Induction.

Isn't true uniquity a problem for induction? For by induction there can be no evidence of that which is truely unique. And yet it is by induction that we find evidence for anything; as it is by induction that we have seen that deduction is evidential; thus all logic is undermined.??

Nothing is truly unique, everything bears resemblances to other things. Everything entwines and enmeshes. Every thing is for its part merely the recollection/s or recombination/s of other "things" and other "orders of thing-ness", degrees and scopes of apprehension, construction and (re-)creation. Perspectives embedded within perspectives, valuations wrapped within valuations.

Logic is perceiving, extracting and then integrating (making useful of) these manners of entwining/enmeshing. It is a tracing of "causality", the paths of connectedness which assist in the bringing-about of all existings. "Reason is a space carved out of the irrational", to cite Deleuze, and it will always be thus: reason is a principle around which we gather and are able to form, cohere. The "logic" of "the world", the being/reailty of the causality of what is and subsequently apprehended through and in light of itself, this is what we call reason. We are beings for whom this self-grasping under the form/s of logic is self-definitive, self-recollective, self-sustaining, self-identifying.

Uniqueness comes only after reason, after cognitive de- and re-constructions (and destructions), after wider and more powerful apprehensions have become synthesized into a more total sense of understanding. The more total this understanding is, the more also is its reason, which is to say, its power of implication -- the power of its "logic" to work/act/apply itself toward generating newness, toward synthesizing new novel beginnings and originations as well as new final endings and oblivions.

Capable wrote:

Nothing is truly unique, everything bears resemblances to other things. Everything entwines and enmeshes. Every thing is for its part merely the recollection/s or recombination/s of other "things" and other "orders of thing-ness", degrees and scopes of apprehension, construction and (re-)creation. Perspectives embedded within perspectives, valuations wrapped within valuations.

I dis agree there is at least one thing that is truely unique... The Everything... it itself is the only set of all sets including itself... they say mathematically such cannot exist and that is because there is truely only one such thing and it is All.

Abstract wrote:

Capable wrote:

Nothing is truly unique, everything bears resemblances to other things. Everything entwines and enmeshes. Every thing is for its part merely the recollection/s or recombination/s of other "things" and other "orders of thing-ness", degrees and scopes of apprehension, construction and (re-)creation. Perspectives embedded within perspectives, valuations wrapped within valuations.

I dis agree there is at least one thing that is truely unique... The Everything... it itself is the only set of all sets including itself... they say mathematically such cannot exist and that is because there is truely only one such thing and it is All.

If "they say mathematically such cannot exist" (which is true), then... on what basis do you conclude "there is truly only one such thing"? The idea of an "All" set doesn't make sense.

Capable wrote:

Abstract wrote:

Capable wrote:

Nothing is truly unique, everything bears resemblances to other things. Everything entwines and enmeshes. Every thing is for its part merely the recollection/s or recombination/s of other "things" and other "orders of thing-ness", degrees and scopes of apprehension, construction and (re-)creation. Perspectives embedded within perspectives, valuations wrapped within valuations.

I dis agree there is at least one thing that is truely unique... The Everything... it itself is the only set of all sets including itself... they say mathematically such cannot exist and that is because there is truely only one such thing and it is All.

If "they say mathematically such cannot exist" (which is true), then... on what basis do you conclude "there is truly only one such thing"? The idea of an "All" set doesn't make sense.

it would simply need to be an infinite set... a set that contains itself and that set and that set and that set...and so on... having infinite sets within each subset and each subset in each subset... regardless of the mathematics... do you not agree that The Everything, must be unique in that by definition it is all things spoken as one thing?

From what I understand of set theory you cannot have a "set of all sets", as a set cannot write itself among the list of those elements which satisfy the conditions of itself-as-set. Once you start talking about "sets of sets" you are forming relations to relations, since s set is not a mere "grouping of elements" but rather an active relating of resemblance based on an element's satisfying the conditions of the set. To "induce" that, "There is a set which contains all sets", does this set then include itself? How can it bear a meaningful resemblance to itself, how can it enter into a relation with itself? Sets are lists which have a condition for those elements which can be included on that list. The set itself is the list (for which the 'name' or designation of the set is merely a referent, a symbol), whereas the condition of the set is the defining attribute of the list, the exclusive principle, the meaning ("If you do not satisfy this condition, you are not on this list"). To say there is a set of all sets confuses this by acting as if a set is the condition itself (this is analogous to the error of assuming that a word is its meaning), and by acting as if this condition could "enter into relationship with itself". You end up with: "There is a list which contains all lists which... contain all lists which... contain all lists which.... contain all lists which....". You get an infinite regress, because at some point you need to condition the meaning which the lists list for/in terms of.

The idea of an 'all set' is paradoxical for many reasons, not the least of which is that a "set of all sets" only makes sense with the further "set of all sets which..." meaning is included, defining what conditions these sets. To state "the set of all sets" is meaningless, it is like uttering a word which has no context or meaning but is just an unintelligible string of letters, for example, fjhhjsiojfaad. The "set of all sets" idea is such an unintelligible string of letters because it is lacking of any context or meaning from the perspective of set theory, and because it violates the rules of sets which are that a set is a list of elements which satisfy some condition. The condition "being a set" establishes an infinite regress and a void of meaning which is invoked by violating the law of sets by falsely assuming that "a set is its condition" (or, "a word is its meaning").

