Q&A

Q: "The only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever even thought of it." is this necessarily true? what about all of the concepts that seem exist prior to our discovery or "awareness" of it? The field of mathematics, the numbers, concepts or sequences and series that infinitely exist, are we creating the patterns or do you think the patterns exist and we discover them?"

A: “The only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever even thought of it.” Is this necessarily true? What about all of the concepts that seem exist prior to our discovery or “awareness” of it?

In short, something that exists now or in the past or future “exists” and therefore does not “not exist”. For something to “not exist at all” means that it never existed and never will exist, so math and the like that you’ve mentioned simply do not fall under this category. But of course that’s just another “definition” with zero relevance to “necessary truth” whatever that means, and right now I’m only arguing for the sake of the definition of “non-existence” I’ve created, which is in the grand search for meaning, supremely pointless, although not necessarily uninteresting.

On the other hand, whether mathematics, logic, and the like are “discovered” or “invented” is up to personal interpretation. There is no way of proving it, and since proof is based on logic, what it the point? Ever if we were to assume they were “discovered”, how do you know with certainty that they “existed” prior to discovery? The whole point is the existence of anything outside of awareness, whether in the past or future (or that would be non-sensical anyways because does time really exist outside of awareness anyways?), cannot be proved or disproved.

Perhaps you could try and distinguish things this way: that which has been “discovered” and exists in the present moment exists or does not exist with uncertainty in the past when it was not yet “discovered”. But in order for something to not exist definitively, it must not exist in any time, not in the past, now, or future, i.e. if can never “be discovered” because it does not exist, and in order for this to be true, no one must ever be able to think of if. So I suppose a slightly better way of trying to word it might be “the only way for something to “not exist at all” is for no one to have ever thought of it or ever be capable of thinking of it.” - which includes not only its possibility of existing in the past but also in the future.

I guess some people argue that the only things that “exist” are the things that exist in the “present moment”, but I don’t know what that means because I have no idea what “present moment” means or if it’s possible to have an infinitesimally small increment of time or if time even exists, and the existence of time outside of human perception can neither be proved nor disproved so long as you’re perceiving as a human. And of course this once again becomes a debate about what the word “exist” is defined as and the many other problematic words with definitions that it comes with.

Q: Why is it that various geologically isolated cultures “created”/”discovered” the same abstract patterns?

A: How should I know? Maybe it’s a property of the brain? Maybe we’re all aliens? Maybe we’re just all the same person? Maybe those things existed somewhere in the universe before? Etc., etc., I could come up with as many theories as I desire, but none of them could be “proven”, could they? And even if they could, what is the point of “proof”? What is “proof”?

Opposites and Field

What is the difference between presence and absence if there is no definite way of defining the properties of the background? On a separate note, the naming of a charge as positive or negative is completely arbitrary, and there is no inherent absence or presence of “charge” in that sense just because the electron has been arbitrarily decided to carry a “negative” charge. Both positive and negative charge carriers carry charge, they just happen to be opposite charges (whatever that means) and cancel each other out when present in equal quantities. Same goes for particles and anti-particles, they’re the exact same thing except in the presence of equal quantities of both, there are no particles. Ok, that’s just for things that have an exact opposite, but that’s not really what the question is asking at all - what about things that don’t have opposites, where the only contrast is the absence of that thing?

What the hell am I talking about? Well, photons, for example, have no anti-particle. The presence of photons indicates the presence of light in an otherwise photon-less background (which is defined as a non-photon saturated.. “space”, I guess). In a dark room I see a beam of light, but what is the difference between seeing a beam of light in a dark room and seeing a dark line in an otherwise light (i.e. photon) saturated room? Seems like a pretty stupid question - obviously in one room there are more particles present (and at the opposite locations) than the other, but what if you just change your definitions such that “particle” actually means “absence of background (i.e., empty space?)” and “background” to mean “absence of particle” (assuming that the background in the second room is completely saturated by photons, which I don’t really know what that means, but anyhow..)?

What about just talking about the universe of a perceiver? So, when you walk into a room with a fan on and you stay there sufficiently long and then you turn the fan off, then suddenly you “hear” silence, which really just means all of a sudden you realize that you were actually in a room where the background was filled with sound waves, and then you sensed the absence of sound waves. When you turn the fan back on, you then hear the fan because the background was the absence (rather than) presence of sound waves. In other words, unless there is a disturbance to the state of the room, you would never know what was present or what was absent, and once there is, it’s only a matter of definition of whether hearing things is a matter of “hearing” or “not hearing”. That is, if we’re only concerned about how things are perceived (which is all we could ever be concerned about anyways), then there should be no difference between saying “when I hear people talk I’m hearing sounds” vs “when I hear people talk I’m hearing silence” depending on your definition of sound and silence. 

