[WithoutMe]

First & foremost, I donot, in any sort of way, contain myself, that wud be actually saying something that is (using a Logical Posivist's terminology) "informationally hollow"... its like saying, "Milk is white in color coz white is the color of milk".... so I can never contain myself.
Infact "Containment (as a relation), as I see it, means the relation of all those things which make up the container except that which is the container itself".
Now to understand the underlined part, u have to understand what the System Theorists say as "Emergent Properties".
Now dont ask me to explain that coz for that I'll have to explain a large part of Systems Theory, esp with that to "Self-Organizing" systems. Read up some books on that, there r loads available in the market.
For a brief intro, refer this page at Wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergence

After u r well equipped with System Theory, plz do get back to me, I'll then handle the "in-itself" in much detail!

& read up Nagarjuna's "Mula Madhyamika Karika"....lol!

Rgds,
wM.

PS. In short, in the case of "Emergent Properties", "1 + 1 = 11" .... u dig that?
Here both the 1s contains the "11" but u can not say that the 1s r all there is to it, so a case of Identity doesnt ensure here... infact the act of "+" here makes all the difference here, & this what glues the systen together in order to have a emergent property...... so u say ?

Sub,any replies!!!

[Guille]

Withoutme, this is a very interesting post.

Originally Posted by WithoutMe

was initially said by the Buddhist Logician Nagarjuna in his four-fold logic, i.e.,
1. "This" (but not "Not This).
2. Not "This" (but not "This").
3. "This & Not This".
4. Not "This & Not This".

This is an interesting existential logic. I believe that point 3 is very important, because we extend it to:
3. |“This” AND ¬“This”| OR |“This AND ¬this”|
Which impplies that the sum of unity (1) and relative nothing (1/infinity) is equal to the sum of unity (1) and absolute nothingness (0). I have to ask Antonio if this is correct.

Originally Posted by WithoutMe

Now going from Logic to Psychological, he used the first as the "Sensation", second as "Feeling", third as "thinking" & the fourth as "Intuition" (Ofcourse am using Jungian Psychological terms to translate it from the original Sanskrit). Similar such connotations can be found if you consider the first three as the specific aspects of the "Reptile Brain" (first case), the "Mammalian Brain (2nd case) & the "Human Brain" (3rd case). As I had posted it in the thread starter, "On an Immoral Ethics" at http://www.toequest.com/forum/showthread.php?goto=newpost&t=1666
Only in the case when the 3 brains work in perfect harmony does the individual live in the acuasal world, i.e., he doesnot have Pschological Time, Though the Chronological Time goes on as usual. I will post on this much details, giving the whole detailed structure of the Mind along with the Brain Dynmics in relation to Nirvana & the Acausal Perception in some other post. If u all r very much interested, then I can make it early as soon as possible!

I believe the four terms are the objects ine ach of the minds which I defined in my reply to your thread. The unconscious is sensation, the sub-conscious is feeling, the conscious is thinking, and the supra-conscious is intuitional principles (the other animals, I believe, have instincts, but not intuitions, that is uniquely human, and most humans don’t use them much or at all).

Originally Posted by WithoutMe

I am what I am, however I donot contain myself, infact my relationship with me is that of a "is-a" (Identity) whereas my relationship with say, my tooth, is a "is-part-of" (Containment)!!!! u dig that?

Note very carefully, The relationship of Identity (that is, "me being me just for the sake of me being me", or in Kantian Language, "in-itself") is itself a paradox & runs the high risk of being mistaken for that of Containment (that is, "me being me just for the sake of all the properties & attributes that whoever is positing my existence is in relation with" (so it depends on the person who is positing my existence, whereas the "in-itself" doesnt need anyone to posit, the "in-itself" is infact self-caused, or as Nagarjuna wud conclude, anything that is self-caused, is actually acausal), or in Kantian Language, Containment points to the "for-itself", ie., the Penomenal World)!!

Your first point is the best explanation of why Sub’s solution is not good. Just as when I said that ‘the set of all dogs’ doesn’t contain itself for it isn’t a dog, of course. It does have all it’s parts, but ‘all it’s parts’ is different from the ‘thing with parts’. Not in quantity, not in quality, but in essence.

About the kantian ‘in-itself’, for me it is precisely what has made philosophers abandon metaphysics. I believe there is no need for ‘in-itself’ theory in metaphysics, in absolute knowledge; it is just the negative part, the Hegel-Kant, Dialectic-Critique duality, which is fatal.

[subversion]

Something is nothing more than everything which it contains. Therefore something is a discrete object which is in containment of all of itself. There is no distinguishment between "contents" and "container" whenever you view an object wholistically!

Set theory is unabashed at providing nonsensical ideas which do not apply to the real world. The problem with set theory is there is no good criterion for what is a set. Literally anything can be a set, and this provides for non-sensical ideas, such as the idea that there can be something which does not represent itself. Such nonsensical ideas go against the definition of definition (definition theory), which holds that anything MUST define itself in order to be "something".

Set theory would make a whole whole whole lot more sense if you accepted one basic criterion for a set: it must contain itself. Therefore anything that does not contain itself is not a set, it is empty. Recall that one of Russell's paradoxes states that everything can't contain itself. This is the assumption which is wrong and the basis for the confusion. When you accept the fact that everything contains itself, you will realize that Russell's paradox is about nothing, that thing which we can not define.

[Guille]

Sub,

Stop that kind of posting in which you think you are smarter than everyone, than one of the greatest philosophers of all times, Russell, and that you know everything about set theory. First, dont' critize something if you don't give an alternative. Now, your supposed alternative is to assume that all sets must contain themselves. I must tell you that russell's paradox has already been solved and was solved back in the first quater of the 20th century, and preciselly with the opposite assumption of yours: that no set can contain itself, so out of all positions about the paradox, yours is the furthest away from it's solution. Your proposition has several problems, which I include in my future article about the paradox. Those problems are unsolvable, and are the definitive end to any possibility from your theory to solve the paradox. Second, if the container is the same as the contained, then you must believe that the set A={1,2,3,4} is equal to the set B={3,1,4,2} but obviouslly they aren't because there is a thing called order which is important. You critize set theory for not being ralistic, well your assumptions aren't realistic at all, they are purelly quantitative. There are others thing I have to say but I'm putting them in the article.

[subversion]

Whoa whoa calm down there Guille. DOn't get upset just because I'm figuring things out. I never said I was smarter than everybody, but if you don't want to hear what I have to say than you don't have to bother. ANyway, everything has to contain itself because if it doesn't than there's no way we can define it, and hence no way we can figure out the TOE. Therefore the very existence of the TOE relies on the principle that everything must contain itself. Russell was dead wrong when he said everything can not contain itself, and this is proven. But then again, a lot of times it doesn't seem to me that you even believe in the TOE, in which case everything you say makes perfect sense.

And furthermore I might add that the question of whether everything contains itself is the exact same as your paradox which asks "is the theory of everything really the theory of EVERYTHING?" The answer is Yes. But since you think it must be impossible for the theory of everything to really be the theory of everything (and Russell would probably agree with you), it makes sense that you think that everything must not include everything. This is the kind of viewpoint that prevents you from realizing everything, IMHO. Don't get mad at me though, I'm just trying to help you out.