xoc

One of the key ancient philosophical distinctions is that of Form Vs. Essence, or Image Vs. Essence. The first distinction presupposes the physical structure of the object (objectively), the second the apparent state/nature of the object (subjectively) as taken by the subject from it's phenomenon. Both distinctions are relative in fact; Form relates to an assumed actual objective physical form of the object while Image relates to how this form is presented to and interpretted from our senses. The first takes the assumed perspective of the "Perceived"(object) the second takes the perspective apparent from the "Perceiver"(subject). So the difference between the Form vs. Essence and Image Vs. Essence problems is at first one relative to the perspective, or particular framework of the beholder.

To take a realist perspective, we can discern that there is not nor can there be an absolute distinction between "Form and Essence/Nature" (the nature of something is equivelent to it's essence in my book but I'll use essence). Again it is a matter of perspective.

In a previous thread I mentioned that a certain body of water (such as water in a pool) could be likened to have the form given to it from outside(square or circle pool) but that it's essence could be described by it's chemical composition: forgetting other excess chemicals in the water, claiming they are "irrelevent" for the time being, we can give the simple H20 as it's "essence". Every object must have both form(outer framework) and essence. In the case of water, the "essence" is itself a reflection of another form: the H-O-H formation of the molecule, the structure of the Hydrogen atom and the structure of the oxyen atoms, the further structure of the parts of these molecules, etc. The further down we go we reach an apparent possible "essence" of negative or positive charges in electrons and protons, neutrons: these two have been whittled down to a collection of 3 quarks of particular "color". Whether or not these quantum properties could also be whittled down to be explainable by form rather than "essence" is perhaps questionable... but the outline unto this point shows how what is perceived as "essence" in one relation and perspective becomes a matter of "form" in another relation and perspective. "Form" is the external form of the object, "essence" is the internal form and consistency of the "objects" that make up the object. The relationship follows the pattern of in-to-out from essence-to-form. So as Sartre suggested, the essence of an object is realised through it's Image(eg. The Form of the Sun(body) produces the Image of the Sun through it's own essence, the radiation of photons from the sun itself. By the color, brightness, etc. of the stars we can tell it's chemical composition, From H-Iron, etc., as Image relates essence even if Image also hides essence, or does not disclose so much. Even a poker-player with the best poker face may relate certain "tells", traits and habbits which expose whether or not his hand is good or bad. \

Humans wrestling with Truth(and it's destructive, judgmental nature) may prefer that our image does not exude our "essence" but may be aware that our "masks" do not neccesarily cover us, particualarly to the rare breed of actually perceptive people. This is a perception not motivated by what it will find, but one trained in observation and study to more and more see the variability of things, and hence the failures of systems(and systemizing) the world/thought/etc. through various philosophies. Once Form and Essence are shown to be relative to size and the object(and lesser objects/attributes of the object), more and more the clear doctrine of a "Relativity of Distinction" follows through. All things/ideas that can be distinguished from other things/ideas must also be indistinguishable(the same) on some other level; we are always left with the Many leading to One, (in understanding) and One leading to Many (in the physical unravelling of the timespace universe). We need epistemology first to know we exist(to know first, is to know we exist first and need knowledge of existence before we affirm it); So epistemology must precede ontology in understanding. Yet the fact to which ontology relates(the state of being) must in fact preced epistemology (the state of knowing)- so knowledge and being have a recipricol relation when looking from the objective or subjective view:


Knowledge<-Things-to-be-known<-Being (the objective, physical evolution of the Universe)
Knower->epistemology->ontology (the subjective, intellectual evolution of the philosopher)

Relativity of "Quality vs. Quantity";

Quality corresponds to "essence" and Quantity to "form" or matter; but again these terms are not absolutely distinct in application as they are often used determing on the relative position of the viewer. A car is described as "fast" as a quality of it; but this is easily translated as it's ability to transfer an approximate "quantity" of space in a certain "quantity" of time. Beauty is another quality... since this is a very abstract and variable term, it is difficult to quantify but often can be done in some arbitrary manner: eg, a system of comparing the "quantity" of the nose at such a point to the quantity(surface area) of the face, lack or existence of "quantities" of warts, etc. As quality and quantity are relative distinctions, it is always *theoretically* possible to relate a "quality" in quantitative terms, although it may be rather difficult when many qualities are rough and inexact in our understanding of them and relate more to the subjective view than the objective, although objects are "attributed" these qualities. An easy quality - quantity transformation would be the "quality" of a star's brightness transferred to the quantity of the star's light exuded and it's intensity(the quantity of energy transferred in each wave, etc.)

