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dichotomies and concepts are not absolute...
I would completely agree with you in so far as your seeming to say that dichotomies are human inventions, rather than things which exist in the world independently of humans.

I like also your comment that what might appear to be entities "at war" are actually just different sides of **one thing**.

To take a physics example: with Newton, space and time were thought to be complete in and of themselves and independent of one another.

The Einstein revolution showed us that this is not so: what one man might see as space bleeds over into a second man's time coordinate, and vise versa.

We no longer have the Newtonian separation in which space is space and time is time and the two are absolute and universally defined for all observers. With Einstein, we have that what is space and what is time are not at all absolute, but depend upon who you ask...

Speaking in general terms, I would say this: Reality itself is a pre-intellectual thing, it is not something which comes with convenient dichotomy labels hanging on this thing or that thing.

Only human beings take the view that the concepts they invent must be in perfect correspondence with reality itself....

Best,
Doug

posted by bellwasright on July 10, 2006 at 6:55 AM | link to this | reply

Escape where, Avant-garde?
I agree-- Duality helps us perceive some of the different aspects of Everything,  and anything becomes a limitation when we stop being able to see around it, to appreciate its aspects, its character...  But take the bars of a cage, and turn them sideways-- and you have a ladder.

posted by Ciel on July 9, 2006 at 2:10 PM | link to this | reply

Ciel
I like the way you presented this. We must understand duality to make sense of oneness. Otherwise, it is like a prison from which there seems to be no escape!

posted by avant-garde on July 9, 2006 at 1:58 PM | link to this | reply