What is the "referent" for the term "noumenon"?
Can it have a referent? — jancanc

if it is a concept, is it not then an object of thought? but if the noumenon is not an object, then we have contradicted ourselves... — jancanc

When Carl Sagan claims the material universe has no origin, he takes us into an environment wherein the analytical-reasoning mind needs a foundation of support for its compulsive pattern-recognition activity. That foundation is the noumenal.

The analytical-reasoning mind shakes hands non-locally with the noumenal each time it discovers an exploitable axiom, real-world referent of the noumenon.

Demanding acceptance on their own-terms-without-terms is noumenal haughtiness kicking subject/object analytic narratives to the curb.

The axiom stands aloof from the parsing of analytical_reasoning. It deals in the currency of things-in-themselves as self-evident proofs.

The universes of cognition kept aloft by the axiom jugglers are unsearchable causes most closely approached as the epiphenomena of necessary axioms.

Example – the singularity that precedes the big-bang.

Your ambiguous model looks like this:

Past-----------------------Future

------------<Present>------------

P----R----E----S----E----N----T — Luke

Here's something to think about. Try to pinpoint the present, the exact point in time, which divides the future from past. Every time you say "now', by the time you say "now" it is in the past. So the present cannot be a point in time which separates past from future, because that point will always be in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

This argument claims the present is a limit towards which we forever approach towards and recede from, never actually arriving there.

Now consider the way you sense things in your existence, or being at the present. We always sense things happening, activity, motions. And all activities and motions require a period of time during which the activity occurs. So if we sense things at the present, and we sense activities, then the present must consist of a duration of time rather than a point in time. — Metaphysician Undercover

This argument claims the present, as experienced by humans in the physical realm of everyday experience, never exists as a point in time, a theoretical abstraction. Instead, the present, as experienced, is always a continuum of spacetime of positive value.

But if the present consists of a duration of time, then some of that duration must be before, the other part which is after. So if the present separates future from past, and it consists of a duration of time, then part of the present must be in the future, and part of it in the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

This argument states the crux of MU's thesis: time as we experience it in the physical realm of everyday experience, as distinguished from time understood as a theoretical construction of the mind, presents itself as a tripartite structure: past/present/future. At issue in this thesis is the question how, exactly, are the three parts joined together? What is the nature of the joint, or conjunction linking them to each other?

Any proposed period of time is actually indefinite, having an imprecise beginning and ending — Metaphysician Undercover

The "present", as described, is a period of time, not a point in time. Any, and every period of time has one part before the other part which is after, as explained. In relation to the present, the before is called "past", and the after is called "future". Therefore when we talk about this period of time which we call "the present", part is in the past and part is in the future. — Metaphysician Undercover

The above two arguments present a description (with some degree of abstraction) of how, exactly, the three parts are joined. 180 Proof provides a useful clarification:

Only the present is real.
— Art48
A nonsensical statement due to the fact that neither past nor future are escapable in – separable from – the present. — 180 Proof

This year, 2023, is the present. Part is in the past, part in the future. Today, July 2, is the present. Part is in the past, part is in the future. This minute is the present. Part is in the past, part in the future. Etc.. — Metaphysician Undercover

The above argument presents an example from everyday experience that illustrates the connections between the three parts.

My interpretation of MU's crux tries to restate what he states using different words: The human experience of time within the physical realm of everyday experience consists in passing through a continuum of moments that are, roughly speaking, parsed into incidents characterized by a past/present/future inter-related through quantum entanglement.

Of particular pertinence to MU's thesis is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle.

In quantum mechanics, the uncertainty principle (also known as Heisenberg's uncertainty principle) is any of a variety of mathematical inequalities asserting a fundamental limit to the accuracy of [sic] the values for certain related pairs of physical quantities of a particle, (such as position, x, and momentum, p). Both values cannot be predicted simultaneously from initial conditions. Instead, measurement is limited to an accurate measurement of one or the other in a trade-off between them.

Such paired-variables are, therefore, known as complementary variables or canonically conjugate variables; and, depending on interpretation, the uncertainty-principle limits to what extent such conjugate properties maintain their approximate meaning, as the mathematical framework of quantum physics does not support the notion of simultaneously well-defined conjugate properties expressed by a single value. The uncertainty principle implies that it is, in general, not possible to predict the value of both paired variables’ quantities with arbitrary certainty beyond a certain limit, in which a trade-off (frequency-position trade-off) between both appears, even if all initial conditions are specified and known.

Introduced first in 1927 by German physicist Werner Heisenberg, the uncertainty principle states that the more precisely the position of some particle is determined, the less precisely its momentum can be predicted from initial conditions, and vice versa.
– Wikipedia –

I think this is the science underlying what MU has been debating with Luke. Luke’s arguments, consisting of linguistic abstractions pertaining to past/preset/future, exhibit sound logic and should therefore be taken seriously as guardrails limiting MU’s claims. In the end, however, I conclude Luke’s language-based logic, like the abstract point, a theoretical construct pinpointing paired-variables such as position and momentum, do not apply precisely to empirical experience of (physical) time within the physical realm.

Assessment – MU’s thesis has something new to say about time and quantum entanglement within the macro-space of everyday human experience.

