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Is the world a container?



In Larval Subjects:

http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/what-is-a-world/

and

http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2012/04/24/of-the-simulacra-atomic-images-lucretius/

Bryant discusses the connectedness of all things. I take his relations are external, and yet they compose a world. There is an interesting discussion on whether accidental, incidental, coincidental relations could be forged. I suppoose they can be forged in the sense that they have to be instauré - that is, brought about and maintained. If all relations in the world have multiple sponsors, there are many elements (objects, actants) involved in any forging of a relation. An external relatedness of all things could be thus defended (but this is not Bryant´s line).

Bryant then discusses whether the world is in some sense a container. He goes:

"Tim seems to conceive world as a container that entities are in. For me, by contrast, the world is anything but a container. Ultimately there are no containers, there are just relations between entities. And as a consequence, in the framework of my ontology, a world is nothing but a network of relations between structurally coupled entities."

Surely, the issue is what is meant by *structurally*. If the relations are external, the world is a contingent assemblage. If the world were a container, it would have to have borders fixed independently of the existing (or future) alliances between its components. There should be containers only in the sense of parameters of existing (external) relations for further (external) relations.

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