in its interactions with its ambient’.
Or at least prior to all other reality.
I would choose that stance.
I think so. Especially if you interpret reality as deriving from “res”.
But in that case, the first “res” could also be said to be the value.
In any case, VO requires for something to exist prior to values - the valuer.
And this “thing” appears very hard if not impossible to reduce even further.
It seems to me that reality can not be pushed back any deeper than the valuing subject, of whom the values are a function.
I agree that this subject seems to stand outside of reality in a sense - the principle of perspective itself seems to be transcendent to the reality that any perspective engages.
I’m pretty sure this is what all those millions of people’s experience with “God” is about - stepping back from the “res” and identifying with that through which the thing-ness is given.
Hmm… so your idea is similar to RM - but you do not value RM at all… it’s probably best if I don’t probe.
In any case - you bring up the concept Meaning. I don’t think we arrived there yet - as meaning requires consciousness.
Does your philosophy pertain only to humans, or also to atoms?
What is the equivalent of experience for an atom?
VO holds that every interaction is dictated by the “self-valuing” of the entity - i.e. the standard into which all ambient must be translated in order to affect the entity at all.
This is why according to VO, not everything has to affect everything. There can, theoretically, be trillions of parallel universes, or “affectance-webs”, existing without affecting each other, or only very selectively affecting each other.
This is all the result of questioning that the concept “will to power” (which for our intent and purpose here can be equated to PtA) refers to a homogenous category. I doubt that all existence can be reduced to one interconnected set.
The definitional requirement is that in order for something to be said to exist, it MUST have affect. But that leaves two categories; non-changing concepts that affect each other and the physical changing that we call “the universe”. Those are two realms. They have no affect upon each other, but everything within each affects everything else within its own realm… through definition of concept or through time.
The easy simple minded answer is simply the idea of infinite similarity being something that could never be reached. But there is a much more in depth explanation.
Now this part gets to the really deep, seriously deep, area that no noted philosopher throughout history has gone. If you can carefully grasp this part, you will truly be, in only this one regard, above all famous philosophers; Moses, Aristotle, Buddha, Einstein, Schrodinger, the entire gathering. That is not to say that the other areas they speak of are incorrect, merely that without this one concern, the rest turns into confused noise rather quickly, but never entirely wrong, just confusing.
So first let’s make sure you have one concept clear; “Potential is merely a Situation”.
When I say that every point has a potential, the immediate impression is that the point contains something that I am calling “potential”. And even though it can be thought of that way, that isn’t really what is meant.
A glass sitting at the edge of a table has the potential to fall. But it doesn’t contain anything called a “potential”. Its potential is due merely to its situation, being at that edge and within a gravity field. So it is important to get it straight in your mind that a potential isn’t a “thing”. It is given a measure, called “PtA”, but that is a measure of its relative situation to other similar points. And that is all it is. No two points have the exact same situation and thus cannot have the exact same potential. Let that thought soak in; “Potential is not a thing, but a measure of a situation”. The same is true in physics concerning the electric potential. Electric potential is not a substance at all. It is a situation relative to a surrounding.
So the question becomes, “what is the situation such that no two points can be infinitely identical?” And the first most obvious answer is that by definition no two points are in the same location and thus cannot immediately affect the same surrounding points. Each point has its own surrounding. Individual people are in that same boat. No two people are identical, not merely because of their DNA or experiences, but simply because they are in a different location with a different environment. In political science (RM’s version) such a distributed situation is critical to understand. And that is why a single set of rules to be applied to all people is extremely difficult to derive and also keep those people at their full potential (truly alive, not merely extensions/puppets/drones).
But so what if two points are different in their location? Why can’t all points be so evenly distributed that being in a different location is irrelevant?
This is where it gets interesting, dating back to at least Aristotle.
Aristotle surmised that one could stack tetrahedrons in such a way as to fill all space. He wasn’t quite correct, but why would Aristotle be concerned with such a thing? There has been a great deal of deep study concerning how to “fill space” or “packing space”. It has commercial interest, but more importantly it has metaphysical impact. This is a primary issue that I had to resolve merely to get Jack up and running.
The issue is one of the logistics of potential and resolves that it is logically impossible for space to be at any state defined as anything other than an infinite series of changing. That might be a little hard to grasp; “The universe cannot ever logically be at any state other than a changing state, including the changing of the changing.” The state of changing can’t even be at any state that isn’t itself changing, nor the changing of the changing, of the changing, of the changing… Logic itself forbids it, not experimental data or speculations.
