Martin Striz (striz1@MARSHALL.EDU)
Thu, 30 Oct 1997 12:01:54 +0100
Hugo Fjelsted Alroe wrote:
> "In the beginning there was nothing, and this nothing was Dynamis - it
> was
> pure potency. For Nothing entails no limits, it is Apeiron - the
> limitless,
> and puts no bonds on becoming. In this primeaval Dynamis anything was
> possible, all sorts of possibilities pushed forward towards existence.
> And
> amongst all this possible, one possibility sprang into existence, out
> of
> Dynamis, and became actual. Other actualities may have arisen before
> this,
> only to fall back into the nothing it came from, but this was the
> great
> divide, the divide that gave rise to our world."
Dynamis seems to be an incomprehensible concept. Pure potency? Pure
potentiality? We live in an actualized world, it's unimaginable what
such a reality would be like. But I guess that makes sense since
quality is something that you can't define. ;-) It makes sense that one
actuality sprang into existence, but when? Why not sooner? Or later?
What caused this one in particular to spring into existence?
> This touches upon a range of old philosophical questions, and I will
> adress
> some of them here.
>
> 'Nothing' is not barren, the old saying that 'no thing can arise out
> of
> nothing' is plain wrong, it belongs in a deterministic worldview which
> does
> not fit our living world. Trying to grasp why this is so, one can look
> at
> the Aristotelian terms of possibility and actuality, and ask what is
> the
> meaning of these terms. The possible is something which is not yet
> actual,
> but which has a potential for becoming actual. Now, where does this
> potential come from? The mechanistic worldview has no answer but from
> 'causes', from something that was already there. And hence there is no
> such
> thing as possibility in a strict deterministic view, there is only
> necessity. It is evident that such a worldview cannot account for
> creation
> and evolution, it cannot say anything on the becoming of new, on that
> which
> does not owe its existence to already existing causes.
Are you familiar with the existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre? His concept
of 'consciousness' is similar because it exists as nothingness until a
person actualizes himself by the decisions and actions he makes during
his lifetime. I understand what you are saying here. And from a
scientific perspective potentiality it is a conundrum indeed (I'm forced
to take such a biological perspective because it is my field of study).
> But can we give another answer? I say that the possible, the
> germinative
> nothing, is part of that answer, because the possible is that which is
> not
> bounded by the actual. When throwing a die, an actual die, this actual
> die
> put limits on the possible outcomes of the throw. The possibilities
> are not
> determined as in a causal process, the possibilities are what is left
> outside of that which is determined, the possible is that which is not
>
> prevented by the actual. Having thrown the die, and a six being the
> outcome, all the other possible outcomes are lost, actualization shuts
> the
> door on counterfactual actualities as far as that specific creation or
>
> 'quality event' (? - Bo) is concerned.
Aha, but in this case we already had an actualized die that had limited
possibilities and we were able to cause this actualized die to bring
another actualization into existence (out of those intrinsic
potentials). That actualization was of course the six on top. We were
able to throw this die, a causal event, because it was actualized. What
of Dynamis? Pure potentiality?
> In the evolutionary perspective, speaking of the beginning of
> existence,
> the first actualization (the one which stayed on, until now) shut the
> door
> to a multitude of other possibilities, like when we pick a random
> point on
> a circle. I imagine this first actualization is connected to what the
> physicists call the total mass or total energy of the universe, - or
> perhaps what they call c - 'the speed of light', but probably I should
>
> leave that to physics. Because physics in some round-about way is
> closing
> in on the same view, the physicists call the 'choices' involved in
> these
> actualizations 'the breaking of symmetry' and it is the very same
> thing.
Yes, in physics terms, the first actualization or that first moment of
existence, was all that was need. Then the door would be shut off to
other possible universes, and from that point the rest of history would
proceed in a more deterministic fashion, each actualization causing
another and another and so on. Actually I've heard of a theory similar
to this.
> Yet there is something which most physicist overlook, - every
> actualization
> forms the ground for new possibility as well, and this is the source
> for
> the evolution of our complex world.
Ah yes! I forgot about that, it's exactly what we covered with the dice
example. Every actualization also bring other potentialities, so
determinism doesn't become such a problem.
> This is where relation and motion
> enters the picture, and where the whole story becomes easier to
> imagine and
> understand. Whith the parting of one thing from another, as when a
> homogeneous gas breaks into gravitational entities, the possibility of
>
> relations between entities arises, first of all the relations of
> motion. I
> a simple dyadic spacial relation of two entities moving towards or
> from
> each other, we have not yet the complete basis for a notion of time.
> Only
> in tryadic spacial relations can we speak of time, because time is the
>
> measure of one relative motion with another. This is the simple view
> of
> time, but our actual world shows to be a little more intricate,
> because the
> possible interactions in space shows a constant speed of propagation
> through space, known as the speed of light.
So you're suggesting 'time' is something that we conceptualize when we
see two objects move? I said something similar. This would make sense,
and by reducing it from its primacy in our worldview, we can open up
some room for DQ before existence, before time. But I still see this
whole 'non-temporal period' of existence, or lack thereof, as being very
vague.
How about this: DQ can be described as the ocean of existence that
comprises 'nowness.' This infitesimally small temporal moment that
constitutes 'now,' this moment where two moving objects wouldn't be seen
to move at all, is what the entire Dynamis consisted of. Actually this
might make some sense. If everything before the Big Bang, or before
creation, was simply the same infitesimally small moment, it would
explain why there was no time at that 'time.' It would explain where
there wasn't an infinity of time that preceded the Big Bang and solve
the question of why or how the singularity decided to Bang at some
specific moment. Why? Because everything was that same exact moment!
There was no decision to make. Time becomes meaningless, but Dynamic
Quality remains meaningful, because when existence becomes total Dynamic
Quality, it also becomes a single moment.
I've understood your comments and just added a some enlightenment that
I've gained while pondering the beginning of existence.
Martin Striz
-- post message - mailto:skwok@spark.net.hk unsubscribe/queries - mailto:diana@asiantravel.com homepage - http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Forum/4670
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.0b3 on Thu May 13 1999 - 16:42:06 CEST