Dear Edwin
Phew !! - Lot's of brow wiping here !!! All this is so new to me - not that I haven't actually spent a life time working up to the day when I could get 'my stuff' 'out there' !!! & once again I am so glad for this FQXi forum in which to do so.
And thank you for your supportive comments. I'm actually quite blown away by the fact that you - & others - seemed to understand almost all of my essay - wow ! & yes I've waited this long before presenting 'my stuff' because I wanted to be satisfied that I could present it in a way that it could be, er, reasonably well understood within its own context - that I could outline my basic assumptions with some certain clarity & then further maintain some real logical consistency throughout.
'Via astute introspection' ? Your words !
Yes Edwin ! Exactly ! , it's all introspection - all intuition - all subjectivity !! "We are all forever trapped beneath the event horizon of our own subjectivity" (Me quoting me!) Another way of saying this is: For each of us our own subjectivity (our own feelings, qualia, intuitions, imaginings, thoughts, introspections, reasonings, knowings (however 'rational' or not they may be !!) IS ALL THAT WE CAN BE & KNOW'.
In a pan-psychic universe it could be no other way !!! Everything is intuition . . Everything is knowingness . . . I am therefore I think ..... Thought & 'material being' are 'just' properties of 'knowingness'.
>> By tracing geometric objects through our own thinking-machinery (our brains are not just computers - they perform computation - lots of it - but all of its operations including its computational ops are 'merely' part of its true function which is THINKING - & recall that 'thinking' is 'using information (geom objts) to guide action), by tracing geometrical objects through the brain no great difficulty attends the task of recognising WHERE - after astronomical amounts & different kinds of processing & collating - THEY GET POSTED in order to do the one & only job they are there to do - which is trigger off our motor machinery in the existentially best possible mobilisation/activation that can be so activated at the time.
AND the only bit of matter which feels/experiences EVERYTNING that gets fired over to our Reading/Triggereing Panels (the trillions of neuronal trigger heads thereon) is the small amount of (neurotransmitter-filled) interstitial fluid.
One of the all too many phenomena maintstream science/physics has NOT identified & defined to date (so busy is it with qunatum phenemenon) is what a (macro-) EXISTENT IS - the existential status of what we ourselves have chosen to call simple, everyday, common, ordinary, garden variety discrete bits of matter. (Quick !! - what is this phenomenon's definition.)
My own conclusions as to the defining characteristic of all 'free-standing' bits of 'ordinary matter' such as are you & I & all of the other single, individual, separate, discrecte free-standing atoms, molecules, elements, minerals, chemicals, crystals & all known life forms, is the fact that they are all "self-assemblers" & further that each is also a "self-contained" entity - that is to say, not only does each of these 'proper existents' (my name for them/us) assemble itself all by itself without any external assistance - doing so strictly via self-generated forces, mechanisms & capacities, not only continues on during its lifetime here in our universe (however long or short) maintaining its own self-given integrity of being via the self-same self-generated forces, mechanisms & capacities, but each also, er, grows - well generates - its own 'skin' which is of course, the repulsive electrpstatic force field which verily indeed does so surround each & every existent here - including some of the non-self-assemblers, not to omit all of the specially-manufactured objects here too.
One of the identifying/defining features/properties of any such proper existent is that it both exists as whatever it is & ACTS as a UNITY.
One of our all too many mistaken views of 'inanimate' matter is that it is 'cold, lumpen & hard' indeed, completely insensate, passive, inert & pawn-like.
What we have failed to recall is that even rocks & stones ACTIVELY KICK BACK anytime they feel their integrity of being threatened. And rocks & stones aren't even proper existents. Now compare the 'kick back' punch any atom or molecule will deliver if you really seriously try to compromise its integrity of being.
'Resisting disintegration' AS A UNITED WHOLE is an identifying/defining capaciy of 'a proper existent' - & even many 'improper' ones - existents that have been assembled by non-self-arising outside forces.
