2008.11.11 13:00 - The More You See

The Guardian this session was genesis Zhangsun and the comments below are hers.

I arrived to find Wol...

genesis Zhangsun: Hi Wol!
Wol Euler: ah, hello Gen
Wol Euler: how are you today?
genesis Zhangsun: Ok Wol a little fuzzy
Wol Euler: fuzzy?
genesis Zhangsun: yes little fuzzy as in I feel in a little haze
genesis Zhangsun: little tired
genesis Zhangsun: like I need coffee but I don't want to have any
Wol Euler: hmmmmm
Wol Euler: well, we all have bad days ...
genesis Zhangsun: it isn't really "bad" actually
genesis Zhangsun: it just is :)
Wol Euler chuckles.
genesis Zhangsun: but I know what you mean ;)
genesis Zhangsun: how are you?
Wol Euler: meh. very meh.
Wol Euler: grey. blah.
Wol Euler: but otherwise fine.
Wol Euler: I think it's just seasonal.
genesis Zhangsun: its that time of year isn't it?
genesis Zhangsun: Yes!!
Wol Euler: yep
genesis Zhangsun: going into hibernation
Wol Euler: oh, I wish I could.

Adelene and Threedee appeared.  I am always struck by how the image of two lions (sorry Ade one griffin) entering the scene affects my psyche.  A sort of awe and a feeling that the space is filled with their presence.

Wol Euler: hello ade, threedee
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Adelene
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Threedee
Wol Euler: i would love to just go to sleep until some time in March or April.
Adelene Dawner: :)
Threedee Shepherd: hi
Wol Euler smiles at a purring pile of lions.

At this point I crashed and missed a few sentences, which Wol added later.

Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Threedee Shepherd: Wol, where are you in the real world, someplace cold?
Wol Euler: Germany, in Stuttgart. "Cold" is not the issue, it was about 14°C today.
Wol Euler: but definitely grey and very humid. Quite unpleasant
Wol Euler: ade, did you find those missing photos?
Wol Euler: wb gen
Adelene Dawner: yup.
Wol Euler: had the house been moved?
genesis Zhangsun: ty I am crashing more these days
genesis Zhangsun: maybe my laptop is also going into hibernation
Adelene Dawner: mmhmm. I probably did that by accident while putting them up.
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Solobill!
Wol Euler: yeah, me too. since about two weeks, at least once a day.
Wol Euler: hello solo, nice to see you again.
Solobill Laville: Hey, folks!
Wol Euler: I'd seen you online and hoped you would stop in.
Solobill Laville: :))
Solobill Laville: (Forgot there was a PaB just now...) :)
Wol Euler: :.O
genesis Zhangsun: So how is your 9 second meditation on time going Solobill?
Solobill Laville: Hmmmm
genesis Zhangsun: I heard through the grapevine that you were trying it out
Wol Euler: (those rustling leaves ..)
Solobill Laville: i was focused for those three days...Pema suggested somethings else as well afterwards as well
Solobill Laville: so, slogging along :)
Solobill Laville: I prefer to try to just drop things, rather that reflect
Solobill Laville: *than
Solobill Laville: Most of those 11 presentations were things that I had worked through at least a bit before
Wol Euler: those were great, Solo. I was most impressed.
genesis Zhangsun: brb
Wol Euler: though I had some trouble with #3.
Solobill Laville: nothing happens
Wol Euler: relating to my ongoing discussion with Pema :)
Solobill Laville: That was fun to read, thanks
Wol Euler smiles. It was great fun to do, and hard work.
Bell: *ding*
Solobill Laville: Geo made a comment afterwards to that conversation as well about time / space
genesis Zhangsun: bk
Wol Euler: wb
Wol Euler: (sorry, my memory is pagefaulting today. I'd have to look that up on the wiki)

I had not seen Solobill's wonderful presentations on Time but wow way to go Solobill...

