pulga wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 10:39 am
Otto wrote: ↑Thu Dec 14, 2017 5:18 am
Whatever supports something puts it in its place if we are speaking about essential support. If one takes away some essential support, then whatever is essentially supported becomes amorphous. The support that is meant here is not different from an act of binding, such as when the law binds one to act in conformity.
I wouldn't say becomes amorphous, but rather it ceases and is replaced by something wholly different yet is still present as a part (a possibility) of something more general, i.e. further out on the horizon of meaning. Note: I think a distinction can be made between essential support and ontological support, i.e. while wholes vanish, parts linger -- thus enabling a more general thing to
endure in its essence. Cf.
thitassa aññathattam ('invariance under transformation') as a fundamental characteristic of a dhamma.
For example, my presence in
this room is made up of an
actual proprioceptive field in the foreground with a number of
possible proprioceptive fields in the background, all of which "bind" together to bring about the whole of
being in
this room. Were I to step into
another room, my
being in
this room would cease, i.e. vanish, absolutely and be replaced by my
being in
another room. Yet though I am now in
another room, I am still in the house that constitutes the more general whole of all the rooms that it is made of, one of which I happen to be in.