I'm not your philosophy teacher. You either learn those concepts and debate or ignore this OP. — Eugen

Yeah, @javi2541997 and @god must be atheist, why should Eugen have to put together a coherent, understandable post? Why should he have to define his terms?

At what point does something become wholly unique to that animals set of traits? General processing with very few innate components seems to be a defining trait. One of kind, not just a few degrees away. — schopenhauer1

Sorry, I didn't mean to ignore your responses. I just don't have any more to add. You and I just see things differently.

Enjoy. — Jamal

Thanks again.

Yeah I love those Google tricks. There are other ones here:

20 Google Search Tips to Use Google More Efficiently — Jamal

This is great! I'm even more excited. Which, yes, is even more pitiful.

The Google crawler likes TPF and has indexed most of our content. So you can search Google like this:

site:thephilosophyforum.com "the being of beings" — Jamal

I used this on another web site and it worked well there too. I'm so excited. Which, yes, is pretty pitiful.

Perhaps prohibition resulted in clearer heads. — praxis

My elder son is 37, back in school, and getting good grades. He says when he was in high school he didn't give a shit.

Good, thoughtful post.

I have become more culturally conservative (small "C") with age and yet less politically Conservative — 180 Proof

This is true for me too.

Growing old is inevitable but it's abundantly clear growing-up – outgrowing childish "fears" & "hopes" (i.e. superstitions & faiths)) is not. — 180 Proof

This is fine, although you and I often classify different things as "superstitions & faiths."

I find myself even more cognitively isolated from my peers (and family) than I'd felt in previous decades. — 180 Proof

My daughter has always been intellectually active and we have lots to talk about. My sons were lazy and stubborn when they were in school, neither finished college. Their grades were always mediocre. Suddenly I discovered in the 20s that they were much more intellectually sophisticated than I had given them credit for. They write well, read a lot, and have interesting ideas about politics and human nature. It's been really gratifying to be able to have the kinds of discussions we have here on the forum with all three of my children. Those discussions are very loud - my wife leaves the room. Of course, they are all at least as liberal as I am without the smoothing of sharp edges that time has given me.

Please bring your experiences into alignment with my inerrant suspicions. — BC

Keep in mind I'm much younger than you are. Why, you were already walking, talking, and wetting your bed before I was even born.

I suspect that people with a high level of personal confidence, self-efficacy, agency, and so on are less likely to seek social shelter in conservative groups. They are more likely to be comfortable with change and risk taking. Some people seem risk-averse early in life, and some are more likely to seek risk. — BC

I'm with @praxis on this. I think this is an overstatement. I'm sure it's a common attitude among those on the liberal/socialist side, but it's a bit self-serving and it's disrespectful of those we disagree with.

If anything, the more I learn the more progressive I become... — praxis

The same is true for me, although I'd like to think I have a better grasp of the intricacies of the issues.

I think people may be born with a kind of nature that predisposes them to one way or the other and no amount of learning has much impact on changing it. They say it has to do with openness to change or willingness to try new things. — praxis

There certainly is truth in this, but I think it's possible to open people up to new experiences.

The way I see philosophy it is a tool because philosophers have asked questions I never thought of asking and in that way it teaches us to ask questions and to see with a much broader perspective. — Athena

This is something I've been thinking about. I agree with what you wrote about seeing with a broader perspective, but I see the first part of your statement differently. I came to philosophy with the questions I wanted answered. After 10 years as a cabinetmaker and 30 years as an engineer, I wanted to put into words the things I had learned and see if I could expand on that. This is why I'm so interested in metaphysics and epistemology. I want to be able to clearly say what I know and how I know it.

Stopping to think, instead of just reacting, is a learned habit, and those of us who actively nurtured the habit become better thinkers because of the accumulation of thoughts and experiences over a lifetime. — Athena

I agree with this. I've certainly become a better thinker here on the forum. On the other hand, I was always a thinker. I joke sometimes that I'm still 17 years old. Not my body, certainly, but the way I see the world.

I have gotten more conservative. — Athena

I started out liberal and I think I'm just as liberal now. I would say my liberality is more nuanced. I'm also less likely to see political decision making as something that has to have winners and losers. I guess I'd say I'm liberal in outlook, but moderate in attitude. There are ideas I believe are the right thing to do, but I don't insist that I always get my way.

I realize that what I've just written seems like nothing but two paragraphs of blah blah blah. — L'éléphant

Actually, I found what you wrote helpful to put the discussion in context.

Philosophy is good for checking our understanding of reality and expanding our consciousness but it is not the end all. It is a tool and none of the philosophies or religions are the final word of God. — Athena

Consistent with what you've written, I've often said that philosophy for me is a way to become more intellectually self-aware. I don't generally see it as a tool to accomplish practical things though. I use it more to sharpen the tools I work with. Now that I think about it, I guess that does make it a tool too.

I speak of the human that has all our faculties as we have them in modern humans. — schopenhauer1

Homo heidelbergensis lived until about 200,000 years ago, They are considered the immediate ancestor to homo sapiens. The earliest bones of h. sapiens have been dated to just about the same time.

There's probably no benefit for us to go on. We're defining the differences between animals and humans using different standards. It's a matter of perspective. I doubt either one of us is going to change our mind.

But yes, I did that physically, sensually, and I loved the experience, but I found nothing. But I trust I missed it. — Noble Dust

I was just teasing you for your endearing technophobia.

I can of course dig around myself — Noble Dust

This is one of the reasons I like Kindle so much. Yes, yes, I know. You like the sensual feel of turning the pages of a real book.

I can’t do shit — yet. But I’m working on a mutiny. — Mikie

You started this thing. All of this is your fault.

