Adapted for the Internet from:

Why God Doesn't Exist

    1.0   The definition of property

    The differences between bundle and substance ‘theories’ of objecthood are ultimately traceable to two
    incompatible perceptions of the word property: ‘something owned’ versus ‘an attribute possessed by all
    members of a category.’ The bundle theorists think of a property as ‘something owned’ and predictably focus
    on words that describe features or highlight behaviors of an object or relations between objects. These
    philosophers think of an object in terms of:

    “ A property is that which not at all Can be disjoined and severed from a thing Without
       a fatal dissolution… touch to corporal things, Intangibility to the viewless void.”  [1]

    The bundle ontologist focuses on:

    •        what it looks like:

    “ table: An article of furniture supported by one or more vertical legs and having a flat
       horizontal surface.”  [2]

    •        what its purpose is:

    “ An anvil is a manufacturing tool, made of a hard and massive block of stone or metal
       used as a support for chiseling and hammering other objects.”  [3]

    •        how it is built:

    “ In physics, a physical body (sometimes called simply a body or even an object) is a
       collection of masses, taken to be one. For example, a baseball can be considered
       an object but the baseball also consists of many particles (pieces of matter).”  [4]

    •        whether it is real or ideal:

    “ For Plato, these Forms are perfect Ideals, but they are also more real than physical
       objects.”  [5]

    •        what it does:

    “ A tape recorder… records and plays back sound.” [6]

    The substance ontologists, on the other hand, think of a property as ‘that which is common to all.’

    “ Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognised,
       differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped
       into categories”  [7]

    “ In mathematics, category theory deals in an abstract way with mathematical
       structures and relationships between them.”  [8]

    The substance philosophers have converted the word object into a category. What they failed to do is identify
    what it is that is common to all objects. What is this mysterious ‘property’ called substance?

    Most of the difficulty in deciding what properties to include and which to reject can in turn be traced to the
    misconceived notion that a property of an object is that which an observer can detect. Thus the philosopher
    unwittingly reduces the definition of object  to a proof:

    “ In philosophy, mathematics, and logic, a property is an abstraction characterizing
       an object.  [9]

    “ A physical property is an aspect of an object that can be experienced using one
       of the five human senses without changing its chemical composition: touch, taste,
       smell, sight or sound, or, in an extended sense, detected through any measuring
       device… In Quantum mechanics, physical properties are referred to as observables. [10]

     “ In physics, particularly in quantum physics, a system observable is a property of
       the system state that can be determined by some sequence of physical operations. [11]

    The question, then, is whether there are properties which an object has that are independent of observers.

    Aristotle and Euclid vaguely seem to have stumbled on at least one fundamental attribute which is not
    contingent on opinions:

    “ by form I mean the essence of each thing, and its primary substance”  [12]

    “ A boundary is that which is an extremity of anything.”(Bk. I, Def. 13)…
       A figure is that which is contained by any boundary or boundaries.” (Bk. I, Def. 14)  [13]

    The notions that Aristotle and Euclid had in mind were not too far from the mark, especially considering that
    these were the first attempts to formalize a definition. Certainly the mathematicians and philosophers who came
    afterwards didn't do any better.

    The problem with what Aristotle and Euclid proposed is not that it is wrong, but that they didn't use it. The Greek
    geometers and philosophers gave lip service to what they had just defined. They never realized the significance
    of what they had discovered. The Greeks never used these definitions in their geometric analyses of Geometry.
    All of the geometers at least since the days of Pythagoras referred to a boundary, but used the notion of
    perimeter. A perimeter is a dynamic concept. It is the distance traveled around a plane. In contrast, a boundary is
    a static concept. It refers to the line that envelopes a plane in a cross-section of time. A perimeter is to a movie
    what a boundary is to a photograph. A perimeter is what an observer does. A boundary is what a plane has
    itself. A boundary also runs perpendicular to a perimeter. The boundary is conceptually what you encounter
    after moving radially from a center. A perimeter is something you trace by going around a center. The idiots of
    Mathematics have no use for boundaries. Mathematics is exclusively a discipline that studies motion.
    Mathematics deals exclusively with perimeters. Conversely, Physics has no use for witnesses and their
    testimony. Physics deals with boundaries and not with what an observer measures around a figure.

