I am starting to think that Einstein Ether might be worth something again...Emptiness itself Space surely cannot be...something rather then nothing if we speak in Space at all...or then just a "dimensional progressive" simulation in the Info...

I am starting to think that Einstein Ether might be worth something again...Emptiness itself Space surely cannot be...something rather then nothing if we speak in Space at all...or then just a "dimensional progressive" simulation in the Info...

I know this might seem strange to you, but to put quotes on the word "truth" is equivalent of imposing Kant's concept of noumena to appearance.

A basic feature of human thought is the drawing of distinctions. Distinctions are drawn by negation. To conceive of a horse is simultaneously to conceive of all that is not-horse.

To generate a more abstract word from less abstract words is only the simultaneously association of these words and the negation of their differences. Essence and accident.

What is this Einstein Ether you speak of?

What is this Einstein Ether you speak of?

Sorry, Reconstructo, I like you, and I like to get my freak on as much as the next guy, but this is unintelligible. Perhaps you could simplify by breaking down those loaded philosophical words into a plainer vocabulary that is more suitable to a freshman class.

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I agree. It's difficult stuff, really.

Let me try again: Words are essence. Whenever we name something, we unify sense-experience or quality by "framing" it. From a scientific point of view, the human world could be conceived as one mess of matter and energy. But that's not how we experience it.

We experience the world as a collection of objects, because this is how our mind works. It objectifies. It collects qualia under a name. This is basically the theory of Forms or Ideas.

Our idea of horse, for instance, is not limited to any particular horse but rather the name for our concept of the animal. The horse-in-general is the negation of all particular horses. These particular horses are synthesized by this negation into the general idea of horse. The idea of horse is the essence of horse. All idea is essence, it seems to me.

Even on the most concrete level, to simply consider an object as an object is to negate its surroundings as not-that-object. You can't make/synthesize an object/concept without negating what is not to be included in the idea of the object. (Objects as objects are concepts.)

It seems to me vitally important to understand what abstraction or thinking is. How are concepts made? They are cut out of their "environment" by means of negation, and this cutting-out is also a synthesis.

As paradoxical as it may sound, synthesis is impossible w/o negation. And this is why Hegel insists that the Understanding must "tarry with the negative." This also helps explain the wisdom/shrewdness in negative theology.

reconstructo
As paradoxical as it may sound, synthesis is impossible w/o negation.

.... yes. but is it possible with it?

I agree. It is hard to use a term which is not objectionable on one basis or another. "Total reality (all which is real or exists)" must include human minds and human perceptual reality as well as "external reality". Otherwise there is a story, but no storyteller. As you probably know I think mind is pervasive and inherent in reality, and individual minds (including human consciousness) is just a particular manifestation of this greater larger mental aspect of reality. The divine dwells within not just individuals but within reality itself as the rational, ordering and creative agent (mind).

Yes our minds, mind in general, is part of and has an effect upon "reality". There is no such thing as "mind independent reality" and even "external reality" versus "internal perception of reality" is in some ways an illusion or an artificial distinction. Even the distinction of "my mind" from "other minds" or of "my mind" from "the external reality" is an artificial distinction. One should not construe this to mean when any individual mind dissolves that reality disappears although a piece of reality is altered. For me of course, reality is change, flux, becoming never static "being". The universe is striving against chaos and disorder towards order, complexity, life mind and experience (bringing possibility into actuality).

We tend to define "reality" as that which is not "me". We tend to define "reality" without including "mind". We tend to tell the story and exclude the story teller. Mind for me is a fundamental property of reality, extensive and pervasive and perhaps in many ways what we call the "material" world depends upon rational intelligence (mind) for its very existence (I suppose this is a extensive form of idealism not too different from Berkeley). That is not to say that reality depends upon the existence of any particular human consciousness or any individual human mind only that they are all part of (not separate from) the larger reality.

Our individual perceptive reality is not an "illusion" but a part of the "total reality". Total reality is always a mental-material unification (neutral monism).
We divide reality into objects and space leaving out experience (mind). We divide experience into space, time and events. These distinctions are artificial mental constructs only. True reality is an interrelated interdependent whole which is composed of events, flux, and change which attempts to bring into mental experience and material existence the "ideas or forms" which constitute the primordial but not the consequent nature of the divine (Whitehead).