genesis Zhangsun: I am a little out of the look I fear what is the 11 presentations?
genesis Zhangsun: *loop
Solobill Laville: I don't recall exactly how he put it, but it was another affirmation of time and space being interdependant
Wol Euler: (Solo made a guardian page for himself on the wiki, two articles on it so far)
genesis Zhangsun: Ah ok :)
genesis Zhangsun: will have to check it out
Wol Euler: damn, I really can't remember anyting today. (surfs to the wiki)
genesis Zhangsun: I could somehow conceive that time is dependent on space but how is space dependent on time?
Solobill Laville thinks
Solobill Laville: It occurs to me
Solobill Laville: that anything that seems "real" in this LoR sense
Solobill Laville: requires movement
Solobill Laville: absolute stillness is non-sensical in the world of forms
Threedee Shepherd: from Wikipedia entry on spacetime: "In classical mechanics, the use of Euclidean space instead of spacetime is appropriate, as time is treated as universal and constant, being independent of the state of motion of an observer. In relativistic contexts, however, time cannot be separated from the three dimensions of space, because the rate at which time passes depends on an object's velocity relative to the speed of light and also the strength of intense gravitational fields which can slow the passage of time."
Wol Euler frowns.
Solobill Laville: I think I agree with the second part...
Wol Euler: how relative is your absolute stillness, though, solo?
Solobill Laville: Have to re-read and try to remember what Euclidean space is though :)
Wol Euler: absolute in the sense of "I cannot perceive it however hard I try"

I always find cutting and pasting long sections from wikipedia or even from other chatlogs can kill the spontaneity of discussions and while I can appreciate the intention behind it to clarify...I am more interested while in PaB in what people present have to say about time and space...

genesis Zhangsun: Threedee is there anything you want to add to what you cut and pasted?
Threedee Shepherd: euclidian space is three, orthogonal X, Y and Z coordinates
Wol Euler: where parallel lines never meet and a second is always one second long
Solobill Laville: Ah,so it is thought to be a constant, regardless of an "observer"?
Solobill Laville: In playing with the idea of space-time-no-time, it occured to me that time and the three dimensions of space seem orthogonal
Solobill Laville: related, but informationally independent
Threedee Shepherd: Until Einstein and relativity, our realistic thinking worked. Since them spacetime has been demonstrated in real experiments . As far as I understand it (which is abouytt 0.000001 inch) itis not intuitive.
Solobill Laville wipes his forehead
Wol Euler: I remember reading somebody comparing the universe in its infintely compressed state before the Big Bang, to the universal nothing that existed before God said "let there be light".
Threedee Shepherd: I *think* it all has to do with the speed of light. No observor can observe that anything is moving faster than the speed of light. So now take two observers starting at the same point and then one moves directly to the left and one directly to the right. Now...
Wol Euler: the idea being htat in both "befores" there was neither space nor time
Bell: *ding*

A little bell "ding" went off in my little "fuzzy" mind at that moment. 

genesis Zhangsun: So space and time were born together
Wol Euler: and require each other, as Solo said.
genesis Zhangsun: Well what did the Big Bang happen "in" then
Threedee Shepherd: assume both move away from that initial point at the speed of light. Logically, you might think that to each observer, the other is moving away at twice the speed of light. But that can't be, because no observation can see anything moving fastger than the speed of light. So spacetime must change as you go faster and faster. and by the way, can I interest you in this bridge I have for sale in Brooklyn ;D
Wol Euler grins. Well, that is where it gets fuzzy.
Solobill Laville: Did it happen "In" anything?
genesis Zhangsun: ah like me today fuzzy ;)
Solobill Laville: hehe
Wol Euler: there was no "in" until after it had happened.
Solobill Laville: And there is an "in" now?
Wol Euler: yes, apparently :)
Adelene Dawner: A better question is, when did it stop happening?

A really beautiful question Ade...and I could almost feel the expansion/contraction and could almost remove the idea of linear time from my mind and see it as the circle that represents empintess, a cycle that is alway happening no matter where you "are" on the circle. 

Solobill Laville: ;)
Threedee Shepherd: It is still happening, ever expanding
Adelene Dawner: ^.^
Solobill Laville: That is a good question, Adelene
genesis Zhangsun: or contracting?
Wol Euler: ah, pema, I was just about to take your name in vain :)
Solobill Laville: hehe, ty Wol
Pema Pera: Hi everybody!
Solobill Laville: Hi, Pema!

