Of Holes and A-Holes

[Chas]

I say that holes are a good example of something that both exists and is immaterial. A hole is known with respect to something material but is not itself material. It is possible to know about something that is indeed immaterial through observation of something that is material. As such a hole is defined by what surrounds it, but the hole itself is not the same as the surrounding material.

The main concern I have with bringing this up is to show that someone can deduce the existence of immaterial things from material things. Likewise people can deduce the existence of material objects from personal experience which is not a material thing. Thus people can go back and forth trying to define material things, like brains, and immaterial things, like minds, in terms of the other without reaching any conclusion as to which is primary. They thus remain forever stuck in paradox. (No matter, never mind) The simpler solution is to accept both materiality and immateriality are part of one larger reality that is a hypostatic union of both.

Holes, and similar things like gaps and tears, do not depend on specific substances for their existence. This property allows people to say things like, this hole in the metal is the same size as that hole in this paper. If you insist that holes do not properly exist, then you simultaneously and tacit deny the existence of other forms, like triangles, and categories, like unity and extension.

Ooooh, look! A shiny new fallacious argument to play with!

A hole, or rip, or tear has no existence other than as a descriptive aspect of that which is described as having that hole, rip, or tear.

[LostLocke]

Collapsed the wavefunction of the probabilistic determinatrix of the hole location and essentially quantum tunneled it to a new invex.

Mmmm, I think it went something more like:

Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains.

[Esquilax]

Quit confusing attributes with objects, Chad.

[genkaus]

Only as ideas drawn from incomplete perceptions.

Look at a calm lake. Does it really have a smooth "surface"? No, how could it? It consists of a bunch of particles vibrating in space. But we take light from some of those particles, map a virtual border, and call it a surface.

The difference is that this simplification works: if a ball hits a "virtual" border called a wall, it bounces, and we don't need to see the gazillion individual moments of all the particles it includes.

God, on the other hand, doesn't see to be a conceptualization which represents any useful fact about our lives.

I think you completely missed my point here.

My argument, which was a response to your statement "holes don't exist", had nothing whatsoever to do with god. I used the very same logic that you use here - the idea of virtually superimposed borders - to show that holes exist as much as any other physical object.

[bennyboy]

Only as ideas drawn from incomplete perceptions.

Look at a calm lake. Does it really have a smooth "surface"? No, how could it? It consists of a bunch of particles vibrating in space. But we take light from some of those particles, map a virtual border, and call it a surface.

The difference is that this simplification works: if a ball hits a "virtual" border called a wall, it bounces, and we don't need to see the gazillion individual moments of all the particles it includes.

God, on the other hand, doesn't see to be a conceptualization which represents any useful fact about our lives.

I think you completely missed my point here.

My argument, which was a response to your statement "holes don't exist", had nothing whatsoever to do with god. I used the very same logic that you use here - the idea of virtually superimposed borders - to show that holes exist as much as any other physical object.

I get it. My point is that the way we symbolize stuff (and holes) might be one abstraction away from reality, but that when we behave through that abstraction, real things happen.

The God comment was directed at the OP, which is not only an abstraction, but one which doesn't provide any useful interface to the "truth."

[Brakeman]

Those desperate to believe in sky fairies are also desperate to find even the flimsiest support for their comfortable delusion.

[Anomalocaris]

Those desperate to believe in sky fairies are also desperate to find even the flimsiest support for their comfortable delusion.

Flimsy it is, separate is it, support it is not.

[Mothonis]

Chad hasn't responded guess he knows he messed up badly

seriously I have lost respect for you.

[Neo-Scholastic]

Chad hasn't responded guess he knows he messed up badly

seriously I have lost respect for you.

I'm just providing space for people to weight in and carefully consider the most thoughtful responses to the question. It's a much more interesting problem than it appears to be on first blush.

[vorlon13]

Collapsed the wavefunction of the probabilistic determinatrix of the hole location and essentially quantum tunneled it to a new invex.

Mmmm, I think it went something more like:

Portable Hole: A portable hole is a circle of cloth spun from the webs of a phase spider interwoven with strands of ether and beams of starlight. When opened fully, a portable hole is 6 feet in diameter, but it can be folded up to be as small as a pocket handkerchief. When spread upon any surface, it causes an extradimensional space 10 feet deep to come into being. This hole can be picked up from inside or out by simply taking hold of the edges of the cloth and folding it up. Either way, the entrance disappears, but anything inside the hole remains.

Rehashing Dr. Fuad's theories now won't make them any more correct than they were in 1963, when in the grips of a secret CIA LSD experiment he supposedly scrawled his ideas in his own vomit shortly before committing suicide in an industrial hamburger bun slicer.