Observations placeholder
Spinoza, Baruch - Ethics - Aggregation
Identifier
001780
Type of Spiritual Experience
Background
Spinoza is describing physical things here and showing how by aggregation new things are created whose functionality is greater than the sum of its parts.
A description of the experience
Baruch Spinoza - Ethics
So far we have conceived an individual which is composed only of bodies which are distinguished from one another only by motion and rest, speed and slowness, that is, which is composed of the simplest bodies. But if we should now conceive of another, composed of a number of individuals of a different nature, we shall find that it can be affected in a great many other ways, and still preserve its nature …. But if we should further conceive of a third kind of individual composed of this second kind; we shall find that it can be affected in many other ways, without any change of its form. And if we proceed in this way to infinity, we shall easily conceive that the whole of nature is one individual, whose parts, that is, all bodies, vary in infinite ways, without any change of the whole individual.