[Xmca-l] Re: Political constructionsof selfvspoliticalconstructionsof identity

[Rein Raud]

Annalisa, I’m afraid we stray too far from the original topic of this thread if we get much deeper into ontology, and I would end up copy-pasting a lot from a book I am currently writing. Briefly, I don’t think we can define “change” as opposed to “stability” at all, and I’d suggest we speak about impermanence instead. You are quite correct saying that “change” can only be detected and described in regard of something else. The point is, this something else is itself always undergoing some other kind of change from a third point of view, and so on. The stationary point is quite arbitrary. Most people currently believe that the Earth is rotating around the Sun. However, the Sun is not stationary, but also in movement. We can imagine a hypothetical celestial body which moves around in space so that it is exactly at the same distance from the Earth at all times and does not move around its own axis so that the Earth is always also at the same angle seen from it. For someone on this celestial body, the Earth moves around its axis, but is otherwise stationary, while the Sun moves around it. It is just that certain calculations are less complicated when we assume the primacy of the Sun as the center of the solar system in this scheme. And that’s how we end up with notions such as change vs stability - some calculations are less complicated. With best wishes, Rein



> On 01 Aug 2016, at 20:11, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu> wrote:
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> Hello,
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> Larry, my questions are straightforward, as I stated them, but I'll just reiterate that I was asking is what is Rein's definition of change? How is changed detected? And from who's point of view?
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> In the end, there must be something stationary in order to gauge change. Whether in time or in space. Otherwise no change can be detected.
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> Now Chris brings up an interesting extra to this that there is the reality "out there" changing, and then our perception of it (which can also change). But I think the definition still holds that even if the world is illusory, and our perception changes too, there are laws still in play, whether we understand those laws or not.
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> For a law to adhere it must hold for all cases, or, in homage to Einstein, in those cases relative to it (which would be marked exceptions). I consider a law as a stationary point.
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> It's not pure chaos out there. When I wake up I wake up in the same body, even though there is a cellular distinction from my body of 7 years ago. I don't wake up as someone else or with an extra limb I didn't have yesterday. Now someone could ask, "Well how do you really know that?" And I would say, "Well, how can you ask the question?"
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> Something has to be stationary for change to happen. Even if change happens faster or slower, the point I'm attempting to make is that there must be a stationary point regardless.
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> Something must be (stationary), before it can change or before change can be detected.
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> I would say existence is the "center." I think Buddhists contest that, which is fine. I know that that is how they see it, that nothing exists. As in no thing.
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> And in some ways they are right if you are talking about the apparent world and the thingness that makes a thing a thing. But everything that is here has is-ness, not thing-ness. Otherwise it is not. Which means the thing-ness that isn't thing-ness isn't present in time and space. It doesn't present itself, whatever it is.
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> How does one detect change of something (anything) that is not in time and space?
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> First, I'd say whatever this non-thing is, can't change, because only things in time and in space change. On earth as we humans perceive it, change appears to be dependent upon time and space. But then thanks to Einstein, now we know that even time and space change. Which means that the change of time and space must be dependent upon some other stationary "point" as-if outside of time and space. I say as-if because we are dealing with a container metaphor, but this metaphor doesn't work when trying to conceive something outside of time and space. Be we can use it because we are human and this is how we reason about things, using time and space as reference points.
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> Anyway, whatever that "point" is, it would have to be pretty expansive and eternal in all directions, in all time. It would have to be big to cover all of space and time. But because it would be outside of space and time, it would also have to be formless and changeless.
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> Take away form (space) and change (time) and all that is left is existence. Which is.
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> Right here right now. :)
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> Kind regards,
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> Annalisa
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> P.S. I see that Rein post just now, so this is not in reply to that post of his.