The Extremes of Thought

the extremes of thought:

"you know i can't say it's true for everyone, but i think it tends to be that when people think, they think in extremes, in superlatives, or that something applies to everything. it's like they add words like "all" or "infinite" or "maximum", something like that. an example, the word "god", i mean that gives the impression of a person who is all powerful, all seeing, knows everything, infinite magical powers, present everywhere and so on. or when people make generalizations about nationalities, or gender, etc., it's like, without actually saying it, they're still implying it's true about everyone. it's like a common fallacy of thought."

"well, "god" is an extreme example, it's just that the word has that impact, you know? it just suggests all that naturally. but maybe that's why people don't believe in god, put like that, it's hard to imagine anyone really being that powerful. i mean what if a lesser version of a god existed, like just people who were powerful in ancient times, you know, who did things that determine what the present is today, like inventors or creators, but then again, maybe you wouldn't call them gods, i don't know. i mean it occurred to me, i had this idea that maybe someone drew a picture of a cat in ancient times and then cats appeared after that, you know something more prosaic like that. but anyway, i think the truth is that it's hard to think of exceptions or that something is only partially true, simple thought tends to initially assume the statement is generally true, that it's qualified by the word "all"."

"like space, for me, it's hard to imagine that real space, this reality, is infinite in size. i mean theoretically, the universe, which would be virtual if the external world were an illusion, could be infinite but that's only because the space of the universe is not real space. it's far easier for me to imagine and believe that the size of reality is finite. i mean maybe my own personal bubble in space, if you like, is part of the outer limit of real space and i sense there is nothing beyond that, who knows? but there are far more questions about time."

"here we go. time is change. real space is made up of discrete particles of matter and these change. that's what time is."

"or least bits of matter. even mental things are matter. everything in real space is matter."

"so it's sort of like philosophical idealism for you but mental is material, is a form of matter, in your concept. the problem for you is that the state of the language at present assumes materialism, "matter" generally means something else, something that exists in an external world, and therefore as it is, mental is not "material", is not "matter", to a lot of people, if that makes any sense."

"it's just that it's far simpler to call everything that exists truly in real space, matter."

"anyway, at least some of these least bits of matter change and in all time is a set of states that these can have, right?"

"yes, you can't assume that everything changes. the question is whether an individual least bit of matter's set of states is infinite or finite, i mean, even if change is discrete, theoretically you wonder still if the set were infinite."

"that's confusing because if the set were infinite, it would suggest that time would be continuous, because if change were continuous, obviously the set would be infinite, but maybe not the other way round, an infinite set does not necessarily mean that time is continuous. but i agree theoretically even if change were discrete, the set might still be infinite. but emotionally speaking, would i prefer to live in infinite change or finite? i mean first, you think, finite, well maybe that's not so good, i'm being limited, but then you think infinite, well, that includes all bad things as well, so rationally maybe it's not such a good idea? i think the length of time a state could last also changes. obviously, like, we can vary the length of time between blinks, for example, while still looking at the same thing, something like that."

"it's like a grand tapestry of life where everything that could happen is depicted in one huge picture, that's what finite is."

"and the whole question of immortality and death, though. again we can't help but think in extremes, what is immortality? perfect health, infinite time, free from illness and physical damage, fine food, beautiful gardens, wonderful life, etc. again, it makes it hard to believe in. and death, my thinking gets very confused. first what would it be in a metaphysical sense? when something ends? well what is time if not everything ending and becoming something else? and if you tried to stay the same forever, wouldn't that be the death of time? isn't there a contradiction there? time is a killer, it kills off the past? i mean what could real immortality, that is the opposite of death, what could it be?"

"but time repeats, at the micro level, and maybe even as a whole, at what you could call the end of time. this time now, unless it's a complete repeat already, like it's actually the year 40 trillion or something and we've already done like 300 repeats of this life but we still think the date is 13 billion or even Year 442 going into Year 443, it's a time of great change in general. actually hopefully it's just a once through event, i really don't want to repeat this lifetime."

"yes. maybe time is very "thin" now and this is not to be repeated, like once on earth is enough, never mind having to repeat this lifetime over and over again. but we think finite, and then little, but even if time were finite in a metaphysical sense the numbers are still huge. but back to thinking in general, we tend to think the word "all" about statements, but time and space make a difference, like maybe something is only true sometimes and not others and maybe something is only true somewhere else."

"like maybe it's true for someone else, somewhere else, but it's not true for me. also what about overestimation, something's true but it's not really that important?"

"well that's a problem of the mind, we can only focus on a few things or even one thing at a time consciously and everything we think, it blows up in our minds, so we overestimate it's importance. it's like, something was a huge deal when i was sixteen, but now i think, what was i thinking? and the mind is a fickle thing, because in actuality, we forget, we can't keep things in our conscious mind, but that's just time for you."

CLEARCHARGE