In the wake of my weigh-in upon the debate, Luke’s graphic gets modified into the following isotope:

Past------------------------Future

------------<Present>-----------

P------R------E-----S-----N-----T

↕︎ ↕︎ ↕︎

P------A------S------T

↕︎ ↕︎ ↕︎

F-----U-----T-----U-----R-----E


Some people, like Luke, will balk at the implications of what MU is telling us: we humans cannot know simultaneously and precisely where we are and where we’re going in time, as past/present/future, being quantumly entangled like the wave and the particle, individually exhibit simultaneously all three properties.

What I argued is that to put the present within time itself requires that we conceive of the conscious experience as being within time. This produces the conclusion that past and future must inhere within the conscious experience of being present. — Metaphysician Undercover

You want to put the present within time itself. When this is accomplished, past and future are essential parts of the conscious experience of being present.

So to model the present as an independent feature, instead of being a feature of the observer, requires that we find real substantial points in time which can be employed to distinguish past features from present features within the conflated unity of what we experience as "the present" — Metaphysician Undercover

You want to model the present as an independent feature, not as a feature of the observer. Doing this requires points in time that distinguish past features from present features within the conflated unity of what we experience as “the present.”

You acknowledge boundaries are necessary to distinguish distinct parts. Conventional wisdom about how to perceive the present introduces a distortion into the conventional perception of time: boundaries marking the separation of past/present/future receive an arbitrary placement. The randomness of the placement of the boundaries proceeds from a false premise: the present is outside of time, and thus boundary placements are inconsequential in the manner of zeroes placed to the right of the decimal point marking the value of a number: 1.0 = 1.0000; the placement of the zeroes, being inconsequential, have no effect on the number. The effect of this false randomness of boundary placement is to render the present an abstraction whereas, per your thesis, the present is an existential flowing of time no less than past/future.

From the "static POV" of "the present", time appears to be a continuous flow., into which we can arbitrarily insert points of separation. From the "active POV", the continuous flow is replaced by an interaction of past aspects with future aspect. The need for "interaction" is the result of a mix of causal determination form the past, and freely willed selections from future possibilities. This implies that within any arbitrarily placed point of "the present", there are spatial aspects which are already determined (necessarily past), and also spatial aspects which are possibilities (still in the future). So the distinguishing features (points) appear to be spatial features. — Metaphysician Undercover

You take us into the weeds of your thesis with some details of exactly how the tripartite structure of time is jointed together, with past/future being akin to the two human arms attached to the present which is akin to the human thorax. The upshot of your correction seems to be your understanding that past/present/future are permanently entangled. This means the present can’t be rendered a mental abstraction without introducing distortion into the perception of the existential reality of time.

I’m wondering if you’re thesis might find support within the concept of quantum entanglement.

How I understand the above quote: We're inhabiting a temporal universe running in reverse. — ucarr

I don't understand this at all. Why do you understand this as reverse? — Metaphysician Undercover

My interpretation of your thesis as a reverse-temporal universe is my reaction to you saying,

Time is flowing from future to past, as the date of tomorrow, which is in the future, will become the date of yesterday. Death is a case of being forced by the flow of time, away from your observational point of the present, into the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

If we want to give "present" an objective referent, as something other than the subjective point of view, Then it would be the process which is the future becoming the past. This is what we observe at the present, as change. It is a feature of the flow of time, yet not the flow of time itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

In the above you seem to be signed on to the arrow of time having only one direction. For you, per your above statement, that direction is from the future to the past. That claim caused my reverse-temporal universe statements.

a) the present is outside of time;
— ucarr

This is not what I am arguing for, it is what I called the "conventional" perspective, which I am arguing against as a misconception.. What I called "the conventional definition" (which Luke took exception to because it is inconsistent with what he thinks of as "the conventional definition) , puts the present outside of time. It puts the present outside of time as a derivation of the perspective from which the passing of time is observed. I am arguing that this is a misunderstanding of time, and that we ought to conceive of "the present" as a feature of time itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

How I understand the above quote: One of the main objectives of your thesis is to establish the present within the flowing stream of time.

If you are wondering how this puts the present outside of time as per my response to your (a) above, it is because this separation becomes, in practise, an arbitrary application of a non-dimensional point. The non dimensional point has no temporal extension, and cannot be understood as a part of passing time. So this, what I call "the conventional definition" (disputed by Luke, as not really the convention), cannot include "the present" as a part of time, because anytime we try to insert this observational perspective into the passing of time, whether as non-dimensional, infinitesimal, a short duration, etc., it requires arbitrarily placed points of separation between the present, and the rest of time, past and future. Therefore this "present", what I call the conventional one, is always incompatible with a true understanding of the passing of time. — Metaphysician Undercover

How I understand the above quote: The crux of your correction of the misconception of present time is the show that the present, being rooted within the flowing stream of time, differs existentially from a notion of the present as a static POV artificially demarcated by non-dimensional points.

I cannot conceive of the present itself as a flowing stream. It would have to be the perspective from which the stream is observed. — Metaphysician Undercover

How I understand the above quote: You have flipped your position to coincide with the conventional conception of the present as a non-flowing i.e., static perspective. Henceforth, one can only conclude you've renounced you earlier plan to correct the convention.

The changes we see all around us are evidence of the flowing time. Time is flowing from future to past, as the date of tomorrow, which is in the future, will become the date of yesterday. Death is a case of being forced by the flow of time, away from your observational point of the present, into the past. — Metaphysician Undercover

How I understand the above quote: We're inhabiting a temporal universe running in reverse. If our universe has a finite lifespan, it began (inexplicably) at its endpoint and now runs backwards toward its beginning and, presumably, will continue beyond its conception into non-existence. I'm pondering whether that means our reverse-temporal universe is a one-cycle only universe. Also, I observe that our reverse-temporal universe is rigidly deterministic. Everything populating the present was always assured of existing exactly according to its current manifestation with the proviso that the evolving present keeps transitioning to younger manifestations of all existing things.