Really I am not taking drugs or having a flashback

Of course, this is taking the notion of a difference between appearance and reality a few steps further to discuss what "reality" itself is and in the end "total reality" includes mind and its perceptions. The question is framed from the context that the mind and its perceptions (appearance) itself is not part of "reality" and that is an error in defining "what reality is".

Fil. Albuquerque :

The second video clearly states that Einstein's theory of special relativity could not be true if there were an ether. It also says that Einstein was one of the earliest adopters of the non-ether theory - as kenneth has already stated Michaelson Morley experiment verifies this.

Aether and general relativity

"Aether and the theory of relativity"[3] was a title used by Einstein in a lecture on general relativity and aether theory. Einstein said that according to general relativity space is endowed with physical properties (the metric field), and one could use the word "ether", if one wished, to refer to this metric field, although he acknowledged that this meaning of the word "differs widely from that of the ether of the mechanical undulatory theory of light". In particular, the metric field of spacetime has no mechanical properties at all, not even a state of motion or rest. Its parts cannot be tracked over time. [4] The general attitude to this amongst physicists[who?] today is that although it is purely a matter of semantics, Einstein's comments stretch the word "aether" too far: it is argued that an "aether" with no mechanical properties doesn't correspond to the historical idea of aether, and so it is potentially misleading to apply this name to the spacetime field of general relativity.[citation needed]
[edit] Aether and quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanics can be used to describe spacetime as being "bitty" at extremely small scales, fluctuating and generating particle pairs that appear and disappear incredibly quickly. Instead of being "smooth", the vacuum is described as looking like "quantum foam". It has been suggested that this seething mass of virtual particles may be the equivalent in modern physics of a particulate aether.
[edit] Modern derivatives

In physics there is no concept considered exactly analogous to the aether. However, dark energy is sometimes called quintessence due to its similarity to the classical aether. Modern physics is full of concepts such as free space, spin foam, Planck particles, quantum wave state (QWS), zero-point energy, quantum foam, and vacuum energy.

As I said earlier I agree with most of it, but please explain why you think that a model of Reality as to be done with a constant Flux into it ? I think its counter intuitive when it comes to thinking of BEING as something defined and Eternal...of course there is entropy, but then could it be wrong ?

In a nutshell :

YouTube - Einstein Relativity theory declares aether necessary!

---------- Post added 03-01-2010 at 11:31 PM ----------

YouTube - Einstein's Thoughts on the Ether theory of relativity

How could he fail to understand now, I can't imagine. That, "tarry with the negative" casts a blinding light on the whole thing. You can't beat Hegel for lucidity.

I Know that nevertheless Aether went famous because of is findings...

What I would like to understand is how does gravity affects and distorts Space ?

Here we may part company.

The notion of "being" as primary reality goes back to early Greek philosophy. Plato fluctuated somewhat between "being" and "becoming". Hereclitus and the famous "you cannot step into the same river twice" is usually brought forth in support of "becoming".
Being has sort of dominated Western thought and theology.
God is eternal, perfect, immutable changeless.
Platonic forms are eternal, changeless, perfection.
The planets were perfect changeless spheres in perfect circular orbits.
All the assumptions that made "being" dominant were wrong by the way.

Process philosophy as presented by A.N. Whitehead asserts that "becoming" process, (moments or droplets of experience) constitute primary reality.

how can Logic be open ended ?
...Holistic perspective requires closure...

well, I could go on, but you certainly see my point...so help me change perspective.

Logic cannot be open ended, but words aren't logical, or rather they are only partially logical. The closure occurs when man becomes completely self-conscious of himself as logos, or temporality (human creative time, not animal time) in which eternity is engendered. ---by this same self-consciousness. Language(which is logos and not logic) enters the scene immersed in its environment. Synthesis as described by Hegel is the way that language "purifies" itself via negation(which is also synthesis) to create self-consciousness.

Words are the mother or pure number and the consciousness of themselves as such. You've got to understand synthesis, that words are dual-aspect, unlike number. Despite Parmenides & probably Plato: eternity the beautiful can only exist within human time, or a system of self-conscious Concept, AKA the philosopher...(the mystic is something else...for he doesn't need to dialectically justify his perception of eternity. He feels the "one"(pure abstraction or negativity) but cannot explain its engendering within time/philosophy/logos....