mct0.memo

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OJBECTS, QUALITIES, AND CLASSES

MCT - 0
1 August 1993

Originally posted as ACT - 12
Revised and Expanded 12/06/93

Copyright (C) 1993 Homer Wilson Smith

In article <1993Jul18....@fuug.fi> an1...@anon.penet.fi writes:
>Just so there's no misunderstanding, could you tell me if you
>use special definitions of: "Reason", "Rationality", and "Logic".

I have very primitive and simple definitions for these words that
derive from my experience that I definitely AM and definitely am not AM
NOT.

I looked up reason, rational, and logic in my CDROM dictionary, (Am
Heritage) and what I would boil out of the definitions was that all
three words refer to 'sound logic'.

For me sound logic is a very simple thing that can be summarized by
the following statements.

IS is IS
IS is not IS NOT
IS NOT is IS NOT
IS NOT is not IS

Or more simply

For all X, X is either A or not A.
For all X, X is not both A and not A.
For all X, X implies X, and X implies not not X.

These simple rules give me a framework in which to reject certain
statements as unsound or unworthy of further consideration.

'Well from a higher state you can see that the world neither is nor
is not. Logic doesn't hold'.

'Logic is illogical' (By what logic?)

'You can't prove anything' (Prove it.)

'There is no such thing as Perfect Certainty. (Are you perfectly
certain?'

'There are no absolutes.' (That IS an absolute)

'All truth is relative...' (...except for that truth which is
absolute!)

'All generalities are false.'

I am sure you get the drift.

Logic has for me two forms, deductive and inductive.

Deductive:

If all humans have brains, and Chris is a human, then Chris has a
brain.

Inductive:

Every time I see a human it has a brain, therefore there may be
some rule that says 'All humans have brains.'

Reason therefore for me is the ability to make sure that a group of
statements is self consistent which means that things which "IS", aren't
"ISN'T".

Further it is the ability to induce out of experience, rules of
occurrence ('Every time I let go of an apple it will fall') and then
apply those rules deductively to specific situations.

The problem therefore is not whether reason is king, because in its
own field it is. The problem is rather where to we get our statements
from to put through the reasoning mill?

For me, they are DEFINITION, OBSERVATION, INTUITION and LOGICAL
TAUTOLOGY. THEN once you have something to grind, you can put your data
through the reasoning mill.

The subject of data is a big one, probably bigger than I can span,
but here follows my analysis of data that I have formed from 30 years of
thinking about it.

My present thought system admits to 3 kinds of data entities:

1.) Objects
2.) Qualities
3.) Classes

Objects have zero or more Qualities.

Objects with zero qualities are called nothings.

Objects with more than zero qualities are called somethings.

Objects have associated with them an Object Quality Set (OQS) which
is the set of all qualities that describe that object.

A nothing has an empty object quality set.

A something has a non empty object quality set.

Qualities come in two kinds, Qualities of Being and Qualities of
Relation.

Qualities of being are those qualities that an object has alone.
'Exists', 'has volume', 'is made of matter', are qualities of being.

Qualities of relation are those qualities that an object has by
virtue of its unaloneness, in other words its relation to other objects.
There are Spatial, Temporal, Material, and Causal qualities of relation.
'Bigger than', 'earlier than', 'hotter than', 'father of' etc. are
examples of each of these various kinds of qualities of relation.

Qualities of relation can not be expressed without the mention of
at least two or more objects. "The DOG is BIGGER THAN the CAT"

Qualities of being can always be expressed with mention of just one
object. "The DOG is BROWN."

There can be IMPLIED others in a statement. "I am SURROUNDED."
Surrounded is a quality of relation, not a quality of being.

Being alone is a quality of being.

You don't have to have anything else exist to be alone.

Being unalone is a quality of relation.

You can't be unalone unless something else exists.

The sum totality of those things which exist, form a collection of
objects called THE UNIVERSE, which as a whole, is alone.

'THE' universe is considered different from 'A' universe which may
be any sub universe within the grand totality of all universes which we
call THE universe.

As such, THE UNIVERSE includes all possible existing universes,
past, present and future, and outside of which there is nothing.

Qualities of relation can not exist except in the presence of
qualities of being. You have to at least exist as something (beingness)
before you can be in relation to something else.

Therefore qualities of relation imply qualities of being.

Qualities of being however do not imply qualities of relation.

Many qualities that are considered to be qualities of being are
actually qualities of relation. Weight is an example, we say 'it is
heavy', but weight is a relationship between an object and a
gravitational field of another object. An object can not have weight
when it is alone.

