Robert Tulip wrote: I have noticed that some booktalk regulars prefer to play with creationists like a cat with a mouse rather than engage in serious discussion. Maybe that is just a reflection of how the internet is more for entertainment than learning.

Sorry.

But it's fun!

brother bob wrote:Even though reincarnation is a major theme of Buddhist's and Hindhu's it is not worth talking about. But worrying about Christianity and shellfish or slaver is? You guys are so funny.

I'm sorry for my rudeness, Bob. The problem with religion vs. science arguments is they never go anywhere. And you basically have one of those arguments already running on your other thread. So I was just trying to see if we could get this thread back on track. That's all.

geo wrote: The purple gown is real in the sense that a dream is real and clearly it was a powerful emotional experience for DB Roy. But if we start believing that purple gown existed in the real world, we are confusing our subjective experiences with objective reality.

That couldn't happen because this robe was too fantastic to exist in the real world. In fact, if I could paint a picture of it (and I have tried) and showed it to you, your first question would probably be along the lines of, "What made you conclude that was a robe and not a UFO?" In fact, there was something curiously UFO-like about the vision--two revolving sections going in opposite directions throwing off a kind of wagon-wheel-spokes series of search-light-like beams, one intensely golden and the other intensely white. It strikes me how UFO-like the vision is--especially when you paint it and get a chance to see it in more concrete terms. Now, I'm not a believer in that stuff but I do wonder if there could be a connection. Do these "gods" break into our world for brief periods? Well, if we can break into theirs under the right conditions then why couldn't the reverse situation occur? But it does cause us to question what's real. But so what? We SHOULD question it--and on a constant basis.

What are time and space anyway? First, we should specify that in philosophical matters, time and space are of a special type. Open any dictionary and read the applicable definitions. From Webster’s II New Riverside University Dictionary:

Space – The expanse in which the solar system, stars, and galaxies exist: UNIVERSE.

Time – A non-spatial continuum in which events occur in apparently irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future.

Event – A coincidence of two or more point objects at a particular position in space at a particular instant in time, regarded as the fundamental observational entity in relativity theory.

Various schools of realism had defined time and space as two all-encompassing “receptacles” in which the universe is held. Science had once so held space and time, but no longer.

Time and space are both illusory. Both are acausal, they never change, and don’t make anything happen. Being acausal, neither causes anything to happen but likewise could not have been caused. Are space and time then eternal since both exist but could not have been caused to exist and because neither of them change? No. That which is would be considered changeless and eternal must be homogeneous, having no parts, no composite nature. That which is of a composite nature is inherently impermanent. Do time and space have parts? Yes. Objects occupy a part of space and likewise objects occupy a part of time. No object occupies all space and all time.

Realists insist that the division of space and time into parts is nothing more than the imagination of the one who divides. Space and time, say the realists, are not divided but rather the objects that occupy them are. This is false as we will demonstrate.

So space and time are acausal and invariable and yet are not immutable and eternal. What then are space and time?

We can glean an answer when we realize that neither can exist without the other—indeed Einstein showed them to be a single continuum which he called space-time. Anything that exists in space must also exist in time and vice-versa. Moreover, time and space are inseparable from matter. Read the above given definitions and notice how each relies on mentioning matter in some form. In the case of space, it is the solar system, stars and galaxies. In the case of time, it is “events” and the definition of events as meant here relies on “point objects.”

Likewise if we look up the definition of matter, we will find that it in some way must rely on space and time in order to be defined:

Matter – Something that occupies space and can be perceived by one or more senses.

In this case, time is not mentioned but nevertheless is implicit since anything that occupies a part of space must also occupy a part of time.

One may choose any dictionary one pleases and the situation will not change. Space and time rely on matter in order to be defined and matter relies on space and time in order to be defined. Neither matter nor space-time then have an inherent existence. They do not exist independently but only in conjunction with one another.

Hence, space and time do consist of parts because they, as receptacles, cannot be separated from the objects that occupy them. Since objects can be divided into parts, likewise can space and time be so divided. IOW, at some level, space, time and matter are identical.

How then are acausal, invariable yet non-eternal space and time structured?