If we want to give "present" an objective referent, as something other than the subjective point of view, Then it would be the process which is the future becoming the past. This is what we observe at the present, as change. It is a feature of the flow of time, yet not the flow of time itself. — Metaphysician Undercover

How I understand the above quote: You have flipped your position back to positing the present as a flowing stream, albeit a reverse-temporal flowing stream that, paradoxically, you claim is a feature of the flow of time, yet not the flow of time itself.

Can you explain how the reverse-temporal flowing of present time is not the flow of time itself?

A reading of the Old Testament can present us with a god who screws up time and again. — Tom Storm

The issue with any version of God is that it will always be in relation to a particular narrative account. Gods are always part of a story which humans tell each other and interpret. — Tom Storm

We stand on solid ground when we say God is a narrative. A select few witness miracles first-hand. For most of us, however, knowledge of God comes through narratives.

Gods cannot be separated from human narratives, since gods exist inter-subjectively, not objectively. — LuckyR

Well said.

I would say that if the present is analogous to a flowing stream, then the future is the part flowing toward you, and the past is the part flowing away from you. — Metaphysician Undercover

If the arrow of time has only one direction (forward), as seems to be the case, does it make sense to say the past flows towards (not away from) the present? Time flowing away from the present towards the increasingly distant past, reverse time, supposes the arrow of time has two directions.

Knowing God exists means knowing God's superlative attributes exist and are therefore to be shared out to the masses via believers. — ucarr

This is not a given. If the God as described in the Bible exists, than this is a violent mob boss deity who runs a celestial protection racket. — Tom Storm

You have a strong argument. A violent and wrathful God ordered Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac at Mt. Moriah. In our own time, we have diatribes against a seemingly indifferent God in the face of horrific human-to-human violence. Is the sublime, if evanescent, beauty of our natural world also of God?

Is our most vibrant picture of God nonetheless a tragical portrait, elevated in stature but run through with fatal flaws? Forgive the inadequacy in what I say next when I say that human nature, as I know it, will tear down upon itself any sanctuary of perfection and order before long whereas, faced with a sometimes reveling, sometimes marauding Supremacy, humanity, buoyed upon the desperation of a much-assailed faith, keeps re-visiting the testamental narrative in defiance of rational hope.

Life cannot get on for long without order and thus logic and internal consistency are essential to it. Life, however, is neither rational nor orderly. Anyone who keeps the flame of childhood alive senses this.

Only one “stream of time” is required. — Luke

...“the present” indexically refers to the time at which you are aware... — Luke

From your above quotes I understand (tentatively) that the present streaming of time is a directory that gives a person overview of and access to the tripartite structure of time.

If there is only one stream of time, the present streaming of time, must we conclude that the past streaming of time can only stream as the present streaming of the past; it cannot stream as the past streaming of the past? In a similar fashion, must we conclude that the future streaming of time can only stream as the present streaming of the future; it cannot stream as the future streaming of the future?

If these restrictions hold, must we conclude that past/future are tricks of perspective emanating from an insuperable present streaming of time? Another way of saying this is to say past/future exist only within the neural networks of the brain whereas, in the material world outside of the brain, past/future have no existence?

I am going with the traditional interpretation of classical theism with God defined with the attributes of omnipotence, omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipresence, eternality, aseity, etc. — GRWelsh

Are you willing to examine the possibility that the above attributes of classical theism defining God entail gnarly problems of exegesis pertaining to Venn Diagrams of overlapping boundaries incoherencies, set/subset membership rules of inference paradoxes and origin narrative generative infinite regress conundrums? Moreover, are you willing to examine the methodology boondoggle of analysis-logic in application to axiomatic relationships?

Why would God allow the Devil to convince people that he -- the Devil -- doesn't exist and also that nothing at all supernatural -- including God -- exists? Especially if God's goal is to make salvation available to as many people as possible. — GRWelsh

Does it follow from God's omnibenevolence that God honors Lucifer's free will no less than he honors yours and mine?

"God doesn't force us to believe He exists because He doesn't want to take away our free will," or something like that. It's a terrible response because it should be obvious that one can believe that God exists, yet still have the free will to not follow, worship, obey, or trust God — GRWelsh

If the Gospel of Jesus has for its evangelical mission trumpeting to the four corners of the world the attributes of God named by you above, is it pertinent to ask why a person who believes God exists would refuse to follow God's path? Knowing God exists means knowing God's superlative attributes exist and are therefore to be shared out to the masses via believers. If a person refuses to follow God's path of blessedness, isn't it a logical necessity that such a person does NOT believe God exists? How could any rational person choose the horrors of the fallen world of earth over the beatific attributes you've named above?

Theists may have different explanations for the hiddenness of God and the Devil, but my point is that it seems inconsistent for both God and the Devil to want their existence to be not be believed in, since it doesn't seem possible that this would favor them both. — GRWelsh

Consider that these theists you name above are making a factual error in the advancement of their argument. God does NOT want God's existence to not be believed in. Not forcing someone to believe in something does not equal not wanting that someone to believe in that something. God's hiddenness is not a divine ploy; it is an effect of worldly preoccupation. God is not hidden from those in possession of a pure heart.

