Seeing one thing

In seeing one thing (the dot above) we are required to see two things — the dot and the space around it, without which the dot would not be perceptible. To see two things we need to see three, and so on. To perceive objects in the world (visually at least) we must enter an automatic state of contradiction in which we detect both the thing and what it is not, simultaneously and separately.

The multiplicity of unity

Manchester United, the United States of America, the United Nations, the United Kingdom...each of these entities represents a unity, a coherent singularity. But each is made up of a multiplicity: many players, many states, many nations, many countries. The coming together of many things into a single thing does not erase the multiplicity of the components. Each unity consists in a multiplicity; unity and multiplicity co-exist as opposites.

Unthings

Consider the possibility that there are no distinct entities in reality, no particles or waves; that our perceptual and conceptual faculties constrain our understanding of observable phenomena as either particles or waves such that these properties are attributable to the operation of our cognitive apparatus rather than being intrinsic to the phenomena in themselves. For it seems to be the case that there are no phenomena 'in themselves' i.e. realities existing independently of our conception, and that the very appearance of reality is conditioned by the subjective experience of an observing agent. So what may appear to us as, say, a particle (that is, a discrete point in time and space) appears as such only by dint of the operation of our perceptual and conceptual apparatus. What appears as a single particle, in fact, extends indefinitely in time and space, becoming no longer a distinct entity, a thing, but an 'unthing'. Which is to say, the particle is an entity that has the appearance of — can be conceived — as a singular object but is in fact (and in ways we cannot adequately conceive or describe) not an entity at all but an extended, indeterminate, unbounded unthing.

Aspects of this indeterminate existence are partially available to us, aspects that we mistake for the object in its entirety. Because we apprehend only a partial, bounded, limited aspect we take this to be something that is in itself bounded and limited, we take it as a discrete entity (a point or a wave) when what we are actually witnessing is the operation of our perceptual and conceptual faculties, which can apprehend only a limited aspect of what is present.

When we come to talk of a single particle, or study the relationship between two individual particles and find they are connected in a way that seems (to use Einstein's word) 'spooky', what disturbs us is the intuition that single or multiple particles should be discrete yet do not behave as such. The violation of the intuition occurs because they are precisely not discrete, individual entities, but indefinitely extended unthings that already have aspects about which we are unaware — even when observing them. We can never observe all the features of an entity at once (we cannot see it from all sides, in all its energetic states, throughout all its history, with all its connections).

The unthing is something that appears as a specific state (something) to an observer but in fact has no discrete limits or boundaries, being both something and no-thing at the same time.

Can you draw pencil?

Quantum indeterminacy

It's not just that we can't measure the precise state of a particle at the quantum level but that the particle has no precise state — until it is observed.

Painting and paint

The artist painting an old woman, Aert de Gelder, 1685

You can paint paint but you can't paint painting.

Husserl's indeterminacy of perception

"If I apprehend a box, from the very outset it has for the apprehension a back side and an interior, though for the most part these are very undetermined. For example, it remains an open question whether the box is full or empty, whether the back is polished or not, etc. ... The indeterminateness is an immanent character of the apprehension, and we must note well that it is not at all identical everywhere and, as it were, of a monochrome character but instead has many tints and grades. Indeterminateness is never absolute or complete. Complete indeterminateness is nonsense; the indeterminateness is always delimited in this or that way. I may not know exactly what sort of form the back side has, yet it precisely has some form; the body is a body. I may not know how matters stand with the colour, the roughness or smoothness, the warmth or coldness, yet it pertains to the very sense of the apprehension of a thing that the thing possess a certain colour, a certain surface determination, etc. When I glance at the thing it stands there as a thing; the apprehension gives it, in a meaningful way, a form, a colour, etc., and does so not only with regard to the front side but also with regard to the unseen side. Yet it is only "a" colour, "a" form, etc. That is, these are not "determinately" predelineated in the apprehension...the apprehension has the character of "indeterminateness.""

Thing and Space, by Edmund Husserl, p. 50

Husserl's indeterminacy of attention

"But not even with the domain of this intuitionally clear or obscure, distinct or indistinct, co-present — which makes up a constant halo around the field of actual perception — is the world exhausted which is "on hand" for me in the manner peculiar to consciousness at every waking moment. On the contrary, in the fixed order of its being, it reaches into the unlimited. What is now perceived and what is more or less clearly co-present and determinate (or at least somewhat determinate), are penetrated and surrounded by an obscurely attended to horizon of indeterminate actuality. I can send the rays of the illuminative regard of attention into this horizon with varying results. Determining presentations, obscure at first and then becoming alive, haul something out for me; a chain of such quasi-memories is linked together; the sphere of determinateness becomes wider and wider, perhaps so wide that connection is made with the field of actual perception as my central surroundings. But generally the result is different: an empty mist of obscure indeterminateness is populated with intuited possibilities or likelihoods; and only the "form' of the world, precisely as the "the world", is predelineated. Moreover, my indeterminate surroundings are infinite, the misty and never fully determinable horizon is necessarily there."

Ideas pertaining to a pure phenomenology, by Edmund Husserl (p. 52).