It can be said that the most fundamental cause of all existence is the logic that requires that the universe cannot be what it is and also remain as it is. That is what has been called the “First Principle”, “First Cause”, and “God the Father” (in the English speaking world anyway).
What you have asked is “what is that logic” so realize the height of the question you are asking and the serious contemplation required to exceed what so very, very many before you could never quite grasp, although very close. That question is at the very root of the legitimate parts of both relativity and quantum mechanics. How to relay the explanation is going to be a sizable challenge for me. So have a little tolerance.
So while I try to come up with the words and/or pictures, let those two concepts soak in because this is going to get seriously hairy.
1) “Potential is not a thing, but a measure of a situation involving locations.”
2) “The universe cannot ever logically be at any state other than a changing state, including the changing, of the changing, of the changing,…”
Btw, all of this is going to get down to the very root of quantum physics, relativity, and why there is so much confusion in that study. Feynman stated that “we” simply do not understand it, we just know that it works. Well, he was probably right in that they didn’t understand it, else they would be saying it differently and causing far less confusion. What they aren’t understanding is that they are conflating two different ontologies, mixing apples and oranges, apparently without realizing it. We are going to get into what is actually going on and why the confusion ever came up.
Something I probably should have included in that list of thoughts to contemplate is the fact that what we call distance is determined only by the immediacy of the ability to affect. Something is more near when it is more immediately affected. Although I am talking about the physical reality, even socially people refer to other people being “close” as a measure of how much immediate affect they have upon each other. The universe gets a bit more precise in that regard. Distance “is caused” by the immediacy of affect. And that is how they got into Relativity and length dilation.
Precisely.
But what about before the first “res” (and the first value).
Experience is more fundamental.
A valuer necessarily requires the valued.
The two are connected by definition, with value as the common ground.
I would say that the “valuer” and the “valued” are a result of values first existing, and a preference for this subject/object causal distinction/relative identity.
But value is superceded by experience, which includes lack of value and meaning.
And there is nothing other than experience. Even the concept of not experiencing something is an experience. It doesn’t require any subject/object causal distinction in its pre-meaning “state”, it just “is”, or “is becoming”. It is the set of everything else that cannot include itself, and thus transcends bounds and meaning - unlike the “everything else” that comes from it, and is contained within the set of “experience(s)”.
RM operates entirely from the contradictory premise that some subject’s values are objective values.
As such, any similarities are superficial and moot. Perhaps you might call my idea “Experientialism” as a working title, like a kind of synthesis between Existentialism and Essentialism.
Yes, but consciousness does not require meaning.
Least of all any notion of “objective” meaning (since meaning requires a valuing subject, which objects by definition are not).
Atoms et al. are objects of experience, not subjects that experience.
I am not interested in subjective imaginations that feign objective reality.
Does or does not everything rely on experiential content?
[/quote]
RM:AO begins with pure logic, no observations at all.
[/quote]
You may say so now, not some 20 years back.
Yes. That is what i am referring to.
The problem it that each and every mind is clouded more or less. There is no one there in the history of the whole of mankind, who happens to be bright enough to solve this labyrinth in a single stoke.
We all start from any middle stage then keep it refining by moving back and forth. Though, a very few of us try it. And again, a very few from those few would become able to get real close to A = A.
Yes, actually, we never get the true or pure information of the event, but its blurred version only. And, that blurriness depends on the time/distance travelled by the information to reach us, and the medium also, by which it has been travelled.
That is the problem with JSSRM ( or perhaps JSS, in person) as it does not confirm the observation here.
James, if that huge memory would have been stored in those swollen joints of the neurons, the neuroscientists would have been able to recognize that almost half a century back, as they are not short of means and skills. And, the establishment would have been used this process to convert its citizens into biological robots long ago, because, we are nothing without our memory.
Secondly, the JSSRM does the support the concept or memory.
As it holds that everything is made of affectance, thus, more or less bound to change. But, memory does not change even a fraction. We remember some important events of the life very clearly. In other words, our mind is able to play that file precisely the same way as that happened even 40-50 years ago. This is to say that we go back in time to relive that event.
But, how is it possible, unless and until, there is an entity inside us that is beyond time or eternal?