Or we say 'It is red'. But in the physical universe, 'redness' is
actually a causal relation between the object and the photons that
bounce off of it.

In a conscious picture though, redness is a quality of being, as
there are no photons or similar mechanisms involved in the perception of
self luminous conscious pictures.

In the assumed physical universe, the only way one object can learn
about another object is by being the effect of the other object's cause.
This is called Learning by Being an Effect.

In other words the only way A can learn about B is for B to be
cause and effect A. B causes a change in state in A. The change in
state in A IS the learning that A does about B.

If B causes nothing to A, then A can never learn anything about B
no matter how much A might cause things to B.

Since the only contact A has with B is via causal connection, the
only thing that A can learn about B are causal relations, namely how B
causes effects in A.

However since a change in state HERE alone does not imply the
existence of cause THERE, A can never be certain of anything about B
even if B IS causing things in A. All A has are its own changes in
state from which it can deduce back to the existence of B, IF A assumes
that all effects or changes in state are caused.

It is impossible to prove that a change in state is caused, solely
by changing state in response to a cause. In other words, changing
state in response to a cause, is not sufficient to prove that the change
in state was CAUSED.

Changes in state do not, in and of themselves, prove the existence
of CAUSE.

Therefore if A is limited to Learning by Being an Effect, A can
never be certain there is anything causing those effects.

Correlation does not prove causation.

Effect does not prove cause.

If you learn only by being an effect, by looking at the effects or
changes in state in yourself of those causes, you can never be certain
of cause.

Since the human soul is capable of certainty of cause, both of its
own personal causal agency, and of the causal agency of its conscious
color form, it follows that the soul is not learning about this
causation by Learning by Being an Effect.

However since the ONLY way anything can learn across an actual
space or time would be Learning by Being an Effect, it follows that when
the soul is learning about cause it is not learning across a space or
time. Thus the soul is not a space time machine.

Thus any causation of which the soul is certain can not be
separated from the soul by any extension in space or time. Thus the
claim that the certainty of certainty unit is a zero dimensional
operating actuality.

Further it should be noted that there is no time delay between
cause and direct perception of cause, as there is between cause and
perception of effect.

Learning by Looking at Effect can not produce certainty of Cause,
where as Learning by Looking at Cause can.

The actual mechanism by which a soul learns about cause is unstated
at this time, but it is not modelable by known space time processes,
which are all learning by being and looking at effect.

We will however give it a name, Learning by Looking at Cause, to
distinguish it from Learning by Looking at Effect.

Qualities of relation can not be destroyed except by transformation
into other qualities of relation, EXCEPT if you destroy one or more of
the qualities of being that were in relation.

If two objects are NEXT TO each other (quality of relation) you can
not destroy the 'next to' relation except by transforming it into some
other relation like ON TOP OF, unless you destroy some or all of the
qualities of being of the objects whose qualities of being were in
relation.

In other words the only way that qualities of relation come and go
is by coming from some other quality of relation and going into some
other quality of relation.

It is this fact that gives people the impression that they are
mortal and will die one day. They conceive themselves to be a
multiplicity of parts in relation to each other. They feel also that
their personal life depends on those parts being in a certain narrowly
defined sets of relations, called a living body. It's no good to have
your parts spread out all over the known universe. The parts are all
there, the relations are all there, but not THE relations necessary for
a person to consider that he exists.

This of course has to do with functionality. Any system of things
in relation have some measure of functionality that is a function of
their relation. If you change the relation you change the
functionality. The functionality of being 'alive' is more desirable
than the functionality of being dead. Both are functional, but the
being considers that only alive can he be conscious and enjoy himself.

However the conscious unit is not a multiplicity of parts, it is a
single zero dimensional operating actuality, therefore its own internal
relations, if indeed it has any, can not change. Thus it can not die.
It however is occupying very convincingly an apparent illusion of a
multiple dimensional operating reality called a body, which is a
multiplicity of apparent parts.

As long as the conscious unit thinks it IS a body, it will continue
to think it will die when the body dies, or seek strange goals like
making the body immortal. A Fragile Immortality at best.

Actually though when the body dies, you don't die with it, you wake
up. Usually with quite a jolt. You were wrong after all, and you were
quite an asshole about it too.

Objects which have a subset of qualities common and unique to them
can be grouped into classes. The subset of qualities that defines a
class is called the Pertinent Quality Set of that class.

Every object implies an object quality set.

Every class implies a pertinent quality set.

Pertinent qualities are those qualities that are both common and
unique to the objects in that class.

Commonness means that every object in that class has the pertinent
quality set as a subset of its object quality set.

