Section 5d

Objections by Mathematicians

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Mathematicians will not be satisfied with these answers.

  • They will immediately propose new objections.

They will probably say I explain only how objects affect the senses, not their real nature and operations.

There is nothing visible or tangible in between 2 bodies.

Yet we find by experience, that the bodies may:

  • be placed in the same way to the eye, and
  • require the same motion of the hand in passing from one to the other, as if divided by something visible and tangible.

This invisible and intangible distance is also found by experience to contain a capacity of:

  • receiving body, or
  • becoming visible and tangible.

My system does not explain why bodies:

  • are separated
  • can receive other bodies between them, without any impulse or penetration.

This is because those causes are beyond the reach of human understanding.

I am content with knowing perfectly:

  • how objects affect my senses, and
  • their connections with each other, as far as experience informs me of them.

This is enough for the conduct of life and for my philosophy, which only explains the nature and causes of our perceptions* [Footnote 4].

Superphysics Note
This is the operation of the aethereal layer or element

Footnote 4

As long as we confine our speculations to the appearances of objects to our senses, without entering into a long essay about their real nature and operations, we:

  • are safe from all difficulties, and
  • can never be embarrassed by any question.

Thus, if asked whether the invisible distance between two objects is something or nothing, it is easy to answer that it is something, namely a property of the objects which affect the senses

If asked whether two objects with a distance between them touch or not, it may be answered that this depends on the definition of touch.

Objects touch if they touch when there is nothing sensible between them.

Objects do not touch, when:

  • their images strike contiguous parts of the eye, and
  • the hand feels both objects successively, without any interposed motion.

The appearances of objects to our senses are all consistent.

No difficulties can ever arise, but from the obscurity of the terms we use.

If we ask into why and how objects appear, most of our conclusions will be full of skepticism and uncertainty.

Is the invisible and intangible distance full of body or something that might become visible or tangible by improving of senses?

[The Caresians say yes. The Newtonians say no. The Newtonians match the vulgar and popular notions].

Newtonian philosophy asserts that a vacuum is where bodies are placed in such a way to receive bodies between them, without impulsion or penetration.

The real nature of this position of bodies is unknown.

We are only acquainted with its:

  • effects on the senses, and
  • power of receiving body.

Newtonian philosophy is suitable for those who:

  • have a modest skepticism, and
  • a fair confession of ignorance in subjects that exceed all human capacity.

Time is Inherent in Our Minds

The paradox is:

“if ‘vacuum’ is the name of the invisible and intangible distance, then space and matter are the same. Yet there is a vacuum. If the invisible and intangible distance is called a ‘plenum’, then motion is possible in a plenum without any impulse to infinity, without penetration and without returning in a circle.”

I answer that we only have an idea of real space if we:

  • fill it with sensible objects, and
  • conceive its parts as visible or tangible.

My doctrine is that time is nothing but how some real objects exist.

  • This is liable to the same objections as my similar doctrine on space.

If thinking of space gives us the idea of a vacuum, then we must also get the idea of time without any change, since we think of time most commonly.

But we really have no such idea.

Where do we get the idea of time from?

Does it arise from an impression of sensation or reflection?

It is impossible for an unchangeable object to give us a perception of time.

In reality, it is the successive instances of the unchanging object in our minds that gives us the perception of time.

There is a continual succession of perceptions in our mind.

  • The idea of time is forever present with us.

If we think of an unchanging object now and then 5 seconds later, the object appears twice in our minds.

  • This makes us impose the fictitious idea of time on that object in the same way as if the object had changed between those 2 instances.

The more instances the unchanging object has in our minds, the more of the fictitious time we assign to it.

These relations confound our ideas and make us imagine that we can create an idea of time without any change.

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