Bernard wrote:I just changed 1. a little bit
1. If we (for argument's sake) accept that it's possible to draw necessary conclusions about reality from the way we physically observe reality, then there must be multiple universes (in reality) because where there is one of any thing (in reality) there is always more of like kind to it (at least in our imagination).
No. No. No.
You changed the most important part.
I'm sorry, but that you even suggest this (not the fact that you believe it, but the fact that you suggest it at this stage) clearly shows that you have not undertood what I mean at all. I don't demand that you agree with me, of course, but I would like you to understand what I mean. I could go on trying to explain, and part of me would like to, because you seem not only blind to your own blind spot, but also honest in your blindness.
But Instead I offer the following as a contemplation and incentive towards
understanding:
Syntax
A man staring at his equations
said that the universe had a beginning.
There had been an explosion, he said.
A bang of bangs, and the universe was born.
And it is expanding, he said.
He had even calculated the length of its life:
ten billion revolutions of the earth around the sun.
The entire globe cheered;
They found his calculations to be science.
None thought that by proposing that the universe began,
the man had merely mirrored the syntax of his mother tongue;
a syntax which demands beginnings, like birth,
and developments, like maturation,
and ends, like death, as statements of facts.
The universe began,
and it is getting old, the man assured us,
and it will die, like all things die,
like he himself died after confirming mathematically
the syntax of his mother tongue.
**************************
The Other Syntax
Did the universe really begin?
Is the theory of the big bang true?
These are not questions, though they sound like they are.
Is the syntax that requires beginnings, developments
and ends as statements of fact the only syntax that exists?
That's the real question.
There are other syntaxes.
There is one, for example, which demands that varieties
of intensity be taken as facts.
In that syntax nothing begins and nothing ends;
thus birth is not a clean, clear-cut event,
but a specific type of intensity,
and so is maturation, and so is death.
A man of that syntax, looking over his equations, finds that
he has calculated enough varieties of intensity
to say with authority
that the universe never began
and will never end,
but that it has gone, and is going now, and will go
through endless fluctuations of intensity.
That man could very well conclude that the universe itself
is the chariot of intensity
and that one can board it
to journey through changes without end.
He will conclude all that, and much more,
perhaps without ever realizing
that he is merely confirming
the syntax of his mother tongue.
***************************
From "The Active Side of Infinity" by Carlos Castaneda
Copyright 1998 by Laugan Productions
I know that you offered this quote first. But your offer was as a contemplation and incentive towards
knowledge. If you believe that "knowledge" can be deduced from the second syntax any better than from the first syntax, then you have not understood.
Let me rephrase my earlier statement slightly:
1. If we (for argument's sake) accept that it's possible to draw necessary conclusions about reality from
syntax (the way we think and talk about reality), then there must be multiple universes (in reality) because where there is one of any thing (in reality) there is always more of like kind to it (at least in our imagination).
And let's not forget number two:
2. We must also (for argument's sake) accept that it's possible to draw necessary conclusions about the unobservable (things outside the universe) from what we observe (things inside the universe).