When you sense an object in some manner, how do you sense it? Do you see it on a continuous basis? Suppose you are looking at an automobile and you stare it at for five minutes. Is it the same automobile that it was five minutes ago? Is it solid? Does it occupy space? (i.e. does it have extension?) Does it occupy time? (i.e. does it have duration?) Does it possess the property we call “reality”?

Let’s answer each question in succession. Do you see the automobile on a continuous basis? No. This seems counter to common sense but there is only one moment at which we truly see the automobile. That moment is nothing but pure, raw sense-data brought in by the organ of sight, the eye. That is the first moment that the automobile is seen. The subsequent moments are but thought construction. But we are not much concerned with the plurality of subsequent moments, but only the first moment of thought construction. This moment occurs just after the first moment of pure perception.

But we certainly cannot posit that the subsequent moments of seeing the car are nothing more than cognition and that the eye has stopped sending sense-data after the initial sensation. No, the eye continues to see the automobile but this involves a new moment of perception. During that moment, the car has appeared to change in some manner. The reflections off the paint or glass might have changed, for example.

Even if nothing else changed, the car is almost imperceptibly aging. A rust spot might be slowly spreading, a few molecules of the paint may have fallen off, anything. So there is no subsequent moment of perception of the same object but rather a new perception of a new object!

But wait! How can the automobile be a different one from one moment to the next? Simply because it cannot be the same one. This moment of perception is discrete and separate from the others that preceded it and those that will succeed it. That moment is a point-instant—mathematically infinitesimal and dimensionless both in time and space. In this tiny interval, nothing has time in which to act.

The point-instant is the only reality and it is otherwise timeless, attribute-less, motionless, changeless. When we say changeless, we do not mean that it is eternal, quite the contrary, it is changeless because nothing in this point-instant has any time to change. Nothing can survive the point-instant because nothing exists outside of it but rather the object of perception is annihilated at the same moment it is created.

In the next point-instant, the object of perception is not really the same one but rather a new one that looks very similar to the one perceived the point-instant before. This new object of perception is also annihilated the same moment it arises and, in the succeeding point-instant, will be created anew. Ironically, it is a new object that we perceive as being older.

Is the automobile that same one that it was five minutes ago? This is really an extension of the last question but it will help us to elaborate some more. The answer is, of course, no. The automobile is being recreated anew every point-instant. If it were changing, it would have duration and no object can have duration. Why? Because we have a causal relationship between the sense-object being perceived and the sense-organ of the perceiver. The perception of an object is a cause-and-effect relationship.

Causally, no object or condition has efficiency until its last moment of existence. A seed ceases to be a seed the moment it sprouts. A woman’s pregnant state ceases to exist the moment she gives birth. So each moment that the automobile is perceived by the sense-organ must be the last moment of that automobile. Ergo, the sense-object has no duration.

Is the automobile solid? Does it occupy space? (i.e. does it have extension?) These two questions are related so we shall tackle them both at once. By asking if the automobile or any sense-object is solid is to ask if it is really matter. The definition of matter, as we learned earlier is “Something that occupies space and can be perceived by one or more senses.” So the issue is whether matter really occupies space. The answer is no. If an object occupies space, the implication is that it exists independently of the space it occupies and that space exists independently of the object that occupies it. As we have seen, this is not the case. Neither can exist independently of the other. Both are, at some level, the same thing. An object does not occupy space, it is space.

Space does not occupy anything. If we fill an aquarium to the brim with water and then place a brick in it, the brick displaces a certain amount of water causing it to overflow and spill out of the tank. Air is displaced the same way. But an object cannot be placed in space since space in all-encompassing. Nor is space displaced because it doesn't occupy anything. What would it occupy--space? Space cannot occupy space. Objects simply ARE the space they occupy.

Does the automobile possess the property we call “reality”? No. An automobile consists of atoms (however one chooses to conceive of atoms) and only the atoms can be considered real. Each atom occupies its point in space-time. So an automobile would have to be conceded to be real in more than one location in space-time—and nothing can be real in more than location in space-time (i.e. no two objects can occupy the same point in space-time simultaneously nor can a single object occupy more than one point in space-time simultaneously). Ergo, the automobile is not real, it is a conglomeration of little energy packets all flashing at different points in space-time.

