From: Scott Roberts (jse885@localnet.com)
Date: Mon Feb 28 2005 - 04:09:32 GMT
Platt,
(I've changed the subject line: too many discussions are going on under the
"Pure experience etc" heading.)
Platt said:
In the interest of clarification, which, if any, of the following phrases
is analogous to "formlessness is form, form is formlessness"?
Static forms are maintained by constant change.
The body is a constant where nothing stays put.
Scott:
Neither are analogous, since there is nothing contradictory about these,
*unless* one brings in awareness of the constantly changing forms or body.
It is quite possible to imagine (as materialists do) that there can exist a
world of flux but without awareness, in which certain forms keep their
shape, like vortices. But it is when one brings in awareness that
contradictions arise. If that body has its eyes directed at that vortex, and
we assume that both are only that of which "nothing stays put", then there
is no continuity across that ceaseless motion, and so no possibility of
awareness. Hoever, though there is a contradiction, this is not what I
consider a case of contradictory identity. That is because we can simply
reject one of the two: awareness, or the materialist picture. I reject the
latter.
Fixed mathematical laws describe change.
Scott: Again, not analogous, since mathematics doesn't describe change.
Instead it treats time as another quasi-spatial dimension, so all that we
experience as change is treated as static. That is, mathematical laws
describe a deterministic situation, which allows time to be treated as
fixed.
Life a series of choices between no choices of life and death.
Scott: I see no contradiction here. If I play a game of chess, I make
choices of moves, and I have no choice to make non-chess moves (like
sneaking a captured player back on the board) and still be playing chess. So
whether or not we have chosen to be alive, once alive we are in the "being
alive" game, and can make choices until its over.
Nothing is a state of being necessary for the beginning of anything.
Scott: Close. I would make it more contradictory-identity-like by stating it
as "nothing is the ground of anything, and anything is the ground of
nothing". However, this needs to be taken in a more "real" way than just a
semantic observation, that two opposite words, like hot and cold, are
defined by each not being the other. That is, the substantiality of a thing
depends on its not being substantial.
Now lasts no longer than a nanosecond, but lasts forever.
Past and future are always present.
The present never changes, but everything that changes changes in the
present.
Scott: I'm not sure about these. Time is self-contradictory all by itself,
once one rejects the deterministic time line of mathematical law, and brings
in awareness. As I've mentioned, I consider time (and space) to be produced
by consciousness, so all the time contradictions get replaced by the
contradictory identity of time and timelessness. There's a book by R. C.
Neville called "Eternity and Time's Flow". I don't think I agree with him
entirely (I don't think I understand him entirely), but he gives an
interesting discussion.
- Scott
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archives:
Aug '98 - Oct '02 - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
Nov '02 Onward - http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/summary.html
MD Queries - horse@darkstar.uk.net
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Feb 28 2005 - 04:12:36 GMT