On the Limits of the World

 Day 4

Everything here was written in October-November, 2022. There are 52 posts total, one for each day I wrote.

Last time we spoke about the limits of the world. It remains to see what those are. If the world is what is, and all that is, then what is not part of the world? Presumably that which is not. Yet even that which is not exists in a way, as it is that which does not exist in the world. Yet we have no way of knowing what that is. The world is made of shards that we experience, so that which is outside the world is that which we do not experience. Yet we do not know what we can or cannot experience, so that which is outside the world is that which we have not experienced, but we don't know if that which we have no experience is something that we can experience, or something hat we simply have not experienced. We also don't know if we are capable of understanding a shard that comes from 'outside' and fitting it into the world. I presume that if it comes as a shard then we are capable of doing so, but I have no great proof. I am simply suspicious of the idea that paradoxes are insurmountable problems. Nevertheless, we have established that there is a great unknown outside the world, a great realm of possibility and actuality that we know very little about. Call this stuff 'reality'. We have one clue about what reality is, and only one – that reality is such a place that the world can be. That is, since we believe that is is, we believe that the world is, and so regardless of what else there might be, the world can exist.

I think that we can expand the world. That is, stuff happens all the time that is surprising to us, where we run into a shard or a jewel that seems to be, in some way, unmalleable. That is, we cannot entirely crush or reshape it, we cannot entirely ignore its strength of being. In short, we are not in control of it. We influence it, but it also influences us. That is, there appear to be things in the world that are, and not just because we thought of them. Because all things in the world are gems, then we have two types of gems that appear apparent to us. The first type is a gem that has, at its core, some unknown thing that is not us. Some piece of reality that is real in a strong way seems to be supporting the gem. These are things like chairs, other people, the sun, inertia, laws of gravitation. We can ignore them, but we do so by actually ignoring them, by pretending that they do not exist, and by blocking them out of our sensations by going blind, or insane. We do this all the time with things that we do not want to exist, when we ignore uncomfortable facts. These gems are not set in a firm shape by any means, for they can change form and sometimes we don't recognize them. What we think of as physical laws change, sometimes we see optical illusions, and sometimes games of telephone go awry. Yet, there always seems to be at least one gem like this, one sort of thing that we find it very difficult to deny without going all the way into the great denial of Descartes, without holding for the validity of solipcism. Yet even when we do that, there seems to be another type of gem.

This gem is the gem of identity. That is, that no matter where we go, there we are. Descartes's 'I', Sartre's 'I', the 'I' that woke up this morning in my bed, all seems to also be some sort of gem that cannot be crushed, except by ignoring them. And we do not ignore them because we are believing in everything that we encounter. When we speak of the subjective view, this is the idea that we have in mind, of a thing at the heart of the gem, no matter what form the gem make take, that cannot be crushed, cannot be explained, is not a gem itself, and cannot be communicated. Whereas with a physical chair you can throw it at another to show them it exists, with a physical law you can demonstrate it and communicate its usefulness to another person; with the sanctity of your own mind, how are you ever to convince another that you exist, in a way that they cannot ignore? The other person can always believe in solipsism, or think that you are an android, or an alien taking human form, or that they are dreaming. They can regard you as an illusions illusion. - Incidentally, illusions are to issues for us because even an illusion is real, though the reality of it might not be what you expect, the way it fits into the world might not be what you want it to be, yet nonetheless its a gem in the world – we speak of an illusion's illusion to get across the idea that an illusion has nothing behind it, though we don't ascribe to that idea ourselves. Rather, it is a state of mind or attitude toward an illusion that one can have, though I think that attitude is more akin to purposefully ignoring the source of illusion than it is to considering the illusion a real thing. And so, even if we, I, the self, is/are/where an illusion, it does not matter. - still, I exist, even if as an illusion. I am not less real if I am 'fake', and so even if the existence of the I is a logical mistake, so what? We will be a mistake, and be damned to the world that rejects us. If we are wrong we pass, and if we pass and die, what do we care?

