Old argument - new conceptualisation.
A table has an surface. But where is that surface? Does it belong to the table or to the air above the table? In Materialism all substance is made of atoms. All things that exist are substance. So if the surface exists it must be made of atoms. So we say that the surface is the last row of atoms of the table.
But then there is a new boundary between the last row of atoms and the air. On one side of this boundary lies the electron cloud of atoms in the last row of the table and on the other the disparate electron cloud of air. Even if we succeed in defining this boundary we just create a new boundary ad infinitum.
So we might say that boundaries do not exist. What a mess we have just created since all objects must now flow freely into one another without limits. (The atomic arguments of Democritus transform into the holistic arguments of Parmenides.) If all things are the same why this talk of table and air in the first place? This is nonsense also. (This is an ancient argument I've seen it in the Shurangama Sutra for example).
So materialism is useless here (as it always proves to be on examination).
So where and what are bounbaries then? The answer I realise is that they are NULL. The boundary between a table and the air is neither table nor air but lies outside the conceptual framework of both. Since all things have boundaries, or limits, it lies outside this framework of "things" also. In other words it is not a third new "thing" (i.e. rescued from the third man fallacy). (And Derrida this is much easier than Differance). When one considers a "boundary" taken by itself, taken outside its context, then we must fill in the mental space with NULL because it can't be answered.
This links with the idea of depedent-origination from Buddhism which points to the impossibility of things existing outside context, i.e. without cause and supporting conditions. Nothing exists alone, in isolation, an island unto itself. (Or for word play, NULL exists alone, in isolation, an island unto itself.)
Usually people ignore NULL as boring and ungraspable. But it is the most interesting. It is against NULL that all things exist. If NULL was not a feature of the mind, and everything existed plain and simple (as Materialism postulates) then "The Universe" would stand alone as a self existing thing without context - without boundary. The mind shudders more at this extraordinary thought than even NULL. G-d created the world because outside the knowable we know a priori lies the unknowable - indeed they depend upon one another - that symmetry and balance goes deep - and accepting that liberates us from the boundary and obsession with what is known and not known which characterises Science and the fallible mortal mind... worlds like faith etc open up...
This also links with my personal holy grain the SRH - (self-reference-hypothesis) which hypothesises that true self-reference is impossible. So for example to call myself Alva is to use and empty term since what is Alva cannot at the same time meaningfully relate to Alva... there is an infinite regression it seems, a staring into opposing mirrors as we try to resolve what is refering to what. What is Alva doing? Alva is refering to Alva. etc etc. This is unresolvable it is NULL and demands the construction of a bigger framework than is presented by Alva alone (essentially Hegel dialectics). This problem surfaces everywhere that tries to make an absolute and self-complete statement in its own terms (without accepting NULL, Absolute or G-d or similar). Actual Self-consciousness is impossible! Ourself is only a paper thin fiction of our true selves which are unknowable - so don't even exist! Russell and Whitehead invented the idea of "Types" to avoid the paradoxes that arise from self-reference. It possibly challenges Godel's Theorems which use self-reference albeit weakly. "This sentence is false" is a NULL statement rather than a contradiction because it can't be resolved... better undertanding pending...
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