The Infinate, bounded
If you consider a simple pattern that can repeat itself (seemingly) into infinity. Any information required for all potential complexity, that might evolve through repetition, must exist within the initial pattern.
That's what I call binding the infinite, and as far as I have been able to "figure out" thats what we are.
An expression of infinity (we can be anything) bounded by our perceptions.
Perspective is everything.
So my potential is limitless, it is my reality that limits me.
My connectome is my reality, only a part of the whole.
Of course, as with any "expression" what you see draws you into it's complexity, when the pattern is all you need to look at. Thats what all the details of the day are attached to.
Replies to This Discussion
-
Permalink Reply by Mark Kusek on
-
The universe as One fractally individes.
Our individuality results as formation beholding that paradoxic pattern of indivision: the apparent image of the imageless in all it's multifarious diversity of type that we each interpretively see as our unique individual psychocosmic view including all of our relationships (i.e. your connecttome) to the rest of the observable parts.
This dynamic is largely mediated through language and the ways we variously describe what we view of ourselves and our relationships to apparent externals.
This is the manifest appearance of the One thing in the field of time and space (maya),
The limitations of our senses and our minds only ever allow us to view or know part of it, like a flashlight (consciousness) shining in the dark (unknown or the unconscious) looking at an infinitely repeating fractal pattern by direct observation of a part of it and trying to intuit the implicate order.
To me what you are saying also implies that our individuality is interdependent with this whole, rooted in the whole.
As in, where is the individual daffodil in the field full of them?
Individual participation is like a view from within - out from any one particular jewel in Indra's Net of Gems into the manifest environment of the fractal Net, both actively participating as well as being an object of appearance and reflection for the views of others, to put it poetically.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indra%27s_net
This is very akin to some HuaYen Buddhist notions such as coalescence and interprenetration:
-
-
Hi David,
Here's a funny thought.
The "pattern" that you refer to in your opening statement, is IMO, symbolized in the set of graphical, geometric, senzar glyphs that HPB describes as painted on palm leaves in an archaic manuscript in the proem to her Secret Doctrine.
I have been having quite an interesting sustained discussion on another forum about these glyphs, direct experience with their referents and practical application of the symbology as ritual instrument.
The symbology seems both multivalent and polysemic, In practical application it yields interesting utilities.
It seems like it is a pattern inherent in space.
Not unlike the various wave and crystalization patterns that naturally inhere as the potential of water and are more or less characteristic of water's differentiated, elemental nature or svabhava.
I would agree with you and venture so far as to say that to me, it is this pattern that "fractally individes" - it's appearance seems to be a necessary precondition for any subsequent manifestation or formation to occur, whether there is an observer or not.
That pattern must first establish a field for what comes subsequently into being and form, or no differentiation can occur, let alone be then available to senses or mind to be discerned by a manfest observer.
And so in a certain view of consideration, it defines the field of manifestation or is an apt symbol for the entire universe, the whole (holon) as well as the interdependance of it's fracatlly related parts.
Monas Monadum.
This field (which is just one way to attempt to talk about it) seems almost like an energic chassis for whatever may subsequently come into manifestation from space. It seems to have the potential of all number, all geometries, all colors, all language, all meaning, etc.
The symbols themselves seem to be able to bridge form and formlessness, and to offer access to both participating, observable relationality ... and nonduality.
It can be typographically glyphed algebraically as follows
( )
( . )
( + . - )
( . )
( )
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
An aside, and a bit different; take Brahman, Shiva and Vishnu (the Trinity) you can get all 7 combinations of the GodHead
(B), (S), (B,S), (B,S,V), (S,V), (B,V) and (V) i.e. complete 7 combinations of expression. Then you can have the empty set () as the beginning before the beginning. Basically a set with 3 objects has 2**3 = 8 subsets. It is a nice combinatorial aspect to think about.
-
-
yep, permutations
-
-
( )
( . ), ( - ), ( . - ), ( + . - ), ( + . ), ( + - ) , ( + )
( / ), ( x ), ( x / ), ( x / X ), ( / X ), ( x X ), ( X )
( )
-
ModeratorPermalink Reply by John on -
getting back to the thread. The Indra's web (or net) is interesting. That, the structure, may be considered bounded because the structure is mainly individuals and is in a sense repeating by/because the set of individuals is bounded; there may be any number of individuals, even infinite
However - each drop (individual at the vertices) is actually not limited but of infinite unbounded potential in and of itself. The individual is unbounded possibly (likely).
Also the Fractal analogies always seem like a model that is limited because of the chosen model and not the reality. i.e. the model is bad.
perhaps the structure is not the thing to look at, at all.The synergy of the whole comes into play. The final enveloped "space" within which this structure is placed may form a new entity itself which is larger than the set of all the pieces and intersections. It becomes new, and now unbounded That new larger structure may be unlimited and have its own properties.