James, consciousness is both eternal and immutable too. But, i did not clearly mentioned its anotomy.
firstly, At this stage, consciousness is not in pure form. It is a bit like ore state of the metals, like Bauxite in the case of iron. So, it has to be refined in order to get its pure form.
Secondly, though consciousness is unchangeable, but it does not mean that is stationary as it moves around with mind.
Affectance/Will/TSM is that impurity of the consciousness, which it radiates to becomes pure.
We can also say that consciousness gets attracted towards will/affectance, because, it is its default character. You may call it some sort of metaphysical gravitation. That is why it falls only for one will at a time, which is the strongest one and avoids others.
[quote=“James S Saint”]
There are only 3 options;
That which changes (physical; eternal disagreement)
That which never changes (conceptual; eternal agreement)
The border between 1 and 2, an empty set that both changes and doesn’t or neither changes nor doesn’t.
James, i am not sure how you have drawn this conclusion by using JSSRM and you believe which one, but all these options are true and play out in real terms.
The affectance/will has many layers and these layers tend to form different realms, but, this does not happen simultaneously, instead, in order.
[b]1st layer - consciousness + will = mind, space and time (TSM).
This is perhaps your conceptual realm, but it changes as mind tends to change and evolve continuously. And, though, the residing entites stay there for very long time, yet, their stay is not permanent there and they eventually have to come down to lower realms. But remember, that consciousness discards all its affectance in this realm and becomes pure. This discarded affectance/will is what we call mind.
So, from hereon, the further manifestation of the affectance is done by mind, not consciousness. But, by becoming pure and innocent, consciousness loses its control over mind and it (mind) becomes able to drag consciousness along it, because it is still attached with mind through will.
This is a realm of thought and Thought Entities as there is no matter present here.
2nd layer - As mind tends to produce more affectance, its density increases and ultimately forms matter. Yet, this matter is different from our perceived physical matter, though, it is still a matter. We may call it subtle mater. This matter forms elements and body, and again, mind gets attracted towards it, drags consciousness along it, and form a complete physical entity.
This is our divine realm, the realms of Gods, Semi-gods, Deities, Angles and all other different types of spiritual entities. This is the realm of souls but these souls are not eternal but prone to aging and death too.
This is the most populated realm and has many subsets too. All monotheistic and process ontologies/ religions refer to this realm, when they talk about God, except Vedanta, Sufism and some other small schools of Hinduism. The entities of this realm are in direct touch with us. They watch, manage and control us too through circumstances.
3rd layer - As there is no end of affectance, because mind is continuously manifesting it, the denser matter is formed. And that is our Human realm. Those souls get entrapped in one more wrap of matter and a Human is formed. This is the lowest realm.
Entropy peaks here, hence, there is no other option but to go back to un-entropy.
Ultimate realm - This is unique concept of Vedanta and Sufism, though, proess ontologies like Buddhism and Jainism rejects this idea.
This realm is postulaed at parrrell with consciousness, or just a touch below pure consciousness, but above the 1st realm of Thought Entities.
Contrary to Thought Realm, where consciousness loses control over mind and falls down further, here consciousness takes contol over mind. In other words, mind discards all its wills, other than just to exist. In that case, consciousness becomes dominant as it does not have to face any further will. Thus, this perfect combination of consciousness and mind becomes eternal as it moves out of time zone and stays there as that forever. This is to say that, once reached there, it never comes down.
It is a state of almost pure Un-entropy, though not a perfect one. It demands just a hint of entropy or negativity to remain as it is in that state . In other words, it is a form of almost pure consciousness, but just with a hint of will to exist or survive only, not more than that.
That is Enlightenment, thus, it is not to be merely known, but has to be acheived in person. [/b]
RM plays its part in constituting all these realms, but one after one. All these realms has different density of affectance, thus, are different time zones. All entities must correspond to their respective Zonal Affectance. As soon as it gets havier, it has to move down to the lower realm.
James, I am not claiming that all this happens precisely as i am suggusting. Having said that, this is not a pure assumption or completely fake either. I personally experienced many things regarding this, especially about the 2nd layer, the Divine Realm. And, i know that happens to be almost the same as i am saying.
But, JSSRM does not seem to be supporting that. Though, it helped me to understand why a little bit of negativity is necessary to survive. Because, this issue puzzled me since long.
