"If at first the idea is not absurd, then there is no hope for it." - Albert Einstein

"We often refuse to accept an idea merely because the tone of voice in which it has been expressed is unsympathetic to us." - Friedrich Nietzsche

"Everything is simpler than you think, and at the same time more complicated than you imagine." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"Thoughts are the seed of action." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

To any moderately "reasonable" person reading yesterday's blog, there would most likely have risen a slight question or two as to the state of lunacy of the mind that created it ... this in spite of the fact that a clear disclaimer was given right at the beginning that it was going to be unordinary. And yet, to any moderatley "unbiased" person reading the same blog, there would most likely have risen some degree of awareness of a relationship (in this case a 'rabbit' relationship) between what would otherwise have been very disparate, unrelated and unconnected occurences, facts and events. In other words, the concept of a rabbit offered a unifying force to a half dozen or more totally un-unified ideas, occurences or observations.

Does this beg the question that it is conceivable, to the point of saying perhaps {plausible, likely, certain....}, that ANY two seemingly-unrelated {thoughts, ideas, plans, programs, beliefs, opinions, experiments, theories.....} are always, at their furthest point of separation, only ONE connection away from each other, no matter how strong or weak the connection may turn out to be?

'is' theory answers that question with a resounding 'yes'. (Remember, 'yes' is the default answer to any and every question posed within the framework of 'is', unless intentionally overridden). Well...that sounds like a cop-out, doesn't it? I want it to answer 'yes', so I make up a rule that says it will. Look at it from the other way around (the mirror image). If the answer is 'no', then the connection between the two is that there is no connection.....and the NOT-CONNECTION is just as valid a CONNECTION as the CONNECTION. A light switch that is set to the 'off' position, preventing light from flowing into a room is still a light switch that is connected to the room and it's light source.

This is critical. The 'absence of' is merely the existence of the 'NOT-'state, and Tenet 5c) states that the two must co-exist. It is impossible to have an entity without at least having the possibility of not having the entity. It's kinda the double-negative thing. If I see a partially eaten chocolate Easter rabbit sitting on a table, am I seeing the whole rabbit? I certainly can't 'see' the part that was eaten, but the NOT-RABBIT part (the part that was eaten) now defines the RABBIT part that is left. As one increases, the other decreases, but they are mutually-defining as well as self-defining concepts, and so there always has to be a connection.

Had I not made the rabbit linkages that I did in my own mind first yesterday, and then wrote them down, and then had you read them, they would never have been connected in your mind. Ever. But now they are. So, was something invented or created that is phony or false? Is there now a "piece of connected rabbit knowledge" floating out in cyberspace waiting to latch on at one of its idea docking nodes to some other idea that someone else is having, like a rendezvous of rocket ships in space? Is this how a knowledge base is built?

More critically, does it only take one connection, or does there have to be some minimal threshold of connectedness? Put another way, when you pass anyone else on the street, you have a great deal in common with every one of them already (all the human being characteristics, for instance), but you pass right on by virtually all of them, considering them all to be strangers. Occasionally, though, you'll stop and interact with {someone you know, someone you idolize, someone who reminds you of someone else, some stranger who has a dog or a baby that you want to oogle at, some stranger who secretly sexually arouses you.......}. That would suggest that there are two sets of criteria that have to be met. They must possess some common base set of characteristics or criteria, and then that base must be elevated or distinguished from all others by another criteria. This second criteria may be a pre-established one (i.e. a picture of a wanted criminal, so all law enforcement are actively engaged in seeking out a specific set), or some that just happen to occur (you run into a long-lost friend from school days while you're shopping).

The more subtle, and less demanding state and simpler state however is that the mere passing of a stranger in a mall has created the necessary connection. The connection is time, place, space. Whether or not either of you took notice of the other is merely one of the millions of connections that could have been made that wasn't. It's the old 'pink elephant' situation. Even though it's never been known to occur in nature yet, you are right now thinking and picturing a large elephant that is a bright pink colour. You can't help it. You are now instantly connected to an African safari, the children dying of AIDS and starvation in Africa, Bob Geldolf, music, chanting, and all sites that appear in my "Favorites list", and the people who created them, without even knowing what or who they are. How did you get there in the few seconds it took your eyes to scan the last few lines of pixels? Everything is connected to everything else, and the line of connection is a length of 1.