    Therefore, Aristotle and Euclid were right on the money. The ‘property’ that all objects have in common, whether
    real or imaginary, irrespective of observers, is shape:

    shape: the inability to blend or to be continuous with space; possessing a surface
    or boundary; potential to have location. (syn.: discrete, finite, bound, outline, figure,
    form, contour, mold, configuration, cut, silhouette, carving, sculpture, cast).

    object: that which has shape. (Synonyms: exhibit, thing, physical, something, entity,
    stuff, body, structure, architecture, substance, medium, particle, figure, essence,
    element, point, item, it, island, statue, bulk., encased, contained, enveloped.)

    By shape, I mean that the word under scrutiny represents that which lacks the potential to blend with space or,
    conversely, that space does not interfere with it (Fig. 1). Shape is a static concept. The word refers to what we
    would see in a single frame of the Universal Movie. The Moon has shape because it doesn't instantly become
    one with space. Shape is distinct from appearance, aspect, look, or likeness in that it is intrinsic. These words
    denote shape from an observer’s perspective. Genuine shape has nothing to do with observers. The Moon has
    refused to blend with space even before life arose on Earth. For that matter, a fish doesn’t blend with the waters
    that surround it either, but each of its atoms has space as its background.  A particular set of atoms is bound by
    the skin of the fish, which in turn is contained within the sea, which is constrained by the Earth, which is
    enveloped in air, but individually and collectively, these entities are surrounded by space. Without this insulator
    we call space, the Universe would be a continuous, infinite block of matter. Shape denotes that which you can
    point your finger at and name. You cannot point with your index finger in the same way and call ‘it’ love or
    energy. When you point to a shape and say table, you are treating the table as a discrete unit. For the moment, it
    is made of a single piece, as if it were physically continuous.

    You may argue that this is my particular definition of object.

    You would be wrong! This definition is the scientific definition of the word object. The reason the Greeks don't
    get a cigar is that they failed to recognize this important point. The term, noun, subject, and object-concept
    notions of object belong to ordinary speech. These notion are not scientific because they cannot be used
    consistently in a dissertation. Not one philosopher in the last 3000 years ever realized this.
So then, what really
is an object?

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    Last modified 02/25/08


        Copyright © by Nila Gaede 2008
Our Lord has blessed
Bill with the Heavenly
Wreath and bound him
with Love.
And the heavens have covered
Bill with Grace and cloaked him
in the Holy Spirit. Please
welcome him as your new king.

    2.0   Shape doesn’t depend on opinions

    The seasoned philosopher may point out that my definition of object nevertheless invokes space. The observer
    is staring at a sphere as well as at the space that gives it contour. Therefore, there is at least an involuntary
    comparison.

    Let's put this objection in perspective! The adjectives big, rough, round, and beautiful absolutely invoke an
    observer. We cannot talk about big without comparing two objects. Big necessarily invokes a second object. An
    adjective such as yellow is trickier. From the observer’s perspective it is actually an adverb: how the signal of
    light arriving from the surface of the Moon is behaving in comparison to the signal coming from Mars. From the
    Moon’s point of view it is again an adverb: the specific frequency of light its surface emits. Color is a dynamic
    phenomenon and, therefore, does not qualify as an adjective for the purposes of Physics. We need at least two
    frames of the Universal Movie to conceptualize yellow.

    Shape differs from such attributes in that it is stealthily independent of observers. Shape is not what the
    observer visualizes, but an intrinsic property of an object. Shape is a very particular attribute that refers to the
    inability of matter to interface with space. Space does not really ‘contain’ or ‘restrict’ an object. Space does not
    ‘mold’ shape because space is nothing. There is no struggle for encroachment between matter and space
    because space doesn’t offer battle. They are of two radically different natures. An object has no possibility of
    interacting with space because space does not possess a surface.

    From the observer’s perspective, space gives form to and contours the Moon like the ocean seemingly gives
    shape to a fish. From the Moon’s perspective, on the other hand, we have the correct notion of form. The Moon
    is as big and as extended as it can be. If more matter fell on the surface of our satellite, it would now expand at
    the expense of space. Conversely, if the Moon lost a mountain in a collision with an asteroid, it would now
    contract without protesting and space would be neither the better nor the worse. What the observer sees or
    measures has nothing to do with what is. The idiots of Philosophy and Mathematics have always focused on
    what the observer perceives. That's how many of these idiots concluded that the object 'Moon' isn’t there when
    they’re not looking at it. That's how many of these morons concluded that a tree that falls to the ground in the
    forest without anybody present doesn’t make noise. You have to have the intelligence of a carrot to reach such
    appalling conclusions. Your entire schooling was in vain if you can’t get through these simple hurdles. In fact,
    you would have to be a schooled philosopher. The philosophers coming out of the universities overindulge in
    such petty reasoning, taking simple analyses to extremes, and ironically arriving at the same intellectual level as
    a person with Down's Syndrome.