Proper existents use their self-generated 'skin' as that with which they literally defend themselves against any external threats to their own personal integrity of being. As already noted, each & every free-standing solid body here in our universe is enveloped in a repulsive all-surrounding electro-static force field. It is precisely this phenomenon by which each literally defends itself - each delivers whatever kick-back blow it possibly can.
NOW THEN. A drop of water is a proper existent; each body of water now matter how small is a properly self-assembled, self-maintained, self-contained entity. Even though any drop of water's self-containing 'skin' is relatively weak in comparison to, say, your fingertip or the pane of water down which it might be sliding, nevertheless ANY body of water quite demonstably CONTAINS itself via its own self-generated skin; all bodies of water no matter how small or large have 'surface tension' - indeed, have one unbroken 'skin' of surface tension surrounding them. Including the small amount of interstitial fluid trapped between our consciousness-generating panels. (As well as the Pacific Ocean - actually come to think of it as all of our oceans are joined together at some point there is only one skin of electrostatic force field surrounding them . .
This being the case (if it is!! - & I'd stake my life on it) then the "3-D volume" (of which you speak) on which is reconstructed the geometric "model" of "reality" - exists wholly & solely WITHIN the pen-ultimate quintessence of this entity - as to the deep pen-ultimate "VOLUME" of this little bit of water. Sure it is pushed where it exists by 'outside foreces' nevertheless, being a body of water it is containing itself via its own self-generated force field at that location. (And liquids have some pretty good 'kick-back' power when under preseure by which they 'attempt' to maintain their own personal integrity of being, mai non?)
I have a number of additional 'first principle' reasons for considering - er feeling, intuiting - that this is the case - that is that it is the case that 'we' are the 'voluminous' pen-ultimate quintessence of this otherwise perfectly ordinary bit of H20. That in which the 3d model of reality resonates.
1) One it is a proper (self-assembled/self-maitiained/self-contained) existent & as such IS A SINGLE UNIFIED ENTITY - which is precisely the way we feel ourselves - our consciousnesses - our knowingnesses - to be; we feel ourselves to be unified wholes (as a general rule - all rule proving exceptions not to the contrary - as when we are asleep - sleep is characterised by a disconnect with our motor machinery, whcih simply means that there are no triggering signals passing through us).
2) Geometrical objects are strictly surface-dwelling phenomena. This being the case I feel persuaded to conclude that none of them exist inside/below (within some non-surface, 'voluminous' level) any increment of solid matter's surface surface. And therefore no information exists at the deepest quintessential (quantum ?) level of being.
Contrary to mainstream recieved wisdom I personally feel compelled to conclude that the pen-ultimate quintessence of all 'solid' surface-sporting matter is NOT quantised at all but is, as per your teminology "voluminous" - indeed is continuously voluminous, er, 'solid' !!! & that, yes, when the signals literally charge through 'us' - through that proper aquatic existent trapped between our consciousness-generating panels - they - the signals/the geometric objects - literally carve us up into sets of standing waves of some sort (!??) & with each change of pattern in these standing waves (which undoubtedly last only microseconds) WE feel differently - our KNOWINGNESSES CHANGE to the beats of those drums - we feel a different 'tune' as to each different wave pattern 'standing' in us . . . . .. .. (And don't get all whoo whoo new-agey on me - as I keep saying - trace the geometric objects in our thinking machinery as they get shunted therethrough & you quite unproblematically wind up at this bit of water - as the one place where all final summations thump through . . ..
Presently we have no INFORMATION as to the pen-ultimate quintessence of matter (despite billions on the LHC). Again as geometric-cum-inforamtional objects are strictly surface-dwelling phenomena, & as there seems to be no 'surfaces' down at matter's deepest level (all that malarky about uncertainty & live/dead cats being excellent evidence as to this supposition) I personally do not expect us to be able to get any 'out' from there.
But it doesn't matter at all as we are that thing.
Very best regards
Margriet.
