Magnus, Barry,
Barry,
On searching our "consciousnesses for the equivalents of gravity" etc, how
about: Grace? Sin? Remorse? etc
On words being "of little value" - this isn't what I think. What I think is
that the value that they do have isn't the value of being a *report*,
atleast not so far as sensory experience is concerned.
Magnus,
> Hi Elephant
>
>> A short comment. Simplicity and complexity are features of our picture of
>> the world rather than of the world (which is continuous and therefore not
>> individuated, and so neither simple nor complex).
>
> I disagree with this part. It seems to me that you are saying that simplicity
> and complexity are subjective whereas the world is objective without actually
> using the (forbidden) words subjective and objective. Aren't you?
No. Or atleast, sorry if it appeared that way. Hm, but your point worries
me - maybe you won't be satisfied with my answer.
I think it ought to be possible to say that simplicity and complexity aren't
objective, without thereby saying that they are subjective. But is it? I
hope so, but let's see. So when I say "simplicity and complexity are
features of our picture of the world" is that saying that simplicity and
complexity are subjective in that they arise from the subject, ie arise
soley from personal choice? No. Because in fact that statement isn't
making any claim about where simplicity and complexity *come from* one way
or another: it's merely stating facts about where they are *at*. They are
feautures of our pictures of the world.
Carpets and bannisters are features of my house, and not the garden: that's
where they are *at*. This does nothing to contradict the fact that carpets
and bannisters do not *come from* houses, or gardens for that matter. The
idea that they must come from the house if they don't come from the garden
is what's know as a 'false opposition'. They have factories for carpets and
stuff, and factories are neither houses nor gardens.
The situation with simplicity and complexity is analogous to the situation
with thick pile carpets, in that where they come from and where they are at
are two different questions. But, however, with simplicity and complexity
the answer to the *where are they from?* question is apt to seem a mite more
mysterious, as befits this kind of quasi religious question. First off, we
can't attibute the simplicity and complexity in pictures *wholly* to the
subject, because the subject itself is no more than what it is pictured to
be. That seems to get in the way of any agency at all in the genesis of
simplicity and complexity from nothing - for the agent would always be a
simple object, even God. And so when you come to think of it, the 'where
are they from?' question about simplicity and complexity, which I didn't
actually ask or give any opinion on in my previous posts, is so wide-ranging
that it looks like Heidegger's question: 'why is there something rather than
nothing?'. And why is there something or things (simple or complex) rather
than nothing (no individuated object)? Hell, I don't know. There just is,
and we couldn't be having this conversation if it were otherwise.
There is a school of thought which says 'blame language: if that's where
objects arise (as features of grammar) then that has to be where simplicity
and complexity of objects arises too'. I am sensitive to the attactions of
such a view - but I don't think, finally, that it can go the distance.
Firstly, this is making out language to be an agent in the creation of
simplicity and complexity - and, frankly, if this was a role so impossible
act out that even God couldn't play it I don't fancy the chances of Language
pulling it off either. We said that an agent as agent is a simple and so
cannot create simplicity and complexity. If that wraps it up for God, it
does just the same for Language.
So there's an unsatisfactory explanation for you: I *don't know* where
simplicity and complexity come from - and I even suspect that the question
doesn't make any sense (what about the 'where' of their origin: is that
simple or complex?).
But what I will say is that after one has realised how impossible that
question is, and how absolutely necessary simplicity and complexity are to
all pictures and picture making including both objects and subjects, then
one can begin to motor, philosophically speaking. One can say that concepts
of number, of one and many and many-in-one, (which simplicity and complexity
amount to) - that these concepts or number must be *apriori*. This is
*not* to say where they come *from*, but that they come *before* everything
else. Then one can cast around for the right terminology to describe such
apriori concepts. 'Form' is a good Platonic word that has always appealed
to me, and the forms of the One and of the Many would seem to be the ones we
are looking at here.
Now, are the forms subjective or objective? Neither, one should say,
because they are not objects but the sort of concept out of which objects
can be constructed, and not subjective because they cannot be altered or
changed in what they are by our opinions. It is beyond doubt that our *use*
of the forms in characterising and picturing our world is subjective - since
this is precisely what 'subjective' means - however *our* use of the forms
itself depends on a use of the forms which cannot be called subjective, viz,
the creation of the 'our'. And it is beyond doubt that the forms
*themselves* are 'objective' if by that word is meant (as it sometimes is)
truths and natures that cannot be altered by the observer.
So, in sum, to understand me as saying that 'simplicity and complexity are
subjective' grossly over simplifies the situation. Not half. And don't
forget, if you want to appreciate one real complexity, that the questions
'where is it?' and 'where is it from?' are two different questions.
> I really
> believe that we can dig into a quantum level and discover the true nature of
> time.
Good Luck
Elephant
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