Philosophical Speculations

Bernardo says in part 2 of More Than Allegory that there is no such thing as objective space or time. He talks about how it is impossible to define space or time without the definition being circular, so these words don’t actually point to anything “out there”. I agree with him.

If there’s no space or time beyond subjective human mentation, then there is no real personal, individual self who could have free will, or even act at all, because no events actually unfold in reality. Only the one spaceless, timeless mind-at-large exists, and nothing ever happens. This would also mean that mind-at-large doesn’t have free will, because without space or time there are no events to act out; there is just its pure, raw existence.

Thoughts?

Ah, but mental space for thoughts and dreams must exist. Why? Because we experience thoughts and dreams.

Ben, that’s pretty interesting. I don’t deny that we experience thoughts and dreams, that would be silly. I’m also intrigued by the idea of there being a mental space where thoughts and dreams are experienced. But they don’t take place anywhere but within mind-at-large, where time doesn’t exist. If this is true, then mind-at-large would be completely changeless. So nothing actually unfolds over time in mind-at-large, which means all thoughts and dreams would happen within the timelessness of mind-at-large. They’re not events “happening”, they just exist in mind-at-large outside of time. At least from how I can see it, without time the thoughts and dreams do not move or change. They just exist in the timelessness of the Now.

This would mean, again at least from how I can see it, that nothing ever really happens over the course of time, because there is no course of time. Everything that “is, was, or will be” simply is within the changeless Absolute.

"Nothing has ever happened. Nothing has ever existed. The world never came into existence or disappeared from it. That place is my real home. It is where I always am. One can say this with authority only when one abides in that ultimate place."

Ramana Maharshi

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:55 am Ah, but mental space for thoughts and dreams must exist. Why? Because we experience thoughts and dreams.

Is "mental space" something else than thoughts and dreams, a different category? So, how do thoughts and dreams exist?

SanteriSatama wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 1:44 pm

Ben Iscatus wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 10:55 am Ah, but mental space for thoughts and dreams must exist. Why? Because we experience thoughts and dreams.

Is "mental space" something else than thoughts and dreams, a different category? So, how do thoughts and dreams exist?

I think the early Buddhist ideas of the Abidhamma explain this well. There isn't a space as such, more an apparent series of 'frames' made up of the 5 aggregates of experience.

I good analogy for this is a computer drive. All data is stored on one single decice, yet it can only be accessed one part at a time.
Or we could think of the dreamer with one singular mind, with all its content projected via the avatar one thing at a time.

Just like a film real this generated the illusion of space and time. All appearing in the timeless and spaceless.

Starbuck wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:06 pm I think the early Buddhist ideas of the Abidhamma explain this well. There isn't a space as such, more an apparent series of 'frames' made up of the 5 aggregates of experience.

I checked the SEP. Very Bergsonian discussion of philosophy of time.

PaulMichael wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:33 am Bernardo says in part 2 of More Than Allegory that there is no such thing as objective space or time

Space and time do not have sense data. Neither color, smell, taste, sound or feel. So they cannot be objects and therefore cannot in any case be objective. All objects that can be considered to be a representation of something outside the mind, have at least one of these sense data.

Mandibil wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 6:53 pm

PaulMichael wrote: ↑Wed Jan 20, 2021 4:33 am Bernardo says in part 2 of More Than Allegory that there is no such thing as objective space or time

Space and time do not have sense data. Neither color, smell, taste, sound or feel. So they cannot be objects and therefore cannot in any case be objective. All objects that can be considered to be a representation of something outside the mind, have at least one of these sense data.

There are certainly qualitative properties to space and time, ones that we have all experienced. There is no good reason to conclude the overall field of qualities is limited by the five sense categories.

Everything has already happened. An objective reality does exist as information. It was simulated by a Creator before experiencing it first-person from all PoVs.