I would avoid confusing things by saying there are a set of multiple super-structures forming another bounded net. That is just a mental game at that point.
-
-
It's all just a mental game, IMO, the whole affair: i.e., anything any of us can say.
-
Permalink Reply by David Allen on
-
I agree, everything was created out of the complexity "we" made to avoid a simple fundamental choice. (what "we" (or even "I") is changes as you move inward toward center (toward simplicity)).
-
-
Indra's web is interesting (I hadn't heard of it before), it does seem to be lacking in an essential quality.
After all the wailing and nashing of teeth, it all boils down to one fundamental choice.
Indra's web (if I am understanding the concept) has no such point.
I am confident in the fundamental choice thing because of how well it is represented in our "languages/perceptions". It is also the only "theory" I have found that stands up to the translation between languages. Having one thing be both alpha and omega as an example.
I use fractals because of peoples ambivalence to them, a more accurate model (?) would be a hologram, but people seem to get defensive about hologram. Hologram fits better because, even the smallest piece contains the information of the whole, not just the initial "pattern".
I agree that the structure is not where our focus should be, although an understanding (or at least awareness) of how our perceptions interact with it is essential.
"The final enveloped "space" within which this structure is placed..."
The "space" and the "structure" are the same thing (expressed in different languages or perceptions).
"I would avoid confusing things by saying there are a set of multiple super-structures..."
Agreed. More complexity is not the answer.
"That is just a mental game at that point."
We're living a mental game.
-
-
the theosophical monad can be considered as if it were a fractal hologram, IMO.
Don't know really what your comments about Indra's web really mean. What essential quality seems lacking in your view? What do you mean by "fundamental choice" and ""point? - are those statements supposed to relate as commentary to your conception of Indra's web? Not sure I get what you are trying to say.
-
-
As I mentioned I was unaware of Indra's web and had to look it up. I have not really had time to read a single description properly yet, let alone cross check that description against others. So it is entirely possible that my understanding of it is way off base yet.
It just seemed "uniform" to me. there doesn't seem to be an origination point within it. Everything I'm aware of (except god, the one, the one thing, whatever it is that was before) has a beginning.
If you would form Indra's web into a sphere, placing yourself at the center with a direct connection to every vertices. Now give the web infinite depth. Not exactly how I see this structure, but good enough I hope to help clarify.
-
-
Indra's Net is an interpretive metaphor used to illustrate the concepts of emptiness, dependent origination and interpenetration in Buddhist philosophy. The metaphor of Indra's Net was developed by the Mahayana school in the 3rd century scriptures of the Avatamsaka Sutra (The Flower Ornament Scripture) which contains a lengthy treatise on Buddhist Cosmology among other things. The concept of Indra's Net or Indra's Web was further developed later by the Huayan school between the 6th and 8th centuries.
One of the other metaphor's in the Avatamsake Sutra, where Indra's Net is described, is also interesting and illuminating to consider the implications of, IMO. It is the metaphor of the "World Text" - where the Buddha speaks about the idea of the world as description.
If you put both concepts together you can begin to see the fractal pattern at various different "scales" or "ranges" at local observable levels, IMO. These are almost like Kantian categories of thought in how they play a role in structuring our respective world views into "so called realities."
The addition of description adds the whole domain of linguistics and semantics, the creative power of language (i.e the Word as it reflects in man) i.e., an entire layer of activating and positing the field of possible meanings (that we create, inherit and exchange) on top of the view and fractality of the causes and conditions that underlie it - which is one possible way to look at the "meaning of the individual jewels (monads?) in Indra's net." There are objective as well as subjective aspects to it, IOW.
The mystery of One and Many.
The field of described and known apparent relativity is overlaying the natural, pristine awareness of self similarity and nondual atemporal nonlocal singularity of the holographic fractal reflection of one light on point defined vertices and their resultant implied planar surfaces.
It is almost as if our own descriptions of ourselves and others, of the world and our mental and sensual environment about us defines a set of points, vertices and resultant planar geometries that make up the individual facets of each respective jewel in Indra's Net. It is these compounded and constructed (mayavic) geometries that cause the apparent reflections seen illuminated within Indra's Net.
Language: creative, destructive, preservative, nurturing, developmental, revealing, concealing, medaditory, etc.
We regulate and structure the contents of consciousness largely by language, relating parts to parts, forming organs of meaning, thoughtforms, plexus, patterns, etc (i.e formations or the Buddhist skandha called sankhara) - activating neutral zero-points (laya centers) and creating about them, neural mandala's that are like elaborate local regional ornaments applied to or orbiting the core of a Jewel of Indra (OM MANI PADME HUM ), like so may clouds in the clear sky of the basic space of phenomenon.
© 2024 Created by Theosophy Network.
Powered by