    There is no explicit or implicit provision in the definition of shape for observers, for faith, or for wisdom. If the
    question of whether a chair has shape is left to opinions, we would argue forever in circles. One person would
    say that she believes that love has shape and the other would answer that he knows for sure that it doesn’t.
    Hopefully, whether a 'love' or a 'table' have shape is an objective statement that follows from definitions. If we
    are to draw the line between objects and concepts, this line will be drawn at shape.

    The skeptic may insist once more and argue now that a circle and a halo may also be concepts.

    Again, let's put this in perspective! A circle and a halo are first and foremost physical objects. The reason for
    this is that they have shape. You point and the ET sees an object. A circle and a halo become concepts when
    you use these words in a sentence or in relations. Now you are no longer referring to the object circle, but to the
    concept circle. You are in effect comparing a circle against other figures.  In order for the ET to understand the
    figure known as circle, you must invariably compare the circle against a square or a triangle. The object circle
    you visualize. The concept circle you understand with your mind.


    3.0   Shape makes no provision for time

    Shape is an attribute of a static Universe, conceptually, a cross-section of time. Shape is timeless in the sense
    that it does not involve an interval of time. An object has shape in an instant, in a single frame of the Cosmic
    Film. An observer would be hard-pressed to ‘prove’ the definition of object by asking you to watch a movie           
    (e.g., a series of images of a table). A table is an object only when the prosecutor depicts it in a still image. If the
    jurors must watch a movie, the prosecutors are now treating the table as a concept.  We don’t define the ‘object’
    table. We point to it.

    Some philosophers were close to discovering this wisdom:

    “ Often, naming and pointing will be essentially the only ways to refer unambiguously
       to a particular object.”  [14]

    But again, they get no cigar. They never realized the significance of what they had discovered, in part, because
    they didn’t define the crucial word object unambiguously. This statement can only have meaning in the context
    of that which has shape.


    4.0   Conclusion

    The word object is a category which includes only those words we can utter when we point to designate a
    shape. The other two categories at this level are concept and space. The words term, subject, and noun refer to
    concepts and not to objects. They belong to ordinary speech because they do not discriminate between what
    we can name and talk about on the one hand and those things which have shape on the other. Such words are
    too broad to be used in Science.

    The 'shape' definition of object summarily outlaws words which have served as currency in the mainstream for
    decades if not hundreds of years, to wit: energy, mass, space, field, time, space-time, black hole, point-particle,
    number, etc. Such terms may serve as the subject of a sentence. They are nouns in the sense that we can talk
    about them in everyday parlance. They do not qualify as objects in the context of things which have shape.
    Therefore, such words are not proper subject matter of Physics. In Physics, only those things which have
    shape qualify as nouns.

    The mathematical physicists and philosophers will undoubtedly feel uncomfortable with this definition because
    it threatens their religions. Things which heretofore were taken for granted will now be scrutinized under the
    new criterion. We have no trouble deciding whether a chair or a rock or a tree is an object. We have trouble with
    the borderline cases. Are shadows and holes objects? How about fire and water or atoms or gases? Is air an
    object or a concept? Doesn’t the wind blow down trees? Surely it must be physical if it interacts with matter.
    The 'shape' definition of object now enables us to eliminate the fuzziness heretofore responsible for circular
    reasoning. Therefore, I will now address the establishment's concerns and then analyze a few of the borderline
    cases that have troubled the philosophers over the years. If the members of the establishment wish to
    challenge this definition of object, they merely need to propose an alternative that can be used consistently in a
    discussion.
The Object Bill
but only from a distance

Fig. 1   Object

An object is that which has shape. It has
shape irrespective of observers known
as mathematicians. Physics relies on
neither witnesses nor testimony. From
an observer's perspective, an object can
only be visualized from a distance. So,
now, what is the distance between you
and space-time or a black hole if neither
has a surface?