Sorting, the thing itself, mind/body

We can say that sorting, "oring" and "anding" into groups, whether those groups be cells, genes, species, brands, types of houses, alphabets, words, sentences, paragraphs, books is among the fundamental processes of both nature and the mind.

And when we view things from this perspective, the mind-body problem and the philosophical agony that has attended our alleged inability to know "the thing itself" fall away.

For if the "or" and the "and" are at work in both nature and the mind, can we not say that the mind is nature? There is no real distinction between nature and mind? Or perhaps the mind is a reflection of nature.   Or perhaps rather than being a distorting lens, the mind is a window to nature.

And when we view the mind as nature, as something that is natural and works in the same manner as nature, that acts as a non-distorting window to nature, our alleged inability to see things through other than human filters, to see "the thing itself", evaporates. The human filter is all we need.

 

Buffers

The erection of buffers by the "and" (and/or "or"?) to allow the process of living and diversification within these buffers seems to be a constant in nature.  We see these buffers in the membranes that protect the nuclei, the shells that protect mollusks, the skin that protects organs, the walls that protect settlements, the dwellings in which families conduct the activity of daily living, the prisons in which we house villains,  laws protecting privacy and shielding deliberations so that they can be carried out unfettered by outside interference.  Buffers are everywhere, allowing us the freedom to think regardless of the strictures oppressive governments place upon our actions, shielding our thoughts from the prying eyes of others.  Buffers, of course, also isolate us.  My authorship of this blog is an attempt to break through this buffer, to show at least a few of my thoughts that would otherwise remain forever private. And of course most communication allows us to break through these buffers within which we imprison ourselves.     Okay, time to go out.

Which is it?

I have talked about the "and" and "or" cooperating when coalitions are formed, when some entities, in drawing together with other entities, draw apart from the rest.  But do they really cooperate?  Is the "and" ascendant? Or is the "or" providing the impetus.  Half a dozen of one and six of the other? Only the particles will know.

Speculations on an Andorian Link Between Astonomy, Geometry, Chemistry and Biology

We have already said that prior to the big bang, when the "and" was ascendant, and the "or" only existed in its potential form, the universe was compressed into an infinitely small dot, or so some scientists claim.  At the moment of the big bang, the "or" experienced its actualization, and the one (dot) became many, exploding into an unknown multitude or remnants.     The "and", craving reunification, sought to connect the many, or as many of the many as possible, beckoning them, though the various processes of bonding (i.e. ionic bonding, covalent bonding etc), to coalesce into line segments.  Of course, the "or" was operative in the formation of line segments as well, as to form line segments, as the bits that would be forming line segments, had to drift away from the bits that would not form a portion of this alliance. And it came to pass that the "and", still enraged, beckoned various line segments to themselves form coalitions and become open shapes.   As we have said, the "or" itself was cooperating in the formation of these alliances, as the segments that were forming these alliances had to draw away from the segments that refused to join.   And eventually the "and" and "or" saw that there was greater security for these alliances when the shapes were closed, i.e. when the segments combined to form closed shapes.     And these closed shapes, in the right environment, created the conditions necessary for living cells to form.   For the walls or "segments" of these shapes created a buffer, so to speak, or  security for more exotic interactions to take place between these walls, within these shapes.  And we can speculate that members of these coalitions, chunks of these walls, may not have felt quite at home in these walls, may not have felt that their andorian potential for diversification, was being fully actualized.  But they saw that what remained of these buffers, which could soon be called cell membranes, created a safe place for various types of activities to take place within.  And both the "and" and "or" saw that the cleavages in this buffer caused by the departure of these bits into the center, could quickly be repaired by the absorption of other portions of the outside environment, other atoms, molecules etc, to replace the departed.  The departed themselves, those who were entering the nucleus of the cell, may have chosen to compensate for their departure by cooperating with the nucleus (the and at work again!). to draw in particles from the outside and repair the breakage.

At this stage we have reached the birth of single celled creatures, with membranes protecting a nucleus.  And to repeat myself, the nucleus, through the forces of the "and" and "or", works together with the membrane, to draw other members of the outside environment in.  What we see here, in this drawing-in-from-the outside, are the first rumblings of the nutritive process.  In our case, respiration, breathing in oxygen, is a part of the nutritive process.  And it is easy to see how the "and" and "or" subsequently cooperated, causing these single celled creatures, living in the deep sea, to form alliances into multi-celled creatures, and how these multi-celled creatures could become more successful, more efficient, if the labor, if what was necessary for both survival and the nutritive process, was divided between different clusters of cells, with skin cells performing one specialized function, blood cells another, and so on.    And eventually, through the workings of the "and" and "or", specialization and the division of labor, is repeated on a larger scale, with bands of whole multi-celled creatures, societies, whether they be humans, ants, bees etc., bands of bands of cells, working together toward a common end.