Think back to the broken circle exercise. If you take a line and "hang" every possible concept, thing, real or imagined (as described in tenet 5 (c)) on the line, arranging them in order from {THIS.....NOT-THIS} one thing at each dot on the line, you have ONE line. Bring the ends together to almost touch, leaving only the minuscule opening for 'is' to fit in between. Add 'is' to the gap. Now you have a closed loop or system and no matter which point you pick on the line to start from (the seed), you can draw a single line (an arc of the circle's circumference, or a straight line cutting across the surface of the circle, or any line in between those two) to any other point. Sure, you may want to add some understanding by naming off the intermediate steps you passed through to get from one to the other, but there is not a single set of points that aren't directly connected or connectable to each other. (Note: I will argue later that the only logical starting point is the 'is' point, and furthermore that it lies between ALL points on the line).

Now we come to one of the essentials of 'is' theory. Stop just a moment and think. It depends which way you start out (i.e. which way you 'face') that determines the path you will take to get from one point to another. On a circle's circumference, you can go clockwise or counter-clockwise (mirror image). With one route you can join two points by passing through a whole series of intermediate steps, finding {blockages, disputes, differences to be resolved....} at each of possibly an infinite number of steps. This route represents the world without 'is' as a factor. Choosing {the mirror-image route, the counter-intuitive route, the 'other' route, the 'not-thought-of-yet-route, the BAT route,....}, you WILL pass through the 'is' connection that joins the {THIS....NOT-THIS} dots. Those are the two critical dots of first comparison, even if your starting points and ending points are at some totally distant and seemingly unrelated points (dots) on the infinitley large circle.

I realize and understand that this is beginning to sound "out there" again. Just like yesterday's blog was, until I presented it from a different perspective here. Some readers, I suspect are still doubting that. That's' cool! Check out Einstein's quote up top again! We'll get there. Learning is done by {presenting, comparing to the known, cycling back, referencing,.....} until eventually it becomes your own. Right now, it's still pretty much my own. One thing for you to realize is that, as I'm writing these blogs, I'm also sorting the wheat from the chaff in my own mind, as a preliminary exercise for writing my book. Like everything in 'is' and physics, there are equal and opposite forces at work. As one changes, so does the other. Even if they're not in the same form or format.

Now for an alternative question. Is everything built in some ordered, measureable, linear sequential, "this, therefore this" mechanistic growth pattern or is it arbitrary and seemingly random? Or both, along with an infinite number of other growth patterns. In other words, where does our knowledge come from, how do we organize it, why is mine different than yours, and how do you measure mine against yours for {accuracy, completeness, integrity, durability, usefulness....}?

Yesterday, I used a technique called a "hook" or mneumonic (in my case I chose the idea of a rabbit), and then in rapid succession collapsed a number of occurences that included a rabbit or suggestion of a rabbit into one document, suggesting a linkage just by the mere fact that I brought them all together.

The truth is, I could have added more (being around Easter would make that relatively easy), but the truth also is.....and here's the part to ponder....some of those instances were in fact totally UNrelated to one another except for the fact that I took them into my awareness. The intriguing part is that they became part of my awareness through a series of totally random and unrelated actions on my part {going to a concert, driving down a particular street in Edmonton near midnight when a rabbit happened to be bouncing down the same street...30 seconds earlier or later and it wouldn't have happened, Gary writing a blog, unknown to me, mentioning a rabbit, and his commenter singling that image out of the blog to comment on.... }. How many other 'rabbit' events were going on around the world that I didn't make myself aware of? Does that mean they didn't happen? Are they now connected because I have just made them so? Yes.! In fact, they were already connected even before I added this new connection to them. They were already all 'rabbit' events.

The question that needs to be asked is: "Is there some 'higher-order' of {thought, awareness, growth, destiny,.....choose-some-other-word} at play to cause those events to happen when they did, AND be noticed by me and remembered by me, or not noticed by me, or not be part of my awareness?" Before thinking of that question as anything but rhetorical, think about the meanings behind the four quotes I chose for today's blog.

Tomorrow, I intend to make linkages between ideas, thoughts, imagination, first thought, original thought, and seeds of thought. Think about it!!

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Posted by Evydense on Monday, April 24, 2006 at 8:51 a.m. | Permalink