Lucifer, in contrast to God, aligns rationally with the argument that he wants to not to be believed to exist. Lucifer's ace card and primary modus operandi is deception. Deception, by definition, seeks to conceal itself as it conducts its business. If a deceiver needs the cover of darkness to be effective, what greater cover of darkness is there than the darkness of the minds of those who are to be deceived. A close concomitant to Lucifer non-existent is Lucifer non-toxic i.e., Lucifer good. Lucifer plays at the top of his game when he beguiles his victims with a credible appearance of being Godly. These effects are the central goals of the hiddenness ploy.

If the present is a flowing stream of time that commingles with the past on one side & the future on the other side, most we conclude logically that past/future, like the present, are flowing streams of time?

...this conception, the conventional one, gives us "the present" as a perspective, a view point, and it does not provide for a "present" which is a part of time — Metaphysician Undercover

...the conventional definition "present" is defined in reference to past and future, but what I propose is that past and future be defined in reference to the present. — Metaphysician Undercover

No, the present does not go by, nor is it yet to come. Both of these refer to time, as what goes by. But the present is the perspective from which it is observed to go by. — Metaphysician Undercover

I understand your above quotes to be claims emanating from the core of your thesis.

My preliminary takeaways (subject to revision or rejection): a) the present is outside of time; b) the present is the standard of reference against which past/future are defined; c) events evolve over past/future through the lens of the present which is outside of time.

Don't you experience awakening, that brief period when you're half asleep and half awake? And don't you experience this 'in between period' when you are falling asleep as well? — Metaphysician Undercover

"the grammar of our language" discourages us from claiming that we are both asleep and awake at the same time, it does allow us to say that we are neither asleep nor awake. — Metaphysician Undercover

Can you accept, as another representational example of your above claims, the lap dissolve, a scene transition mechanism essential to the continuity of motion pictures?

As you probably know, the lap dissolve occurs when one scene, nearing its conclusion, becomes imposed upon by a new scene of translucent density. The ghostly density of the new scene allows the viewer to continue viewing the conclusion of the concluding scene. As the lap dissolve progresses, the concluding scene dematerializes into translucency (and, finally, transparency) as the new scene materializes into an opaquing density that ultimately makes the concluding scene disappear.

Given that the two scenes can be in different places at different times, the temporary simultaneity of the composite image of the lap dissolve in progress presents us with an ambiguity that is existentially intriguing.

If we imagine a lap dissolve from Scene A, the present to Scene B, the future, and if we allow the temporary, transitional composite of the two scenes to be an ambiguous interval neither present nor future but rather, unspecifiable, then we seem to have a temporal-phenomenal puzzle.

The trick consequently resides in working out how this ambiguity expresses itself in three dimensions.

My goal herein is elaboration of some ramifications of your thesis concerning passing time.

I personally think that religious discussion should be confined to religion, and as you should know from my posting history I have no argument with people's personal religious beliefs, but when they seek to justify those beliefs in a public forum then they make themselves fair game. — Janus

In your first part I understand you to mean you think religious votaries should be confined to interactions with other religious votaries. I see this as a partial curtailment of free speech. Free speech is tolerated within a specified context (ghetto). A religious votary speaking outside of their designated free speech context (speaking herein, for example) is guilty of violation of the cognitive segregationism you're advocating.

In your second part I understand you to mean religious advocacy within a philosophical context is tolerable if it's agreed by all participants that such advocacy is fair game for rigorous logical examination and possible thoroughgoing refutation.

I think your second part is an apt description of the understanding that's in force herein.

Are you will to start with your conscious experience of being at the present, experiencing the passing of time, without reference to measurement? — Metaphysician Undercover

Is this the core of your thesis?

How do you counter-argue the claim "experiencing the passing of time," is measuring time?

To me, all this talk/questioning about God is as silly as watching people in India talking about the specific patterns of Vishnu’s tunic. It’s a waste of time. — Mikie

Christian beliefs, myths and stories are no different from Hindu beliefs or animistic beliefs of tribal people. From a psychological, anthropological, and historical point of view, it’s just one more worldview. — Mikie

The argument is simple: because one happens to be raised in a Christian culture doesn’t afford special attention to one’s “questions” about God. Very easy to see if you replace “God” with “Wodin.” — Mikie

I'm currently thinking you present us with two premises: a) Christianity is no less invalid as a factual worldview that all of the many other religious world-views (discredited through the lens of Christianity); Christian votaries, given the truth of this, should either resort to study of (mythical) religious texts or entirely repent of their involvement thereof; b) total repentance of religion entails Christian votaries abandoning the false belief that Christianity is the "last man standing" with credibility within the realm of religious world-views.

Also, regarding the question of your purpose, you're not attacking religion. Instead, you're advising religious votaries with regard to what you understand to be a classification error. Religion requires a different classification than that applied to science and philosophy.

It seems to me that the idea of order is related to unity and intelligibility, rather than microscopic realizations, which were never thought of by classic authors. We see things as ordered, for example, when they are directed to a single end -- e.g., the parts of an organism being ordered to sustaining its life or propagating its species. — Dfpolis

Does agent-intellect have three essential functions? Are they: entanglement, causation, over-arching cognition?

