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Re: fragmented perspective (was Re: proofs and people)



On Mon, 31 Dec 2001, J. Marie Hall wrote:

> > > > Is it possible God has no perspective at all, precisely because he
> > > > sees everything?
> > >
> > > seeing everything and "being" everything are two different things...
> >
> > Um, yes.  Not sure how that follows from what I said, though.
>
> well i was thinking about it spacially.  if god is separate from
> everything else, his vantage point is still different and therefore
> maintains some kind of perspective.  if he "is" everything--i don't
> think he would have perspective in the holistic sense.

Ah.  Interesting.  So God, by virtue of being *different* and *separate*
from his creation, would have a perspective, then -- even a limited
perspective?  The truth would be bigger than God, because the truth would
also include this creation which is different and separate from him?

I wonder how that would look to a panentheist, i.e. someone who believes
that everything is *in* God, though not that God is everything.

> essentialism, the way i understand it (with a little dictionary help),
> is that ultimate reality is ascribed to essence embodied in a thing
> perceptible to the senses.  

Does it have to be perceptible to be real?  Or is this describing how we
ought to approach the things we observe and perceive?

> j. marie would still be many of the things she is even if she hadn't
> experienced all she has.  perhaps she wouldn't express _all_ things in
> the way she has (given her surroundings)--but she is a lot of what she
> is without that environment.  it may shape some of what's there--but
> it doesn't create it.  god created first.  i don't think i was born as
> a blank soul and personality until my environment waltzed in and made
> each and every part of me.

By "environment", are you including the things that constitute your
physical being, or just the external aspects (social, etc.)?

> now, i definitely admit that drawing the line adequately b/w the
> essential and constructed is where it gets particularly complicated.

No doubt.  :)

> > > but i do enjoy the fragmentation,
> >
> > You're a mysterious writer, sometimes, you know that?  :)
>
> in essense or only when social? :)

Ah, well, that's the mystery.  :)

> i think that's what i enjoy so much about over the rhine.  maybe not
> truly fragmented but drawing from many fragments.

Works for me!

> i love brussels sprouts,

For the love of God, *why*?

--- Peter T. Chattaway --------------------------- peter at chattaway_com ---
 "I detected one misprint, but to torture you I will not tell you where."
      Winston Churchill to T.E. Lawrence, re Seven Pillars of Wisdom

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