Physical Spirituality

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Table of Contents

Part I:

Modes of Interaction

Interactions
Features of Connective and Binding Interactions
Spatial Arrangements
Connectivity and Architectivity
The Relevance of Scale

Part II:

Modes of Meaning

Serial Meanings of the Architective Mode
Serial Meanings of the Connective Mode -->
Features of Serial Meaning
Sentience
The Architective Dominion

Part III:

Modes of Spirituality

Spiritual Possibilities
Unimodal Deities
A Personal Perspective

Part IV:

Changing the Paradigm

Morality
The Unsung Virtues of Sublimation
Psychedelics in Perspective
Connectivity, Architectivity, Yin and Yang
Faith and Reason
Cosmic Consciousness in Perspective
To Sleep, to Dream
Conclusion
The Post Planetary Age

Appendices and References

Chapter 7: Serial Meanings of the Connective Mode


Motion and Change

Motion and change are serial meanings arising from objects in a connective always responding to, or always able to respond to, relevant forces. Waves too are always moving in some way. If not already bustling with motion or change, connective phenomena are always open to it.

Architectures prevent objects responding to forces and prevent transmission of waves. The responses of objects in an architecture are always limited to some degree, often to the point of being considered entirely unresponsive. Connectives contained in an architecture can be similarly unresponsive. Architectures can enforce stasis.

While some of a connective's objects may be stationary or unchanging relative to each other, that would only be temporary and there will always be others that are changing or moving. Purely connective phenomena are not only dynamic, but are necessarily and unceasingly so.

If we are to find meaning in purely connective phenomena such as galaxies, we will find it in how they move rather than in what they are.

The observer effect illustrates the necessary motion of connectives, in which the act of making a measurement changes that which is being measured.

Serial meanings of motion and change, unlike a procession of distinct architectures, require the presence of a connective.

Unboundedness, Full Responsiveness, Unlimited Flexibility and Absolute Uncertainty

Unless contained by an architecture, the motions of objects in a connective or the motions of waves are not confined within boundaries.

Waves and objects in a connective are free to respond fully to the forces acting on them.

Waves and objects in a connective will respond to every relevant disturbance.

Unless contained, there are no limits to the flexibility of their responses.

Since they will respond to even the slightest disturbance, there is always an element of uncertainty associated with connective phenomena.

Connectives also offer uncertainty in the numbers of their participating objects, in the vagueness of their visages, in their lack of precise control, in their incapacity for precise enumeration, and in the fact that they may be indistinguishable from each other. Uncontained connectives offer uncertainty in the volatility of their shapes.

Unlimited flexibility is a serial meaning used, for example, in a radio transmitter whose vibration is free to mimic any and every voice. We see the uncertainty of connectives as a serial meaning in the behaviour and changeability of the atmospheric weather.

The serial meanings of unlimited responsiveness, unlimited flexibility and absolute uncertainty can only occur in a purely connective context. Some architectures, like membranes, offer limited degrees of flexibility, as described in Appendix 1.

Absolute Smoothness of Motion and Change

The motions of objects in a connective and those of waves are always completely smooth in the sense that there are no gaps between consecutive positions in their paths, no matter how close their consecutive positions may be considered to be. Their motions never occur in discrete steps between constrained positions as would occur in an architective procession. (That space-time itself is not quantized is, I believe, the only fundamental assumption that this book depends on.)

Unresolvable smoothness of motion is a purely connective serial meaning.

We see smooth motion in the trajectory of a ball through the air, in a flow of water, in the orbits of planets and the propagation of waves. Flight, whether of a bird, an aeroplane or an electron, is absolutely smooth.

It is not only spatial movement that offers serial meaning in smooth motion. Other properties of connective phenomena may change smoothly, as for example would the frequency of a sound emitted by a source whose speed is changing smoothly.

Anything changing or moving absolutely smoothly is necessarily doing so in the context of a connective.

Interference and Integration

Interference as a connective serial meaning arises because the net effect of multiple connective influences is the combination of all the influences. No relevant influences are lost - they are all displayed in the result to some degree. Compare this to the selection of some influences and the denial of others as happens in architective contests.

Interference as a connective serial meaning can be seen in the way planetary orbits are affected by all heavenly bodies (even though the nearest have the stronger effects). It can also be seen in the way we hear multiple sounds simultaneously even though they may be played out on a single ear-drum.

Integration as a connective serial meaning is utilized when two connectives, such as milk and tea, are integrated into a simple mixture, and when galaxies pass through each other, occupying the same space at the same time . When multiple waves in a pond meet, they are also occupying the same place at the same time, affecting the same objects at the same time and are passing through rather than excluding each other. Multiple radio programs can successfully be broadcast through the same geographic region at the same time.

Wave Play and Music

The periodicity of waves offers a wealth of serial meaning. There can be meaning in the variation in their frequency, in the different sounds we can hear, in their phase and in their amplitude (loud and soft, for example). There can be meaning in the patterns of their interference and superposition.

Music plays on the smooth periodicity of waves for its sounds and its harmonies. Musical scores and recordings, in that they offer a capacity for exact reproduction, have architective rather than connective serial meanings. Nevertheless, reproduced music may be as connectively meaningful as its original production (since its architective reproduction is exact!).

Infinite Subtlety and Unlimited Grandeur

Under a microscope we can resolve architectures and connectives into their constituent and participating objects respectively. However, greater magnification of an architecture will eventually reveal definite and unavoidable gaps between its internal objects, inside of which no further internal objects can be found. While we will also ultimately see gaps between the participating objects of a connective, these gaps are not of a fixed size, and a moment later there may be a participating object in that gap, no matter how small a gap we are considering.

Connectives are infinitely resolvable and architectures are not.

It is quite possible that there is a lower bound to every architecture, that is, there is a scale below which no objects exist. At the time of writing, the smallest known objects are quarks and leptons (massless bosons do not qualify as 'objects') and they are considered to be elementary, that is, to have no constituent objects, so their sizes define a current architective lower bound. It is quite possible that architectures are not infinitely resolvable even when digging within them rather than between them.

Waves too are infinitely resolvable, firstly in the sense that since a wave can be regarded as a superposition of multiple waves, every wave can be regarded as a superposition of an infinite number of waves. Secondly, a wave is infinitely resolvable in the sense that it travels smoothly and the motions or vibrations of the objects it disturbs are absolutely smooth.

The possibilities for architective complexity may be infinite but every actual architecture has a finite size. Connectives are not limited in size.

I say that connective phenomena offer a serial meaning of infinite subtlety in their capacity for resolution and unlimited grandeur in their capacity for extent. Limitless resolution and extent are not available in architective contexts.


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