Sweet Wol sends around one of the hilarious comics she seems to come up with periodically at the moment that Pema arrives.   

genesis Zhangsun: hehe Wol where do u find these things!
Threedee Shepherd: Yes we need someone who REALLY knows physics, not some errant biologist.
genesis Zhangsun: Hey Pema
Wol Euler: or a complete dilettante
genesis Zhangsun: Ah yes Pema we are discussing the relationship between time and space
genesis Zhangsun: and the Big Bang
genesis Zhangsun: you know just the usual
genesis Zhangsun: :)
Wol Euler grins
Pema Pera: I'm game :-)
Threedee Shepherd: Where did the Big Bang happen?
Pema Pera: not somewhere within the space of our universe
Pema Pera: the Big Bang produced the space of our universe
Pema Pera: not the other way around -- very unusual situation !!!
Pema Pera: A space in Bang -- instead of a Bang in space!
Threedee Shepherd: before that was just tohu v'vohu?
Pema Pera: foreplay
Solobill Laville: Time was birthed as the same "instant"
Wol Euler: lol
Solobill Laville: hehe
genesis Zhangsun: :)
Pema Pera: play before being . . .
Pema Pera: yes, Solo, possibly so . . . if what I said was correct, that space was created in the Big Bang -- but I have to add that that would be the simplest version
Threedee Shepherd: So, there is no meaningful concept that is about "before" the Big Bang?
Pema Pera: it is altogether possible that there is a kind of metaspace in which the Big Bang happened
Pema Pera: and that it does have some kind of causal history in a kind of meta time
Threedee Shepherd: that sounds like a meta-phore, to me ;D
Pema Pera: there are actually some models -- we call them "toy models" since they are rather simple, more to orient the mind
Wol Euler: that before the Big Bang ther was a Big Fuse?
Pema Pera: hehe, three!
Pema Pera: Big Crunch perhaps
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: from BC to BB
Solobill Laville: Would that suggest all these crazy other dimensions of time that I don't fathom
Wol Euler: and back, I assume.
Pema Pera: well yes, string theory posits many extra dimensions, in space and time
Threedee Shepherd: Earlier we asked could you have space without time?
Wol Euler: cycles of karma on a galactic scale.
genesis Zhangsun: ty Three
Pema Pera: they're curled so you can't easily see them, but they "come into play" at the moment of BB (and possibly BC)
Pema Pera: That's a great question, Three!
Pema Pera: I can say a lot, but I don't want to bore you all by holding forth . . . .
Solobill Laville: I would offer, no, but I feel these ultimatley become logic tests

 Hard to fight the lawyer in me...an open invitation to play devil's advocate couldn't pass it up.

genesis Zhangsun: I would offer yes :)
Solobill Laville: I will take you up on that offer!

Damn.  Called out.  What the hell was I going to say to this...when in doubt say something on the level of the absolute when speaking on the relative...that always messes me up :)

genesis Zhangsun: well if we talk about timeless time then where is this happening, is there a space in which one experiences timeless time?

Damn. Called out again can't get much by this group ;) 

Pema Pera: timeless time assumes spaceless space :-)
Wol Euler: could one in fact experience that then, if it has neither time nor space?

Threedee Shepherd: Well here is the simplistic surely mistaken point of view. Time is a measure of change. Or perhaps time IS change. Change requires some-THING(s0 that is changable. A tiing requires space to be in. So, no space, no time. the inverst is not necessarily true if there is no change.
Pema Pera: "one" in the sense of "you" cannot experience it, not the you you think you are . . . but Being can share in it, does already share in it, and Being is what "you" really are . . . . <-- Wol
Threedee Shepherd: also this keyboard does not know hoe to type in my current timespace ;)
Wol Euler chuckles
Bell: *ding*
Pema Pera: there are appearances . . . appearance of space and of time and of rules, governing them, like the ones that Threedee just formulated -- but those appearances are just that: they appear, that's all we can say
genesis Zhangsun: Is Being Space?
Pema Pera: even more precisely: there is the presence of these appearances, nothing more that we can say about them than that the present themselves
Pema Pera: no, Space is an aspect of Being
Pema Pera: and so is Time and so is Knowledge

