It's Going...Going...Here!!!

I think the universe is made up of a lot of stuff.  A lot of people think that, I suppose, although I am not sure we would mean the same thing by that statement.  If you asked a handful of people on the street to list some examples of what one might find in the universe, you might get answers like: stars, gas clouds, asteroids, planets, etc.  People who are slightly less astronomical in nature might give examples like: chairs, rocks, clouds, pizza, etc.  People who are slightly less materialistic might include love, irony, conflict, etc. in the list.

I would not list any of these.

It is not that I think you won't find these things as you wander around, it is just that when I say that the universe is made up of a lot of stuff, I am talking about what is "out there" independent of an observer.  I like the phrase "out there" because it is a perfect example of how language, which is formed by thinking, also forms thinking.  Because we organize our experiences using a framework that utilizes concepts like space (and time, but that is germane to the example), people generally assume that space (or time) is an inherent property of the universe.  We say things like "there is stuff out there in the universe", as if it is a foregone conclusion that all that stuff is in some way external to one's self.

I, too, would say that all the stuff that is "out there" is external to one's self, but I don't mean it from a spatial perspective.  When I say that there is something "out there", I mean that it is not part of me.  And yet, that is where I would be wrong.  If I had said that correctly, I would have said the following:  When I say that there is something "out there", I mean that it is not wholly subsumed by my definition of myself.

Why do I draw the distinction?  It comes to this: if I do not contain at least some part of the the thing that is "out there" within the infinitude which is me, how could I relate to it?  How could I experience it?  What common basis would we have by which to share an interaction?  We must have something in common, and so it cannot really be completely separate from me.

But is the thing that I am reclining on at the moment a chair?  Many years ago I had a wonderful discussion about whether a footstool was still a footstool if I decided to wear it on my head.  At what point does it become a hat?  In that example, one might say that we are just debating semantics.  "Call it what you will, but the physical characteristics are what they are."

So this leads to two points.  First, it suggests (pretty strongly) that a thing's value is dictated not by the thing itself, but rather by the expectations and perspectives of the person assessing the value.  This is not too hard to follow.  The value of a tissue to someone with a runny nose is high, its value to a child who is perfectly willing to blow her nose on her sleeve is considerably less.

Second point:  It is really easy to think that an object's characteristics are inherent to the object when everyone you speak with shares the same basic cognitive framework as yourself.  That we all agree that the footstool/hat has "immutable" physical characteristics is not confirmation that those physical characteristics are inherent to the object... because we are all using the same basic cognitive framework to make the assessment.  If we are all using the same framework, it is perfectly reasonable that we would all see the same thing the same way.

So this itself leads to several interesting questions:

• How can we tell whether there is anything "out there" at all?
• Why would we suspect that the framework is establishing artifacts of "reality"?
• How can we determine which artifacts are consequences of the universe, and which are come about because of the framework?

To the first of these questions, I would say this:  I do not believe that the things that one experiences are completely separate from the self, but I do believe they are not contained entirely within the self.  Why?  Because when I meet someone for the very first time, and that person has experienced something that I have as well (we both have eaten chocolate, visited the Grand Canyon, etc.), we are able to share experiences that corroborate with each other. 

Example:  Person A meets Person B.  Person C meets Person B.  Persons A and C then meet, and can discuss Person B.  When A and C find that they have observed the same things (B has brown hair, B has blue eyes, whatever), there are only a few possibilities. 

It might be that only one person exists at all (A, for example), and all the rest are nothing more than aspects of A.  This cannot really be disproved (well, hasn't yet over the past few thousand years' worth of philosophers' efforts), but I reject it simply because it does not make me happy (i.e. I acknowledge that it is a possibility, but I continue to look for logically cogent explanations that don't require that to be the truth).

The other option is that although A, B, and C might not be completely independent "things" (I would argue that they cannot be completely disjunctioned if they are able to communication with each other), there are aspects of each that make them distinct from each other (i.e. why they are different people at all).  For A, whatever aspects of B and C that are not the same as for A must be "out there", i.e. exist outside of A's self.

Next: Why would we suspect that the framework is involved in establishing artifacts of "reality"?  Well, there are a couple of easy answers.  First: quantum mechanics tells us so.  We think about things in terms of space, for example - the electron is located at point P.  But in QM, position (as just one example) is not a property of the electron itself, but rather a consequence of asking the question "where is the electron?"  In other words, it is the measurement process that gives rise to the idea of the electron's location.

Emotions suggest this as well.  When a person does something in different frames of mind, that person experiences things differently.  This is a variant on the old "seek and ye shall find" idea.

Now, how much of a role the framework plays is another question, but I'll get back to that later.

How can we determine which artifacts are consequences of the universe, and which are come about because of the framework?  The best way to do this would be to adopt a new framework, and examine how things change as a result. 

Too hard?  Too much like a chapter out of a Casteneda book?  Okay then, another alternative would be to establish a model of how things really work starting from a logic based on experience.  One such set started with "A is not 'not A'" turned out to be very fruitful, although I personally do not find it to be sufficiently comprehensive.  There are situations in my experiences where such logic does not hold true, and so I cannot accept it as a fundamental truth (only a situational truth founded on specific assumptions/conditions).

There are a few basic principles that I see repeated pretty much everywhere:  union, disjunction, and exchange.  Since I have not come across anything that does not combine some combination of these three principles, they are what I have come to accept as reasonable philosophical building blocks.  Since I can experience these three things without regard to space, I assume that space is not fundamental.  Since I can experience these three things without regard to time, I assume that, likewise, time is not fundamental. 

Without space and time, most of the things that are normally considered "out there" (like chairs and rocks and stars) become secondary, by which I mean I assume them to potentially be artifacts of my organizational framework, not fundamental aspects of the universe.

So what kinds of things are potential "atomic" building blocks?  I don't know.  Further, I consider it distinctly possible that such things are not merely unknown, but unknowable.  The only way I can describe (to myself or others) the facets of the universe I experience is through the filter of my personal framework.  It seems... logical.... that anything that I can actually describe, then, must already be tainted by that framework, skewed by those things that I personally bring into the equation.

If I were terse in nature, or Chinese, I might summarize this vast explosion of words by saying:  The Tao that can be named is not the Tao.

But then, the endpoint/conclusion is not really the point, is it?  The journey is what matters.  That, obviously, is a brand new idea that has never been expressed before.  But what I find interesting, what I had not considered before, is the possibility that it holds not merely for activities, but even for trains of thought.  No, wait.  I had thought of that before, I just called it something else.