Humans have invented the very useful concept that there are separate things in the universe, many of which have edges (or boundaries) that separate them from other things. But it’s probably wise to often remember that words like edge, boundary and thing are just maps . . . they are not the territory. They are models that work well for adult homo sapiens these days, but they are not the real thing, and probably not the way the universe is seen by a tree, a worm, a dog or a newborn baby. My guess is that these other things don’t have internal verbal monologues or “egos”, so they don’t see themselves as things that have a separate identity apart from their environment (or the evolving universe, or the Cosmic Dance, or God, or whatever you want to call All-That-Is-Happening).
So today I’ve been playing with the idea that, on a deep, philosophical level, nothing has a clear-cut, definite, discrete edge, or boundary, that separates it from other things in three dimensional space or in the time dimension. What we perceive as edges are mushy, imaginary, fictional. and useful . . . but misrepresent the way things actually are . . . or, since I am unsure what the abstract, fictional, imaginary concept of “existence” means, the way the universe is actually happening. This is a holistic, or monistic, or pantheistic model of reality.
Fundamental “physical” particles such as an electron or an up-quark act as if they have a three dimensional size, because when you watch streams of them passing each other sometimes it appears as if there is a collision. So they seem to have a “collision cross section” or diameter. So we tend to think of an electron as a “thing” like a billiard ball with a finite size, with an inside to it and an outside to it, and with the boundary between the two being an imaginary sphere with infinitesimal thickness. The electron is the stuff inside the sphere, and it exists within an environment, or space, that is not the electron (i.e. the complementary set to that particular electron).
But some scientists, including me, believe that fundamental particles are actually points of infinitesimal dimension, which have a finite probability of being (or happening) in many places at once (at many different discrete, quantized energy levels) according to a probability function, surrounded by gravitational and electromagnetic fields that extend out to ‘touch’ or fill the entire universe (albeit with rapidly decreasing strength). If particles are infinitesimal, it seems true to me these days that there is no physical “stuff” inside an electron or anywhere in the evolving universe. I’m proposing that there are no things that take up, or fill up, a 3 dimensional space. There are no “material” things . . . or immaterial things. There is no stuff that exists, there are no discrete or independent things happening, there is just The Divine Cosmic Dance happening.
Moving up a few levels, I would say that there is no discrete boundary between a neutron (which is usually thought to consist of 3 tiny quarks traveling around in a spherical space) and the rest of an atom. And there is no discrete edge to any atom . . . they extend out to fill the universe. And there is no real edge to a water molecule, the Atlantic Ocean, a hemoglobin molecule, my mind, my heart, “myself”, a cloud, the atmosphere, a star, or a galaxy. Most cosmologists would claim that even our universe is finite in size and expanding but does not have a boundary or edge.
What am I? Where do I stop and the universe begin? Do I have a discrete existence in space or in time? At what point in time did I start to exist? When I was just a thought in my grandfather’s mind? When one of my dad’s sperm penetrated one of my mom’s eggs? When the doctor cut my umbilical cord? Or when I developed a sense of a separate self between the ages of 6 and 14 months? Am I the same person I was when I was 3 years old? I think not. Legally Edward D. Miller is all that is happening that is centered in this space and in this time, and I will stop existing 3 minutes after my heart stops beating. And I am the husband of my wife and the father of my sons. On a more scientific level, I am an unique, continually evolving, open living system that is currently metabolizing nutrients so as to be self-organizing and self-sustaining . . . so as to maintain my integrity. I am a unique subsystem happening amidst The Big System—the evolving measurable and unmeasurable (physical and metaphysical) energy fields that we call the unfolding of the Universe. I don’t have a discrete edge in time or space, but I am certainly centered in this space and in this time, not in Paris or in 1880. I am not my body, my mind, my heart or my soul, but they are useful words to describe imaginary, fictional aspects of me. I have a sense that I am that which, when I am conscious, has a privileged awareness of “my” sensations and thoughts (which seem to happen in a fictional thing called my mind) and feelings (which happen in another fictional thing called my heart). To the extent that I love something or somebody, my separateness from them (and my happiness and well-being vs. theirs) diminishes. Mystics often try to love God, which, in a way, is realizing their oneness or lack of separateness from God (the Divine Cosmic Dance).
These days I’m an idealist and not a Platonist, so I believe that edges and boundaries are imaginary, fictional concepts that we have invented (and not discovered), just like points, lines, perfect circles, and the numbers pi and infinity. (Btw, the definition of boundary, also called frontier in mathematics, is the collection of all points of a given set having the property that every neighborhood of each point contains points in the set and in the complement of the set (i.e. points not in the set). If you ponder this definition awhile, it certainly makes sense as a useful, abstract math concept that depends upon the ‘existence’ of points, which themselves come into existence in so far as they are, indeed, defined to exist in the language or paradigm of math. Perhaps just by imagining points, or boundaries, or circles in a Euclidian space, in a way they do thereby have an ‘existence.’ But just because we can imagine that things exist (e.g. circles, hearts, souls, the Devil, justice, truth, good luck and Leprechans), or are true, doesn’t mean they actually exist or are actually true in an objective sense. I guess things exist in different ways, to different degrees.
Things are certainly more complicated than they seem. Our models are good, but not great. Many things are ineffable, unknowable . . . but it’s a fascinating game to ponder the nature of reality! We certainly shouldn’t believe everything we think; doing so leads to many of our problems. Too often we think we are right, and our models are right. But we’re not as sharp as we think, and our models will need to continually evolve as we seek ways of thinking that are more skillful and true. And, the zen master would wisely point out, perhaps models, concepts and words need to be dispensed with altogether for us to really ‘get it,’ or be enlightened. Goooonnnnggggg . . . .
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