And, the credit goes to you.
That is why i am saying that, though RM is perfect, but JSSRM is not.
I am going through your last post addressed to Jacob as it looks interesting.
On top of the page there is something I didn’t address yet.
The valuer is not a valuer if it is not a standard for valuing. I observed that nothing can exist that is not a self-valuing valuer.
All affect has to be related to other affect to be affect.
That means that the affect must also have a relation to itself.
This is self-valuing.
I would not have the first clue how to begin explaining it in scientific terms, other than just following observation. In this sense RM makes perfect sense - it does precisely what VO does not do and can not do - define in objective terms of “causality” in the sense of affectance.
VO comes in its right when particles already exist. We can see that, in affectance’s rise out of nothing, a singular tendency has survived: Consistent selection of input and consistent output.
In the form of the atom, this is its anentropic shell and (I guess) its non-collapsed PtA. In the form of an animal, it is its instinct and its powers. In an infinitesimal quantity of PtA, it is its potential to be affected, and its “spirit” as you once called it, it’s action. That by which it is known.
RM is fully identifiable. Its definitions pertain to that which is clearly present.
VO addresses what is required to have definitions at all: the fact that there are relations. The fact that PtA is differentiated and yet coherent. It gives no cause for this, it merely deduces the first necessary qualities of something that does affect, exist.
Only in a sentient being. VO moves beyond the solipsism without abandoning perspectivism. In your philosophy, do atoms exist if you die? Do the people who existed in your mind still exist to interpret the world as atoms?
VO compares an atom to a sentient being, by an activity – in the linguistic sense - a verb that can be attributed to them – that they both exhibit: selection of external energy in order to sustain a mechanism that performs this selection. I reduced this to valuing, because that which is being selected is called value. Between the selection and the value, there arises a positive. The perspective becomes.
That is a stance comparable to RM (the ‘raw stuff’ of which valuers are made to feed themselves of, is already present). VO take the opposite option. This can not be explained physically, it rather stands behind physicality – very literally meta-physical.
Does an experience experience itself? I want to know what “experience” means. Experience always involves resistance. Non-resistance is death, the end of experience.
Experience requires an experiencer like value requires a valuer.
What is the relation between the experience and the experiencer?
It does make claims to objectively existing objects, yes.
VO is more skeptic - in that it only describes that which can exist. If something exists, then it is doing this standard-setting selecting whereby it continues to exist.
Indeed. “Objective meaning” - this literally hurts my brain.
But they do exist. To us.
What are they? How did they come to be?
Who is? It’s just extremely unlikely that there is only a single and utterly homogenous standard of causality.
I’m on a mobile, and unable to respond as extensively and fluently as I’d like. This may be a welcome thing for others.
Sanjay, you make excellent points, as usual.
Jakob/Sil - I’m crossing a rope bridge with friends. Some of us believe it will hold, some believe it’s a foolhardy risk. Whatever determines whether we make it or not (what most term the “reality” of the situation) is, it seems to me, independent of our beliefs, desires, politics etc… in what way is it grounded in the subjective?
That seems an excellent point. I’m a little curious what the solipsist has to say.
I’m not sure that it has much to do with VO. VO isn’t exactly solipsist despite the use of the word “value”. I am a little concerned that it is proposed that value comes “before” anything else. I’m not entirely sure what that even means. But I agree that no thing can exist for any length of time without a type of self-protection mechanism, a “self-valuing mechanism”. The self-valuing mechanism in RM:AO constructs is entirely due to the lack of alternatives so self-protection is inherent, without the need for support by any other mechanism because it simply can’t do otherwise.
“Experientialism” necessitates no particular explanation of “why” something happens. It is allowing of all such mental creations/associations/realities, with full respect for all the many varied value sets from which each of these particular types of explanations originate.
The ridiculousness of some explanations versus others, in the eyes of whoever is making such a judgment, is merely a reflection of their values rather than any “necessary” correctness on the side of one valuer rather than another. For example, some value sets compromise consistency in fundamental premises, in favour of predictive power (like science). Other sets may settle for limited predictive power, in favour of a sense of much greater emotional fulfillment (like religion). Neither value set is more universally correct.