Capable wrote:

From what I understand of set theory you cannot have a "set of all sets", as a set cannot write itself among the list of those elements which satisfy the conditions of itself-as-set. Once you start talking about "sets of sets" you are forming relations to relations, since s set is not a mere "grouping of elements" but rather an active relating of resemblance based on an element's satisfying the conditions of the set. To "induce" that, "There is a set which contains all sets", does this set then include itself? How can it bear a meaningful resemblance to itself, how can it enter into a relation with itself? Sets are lists which have a condition for those elements which can be included on that list. The set itself is the list (for which the 'name' or designation of the set is merely a referent, a symbol), whereas the condition of the set is the defining attribute of the list, the exclusive principle, the meaning ("If you do not satisfy this condition, you are not on this list"). To say there is a set of all sets confuses this by acting as if a set is the condition itself (this is analogous to the error of assuming that a word is its meaning), and by acting as if this condition could "enter into relationship with itself". You end up with: "There is a list which contains all lists which... contain all lists which... contain all lists which.... contain all lists which....". You get an infinite regress, because at some point you need to condition the meaning which the lists list for/in terms of.

The idea of an 'all set' is paradoxical for many reasons, not the least of which is that a "set of all sets" only makes sense with the further "set of all sets which..." meaning is included, defining what conditions these sets. To state "the set of all sets" is meaningless, it is like uttering a word which has no context or meaning but is just an unintelligible string of letters, for example, fjhhjsiojfaad. The "set of all sets" idea is such an unintelligible string of letters because it is lacking of any context or meaning from the perspective of set theory, and because it violates the rules of sets which are that a set is a list of elements which satisfy some condition. The condition "being a set" establishes an infinite regress and a void of meaning which is invoked by violating the law of sets by falsely assuming that "a set is its condition" (or, "a word is its meaning").

then you simply have to come up with an alternative concept to classify the everything mathimatically you coul call it a "togetherness" which is basically the same thing as a set but of the nature wehere infinite regression is plausible allowing for the sets to contain themselves...

You still didn't answer my other question though; do you the The Everything is unique?

Abstract wrote:

You still didn't answer my other question though; do you the The Everything is unique?

I don't think we can meaningfully speak of "The Everything". The idea that we can intelligibly talk about "everything" like that makes some implicit assumptions which I do not care to make. Nor do I see a necessity for needing to speak in such terms.

Capable wrote:

Abstract wrote:

You still didn't answer my other question though; do you the The Everything is unique?

I don't think we can meaningfully speak of "The Everything". The idea that we can intelligibly talk about "everything" like that makes some implicit assumptions which I do not care to make. Nor do I see a necessity for needing to speak in such terms.

why not?

Because there are far more real, important and meaningful things to be expending my focus and thought upon. There is "real work" to be done, as humbling and perhaps depressing as that can be. This notion of "The Everything" (i.e. "God"), of the unity of all things of existence within a single idea, image, being, "set", is for me nothing but a quaint self-indulgence... but one that can so easily turn also into a self-deception and intoxication.

Why do we feel a need to think "The Everything" as if this were necessary to ground our thought, our reason, our aesthetics/valuing or our ethical sentiments? What is "The Everything" but an attempt on our part to "think the limit" and thereby cohere something against which we can now juxtapose ourselves, as thinker, as valuer, in a way that secures for us some feeling of triumph and power? But to me this act is far from truly willing or encountering a limit. Consciousness cannot ascend to this sort of contemplation of "The Everything", even if there were such a "thing". But the fact is, every thing is different, and meaning and existence are made possible through delimitation, through differencings.

We construct unifying principles and relations in order to grasp, to abstract, to derive, to create, and to pass 'unchanging' through time. This is the sense in which God becomes necessary for many people, to secure this type of ground for them. But for me, and seemingly for other powerful and ambitious thinkers as well, this idea is far too simple, easy, convenient, and, well, silly to indulge in, and to ever become effective at affording a ground for a mind sufficiently endowed with intelligence, creativity and a more honest longing for "truth".

I do not think in terms of "Everything", I think in terms of greater or lesser unifying principles... comprehensivities of concepts, objects, ideals, aim, ethics, or effect/utility.

Philosophers think they have abandoned God by instead trying to think "The Everything", but it is not so. These philosophers have merely given up a small degree of naivete as a price for remaining worshipfully before the 'divine alter'.

Despite all that, there is a much simpler answer to your question "Why not?"...: because it is not necessary.

Consciousness does not need to think the notion of "The Everything", nor does it need to will under this image, nor even to justify itself before (or in spite of) it. In fact I have found that consciousness will function much better once it becomes wholly free with respect to "The Everything".

...."If it turns out there is a God and we do meet him when we die, then we will not need to justify ourselves to him, but rather he will need to justify himself to us."

Yes I see what you are saying... i think the Buddha once said that we don't need to know god to follow the right path...or some such... I agree... but I often find my self having to struggle with the concept of God and doing so by means of "The Everything" if not simply because so many other people seem to believe in it...

Capable wrote:

...."If it turns out there is a God and we do meet him when we die, then we will not need to justify ourselves to him, but rather he will need to justify himself to us."

This is without question be the wisest and most logical saying on the subject of God I have ever come across.