You write so well, Sasha. I wish I could do that : - )

I agree with most you say, except for that one little thing about the whole of reality: a Vase or not a Vase, that is the question, right?

I am a structural philosopher, so my foundation is structure itself and not concepts we agree on. I am letting all the aspects that we know do their own talking. I am just reading the results.

--

To have an outcome that is as special as Matter, the original state can only have been undermined at a fundamental level. There are no other options to have a distinct result, and I expect you do agree that the result in which we live is quite special.

I look both at religion and science as well from a structural perspective, and I see that they are distinct from one another and they are distinct from the philosophical approach.

Religion allows us to accept the overall setup in one single step, for instance by starting with God. Structurally, we place that setup at the top level, and then expect/demand/hope for everything to fall into place underneath.

Science does not do that. In science, we start with the details that we know are true, i.e. repeatable, and we can understand that there are one-time events as well that cannot be repeated but that are true, too. An omelet, for instance, shows us that an egg was broken even when we do not see the whole egg. We cannot repeat that action with the same egg, but we can do it with other eggs. The omelet shows us a one-time event (in which the negative aspect is the breaking of the whole egg).

In science, we can also extrapolate on the known data, and we do so in two ways.

Theorizing is the larger outcome we find plausible among the known data, and nowadays many are so good at theorizing that they even theorize on top of theories. I hope you understand we are moving up higher and higher, and the house remains standing as long as it does not get undermined by new data conflicting with it.

The other option is through creating a hypothesis. We can indeed jump to the highest level in science, but do so only to investigate. If the investigation does not turn up any data or any theories about data worth saving, then we abandon the hypothesis.

In philosophy in general, we start with the concepts. As such, it is distinct from the other two approaches because we base our work on the concepts we agree upon. Sometimes, later on in the discussions, we may discover that one person has a different idea about, for instance, democracy as a concept, than another person, but that is part of the fun of discovery.

The last thing to say is that science has the foundational data, yet in science there are also aspects that we can never know.

Contrast the Big Bang event, which is about the first appearance of Matter, with the origin of Energy.

For the beginning of Matter, we do have some data. Yet for the beginning of Energy, we actually have nothing at all.

We know that Matter is a form of Energy, and it actually comes in different formats (electrons are different from neutrons and protons, for instance). Yet we suspect that there is far more Energy than there is Matter.

Long story short, the only outcome we do see is the one our minds should also follow. That is where the conflict in pinpointing our words comes about. When our words follow a setup that is not identical to the setup of Matter in a larger setting with Energy + Space, then we cannot get the storyline right.

This is what Matter is doing at the big picture level. It is very simple, but the human brain may end up picking one option instead of accepting that both are true while in clear conflict.

Matter is convergent, which we see in the results with planet Earth, for instance. One globe, lots of Matter.

Then, the Solar System, which is also showing us how Matter likes to hang out together, but there is quite a bit of space already between the celestial bodies.

The largest setting in which we see a combined level of convergence is the Milky Way.

From that point on at the larger level, we do not have any convergence for Matter any more (happenstance notwithstanding).

At the universal level, in light of Matter, we see divergent behaviors only.

Matter should not be convergent and divergent at the same time, but the scale of things allows Matter to have two distinct behaviors.

The original Vase of Energy broke because we see at the largest of levels that Matter is convergent in essence.

Here, on planet Earth, we are fully one with the planet, so it is logical to consider the larger picture as One of some kind. But that is true only at the local level.

Thank you for letting me say all of this, Sasha. I am interested to hear what you have to say.

I am fine if you disagree with me. As mentioned, at the largest of levels of reality Separation is the largest of all.