[MD] The Quality/MOQ dichotomy

[Michael Poloukhine]

> Ham wrote:
> An infinite [perhaps you mean "infinitesimal"] point is an 
> existent, so is still a "thing".  Nothingness divides or separates entities 
> (beings) but it can't create them.

MP: Infinitesemal. "Yeah, yeah, that's it! That's the word!" ;-)

Although I think "infinite" worked well too. It is a point, with no dimension. It is 
infinitesimal in that regard. In that sense, though I find it unclear how you can 
not call that "nothing" as you used the term above. If it has no dimension, being 
smaller than anything, including itself, how can it be "thing"? It also however 
contains all the known universe, which we at this point consider to be infinite. 
That point is also then infinite in our understanding of "things." Yet it is 
infinitesimal; so small that it "isn't." Its a self contradictory paradox. We can't 
really fully conceive it, yet we can conceive it enough to recognize it is in 
someway real. Clearly, we don't understanding "things" well enough to 
pronounce that something cannot come from nothing when we are willing to 
suggest infinity can be contained within infinitesimality and be ok with it.

Your contention that "nothing" divides or separates entities presumes a 
definition of entity to be a certain way, it presumes a certain understanding of 
"thing." I could just as easily argue splitting something in two and separating it 
with nothing creates something from nothing, no? I put the nothing into 
something and it became two things. Yes, of course, the sum of the masses 
equals that of the first, etc., but there are now two things where there was one. 
One of those things was created and the only thing that did it was the insertion 
of more nothing in between the parts. Crude, but effective, conceptually.

So while that is an extremely childish and simplistic "refutation" of the "can't get 
something from nothing" claim, it works just fine in its own limited system of 
understanding. Now, presume for a moment that the greatest human 
understanding is equally simplistic to a far greater understanding.

Getting my drift?

What if "all" just "is" and the "things" we can perceive to "be" or to "not be" (as in 
"nothing") aren't an accurate understanding of this "is" at all? What if they are 
just crude approximations of what's going on? If they are, we really can't rely on 
"thing" to be that which we use to explain reality unless we are willing to accept 
that "thing" is only a crude tool we use to pretend we can approximate an 
understanding of that which leads us to use the word to describe it in the first 
place.

Perception is reality, and if reality is infinite, our perception of it can never be 
more than infinitesimal. And that has some truly unfortunate implications for our 
existence. ;-)

Ultimately, though, none of this has any bearing on whether I have a 
cheeseburger right now or not. I still exist, even if my perception leads me to 
accept I am so infinitesimal as to not exist. 

But its still worth thinking about.  :-)


MP
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"Don't believe everything you think."