Connectedness

What makes a thing different from another?

See a rock? A ball? A bird?

What makes them ‘A’ object?

We call a thing, even though it is made of many other things. Take a ball for example: it is made up of millions of atoms. But yet they make a thing. The atoms are so well connected that we don’t see the part.

We can’t see what a ball is made of, because (1) we can’t sense it (2) it is not relevant.

What about a handful of sand? Or a scoop of water? What do we call them? Their form changes too rapidly for it to have relevance. If a scope of water could hold its form, perhaps it will be on my shelf as a unique art. But it does not. It changes its form too quick to have a relevance for me to give a name.

What about a school of sardines? They are a thing.

What about a whale? What makes them one, vs a multitude?

What about a human whose expression of ideas influence others in different place and in different time?

Why are sardines small, sharks big? What drives the size of organisms and organizations?

Say, you have repainted your car. Your friend looks at the car and would probably say, ‘when did you get a new car’?

Consider another scenario. Say, you have completely re-gutted the innards of your car but kept the look the pretty much the same. Now your friend won’t even probably notice that you have almost a new car on the inside..

So this brings out an age old question.. What defines a thing?

Everyone of us is constantly changing; absorbing new elements. Generating new cells. Discarding what made us. Materially we are completely turned over all the time. We are made of entirely different things than we were months ago. But, there is still a sense of ‘sameness’. Some people call it a soul, some call it life. Something that is intangible that gives a sense of continuity and constantness even when are in the middle of perennial change.

If each of us is like a car, sometimes changing the looks and sometimes changing the innards, what is real us? The answer is simple.. Just like any other answer hidden in plain sight!

There is no real us.. Whether it is a new car or old car is simply based on what changes the observers recognize. There is no absolute truth. If you recognize the change, it is new. If you don’t, it is the same.

If you are a floating bacterium, you may see a sky scrapper in a human, full of cells living and dying. If you are another human, you just see the collection not the parts.

In mathematical terms, vertices have no value on their own. They are just intersection of relationships. The path that is traversed along the edges define the vertices. Individual letters have no meaning. It is the well sequenced letters, and well sequenced words that convey an idea.

How do we represent knowledge?

Say you have to describe a car to an alien.

Urge to act is inversely proportional to the sphere (volume) of awareness