Hi Stephen P. King As I see it, if there is an infinite collection of (monadic) points, all future things foreseen (as in "pre-established harmony") then nothing new can ever be created or destroyed, things (including thoughts and people) just blossom like plants from seeds and eventually die, but always in the same monad.
Notice that the phrase "pre-established harmony" just popped naturally into my mind when I visualized the points as overlaid. Studying Leibniz is like that, it is so logical that it will allow you to explore without a guide. Roger Clough, rclo...@verizon.net 9/7/2012 Leibniz would say, "If there's no God, we'd have to invent him so that everything could function." ----- Receiving the following content ----- From: Stephen P. King Receiver: everything-list Time: 2012-09-07, 10:22:37 Subject: Re: The universe as a collection of an infinite number of pointscalledmonads On 9/7/2012 8:32 AM, Roger Clough wrote: Hi Stephen P. King I solved this problem my own way by simply asssuming that the universe from the beginning and before, as well as now and forever, exists as an infinite collection of points (monads). Hi Roger, I agree with this. So no problem with the creation of new things. No, novelty is not a priori definable, by its very definition it cannot be considered to be given from the beginning! OTOH, we could stipulate that novelty is a concept that only individual monads that are not identical to each other can have, then novelty and "creation of new things" in general can be seen in a logically consistent fashion as local transient aspects and not pre-ordained or essence. In principle they always were and simply grow or unfold when the time calls for it, then roll or fold up or whatever at the end of their useful lives. Surely! In this veiw of reality, all of reality always consists in monadic space as an overlapping infinite set of points. No, that is a contradiction of terms. Monads cannot be defined as "an overlapping infinite set of points" because "points" by definition have no extension and therefore can never overlap with each other. There is no such thing as a " monadic space" which might act as a container of multiple and distinct monads. Monads, as L defined them, cannot act or exist in that manner. Frankly, L's speculations about the "exterior aspects of Monads", found later on in his Monadology, papers, may be the consequence of drinking too much wine as they are completely inconsistent with his careful initial definitions of monads. We are all finite and fallible, even geniuses like Leibniz. :-( -- Onward! Stephen http://webpages.charter.net/stephenk1/Outlaw/Outlaw.html -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To post to this group, send email to everything-list@googlegroups.com. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/everything-list?hl=en.