“Experientialism” provides an open-minded starting point, without prejudice, in order to help eliminate the intellectual dishonesty and irrational defensiveness that comes from individuals competing for the same title of “ultimate solver of objective truth”. Instead, developing individual solutions, and finding common ground only if there is any - rather than forcing it in order to fit everyone into the same box (like objective truths attempt to do) - allows the necessary personal freedom, where one only needs to prove oneself to oneself, for everyone to have their own space to develop subjective truth without the pressure that too often ends in compromised honour and integrity. A philosophy for the modern world.
Whichever explanation best reflects one’s own personal values, the rope is either experienced as breaking, along with you and your friends falling, or it is not.
The explanation itself will necessarily be founded in and of experience also.
This subjective truth is going to be common amongst all those who experience, and never do not, which I predict to be the claim of everyone who analyses in full honesty. Any supposed “lack” of experience by one person is only ever “proven” by another/others experiencing over the course of a supposedly common timeframe, during which the person in question “did not experience”. And still then, nothing is ever fully proven to the person who supposedly did not experience - all they can do is imagine experiences to fill this “gap”. It is curious how such an experience happens after the events are said to have occurred, yet we have no problem inserting it into a previous “time frame” - makes you wonder how much we do that in other situations, perhaps all situations. A common time frame was only ever a social tool anyway, if you value that kind of thing…
I find that to be quite the opposite.
Logic is that “common ground” and also what leads to objectivism. But objectivism does NOT demand the lack of subjectivism. It is NOT a dichotomy. Fear seems to be what drives the solipsist, the fear that there is a good solid reason why they are not allowed to do certain things.
OH - James is right here concerning VO. In your example, falling from the bridge means, very simplistically, to succumb to the valuing of the Earth. And VO does not propose that value precedes reality. Just that “value” is an accurate term to designate the “stuff of interactions” that connect reference-frames. It’s a more conditional, less substantive/positivistic way of designating natural law.
James - I do not grasp the whole propagation issue. I frankly have no idea yet why the speed of light is the limit that it is, or why infinite homogeneity is logically impossible.
I want to hear more.
To the question of why light, if there were no resistance at all, could not propagate at infinite speed, I could only answer that light carries within itself a resistance, and that this is apparently the minimal resistance that would allow for the structural consistency of that affectance - i.e. it not scattering and falling back into infinitesimal, unmeasurable quantities. But that is just my intuitive interpretation.
A better question would be “why are metres and seconds defined in the way that they are?”
The speed of light only appears strange because the above S.I. units are defined in the way that they are.
I would suggest different units for measures such as distance and time, in order to be more compatible with things that actually have physical limits, like the speed of light, the smallest distance possible, the lowest temperature, etc.
Interesting that you have decided that reality either precedes, is equivalent, or is unrelated to value (the logical consequence of not proposing that value precedes reality - unless you have no stance to propose).
You do not agree with my reasoning why value precedes reality?
I have to say, if VO is the attribution of the term “value” to inanimate objects then I no longer respect it. Value is a human term for humans (with only one’s own values directly provable to oneself at that), which appears to be applicable to other living things too. But not to inactive/unreactive objects. To even attribute to them passive properties is entirely dependent on the human sense that can be made of them, within the bounds of subjective human faculties and values. There is nothing about a human subject that is objective.
Well, let’s clear that one up because it relates directly to the existence of initial resistance.
RM:AO specializes in avoiding proclamations such as “that is just the way it is” or “that’s just the way God made it” or even “it must be that way else there would be no universe”. Although any of those statements might be true, the statement avoids answering that question of “why?”. RM is all about Why, the logic behind the fact.
RM:AO can’t accept the existence of an entity as a priori. There has to be a logical reason for its existence. But as you get more and more detailed in the logic of why things exist and of what things are made, you finally discover that it is all “made of” nothing but logic. Everything can be subdivided down into something that it wasn’t. That is a relatively new thought to Man because not long ago, everyone still believed that if you were to split a piece of wood down far enough, you would end up with merely an “atom of wood”. And that thought applied to everything. Obviously due to the advent of microscopes and technology, it was discovered that such wasn’t the case. Even the atoms could be broken down into small pieces that were not merely smaller atoms, but entirely different.
RM:AO takes literally everything down to the greatest extreme possible. And the result is that the only thing you have left is logic itself and the only reason for existence is that nothing can be what it is and also remain as it is. And that is the beginning and the fundamental cause of the entire universe and everything in it.
