From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue Jan 29 2002 - 18:21:30 MST
On 29 Jan 2002 at 16:01, ben wrote:
>
> On 28 Jan 2002 at 14:17, ben wrote:
>
> > [Joe] It,s worse than that; we can never know any single object from all
> > possible perspectives (since we are finite and there are an infinity of
> > possible perspectives from which to view any object) in all possible
> > perceptual modalities. Any concrete object is phenomenologically
> > inexhaustible. All that we can say is, whatever the whole might be, it
> > must noncontradictorally contain the parts which we have apprehended
> > as parts or aspects of that whole, for part of the whole story of any
> > object is that when presented to one of our perceptual apparati from a
> > particular perspective, our specific perception of it results.
> >
> > [ben] An even more eloquent description of why it is fruitless to discuss
> > the "borders" of our Universe and what, if anything, is outside it, or
> > whether or not there even is an outside.
> >
> [Joe 1]In spatiotemporal locations where an object we are attempting to peruse
> returns no information concerning it whatsoever, no matter what
> perspective we adopt on the location or what native or augmented
> perceptual modalities we use to investigate it, we may resonably
> conclude that the object in question does not extend to that location.
> It's boundary is comprised of the border between the locations where
> we can receive information from our perusals, and the locations where
> we cannot.
> [ben 1] Exactly - my point being that since we areinside the Universe when trying to peruse the
> Universe, we cannot define its boundaries as we cannot make our measurements from any
> location from which the Universe does not present itself to us for perusal. Any time and place
> that we have been, there's the Universe, reliable as always, mocking us with it's refusal to 'not be
> there' so that we can mark down a boundary. Very well put, by the way.
>
But a hollow 3-d sphere has boundaries; it's just impossible to crawl off them. Now just
add a dimension to get a hypersphere (think supercalafragialistic flatland), and you
cannot point a direction out of a nevertheless bounded universe.
>
> -ben
>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Wed Sep 25 2002 - 13:28:42 MDT