The only reality is the point-instant. The point-instant is the only real cause and the only real efficiency. It consists of nothing more than a momentary and instantaneous flash of energy synonymous with the space and time in which it is said to occur. All attributes of the automobile—color, mass, weight, shape, speed, indeed its very existence—are nothing more than thought constructions that occur at the second moment of perception. They are not attributes. “Attribute” implies an existence independent of the sense-object but the attribute is actually identical to the sense-object. The motion of the automobile is nothing separate from the automobile itself and the same can be said of its mass, weight, color, shape and its very existence. Even its non-existence is identical to the object itself. If we were to remove all attributes from a sense-object, there would be nothing left to sense.

There are some objections to the above argument. Some may be resolvable while others may not be. Let’s review some of them and see what we can determine.

· How are space and time acausal and invariable if both have parts and are therefore impermanent? Good question. We know that space and time underwent changes during the Big Bang which would tell us that space and time are not invariable by forces external to both—whatever those may be—but do not change of their own accord. They do not decay as objects do, for example. Only by understanding that space, time and matter are really one can we make sense of the apparent contradictions. As long as matter is dispersed as it is in the universe, there will be space and time to “enclose” it. When matter was compacted to a point as in the Big Bang, space and time were also compact around it. When matter was dispersed after the Big Bang, space and time dispersed with it. Space and time then can be thought of as a matter-field. So the acausal and causal, the permanent and the impermanent, are united at some level inconceivable to us.

· If the point-instant is infinitesimally short in duration such that nothing has the time to act, how does a sense-organ sense an object since the sensing is, in fact, an act? That’s an excellent point and one for which I have no answer. Whether it totally invalidates the argument remains to be seen. This argument, in spite, of this fault, is still the best one available but it must be admitted that it cannot be entirely correct.

· What gives impetus to the sense-object to “renew”? What is telling the automobile in your example “I recreate you”? Why doesn’t it just not reappear at the next point-instant? Wouldn’t there have to be something that endures the annihilation of the point-instant to serve as a kind of blueprint or template for the sense-object to be recreated? The Sufis asked the same question and “solved” it by coming up with a doctrine they called “Renewing the Universe at Each Breath.” It is very similar to this Buddhistic conception of Instantaneous Creation, but they add in the existence of “archetypes” or ideas that emanate from the mind of Allah and are changeless and eternal. These ideas have no actual existence just as our own ideas do not exist in the real world but only as thought. But Allah’s archetypes are of a divine nature that project into the natural world and matter then renews objects at each “breath” (by breath, they mean “instant” and this doctrine is often translated as instant rather than breath) by using the archetype as a template. The best way to imagine this is that reality is Allah's dream. Since we are part of the dream, anything Allah dreams seems real to us. Why should Allah's dream objects exist discontinuously? Why should they not, that's just as valid a question. But since reality is Allah's dream, everything in that dream is some aspect of him? Since we are bit players in Allah's dream, we too are ultimately some aspect of Allah. Why do we change and age and die then? Once again, why shouldn't we? There is no burden of proof at this level of speculation. Of course, that leads to ask what is Allah then? A kind cosmic, transcendental consciousness. Small wonder then that so many hard-line Muslims despise Sufi and consider it blasphemous and non-Islamic. It’s not so much that Sufi is wrong but the explanation is just an approximation because the precise answer is unknown and unknowable by our present experience.

· Could objects renew at each point-instant by natural law? For example, it is the nature of matter to move towards annihilation so the point-instants simply follow natural law. Some have posited this and it possesses a certain elegance, but the problem is that it again implies an act occurring in the point-instant during which nothing has the time to act. In this case, it is the following of natural law. Moreover, since the point-instant is supposed to be complete in and of itself and requiring no external forces in order to be efficient, by positing that it follows natural law is basically saying that the point-instant is not efficient and is not self-contained. Since the point-instant is the only reality, this puts natural law outside of reality, which is absurd.