With active order absent, we have a chaotic jumble of disconnected attributes. — ucarr

The problem with this is that we could not even call this "attributes", because "attribute" refers to an apprehended order. — Metaphysician Undercover

What you say above -- re: attributes -- sounds correct to me. I know, therefore, I've omitted something essential from my statement.

Consider a PC for which you try to upgrade the monitor. Turning on the PC, momentarily you get coherent images onscreen and then the picture scrambles into a messy melange of incoherent shapes and colors. The problem is the new monitor requires a higher resolution video card than the one installed in your computer.

I use this example to posit the phenomenal universe as a field of proto-order. Its order gets "decided" -- resolved into order_intelligibility -- by the agent-intellect operations of a sentient observer.

For clarification by simplified example consider: At the level of automation, a video card with resolution sufficient to resolve data-unformatted does so via sufficient resolution.

In parallel, at the higher level of sentience, agent-intellect “decides” what is the order_intelligibility of phenomenal world present to its senses.

The Missing Essential

The missing essential is the interface, viz., the entanglement of data-neutral-wrt-order of the phenomenal universe and operational intentionality of agent-intellect.

The physicality of space becomes apparent when we conceptualize object/observer as entangled duet. Also, objectivity/subjectivity as integral whole perplexes simplistic and discrete conceptualizations of their difference.

These are claims made familiar by QM, right?

About the seed: I wonder if it does not already have all the order that the mature tree will have, but packed tighter. — Dfpolis

This raises an interesting question. With your no-cart-before-the-horse proviso in mind, I don't seek an immediate answer: What degree of variation or change in an ordered sequence crosses the threshold dividing integral change from entropic breakdown? Entropy, a thermodynamic measurement essential to systems theory feels to me like a suitable context in which to pursue a contemporary and useful definition of order.

Assuming that order and intelligibility are coextensive, they still differ in definition. "Order" names an intrinsic property, while "intelligibility" points to a possible relation -- the possibility of being an object in the subject-object relation of knowledge. — Dfpolis

Regarding intelligibility and order, do we have a knarly Venn Diagram as with the form/ substance puzzle? In other words, do we have distinct properties that are inseparable?

Please assess the following conjecture: An apple is an ordered state of being of an existing thing. By definition, its order is active, not potential*.

*With active order absent, we have a chaotic jumble of disconnected attributes.

In contrast, we can say an apple seed has the potential ordering of an apple.

...definition is artificial in the first place. It's a creative attempt to sketch the common roles of words in actual conversation. As I see it, it is not like math where definitions essentially create their objects. Formal systems are so nice because we escape from our own complexity when we play with them. — green flag

Do you think that when we drive over a bridge spanning a body of water, say, The Golden Gate Bridge, we're trusting an application of math language that is an attempt to define numbers within empirical experience?

Sidebar - Your capsule surveys of current thinking on various topics are proving very helpful to me. They're providing ways forward for me in my reading and subsequent reflection. This work by you on my behalf is a very valuable service and I'm now thanking you for it. More power to you in your interactions with others.

How does language refer ? — green flag

This question invokes the realm of Aristotle's {Intelligibility $\leftrightarrow$Agent Intellect}. I've been dialoging with dfPolis in his conversation: The Hard Problem of Consciousness and the Standard Abstraction

Here's where we are presently in our dialogue:

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/790900

The duet of intelligibility-meets-comprehending-sentience suggests to me something intriguing along the lines of entanglement, with language playing a central role in the mix. You touch on this in the following:

To me the beauty of this is that we only really get to know ourselves by trying to know others. — green flag

Firstly, do you embrace or refute Descartes' ghost-in-the-machine substance duality, with its bifurcation of mind/body? Language signification is deeply embedded within this interweave, I believe.

I'm not ready to make comprehensive declarations just now, however, language-as-mind-games-hovering-over-an-abyss sounds to me like thinking rooted in Descartes' substance duality.

Hi. I don't think you are grasping my point. — green flag

I appreciate your persistence with me as I work to understand subtleties of language and meaning you're trying to communicate.

I hope I can claim a measure of legitimacy in my persistence in debating the subtleties based on my always presenting supporting arguments for my counters to your narratives. I think the issue for you is persuading me to understand my arguments are fallacious whereas the issue for me is gradually understanding that: either my arguments are indeed fallacious or, that my arguments, through hardening of tempering by examination, are indeed verifiable.

Definition is a blurry-go-round. — green flag

I don’t argue against this claim. No doubt language has limitations and yet, as you show in your opening line to me, you place a measure of trust and hope in language to successfully communicate. I regard myself as having honored your trust, hope and persistence by always supplying supporting arguments for my obstinacy.

I understand the business of debate to be closely reasoned examination of minute details of intricate cognitive filigree populating sincere and considered belief.

That language is limited is now virtually a banality as no one is seriously considering abandoning language wholesale nor even abandoning linguistic examination of abstruse phenomena physical and mental. If I'm mistaken, then we're wasting our time posting to this website. Attacking from another angle, if anyone took Wittgenstein's apotheosis of silence seriously, philosophy would've ended some time during the twentieth century.