All this is to help show that many classical philosophical "distinctions" are only relative in the Real World, and so the question of the perfect validity of such "ideal poles" is put into question... in speaking of the "essence of x" we may mean the same thing as the "form of y"; while essence and form are distinguished for a given, specific object/relationship, the "form" or "essence" in that relationship may have an opposite status in another relationship.

Wafel

I think this is a good outline of this topic, but I was wondering...

We 'percieve' (image) space as a black surface or hole, but empty space is a vacuum, and thus has no attributes like mass, heat or pressure (the atrributes of a gas). What is the essence of space?

I'm not an expert on this so there might be some default and accepted answer to this question but still...

John Page

I'd love to see one of the physicists answer this, my guess is length, breadth and time (and nothing else).

CHeers, John

John Page

Nice thread. I'd like to throw in the concept of the intrinsic nature of an object vs. the information we receive about the object.

We think we see and object (or we identify something we call an object) based on incomplete data. We cannot "see" outside the visible spectrum withough sensors that shift the wavelengths, dogs can hear higher pitched noises than us, we cannot detect neutrinos directly etc.

Given the above, I think the distinction you make between form, image and essence begins to get clouded - all we can say is that we detect form from analyzing our sense data and extrapolate from there, the uniques to that form (place, time, warts etc.) are distilled by the mind to an essence which, if truly unique (!!) is an object.

Cheers, John

Wafel

I'm not sure that'll work.. The universe was created by the big bang as we think to know now. So length/breadth would probably become diameter as it is an expanding sphere.

Time is questionable. Hawking and others are saying that the direction of time is detemined simply by increasing entropy, the measure of disorder. Simply because ordering something takes additional energy, and that energy creates more entropy than the process of ordening takes away.

Consider vacuum cleaning.. You 'order' the surface of the room by taking away the filth (entropy goes down), but you produce additional sweat, and the vacuum cleaner blows out hot air which isn't very ordered (hot means more entropy) and the air isn't very clean as well (even higher entropy).. In the end, surface of the floor is clean, but the entropy of the whole system has increased. There's no way around this..

Thus, as time procedes there will always be higher entropy.

But disorder is something that only mass or gass can cause, so could you say time is an attribute of space itself? and time is relative so I think that makes it even harder to be an attribute.

xoc

I definitely think this fits in with what I was trying to say. So much of the distinctions we make are based on a particular perspective(or Point of View, which could be translated to a Philosophy itself) and the scope of that point of view(from big to small, oue picture of the world varies so much depending on the size of our "lens".) Galileian relativity (before Einstein put it through the Lorentz transformation into Special Relativity) dealt with the relativity of velocities of different bodies of motion; which goes into the question of whethere there is/can be an "absolute reference point" or not. Classical philosophy and certain "rationalistic" strands took this assumption of the absolute reference point as a given, and I think a lot of philosophy in history has gone wrong for making implicit absolutistic assumptions(and much violence arises in the world from the violence in the ideological "world" when different Absolutistic ideologies combat)

The classical dream was to know the perfect Truth about everything(by learning the Laws that "govern" reality); but now we know we can't know the perfect Truth about anything. But the better we know our own limitations in understanding, the more we actually understand(instead of just fooling ourselves by taking a particular paradigm/perspective/philosophy for "Absolute Truth."

*As for the "space" thing, I don't think outer space is a perfect vacuum either(as I recall), there is some cosmic background radiation prevelent everywhere etc. Space as Nothingness is a pretty tough egg to crack as well, should Nothing be considered Something because the language of the noun(nothing) implies a "thing" which implies essence again etc. Like the old attempt to try and imagine anything "outside" the universe, nothing can be only be imagined as a kind of something.