Uniqueness means that every object that has the pertinent quality
set is in the class.

Words can be object-labels, quality-labels and class-labels.

Black is a quality label.

Dog is a Class label.

Joey, my black dog, is an object label.

Objects are classified as dogs because of a common and unique set
of qualities that all dogs share and only dogs share, which is what
makes a dog a dog, and is the pertinent quality set of the class of
dogs.

Joey my dog, and dogs in general have many other qualities besides
those that make them a dog. But if its a dog, then it must have the
base set of qualities that make it a dog, and everything that has those
base qualities is also a dog.

Any object quality set or pertinent quality set can contain the
quality that it does NOT have some other quality.

One might chose for political reasons to define a 'human being' as
someone who has all the usual characteristics and who also does NOT
indulge in child molestation, cannabalism, or serial murder.

Christians, who are enjoined to love their neighbor, routinely
define neighbor as someone who is not a Jew.

Any object quality set or pertinent quality set can contain
qualities of being or qualities of relation.

Since an object can't have a quality of relation if it is alone, it
follows that somethings are defined only by their relation to other
things. A 'My Mate' is such an object that can exist as a mate only by
virtue of its relation to another, or in other words, its unaloneness.

The words object, quality and class are all class labels.

Statements of fact are statements of the form,

Quality belongs to Object, (Object statement)

Object belongs to Class. (Class statement)

Truth is a quality of relation between a statement of fact and a
given specified actuality.

In this usage here the word FACT does NOT imply truth. A statement
of fact may be either true or false depending on the given specified
actuality. The term 'statement' and the phrase 'statement of fact' are
equivalent and interchangeable.

There are 4 kinds of statements

1.) Definitional statements

"A nothing is not a something".

Definitional statements are those statements whose truth must be
determined by looking at the definitions of the words and not by
observation, logic or intuition.

2.) Observational statements

"This house is red."

Observational statements are those statements whose truth must be
determined by actual observation of a given specified actuality and not
by definition, logic or intuition.

2.) Logical statements (Tautology)

"Either I exist or I don't exist."

Logical statements are those statements whose truth or falsity can
be determined by address to logic alone, and not by address to
definition, observation, or intuition.

3.) Intuitional statements

"Something can't come from nothing."

Intuitional statements are those statements whose truth or falsity
can only be determined by intuition and not by address to definitions,
observation or logic.

From these four kinds of statements I would proffer that all
possible thinking and reasoning may proceed.

For example.

1.) Something can't come from nothing (intuition statement)
2.) Something exists now (observation statement)
QED 3.) Something has always existed (logical deduction
from 1 and 2.)

Another example,

1.) There is only one nothing, all nothings are the same nothing,
and all nothings are identical. (Definitional statement) QED 2.) If A
is a nothing and B is a nothing, then A is identical to B. QED 3.) If
A and B are different, then one or both are not nothings.

Another example,

If A changes and B doesn't, then A is not B.
(We leave the derivation up the reader.)

Another example,

If A changes, then A either was or is a something.

Reason is therefore what you DO with your statements once you have
them. So of course reason is king once it has some meat to grind.

To say that reason is not king, is to say that IS means ISN'T, in
which case your statement that reason IS NOT king means the same as
reason IS king, so why talk?

If IS and ISN'T don't mean different things, then they must mean
the same thing, in which case if reason isn't king, then reason is king,
so of course reason is king no matter how your work it.

Reason is a tool with which we draw inferences and make
conclusions. As such it is absolute and inviolable.

But reason is not sufficient to tell us what IS. We need
definitions, observation, logic AND intuition to get what is. Then with
that in hand, we can use reason to determine what else is or might be.

Reason is the meat grinder. Reason is not the meat.

They have no evidence that the physical universe exists.

It's not even a good model for what has been observed to exist.

Namely CERTAINTY OF CAUSE.

>How would you evaluate the following assertion?
>"If you want to know something, don't think about it, pervade it."

Thinking is usually number crunching on your facsimiles taken from
prior observation.

Pervasion is a form of observation. It's finding out about
something by BEING it. OT's can do this literally, us humans can do it
to some degree in our mind.

Thinking is applying reason to the meat.

Pervasion and other forms of looking are what provide the meat.

Homer

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================== http://www.lightlink.com/theproof ===================
Learning implies Learning with Certainty or Learning without Certainty.
Learning across a Distance implies Learning by Being an Effect.
Learning by Being an Effect implies Learning without Certainty.
Therefore, Learning with Certainty implies Learning, but
not by Being an Effect, and not across a Distance.