Language, both verbal and mathematical, is undergirded by logic and from its use we see profound differences between humans and the rest of the animal kingdom. I cite this difference as evidence that rebuts your claim:

There is nothing that staples this system of references to something outside it. — green flag

The system of signs that can only mean their differences from one another floats rootless above an abyss. — green flag

Whoever publishes narratives making this claim, in so doing, self-refutes said claim. If semiotics is hopelessly self-referential, thus leading inevitably to empty word-games, then why is no one shutting down the global publishing industry? Also, why do you continue reading books, especially the ones making such claims?

saying something like 'being is countable' or 'being is time' is just leaping from stone to stone. — green flag

No. Not

saying something like 'being is countable' or 'being is time' is just leaping from stone to stone. — green flag

That's what the average monkey is still spending a lot of time doing, instead of boarding jet planes to various continents thereafter entering elevators to offices in celestial climes.

Kant makes a powerful argument that being-ness is empty in its function as a predicate.

Here's my argument against claiming futility in manipulating conceptually being-ness vis-a-vis sets:

$∅\Rightarrow∞$ because $∅\Rightarrow ((n^n))$

P.S. Do you have a refutation of my claim: being-ness is an insuperable medium. It's the lynchpin of my application of sets. Its refutation might be the kill shot.

↪ucarr

In order not to repeat myself over and over, I will say it one more time and move on. Being or "beingess" is not an attribute of what is. Something must be in order to have attributes. — Fooloso4

Being is evidently not a real predicate, that is, a conception of something which is added to the conception of some other thing. It is merely the positing of a thing, or of certain determinations in it. ...

A hundred real dollars contain no more than a hundred possible dollars. For, as the latter indicate the conception, and the former the object, on the supposition that the content of the former was greater than that of the latter, my conception would not be an expression of the whole object, and would consequently be an inadequate conception of it. But in reckoning my wealth there may be said to be more in a hundred real dollars than in a hundred possible dollars—that is, in the mere conception of them...[/] — green flag

You imply, as per the Kant quote, being-in-general, because it further elaborates no dimensionality of beings-specific, has no countable being and thus, weirdly, being-in-general has no being.*

*Beyond being a tautology, this is a paradox. Many think paradox a theorem killer.

I dispute this logic by claiming being-in-general, like the empty set, is a member of every being-specific and, moreover, being-in-general, like the empty set, is countable via unbounded recursion to all beings-specific and thus being-in-general, beyond being a countable attribute of every being-specific, stands existentially as the countable attribute of general-beingness, an insuperable medium.

It is the insuperability of general-beingness that makes it appear as if it adds no further elaboration to beings-specific and is thus uncountable. The problem here is confusing uncountable with insuperable such that insuperable appears as nothingness. On the contrary, because being-in-general always encompasses the totality of every being-specific, in the effort to add it as a countable attribute, it appears as a nothing because counting being-in-general presupposes the totality of a being-specific due to its insuperability as a medium for the expression of the specific beingness of the specific being.

In short, the totality of being-in-general added to being-specific is a false nothingness.

As I see it, we have to take the risk and talk it out. — green flag

And, proceeding from that welcome note of optimism and generosity, let me ask you, regarding,

In ““Section IV. Of the Impossibility of an Ontological Proof of the Existence of God,””1 drawn from his Critique, Kant addresses the logical problem of existential import. How do we talk or think about things without supposing, in some sense at least, that they exist? Bertrand Russell expressed one aspect of the problem this way: If it’s false that the present King of France is bald, then why doesn’t this fact imply that it’s true the present King of France is not bald? When the existence of the subjects of our statements are in question, the normal use of logic becomes unreliable. Kant argues that the use of words (or “predicates”) alone does not necessarily imply the existence of their referents. We can only assume the existence of entities named by our words; we cannot prove “existence” by means of the use of language alone.
— Immanuel Kant

https://philosophy.lander.edu/intro/articles/kantexistence-a.pdf

As I see it, he begins by claiming a predicate is an elaboration of a truth pertaining to something whereas a claim of the "being" of something is merely a supposition in abstraction.

A predicate elaborates additional dimensionality to an actually existing thing. A declaration affirming the existence of a thing does not elaborate its dimensionality beyond its already established phenomenal_empirical attributes.

I don't see how correctly denying the phenomenal_empirical reality of existence claims - on the basis of no additional elaboration of dimensionality - leads to correctly denying the "being" of things verified by phenomenal_empirical observation.

I think we can have fun examining some ramifications of Kant's claim predication of existence of a thing adds nothing to its established attributes.. That general being has a { }, viz., empty set relationship with individual beings shows promise of being interesting. For example, we can start with the concomitant claim that being-ness as an empty set is a member of the individual set of every existing thing.

Does this lead to claiming that we can use the John von Neumann technique for propagating all numbers from the empty set in a parallel that propagates all existing things from being-ness-as-the-empty set? That infinite recursion generates conceptually all existing things from being-ness-as-the-empty set feels right.

Maybe that's what Nietzsche's getting at with his infinite return.

Heidegger is one of those valuable philosophers who destabilize our complacent sense that we know what we are talking about when we babble on about being and logic and truth quasimechanically. — green flag

I see and accept the truth of what you say above. I don't oppose Heidegger; that fresh thinking requires neologisms is also something I accept without complaint.

However, if someone pushes beyond the scope of the common grammar, they should be at pains to surround the new expression with an explanatory text that clarifies the new meaning.

A blunt declaration to the effect: "existence is not a predicate" stops short of doing the work of necessary persuasion from conventional wisdom to new understanding. On the other hand, legitimate participation in this conversation presupposes adequate grounding in the pertinent fundamentals. It now seems apparent my grounding is deficient.

existence is not a predicate — green flag

Since the above clause has "existence" functioning as a noun, the meaning conveyed is true but trivial.

