You are at: Home / Holistic Model Of Mind / Notes On Concepts

Notes On Concepts, Spacetime And Whole

Few things might be added here on how what was said about concepts puts more light on what was said about "whole", "space" and "time".

Note 1

We can now see what makes the concept of space and time.
As it was said some cognitive whole is determined as specific concept if there is possibility to apply certain differentiations on it.
So, space would be nothing but the differentiations that are possible to be applied in it.
Those differentiations would be... possibility to differentiate a part of it, possibility to differentiate relative positions in it, possibility to differentiate such things as left of, right of, behind, in front of, up, down, big, small, near, far etc...
Here we can see why it is hard to define "space" as in our experience. It is because when doing definitions we are hoping that we will be able to grasp the thing (or determine it) from outside, from its context... and while this might be possible for some concepts, the concept of space is such that has no other context then experience, and is also not one possibility for differentiation but instead lots of them.
That the possibility of those differentiations are which makes the concept of space we can also see, when we try to imagine space where those differentiations are impossible. We can't.

Simmilary for concept of time. It is nothing but possibility of a set of differentiations, but in this case differentiations like before, after, simultaniously, etc... And it is same with this concept... even every person is aware of the meaning of this concept as he knows about the possibility of the differentiations, and is able to communicate and use the concept "time", we are not able to define the concept, as definition would require determination from outside, which for this concept is not possible.

Of course what is argued here is that every concept is ment, is imagined and is known through the awareness of possibilities of given differentiations.

Note 2

But seing space and time as such separate abstract concepts can get us into trouble and paradoxes. The nature of some differentiations like that of movement, should probably be understood in the concept of space-time as a whole, as those (differentiation of movement and simmilar) are not differentiations which can be understood as possibility of differentiations which fall in the concept of space, nor differentiations which fall under the concept of time.
The common error we do when trying to define things from "outside" (so going from parts to the whole), is that we acknowledge time as separate concept, space as other concept, and then try to "construct" the concept of movement (or simmilar). To do that we are trying to somehow connect the both concepts of time and space, and try to describe movement as changing of position of space through time, which further lead to things like Zeno's paradoxes.
Here it is easy to say that differentiations which create the concept of movement are not done after the differentiations of space, nor those of time, but are done directly on the spatio-temporal whole.
And in such way we can only apply differentiations from concept of space (e.g. starting and ending position), just after we apply differentiations of movement. Same with differentiations of time (it started moving in t1, and stopped in t2 for example); they can be applied on the movement as whole, further determining the movement in the context of time. (same as  "red" can  be applied  on the whole which is already determined as "color").

As for adressing Zeno's paradoxes, we would first need to give account for possibility of mathematical propositions.

Note 3

  From the fact that any whole is determined as whole only through possibility of differentiaions to be applied on it, the first principle from which we started (the whole), is seen as given, nothing can be said about it besides the differentiations which are possible in it.
This is important to note as this means we are not getting to contradictions of concept of whole which would be determined from outside, which would in turn require imagining of "new whole" with observer present and so on. In such view it is clear that any holistic model would have to come under critique if it uses determination of concepts from outside. (that is one other reason why the relation of experiencer as part of the experience which was given before makes sense).

Note 4

    If we translate "exist" as "possibility to differentiate in  (from) spacetime", it is trivial that "I exist" is true, because it means: "what can be differentiated as I from spacetime (and we have this possibility all the time), can be differentiated from spacetime".
On other hand, if "experience" is "possibility to differentiate from whole", then "I experience" is "I have possibility to differentiate from whole", pointing to the different things we can differentiate from it like colors, sounds, feelings etc... As explained here this is just more general form of the proposition "I feel", which was problematic in the scientific model with which we started, but which can be easily addresed in this model: how come we are aware of the feelings, how come we are aware of I, how come we are aware of the truth of that proposition, etc...



Previous: Concepts, Intraconcept Propositions and Apodictical Propositions
Next:Applying Differentiations and Intensity Of Differentiation