And so this second gem is a type of I, a type of myself. The gems of other people do not have this issue, for just as they can reject our reality, so to can we reject theirs. We can regard other people as no more than rocks, yet we encounter issues if we think so of ourselves. We ask now – what is the gem of myself? What lies it its core,, wheat is the most existential part of me? Just as we can regard all things as gems with something unknown at their core, what parts of me can I think of as a rock-gem, and what parts of me can I think of as a me-gem? We can simply follow the practice of taking away here. If we take away my arm, am I still me? My eyes? My body entire? My brain? All my thinking? Well, lets see what we can do to them. For we said that the core is something that you cannot get rid of except by ignoring it. That is, it has an existence as an unknown that you can only reject entire, and that you cannot crush. So, we can crush and reject our body, just as Descartes has shown. We can crush and reject our thinking, by virtue of using drugs, or crushing our body, or correct meditation, or simply by beliving the the objections to Descarte's cogito. There are many idea that suggest that we can stop thinking. Since we are believing everything, we believe that we can stop thinking. So, thinking is not the issue. In fact, the experiences of our daily lives suggest that thinking is not the most essential self, and that our thinking can be manipulated. Now, what if we think of our thinking as disappearing entirely, what is left? We can imagine this in a Buddhist sense, a zen shape of mind if you will, while we simply exist, but do not think. We can imagine ourselves without a body during this time as well. Descartes also rejected logic earlier, so we can't say that we are math – for we do not know what math is. If you take away all that I am, what is left? It seems to be the bare fact of existence, the simple statement that 'I am'.

What is this 'I am'? Well, think about what we say about anything else. That chair is, the laws are, hope exists, etc. We called all those gems. So, we are left with a gem. What is the essence of a gem, the most basic part of it? A shard. A shard is made of of some experience. A shard also contains all things, yet what happens if we have an empty shard? It seems to be made up of no experiences, indeed we seem to have a simple 'be-ing' without a being. What is the most basic part of being? Being something, being noticeable. How do we notice anything? We notice things because the world has changed. So, the core of an empty shard is some sort of change. A shard by itself is not a world, because it cannot connect to any other shard. So, there must be another shard in the world. Here must be something that makes these shards distinct from one another. So, there is difference. A difference between two states is some sort of change. That is, when we attend to one shard then attend to another shard, something has changed between those two shards. We only realize that one shard differs from antother through our sense of change. We can say that the essence of a gem is what we recognize as change. A change can be unknown, as when we walk into a room and say that 'something has changed', without knowing what that change is. A change can also be known – but before it is known, it must be unknown. That is, the shard happens and then we fit it into place. If it was not unknown from the start, then it would have already been, and so already would have a place. So the core of the second type of gem is an unknown change.

If I say that the second type of gem is me, and that the core of the second type of gem is an unknown change, then I am saying that the core of me is an unknown change. That is, some unknown happening, some unknown act of being, some unknown will. Me must think of this will as a free will. If it was not a free will, then it would be something like a rock – something that always acts according to some rule, and so would be capable of being known. Yet we know it can't be known. So if it is governed by a rule, it is a rule that we cannot comprehend. Yet if it is a rule that we cannot comprehend, then it is something that cannot exist in our world. If it cannot exist in our world, then it cannot be part of a gem or shard. So, the core of ourselves, if it was an unfree will, would be a will that we could never know if it was free or not. So, what lies at the heart of us in not only unknown, but also unknowable. It is something that we cannot crush, and cannot reach. This is very like what we said of the first type of gem, that there was some unknown power within it that we seemed to not be able to crush in the world, but could only remove outside the world by ignoring it. Yet we said that we shall hold that is is, and so we shall not ignore it. So, we have a logical space.

This logical space is the world, a structure of gems. This world lies in between two unknowns, the unknown of reality outside the bounds of the world, and the unknown of the will at the heart of the world, where I stand. Because the outside and insides are unknown, we do not know if these unknowns are the same, or are different. We do not known if there are a great many outer unknowns, or simply one unknown. All that we have that lies within the realm of the known is what is in the world, the games of the word, and all that is to us.

All gulfs within the world are vague, for the world touches something that is unknown. Since all shards touch all other shards, all gems touch the unknown, and so no gem is complete. Thus, until the world is complete, no gems will be complete.

If we exist, then we are part of the world. If we are part of the world, then we are a gem in the world. We can think of a general structure to the world, variegated by the levels of the self. First is that which is not the self, such as a tree or a lamp. Second is that which the self cares about, such as a favorite teddy bear or a cousin. Third is the Realm, that which is in control of the self, such as your body. Fourth is the Castle, the fortress of the mind. Fifth is the Council, the personalities that make you up. Sixth is the Core, the free will that takes actions. All of these levels are malleable, so that you can exert control over a teddy bear or a cousin, that you can feel bodily pain in response to a tree getting cut down, that you can disassociate yourself from a part of your body, that you can become controlled by one personality or lock another away.