If we say, "I am existing." is a false statement per the true nature of existence, then we're facing the need to work out the meaning of existence outside of subject-predicate grammar. Even so, saying, "I am existing." can scarcely be denied by anyone, including Heidegger.

Do Heidegger's neo-logismic contortions -- such as this one -- really connect to statements understood to be logical?

What are the attributes of everything that is that they have in common? — Fooloso4

Everything that is possesses the common attribute of being-ness.

To deny that being-ness populates a set is, in my opinion, to deny a promising attack on the knarly issue of Origin Boundary Ontology. Maybe, somehow, the insuperability of being-ness-the-set gets us out of the infinite-regress puzzle. To elaborate a bit, this problem involves the perplexity of quantum leaping from the analytical to the axiomatic.

'existence is not a predicate' — green flag

'existence is not a predicate' = '"is existing" is not a predicate'?

You introduced attributes, I don't think they have a place. — Fooloso4

If Sein und Zeit is an investigation of being and if

at·trib·ute
noun | ˈatrəˌbyo͞ot |
1 a quality or feature regarded as a characteristic or inherent part of someone or something: flexibility and mobility are the key attributes of our army.

is a definition pertinent to Heidegger's objective, then I need help understanding how attributes gathering members into a super-ordinating set is irrelevant to investigation of being or, for that matter, to any other generalizable attribute.

If not, then I think you need to explain why the use of set theory is not an appropriate tool of interpretation for endeavoring to understand Heidegger. — ucarr

I already did. — Fooloso4

I understand you're making a distinction between identity and equivalence, and that you think Heidegger concerned with the latter.

By applying the concept of set to Dasein, I conclude from Sein und Zeit that being is an insuperable medium.

I do not think it helpful to look at this in terms of sets and axioms. — Fooloso4

This is a claim. Where's your supporting argument? I think you need to cite quotations from Heidegger that invalidate the method that lead to my conclusion or, in lieu of quotations, your own inferences drawn from Heidegger that effect the invalidation.

what I was getting at (and it's not so easy) is what is meant by saying that something is ?

I mean what is that person trying to say ? — green flag

Ah! I now understand you better.

At the risk of being tiresome, I feel like I want to repeat the statement you quoted. I say this because my approach to elucidating what is meant by saying something is necessarily entails a sentient self detecting another existence via the complex inter-weave of the object-subject duality.

As we all know, the object-subject duality deserves its own encyclopedia for expression of a narrative resembling an exhaustive examination.

Getting back to Heidegger, I think the object-subject entanglement is the motivator for his being-in-the world with other beings ready-to-hand theme. From this center we get his proto-existentialist theme: authenticity and his extensions-of-human technology theme.

Being as insuperable medium with resultant entanglement of individualized beings is a good pivot into investigation of general being-ness.

Proceeding from the premise that anything – beings included – can be a member of a set — ucarr

The point is that this is not what Heidegger is investigating. — Fooloso4

Okay. That's an appropriate restriction for me to obey.

Being is not an common attribute of things that are. It is tautological to say that what all things that are have in common is that they are. — Fooloso4

When you make claims, as above, are you not straying from what Heidegger is investigating?

If not, then I think you need to explain why the use of set theory is not an appropriate tool of interpretation for endeavoring to understand Heidegger. I further think that such an explanation should expose how, more generally, set theory is not applicable to terms such as being-in-general.

What does it mean to say that something exists ? that something is ? — green flag

Firstly, it entails the existential fact of my existence and, moreover, it entails my acknowledgement of my own existence.

Existence of things is an essential and abiding issue for the self.

I think in making our examination of Nietzsche and Heidegger, we are investigating, along with other things, whether or not being is an insuperable medium.

How can "beings" as signifier have meaning if it doesn't signify common attributes of things, thereby gathering these things together into a set? — ucarr

Being is not an common attribute of things that are. It is tautological to say that what all things that are have in common is that they are. — Fooloso4

Although a tautology does not advance the narrative of discovery, that doesn't mean it's false.

To say, “all things that are have in common that they are” is an analytically true statement. As yet, I’m not aware of why it’s not also an existentially true statement.

I make this trivial argument because it leads into a more serious examination:

I do not think it helpful to look at this in terms of sets and axioms. — Fooloso4

Proceeding from the premise that anything – beings included – can be a member of a set, the claim that

Beings are not members of a set "Being". — Fooloso4

motivates me to investigate the volume of its truth content. Speaking in generality, I think a sound observation can be made to the effect of saying, “All sets exemplify beings being members of a set, including even the empty set.”

The upshot of the above claim is that being is an insuperable medium, even with regard to nothingness.

From here I’m contemplating advancing to the claim, “There is not nothing because there cannot be nothing.”*

*Language, as demonstrated above by the infinitive “to be,” doesn’t allow me to articulate authentic nothingness.

extrapolation from members of a set to an axiom of the set? — ucarr

Beings are not members of a set "Being". — Fooloso4

How can "beings" as signifier have meaning if it doesn't signify common attributes of things, thereby gathering these things together into a set?

The question of Being proceeds by way of beings - "the Being of beings". — Fooloso4

Answering this question leads to: extrapolation from members of a set to an axiom of the set?

thinking Being as Time — Heidegger, Lectures on Nietzsche, Vol 1, page 20e

is not to think of Being as something in time. — Fooloso4

Being is a blood brother to moebius-strip_time-loop?

