(09-06-2010, 07:14 PM)Ali Quadir Wrote: I realize that it is but a small gem in a treasure chest I'm picking up here. I've been trying to figure out a bridge between the two positions.
Me too!
(09-06-2010, 07:14 PM)Ali Quadir Wrote: Would you say we can make the analogy with a sheet of paper?
No. That's just it. As long as you define even the paper, symbolizing the domain, that's not infinity. Infinity can have no definition, because any definition is a distortion. The sheet of paper itself is a limitation!
(09-06-2010, 07:14 PM)Ali Quadir Wrote: Infinity there being the infinite amount of things we can put on the paper. Then if you say it's a paper with a star on it. Then of all the infinite amount of things we used to be able to put on the paper, we now only have an infinite amount of things that happen to all be stars. So while there still is an infinite amount of freedom. There is no longer a totality of freedom the possible forms are together no longer infinity in Ra's usage of the term. Some things like a picture of a cat are no longer possible, unless of course it's a particularly starry cat..
If you agree. Then what would you say the state of the cat is if you define the paper as being a paper with a star on it? Is it's state now somehow changed or separated from the paper? Or is its state just as defined by the form we impose on the paper as the star was? Except maybe in the negative. "Is in potential here" versus "Is not in potential here"...
And if you disagree, can you try to describe in the analogy of the paper how you think it is? Or explain why the analogy fails?
I could see the analogy of the paper only as regards ourselves as entities. Let's say the sheet of paper is me. There can be no limitations on what can go on that paper. I can draw an infinite number of things on that paper. I wouldn't limit it to stars or cats. I am limited only by the sheet of paper, which, in this analogy, represents me as an entity.
I appreciate your analogy. But the sheet of paper doesn't work, because it is limited to 2 dimensions, and only that which can be drawn with a pencil, pen or paint. So it is actually too limited, to describe even an entity such as myself, much less infinity.
May I suggest an atom, which has the same pattern as a solar system. As above, so below, so to speak. Infinitely small...infinitely large. As the poem says, To see a universe in a grain of sand...
The grain of sand has atoms, which contain universes, at the microcosmic level. The more scientists try to discover the smallest particle, the deeper they go, and cannot find it...because it doesn't exist. Only the fractal pattern exists, holographically getting smaller and smaller...just as the UniVerse gets larger and larger.
These are the patterns of infinity. Infinity is contained therein. But that's not undifferentiated, undistorted infinity, because it has no container, no domain, no limit.