The temptation is to presume the existence of some elemental entity and then proceed with the logic. And one can do that as long as that chosen entity just happens to have a logical reason for its existence. Of course at some point, one must go reveal that logic. Without revealing the logic, it is merely superstition, the super-imposing of an inexplicable magical entity so as to stitch together a logical deduction. But superstitions are not allowed in RM:AO.
But in order to explain just about anything, one must start somewhat in the middle (as I think zinnat mentioned) and work your way back. And that is what I have been doing even when I begin with PtA and Affectance. Those have logic behind them as well, but it is a very seriously deep, hard to grasp yet cohesive logic. Before that explanation is revealed, even PtA and Affectance would constitute mere superstition (as has been accused), except for one thing.
In the case of PtA and Affectance, there is no alternative to their existence merely due to the very definition of “existence”. So even without the explanation as to why they exist, we can already know that we know that they exist. Without affect, even the solipsist cannot have any experience with which he builds his picture of “reality”. Experience, much like existence, IS Affectance. Without affects, one could never think at all in order to dream up their picture of reality, their ontology.
So until we get past this speed of affect/light issue, let me begin with the existence of affect, which already necessitates many points of affect because to affect means to change something else. And that something else, in the most reduced form, can only be another affect, as nothing but affects exist at this point.
So in the scenario, we have multiple points of affect. And we know they must be distinct points simply because if there was no distinction at all, they wouldn’t be separate points. But what is distinct about them? The only thing that exists at this stage is affect thus the only thing that can be distinct about them is their degree of affect. And to affect means to change thus the only affecting that can be happening at all is a changing of their degree of affect. And the degree of affect is called “potential to affect”, PtA. PtA is given arbitrary values merely so that we can work through the logic and see where it leads.
So with points A, B, and C, each having its own degree of affect or PtA, we can examine the propagation of affect from one point to another.
If point A is going to affect point B, then point A is going to change the PtA of point B. It happens to be of necessity that there is a limit as to how much A can affect B, but that isn’t our concern just yet. What we need to know is to what value point A is going to change point B. So we can arbitrary choose an example of say, “point A has the potential to change point B to the level of 10 from wherever point B had been, say 1”.
So far merely by our definitions, we know that A is going to change B from 1 to 10. But the question immediately arises as to how fast is that going to occur.
As is turns out, we could pick any arbitrary number for the speed of affect and we would end up with the same conclusions regarding the propagation speed from A to B to C. What we have to resolve is whether that speed of affect could be truly instantaneous. And that answer is “no”. The reason that it can’t be instantaneous is that if it were, point B and point A would already be the same point without distinction. Changing means that there was one state and it progressed to another state. If any “change” is instantaneous, then it didn’t change to some value but was already at that value while defined to be at some other value. Point B would have to be at PtA value 1 at the same instant as at the value 10. Logic doesn’t allow that.
So we can deduce that point B must progress from 1 PtA to 10 PtA. There is no alternative.
And that leaves us with an interesting thought. Point B must progress from 1 to 2 to 3 and so on up to 10. No matter what intermediate value it obtained, the moment it was at that value had to be before it was at the next. Changing has to occur sequentially in values.
But now, already, to the question of resistance; what was it that prevented B from instantly becoming 10 from 1? Was something resisting that change? Why did it take any time at all? The answer is simply that it could not have been what it was and also be what it is going to become at the same instant, by definition (aka “Logic”).
Thus the passing of what we call “time” is a logical necessity even between two infinitesimal points of affect.
Of course so far, we haven’t any reason to conclude that such a change would take “X” amount of time, anything specific. All we can deduce is that time must pass during that change. So let’s speculate a bit concerning how fast it could have changed.
Not having any specific number but wanting to imagine the fastest conceivable, let’s call it “infinitely fast”, meaning faster than anything we could imagine. And then see where that leads.
So now we have point A changing the PtA of point B, “affecting”, infinitely fast.
In an unimaginably short time, point B becomes a replica of what point A was. Point A had the potential to change point B to a value of 10 and that is what defined the PtA value of A as “10”. So now point B is our PtA of 10. And point C is the very next point beside point B. If point C had been at 1 PtA, the same amount of time would have to be consumed for B to change C as it took for A to change B.
Thus no matter how fast a change can take place between points A and B, it must take twice as long for that change to transfer to C. Our unimaginably fast change is now half the propagation speed that it was for merely a single point change. And again, there has been no resistance involved.
