Linear time — the X-axis of planar time — is seemingly the “time” that most human beings sense, almost all of the time, evidently quite naturally. But that would be a predisposition, quality, or qualification, that cannot be explained in terms of linear time. Hence our need to better understand what the Y-axis entails....
Position X, position Y, position Zed... scale X. scale Y, scale Zed... and shape on same three axis.. and the/an extrusion factor..
determines a human’s “reality quotient”.... all different for each one..
Much like a universe with many different “objects”.. all different in unique ways.. and the same in others..
Inhabiting “SPACE”... that is not nothing.. but something “we” know not of.. maybe dark energy/matter..
Speaks to me of the most rare thing I know of............... “humility”..
which is a requirement for conceiving of “GOD”.... even if you don’t believe in one..
for...... all are humble in degrees.. if at all..
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"SPACE." like TIME, seems always to be a controversial matter. WRT space: Is it "empty," or is it "full?" Is it absolute, or contingent? Is it eternal, or limited in time? These are the questions....
I've been thinking of you a lot lately, especially in regard to your "donkey/rider" analogy — which seems to suggest your awareness of a certain basic, deep-seated dualism occurring in natural life forms. That is to say, you note a certain tension between what we might call "spirit," and "matter" that plays out in the existence of living things.
Evidently, when this insight "hit you," you were very impressed.
I've liked your analogy from the first time I heard it. I had a similar "epiphany" when I was a teenager. Only the way the problem struck me at the time was not rider/donkey, but self/machine.
Somehow or other, by age 13 or so, I came to think of my existent "self" as the collaboration of "me and my robot."
The "robot" is the machine that carries "me" — or more grammatically, my "I" — around every day, all the time.
Whatever one thinks of such propositions, for me the takeaway was: "I" do not reduce to physics and chemistry. "I" am ever so much more than that.
Firstly, "I" am an image of God. Physics and chemistry have no purchase on a "problem" like that.
Hugs to my dear, dear brother 'pipe!!! Thank you so much for writing!