Trinities

Pema Pera: these three are like the Trinity in Christianity, or the three Kayas (bodies) in Buddhism
Pema Pera: roughly speaking at least . . .
genesis Zhangsun: Space is the father, time the holy ghost, knowledge the son?
Pema Pera: metaphors: gaseous, liquid, solid
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: formless, form, and definitiness
Pema Pera: Dharmakaya, Sambhogakaya, Nirmanakaya
Pema Pera: emptiness, energy, matter (again, roughly; energy like chi)
Pema Pera: openness, colorful freedom, and this realm here where we find ourselves in -- all metaphors of course
genesis Zhangsun: Time is what space does. Once space “is”, time must also “be” to allow space to move from “a” to “b”; without time, no space, and vice versa.
genesis Zhangsun: This is something Solo wrote
Pema Pera: yes, that is a nice poetic pointing out
Pema Pera: which can be interpreted within the third (solid) realm
Pema Pera: and also as a way that the three realms connect
Solobill Laville: This is in the Relative sense
Solobill Laville: yes
Pema Pera: yes
Pema Pera: To ask: what does this buy for me?
Pema Pera: I'd say: it just gives some sense of direction
Wol Euler drops her eyes guiltily.
Pema Pera: but not much more -- the real exploration is just open
Pema Pera: I wouldn't worry too much about all those terms

Oh thank the father, the holy ghost, and the son.

Solobill Laville: YES!
Pema Pera: if you do, you're likely to create shadows that confine you
Pema Pera: just continue to explore, cultivate, and things will become clear
Solobill Laville nods
Pema Pera: the more you see, the more you can then talk about it -- if you feel the urge still
Solobill Laville: you may not...
Solobill Laville: Are time and spice, in the third realm, orthogonal?
Solobill Laville: *space
Wol Euler: the world in your saucepan
Solobill Laville: ha!
Pema Pera: which third realm, this world of form and solidity?
Solobill Laville: yup
Pema Pera getting hungry . . .
Threedee Shepherd: " the more you see, the more you can then talk about it " OR perhaps 'the more you see tha more confused you get?"
Pema Pera: the more you see, the more precisely you know what can and cannot be talked about, and how

 This last one was something to ponder...I actually haven't been able to get it out of mind...kind of haunting.

Pema Pera: As for orthogonal, yes, in some sense -- which then has to be defined :)
Solobill Laville: alas
Pema Pera: seeing is the opposite of being confused
Pema Pera: you can see what you may not be able to express in words
Solobill Laville: definitions, too, are subjective ultimately
Threedee Shepherd: Oh, Pema, we could tangent off into seeing, vs. looking vs. perceiving vs. categorizing
Solobill Laville must tangent off into dinner :)
Pema Pera: happy to follow you, Threedee -- but would like to jump over to the Kira Cafe for Happy Hour in a few minutes -- and we can of course continue there too!
Wol Euler: bye solo, enjoy your dinner.
Pema Pera: bye Solo!
Solobill Laville: thanks!
Solobill Laville: Bye all!
genesis Zhangsun: bye solobill
PaB Listener Master: Removing "Solobill Laville" from list.
Threedee Shepherd: Another time, I need to get *stuff* (that's a metaphore for "whatsis") done.

Wol Euler: Not tonight, I want to get an early night for once ...
Pema Pera: :-)
Wol Euler: I'll see you tomorrow for the German evening though
genesis Zhangsun: sorry just wanted to try it out
Pema Pera: sure thing, Wol!
Wol Euler: we can discuss "Sein und Zeit" ;-)
Pema Pera: !
Pema Pera: Allerdings!
Pema Pera: Unterwegs .. . .
Wol Euler: ich bin echt überrascht das es noch nicht aufgetaucht ist...
Pema Pera: Sein und Zeit ist central, klar
Wol Euler: all right, another time then.
Pema Pera: sure!
Wol Euler: good night all, enjoy the rest of your day.
genesis Zhangsun: bye wol
Pema Pera: And I'll jump over to the Kira Cafe, where Storm is waiting with someone else already, I hear
Pema Pera: bye Wol!
Pema Pera: bye Three!
genesis Zhangsun: Bye Three