Time alone penetrates presence, albeit reflexively towards the complex surface of Sein und Zeit? (The complex surface of Sein und Zeit ⇒ Arthur C. Clarke’s obelisk?) Sein und Zeit is the gravity well that sources our phenomenal-empirical universe and answers the question: Why is there not nothing? with Why there is not nothing?

The will to power and the eternal return are not beings... — Fooloso4

Genesis and the moebius-strip_time-loop are not beings but, instead, metaphysical mediums?

...but that through which and by which what comes to be comes to be. — Fooloso4

Temporality is an essential medium of dimensional extension.

Reflexivity is an essential medium of presence_consciousness (as contrasted with position_existence)?

Does the guiding question not imply a search for the essence of being? — ucarr

The grounding question is not about any particular being or all beings, it is about Being, the wonder that there is anything at all. — Fooloso4

This is clear. Now I understand the distinction.

Nietzsche thinks and meditates on Being, that is, on will to power as eternal recurrence. What does that mean, taken quite broadly and essentially? Eternity, not as a static "now," nor as a sequence of "nows" rolling off into the infinite, but as the "now" that bends back into itself: what is that if not the concealed essence of Time? Thinking Being, will to power, as eternal return, thinking the most difficult thought of philosophy, means thinking Being as Time. — Heidegger, Lectures on Nietzsche, Vol 1, page 20e

Thanks for supplying this quote; it increases my interest in Nietzsche and Heidegger.

Curiously, I'm catching a hint of conflation of a particular being or all beings with Being.

My evidence is the above Heidegger quote. Paraphrasing him, he says: Nietzsche thinks and meditates on Being, that is, on will to power as eternal recurrence. So, by my understanding, Being as will to power as eternal recurrence = the now that bends back into itself.

To me this sounds like a description of a being, a reflexive being. And, moreover, this particular being is time.

The guiding question of metaphysics, “what is being?” has reached its end with Nietzsche. — Wikipedia

The genuinely grounding question, as the question of the essence of Being, does not unfold in the history of philosophy as such... — Wikipedia

...we call the question "What is being?" the guiding question, in contrast to the more original question which sustains and directs the guiding question. The more original question
we call the grounding question. — Wikipedia

Does the guiding question not imply a search for the essence of being? I don't suppose anyone thinks it seeks after the surface or periphery of being.

Then, how does the majority determine those that are so genius we cannot understand their vision for the future/innovation/invention and those that are spouting mere non-useful nonsense. — Benj96

Even if the standard of objective truth is fundamentally flawed, it can prove useful in determining the category to which a particular theorist belongs.

I think it's usually the case that theories that describe real phenomena and actual states of being of the objective world make themselves known to more than one observer-thinker.

Truth-bearing theories tend to add new and pivotal information to the known body of accumulating information and understanding pertaining to a particular inquiry or discipline.

Other theorists working in the same field, possessing a database of information pertinent to the new theory, likely will quickly perceive said pertinence and start adopting-accommodating the new theory to the accumulating database.

I conjecture much of the discovery of humanity is communal.

If an individual theorist discovers a major joint, viz., turning point in an evolving understanding of something, and thus opens a new and essential chapter within the over-arching theory, then that person, having instigated a quantum leap forward in the evolution of the theory, likely will be saluted as a stand-out pioneering genius as for example, Einstein with his Theory of Relativity. Even in his case, however, it's a well-known fact that Riemann's geometrization of gravitation laid a theoretical foundation essential to Relativity.

In the case of a delusional theorist, lacking the experimental verification establishing correspondence between abstract theory and empirical experience, his-her postulations will remain private and unverifiable. Society, having no access to empirical experience of such theoretical claims, will likely dismiss them as ranting nonsense.

I think the agent intellect has a form/actuality... — Dfpolis

Is this form a logical entity emergent from the neuronal processes of the brain? — ucarr

Its ontological status is not logical (it really operates), nor is it an independent being. It is a power of a rational being. — Dfpolis

Please elaborate the essential details of the context, viz., the environment in which agent intellect is present and active. — ucarr

Philosophically, I can only say that what the agent intellect does cannot be deduced from physical considerations. So, it is ontologically emergent. When we cannot work out the dynamics, saying"from x" could be no more than a guess. — Dfpolis

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Consider: Intelligibility perceived by agent intellect = comprehension

Intelligibility has existence independent of the perception and comprehension of agent intellect?

Asking this another way, when a tree falls in the forest sans observer, is this event nonetheless an intelligible phenomenon?

Asking it obversely, does intelligibility propagate only in direct connection to the comprehension of the agent intellect (of the sentient being)?

Attacking from yet another angle: Does intelligibility persist in the absence of sentience?

Consider: Intelligibility ≡ Order

The above statement is true?

Obversely, does non-teleological evolution preclude all linkage between intelligibility and order?

Can there be unintelligible order?

If not, must we conclude there can be no non-teleological evolution?

If so, must we conclude mind takes the sensory input of the proto-order of the objective world and converts it into the following block chain: intelligibility_perception_memory-processing-comprehension_self

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I think the agent intellect has a form/actuality... — Dfpolis

Its ontological status is not logical (it really operates), nor is it an independent being. It is a power of a rational being. — Dfpolis

Using the above statements, can I deduce agent intellect is ontologically present and active within the mind of humans?

Moreover, can I conclude agent intellect lies somewhere between hard dualism at one end and hard reduction at the other end?