"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!
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.
Robot/self works as well.. I need a metaphor to understand what a “spirit” might actually be..
There could be many metaphors to explain “it”...
BUT.. I like the Donkey/Rider humor to answer Jesus(God) riding into Jerusalem on an Ass(donkey)...
Answers to me the WHY? he did it, if he did.. the humor is pregnant..
Not to speak of the vision I had.. which showed me a view to God’s humor..
I cannot imagine a God without humor.. a fun “guy”.. serious as a heart attack but the best stand-up God I know of..
Loki was a prop comic... Jesus was the real thing.. my kind of fellow..
Consider Jesus spitting on ground making spitty mud to rub in some blind dudes eyes.. in front of a gaggle of folks/Jews.. some obsessed with being clean.. others that would ‘nife you for spitting on them..
The inherent humor of this does not escape me.. but sadly it does some..