From: Platt Holden (pholden@sc.rr.com)
Date: Tue Mar 01 2005 - 16:11:11 GMT
Scott,
> 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.
I'm puzzled by your explanation. Doesn't a materialist, like everyone
else, presuppose awareness? Is he not aware that he cannot possibly
divorce his awareness of phenomena from phenomena itself, that his models
of reality leave out the mind that created the model?
> 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.
Agree.
> 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.
I intended to convey the duration of life across the changes of daily
living.
> 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.
Not sure what you mean by "substantial." Are you suggesting a distinction
between words and reality with reality consisting solely of tangible
things?
> 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.
No doubt that consciousness, time and change are linked. We can only
conjecture what reality is like without consciousness. (I use
consciousness and awareness interchangeably to refer to any activity that
appears to be value-driven, intentional behavior.)
I suspect you're illustrating the limitations inherent in logic and reason
that mystics for centuries have encouraged all to recognize. Contradictory
identity as you describe it is one way to show that. I'm content with more
banal paradoxes to illustrate reason's limits, like "Time could not have
been created since it takes time for creation to occur."
Platt
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