So whatever, what relevance does that have to anything at all? Is the background in the above image actually black or white? Keyword being “actually”. This is a trick question, but not really, it’s just a stupid question because what do you mean by “actually”? The question assumes that there exists independently (of perception) an “actual” universe where there are definite truths (which may or may not be true) but in any case is completely meaningless to argue since you CAN’T know the answer. Usually however, there is either more “presence” or more “absence”, and the one of which there is more we call “background”. (So in this case, I guess most people should think the background is white. But again, this is a rather meaningless distinction - black board, white board, who cares? as long as you can read the words.)

So what’s the point? Indeed, what IS the point? Is the presence of meaning only meaningful if we assume an entire universe of meaningless background or is the absence of meaning the only actual meaning that is present in the universe where every infinitesimally small occurrence is incredibly meaningful? More simply put, what does “meaning” mean? Do I really care? Reader - do you feel the official feeling of “trippiness”? Or should I say, the lack thereof, assuming that there is no real reason why some experiences of perception should be categorized as “trippier” just because the other experiences were experienced more regularly? Does anyone know why people are so distinctively unphased by the “usual” when there is clearly just as much of a reason to feel bewildered by what you usually experience as there is to what isn’t usually experienced? Naturally, the subsequent discussion would be of “what does it really mean to be good or bad”, but I leave that to the future and proceed to -

The Higgs field. Standard Model says that this is what gives particles their mass - the “presence” of a ubiquitous field. But if a field is everywhere, what’s the difference between being there and not being there? Seems like a stupid question - charges behave differently in the presence of an electric field - but then what’s the point of supposing the “presence” (i.e., existence, but I don’t know what existence means, we’ll skip that for now) of a “field”. Well, I suppose a field is (obviously) just another mathematical construct, an “interpretation” of “what is there” but then again “what is there” is/can only be what you define (and furthermore believe) to be there, right? What do I know? I need a better understanding of field (theories).

Turning a sphere inside out

Math is weird. How do you even begin to imagine how entire universes of concepts are translated into weird manipulations of.. variables? It’s kind of like language, it’s a miracle that language could convey anything at all. In fact it doesn’t, does it? But people (well, most people at least) seem to even “think” in language. No wonder no one ever came up with anything terribly insightful. Well, even if they did, they’d have no way of communicating it, would they? Well that’s a relief.

Fractals

I think that fractals are the coolest and/or only thing(s) in the universe. They’re so cool and weird… I want the ability to see fractals everywhere, recursion, that stuff, but the weird part is that we’re (“we”) already experiencing fractals everywhere, aren’t we? Well, I shouldn’t talk about reality as if it existed as just one single thing for “us”. I mean “my” universe and reality in which I already know that everything’s just going to exist the way I believe it to because I believe that if I believe a belief then it is reality, these circular things..

But if it’s always going to be this conclusion anyways, why do I even bother to think about it? I guess it’s just fun to get lost. I don’t care about answers. I only seek them for the sake of not being able to find them. Please, the last thing I want is an answer. All I want to do is keep on thinking.

(Side note: I think I should probably do a fractal inspired collection for my next project.)

One and Zero

What is the nature of numbers? What do numbers mean? How can numbers exist? How can anything besides the number one exist? Everything is a multiple of one thing, but slicing one thing in half gives you two, two of one, and there is always still a one, nothing else but “two” ones, not a “two”, but “two” “ones”. One has a fundamentally different property than two, three, or so one. Anything above “one” is only an invented “concept”. One is the only thing that exists, and multiplying it or dividing it only gives you more of “one” but nothing else.

But you cannot do anything without something to start with, that is, only ones can come out of ones, and only zeros can come out of zeros, but what does it mean to multiply or divide anything by a zero? The difference between a zero and a one is that one exists, and one does not exist at all. One signifies everything and anything, and zero signifies nothing at all. So are zero and one the only things that exist objectively? Must they be objective? But how could zero and one be subjective? How could existing and not existing be subjective? 

(And then a strange feeling of existence like computers, everything as computers, and codes, patterns as everything.)