And now, how many points are between any two given locations? An infinite number.
No matter how fast A can affect B, for any real distance to be traveled by the affecting of A the propagation speed is going to be infinitely slower. If A affected B infinitely fast and there are an infinite number of changes to be made along a line, we have infinity divided by infinity as our propagation speed.
Infinity dived by infinity doesn’t give us a precise number. All we have said is that even if an affect is unimaginably fast, for that affect to propagate it must do so unimaginably slower than however fast A affected B. And in mathematics, that resolves to be merely “some number”, but not infinite.
What number would that be? Well actually at this point, we can call it anything we like, say, “c0”. In the long run, we will deduce that the sizes and distance of the entire rest of the universe is directly determined by that number. In other words, what we call “1 meter” is only what it is because of that c0. All measurements are relative.
But the definition of a meter did not cause c0, rather c0 caused the meter. And also, people defined a meter as something relevant to them before they figured out that any c0 existed at all. So now c0 is expressed in physics in terms of meters per second. In a more logic based ontology, such as RM:AO, the meter would be defined in terms of that c0, which would be assigned as merely “1”. A meter, for example would be “1/ 299,792,458” (that’s assuming their measures are accurate).
Note that no “resistance” came into the picture at all, merely the logic of affect and existence.
So starting from the top… questions (and sorry for the long introduction)?
I am aware that this is your position.
Logic was born from the most extensive abstract reduction of experience, until it barely resembled the concrete at all. It is an example of a human disability turned species-wide advantage.
To arrive at a “pure” understanding of forms and their relationships to one another is such a compromise of truth, in favour of social cohesion, that people could actually agree on things near enough exactly.
It was only by retreating from realities and engaging imaginations that people could find ground so common that it might even appear universal. This inversion became truth for many.
We have since become very adept at physically distorting our environments such that parts of it come to resemble abstract forms, allowing us to create tools and machines that actually mostly reflect our abstract imaginations of a world that made sense. The tending of our hyperbolic success towards the asymptote of perfect emulation of the abstract with the concrete, mirrors the futile mental battle to escape concrete reality, into an abstract heaven.
All this while it has been impossible to imagine an abstract form without a concrete representation in mind or in view. They are a confusion of particulars such that we might fool ourselves that we are imagining a universal. The more one sees experience as one indefinite whole, the more meaningless and illogical it seems, and the more irrational our actions. This simulates our humble beginnings, before we began seeing the world as it is not, so that it might make sense and appear logical.
Fear tends to be whatever drives those who you disagree with these days…
Whether or not there is a necessary and single reason why I can’t seem to do certain things, I still can’t seem to do them. The reality is the experience of not seeming to be able to do these things and I have no trouble accepting experience. Any explanation of “why” is irrelevant to what actually is - “why” is transcendental to actual consequences that might actually affect you.
I might turn this one around and say that fear seems to be what keeps people from accepting Solipsism. Living it, as I have, is the only way to properly understand it. Until people do, they will continue to misunderstand from a distance - that which they don’t even dare to get to know.
I think that is a common misunderstanding these days.
It is true that logic is an abstraction. But it is not an abstraction from experience as you have been told. What we call “Logic” today was born out of Aristotle’s dialectics which was all about communication and rhetoric, how to relay an idea (a concept) to others. Plato was more into the idea that forms are the only truth and all of that kind of thing, but Aristotle and dialectics wasn’t really all that much about physical reality as much as mental reality and communication.
Your version of “reality” is actually the same as it was for the Hebrews and the rest of the religions wherein they were of the mind that the mind forms reality, “mind over matter” and the eternal consciousness that formed the world (ie “God”). Objectivism came more from Europe and adopted Aristotle’s dialectics into “Logic” and mathematics and eventually into objective physics and Science.
Quantum physics is actually a return to the confusion between mental issues and objectively physical issues leading to their famous “observer causes the wave to collapse”. It appears to be an intentional effort to create dissonance in Science for the same reason “God destroyed Babylon” (they were getting too close and powerful). A war against the intellectuals broke out and you are living in the confused remnants of it.
I wouldn’t disagree with that (and have given that lecture myself at times), but that wasn’t what I was referring to. I was talking about what you are not allowed to do, not what you were not capable of doing.
As far as I can tell, I understand it. I just think that I have better understandings to rely on.