Indian theories of determinate and indeterminate perception

"The Indian thinkers generally recognize two distinct stages of perception, indeterminate (nirvikalpa) and determinate (savikalpa). The former is the immediate apprehension of the mere form of an object, while the latter is the mediate perception of the object with its different properties and their relations to one another. The former is an undifferentiated and non-relational mode of consciousness devoid of assimilation and discrimination, analysis and synthesis. The latter is a differentiated and relational mode of consciousness involving assimilation and discrimination, analysis and synthesis. The former is purely sensory and presentative, while the latter is presentative-representative. The former is dumb and inarticulate — free from verbal images, The latter is vocal and articulate — dressed in the garb of verbal images. The former is abstract and indeterminate, while the latter is concrete and determinate. The former is what William James calls "knowledge of acquaintance", and the latter is what he calls "knowledge about".

Indian Psychology Perception by Jadunath Sinha, p. 31

Single particle interference on a large scale

"It is important to note that the interference pattern is built up from single, separate particles. There is no interference between two or more particles during their evolution in the apparatus. Single particle interference is evidenced in our case by two independent arguments...The chance of having two subsequent molecules in exactly the same state of all internal modes is vanishingly small. Therefore, interference in our experiments really is a single particle phenomenon!"

'Quantum interference experiments with large molecules'. American Association of Physics Teachers. Volume 71, No.4, April 2003, by Olaf Nairz, Marcus Arndt and Anton Zeilinger.

This, and other multi-slit experiments with much smaller entities, demonstrate that particles also display wave-like qualities, i.e. they are neither exclusively particles or waves but both, depending also on how they are measured. Thus, particles are non-local, and since matter on a larger scale is composed of countless entities which behave as both particles and waves, then we can assume that perceptible matter is also non-local and both particulate and wavy.

Merleau-Ponty & indeterminacy

"...one never manages to determine the instant when a stimulus once seen is no longer seen. There occurs here an indeterminate vision, a vision of something or other, and, to take the extreme case, what is behind my back is not without some element of visual presence. The two straight lines in Müller-Lyer's optical illusion are neither of equal nor unequal length; it is only in the objective world that this question arises. The visual field is that strange zone in which contradictory notions jostle each other because the objects — the straight lines of the Müller-Lyer — are not, in that field, assigned to the realm of being, in which a comparison would be possible, but each is taken in its private context as if it did not belong to the same universe as the other. Psychologists have for a long time taken great care to overlook these phenomena. In the world taken in itself everything is determined. There are many unclear sights, as for example a landscape on a misty day, but then we always say that no real landscape is in itself unclear. It is only so for us. The object, psychologists would assert, is never ambiguous, but becomes so only through our inattention. The bounds of the visual field are not themselves variable. and there is a moment when the approaching object begins absolutely to be seen, but we do not 'notice' it. But the notion of attention...is supported by no evidence provided by consciousness. It is no more than an auxiliary hypothesis, evolved to save the prejudice in favour of an objective world. We must recognise the indeterminate as a positive phenomenon. It is in this atmosphere that quality arises. Its meaning is an equivocal meaning; we are concerned with expressive value rather than logical signification. The determinate quality by which empiricism tried to define sensation is an object, not an element, of consciousness, indeed it is the very lately developed object of scientific consciousness. For these two reasons, it conceals rather than reveals subjectivity."

Phenomenology of Perception, by Merleau-Ponty (p. 6-7)

A judicious obscurity

"But painting, when we have allowed for the pleasure of imitation, can only affect simply by the images it presents; and even in painting a judicious obscurity in some things contributes to the effect of the picture; because the images in painting are exactly similar to those in nature, and in nature dark confused uncertain images have a greater power on the fancy to form the grander passions than those have which are more clear and determinate...hardly any thing can strike the mind with its greatness which does not make some sort of approach toward infinity; which nothing can do while we are able to perceive its bounds; but to see an object distinctly, and to perceive its bounds, are one and the same thing. A clear idea is therefore another name for a little idea."

A Philosophical Enquiry Into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, by Edmund Burke, 1757

Looking, but not seeing

I was looking for the hoover, which was not in its usual place in the cupboard under the stairs. and so had not been able to see it on the landing at the top of the stairs, even though I had looked at it countless times as I searched for it.

See inattentional blindness demo here

Does Xquisz exist?

Does Xquisz exist? Is there such a thing as Xquisz? Is Xquisz a bone fide constituent of the cosmos?

The immediate answer is 'no', there is no recognised constituent of the cosmos known as Xquisz.

Speculate that in 100 years time — due to advances in deep-space probe technology — a hitherto unknown property of the universe is discovered, and that it is named Xquisz. Clearly at this point Xquisz would then exist, and would be presumed to have existed all along.

Did Xquisz always exist? No and yes. It doesn't exist now because it is undetectable, so it didn't always exist. Yet once it is discovered and shown to have been an essential constituent of the universe since its formation it can be shown always to have existed.

In their book The Quantum Enigma, Rosenblum and Kuttner suggest (very tentatively) that consciousness creates reality, and that by thinking of something we cause it to be (p. 201):

"It has been wildly speculated that postulating a theory that is not in conflict with any previous observation actually creates a new reality"

In the above example, Xquisz only comes into being when it becomes part of the consciousness of those who conceive it. Prior to it being conceived of it has no existence.

The denial of pleasure and the pleasure of denial

Self-denial can be more pleasurable than self-indulgence.