On searching I found that most sources equate the meaning of 'being' with 'existence'. To be is to exist. So, whatever the historical common or philosophical usages might have been (and we are only talking about English usage here really, since translations from other languages are never precise), the logic of the synonymy between 'existence' and 'being' means that we can legitimately use the term 'a being' to refer to any existent. — Janus

If you look at just about any dictionary, one of the definitions of "being" will be "a living thing." My point is not that @Wayfarer is right in this instance, only that his use of the word "being" is not unreasonable.

I am not sure what you are saying. — schopenhauer1

I was only answering your question "What is an Instinct." I probably should have left out the Pinker quote. It seems to have confused things.

language indeed does seem a difference in kind. — schopenhauer1

As I noted, it was a mistake to include the Pinker quote.

That is one theory. — schopenhauer1

I noted in my response that the issue is controversial.

The instinct for language, as humans use it, seem to be a difference in kind. — schopenhauer1

Is I indicated in my response, that's only true if you ignore the most recent human ancestors. Which brings us back the question of when human cognitive ability evolved. I guess the answer is that there is continuity between animal and human cognition. It's a slope, not a jump.

Can you define instinct? — schopenhauer1

This is from "What is an Instinct" by William James:

Instinct is usually defined as the faculty of acting in such a way as to produce certain ends, without foresight of the ends, and without previous education in the performance. — William James - What is an Instinct

[Edited to remove confusing quote]

This is from "The Language Instinct" by Stephen Pinker:

Darwin concluded that language ability is “an instinctive tendency to acquire an art,” a design that is not peculiar to humans but seen in other species such as song-learning birds. — Stephen Pinker - The Language Instinct

I am posing the question and thus, clearly I am asking thee. — schopenhauer1

I'll modify the answer above so as not to be quite as wishy-washy:

I guess so Yes, if you ignore all the extinct ancestors to our species. If you don't ignore our most recent ancestors, I think the answer is "no," but I'm not sure.

We have very little innate modules and much of our way of surviving in the world is learned habits and deliberative reasoning based on heuristics that could be comprised of. beneficial or poor methods to obtain goals all of which are themselves constructed from preferences based on heiristics built over time. — schopenhauer1

This is a controversial issue that I've been reading and thinking about recently. I think your statement is wrong. I think our thinking is heavily influenced by innate modules. Not certain. Working on it. It's likely a combination of both. I know @apokrisis agrees with you.

At what point do you think that this general processing ability- whereby there is much plasticity in how we behave and thus plasticity in our ways of survival, makes this ability some thing that is a difference in kind not just a degree in evolutionary, biological, and psychological terms? — schopenhauer1

It's not that I don't think we have a powerful general processing ability, but I don't think you can ignore what is built in from the start. I don't think there's anything wrong with calling them instincts.

I'll answer this question with another question - Is it actually true that there is a discontinuity in cognitive ability between humans and other living things? I guess so, if you ignore all the extinct ancestors to our species. I was going to say more but I'm walking on thin intellectual ice now. I'll leave it at that.

Not using the built-in search unfortunately. But there is a way. — Jamal

Tried. Works. Yay! Thanks.

If I'm doing a search and I want to look for a complete phrase rather than a single word, I normally "put quotes around the phrase" before I do the search. When I do that, it seems to highlight any post that has all the words, even if their not in order.

Is there a way of looking for the whole phrase?

Can you see the problem? Can you see that if you say to Aristotle "hey, actually only sentient individuals are beings", you're not making a philosophical point, but just refusing to use Aristotle's terminology and expressing your refusal in a misleadingly substantive statement? — Jamal

I hadn't been following this discussion closely, but when things got lively, I went back and read the relevant posts, including yours. Words mean different things to different people in different places at different times in different contexts, especially important words like "to be" and related words. If you look at definitions of "being", a person or other living thing is one of them.

Both of you seem to be making reasonable arguments. Your usage is more in line with the way I normally see things in a philosophical context. What I'm not certain about is how Jung fits into all of this. He was included in the OP. I don't know much about his beliefs. He seems like something of a mystic. That made me think that what @Wayfarer was saying was consistent with how Jung saw things. I don't know enough to judge.

When I said you were being aggressive, I didn't mean you were being impolite. I tend to be pretty aggressive sometimes. I'm just not used to seeing that from you. You're supposed to be nicer than I am.

I was showing that when philosophers say that everything that can be said to be is a being (which should be obvious), they are not advancing a metaphysical view. — Jamal

This discussion has really gone off the deep end. Arguments about definitions are almost universal here on the forum. The definition of "being" that @Wayfarer is using can be perfectly reasonable in both everyday and philosophical discussions, depending on context. I admit he looks at things differently than I generally do, but I see things differently from many people here. I don't understand why you've being so aggressive.

your post doesn't even address how your idiosyncratic usage of "being", as Jamal has argued, is justified in public discourse. — 180 Proof

I say that beings are subjects of experience, which is a simple fact. As for the various meanings of the verb 'to be', it's a different matter, but it's not relevant to the question implied in the OP. — Wayfarer

I don't get it. Words can mean different things in different contexts. Using "being" in reference to a sentient or conscious entity, e.g. human being, is perfectly reasonable in philosophy or everyday speech. Whether or not that particular usage is relevant to this particular discussion is another matter.

I'm rereading "Tao - The Watercourse Way" by Alan Watts. I haven't read it in more than 30 years. It surprises me how sophisticated his argument against reductionism is. He brings up a lot of issues that I don't normally associate with Taoism, but he helps me see the connection.

In that case the Tao is being as a whole — existence. The individuated beings (things) that we differentiate in perception have as much existence an anything else, as beings. — Mikie

It wouldn’t exist as a linguistic entity— but animals interact with apples all the time. They seem to differentiate between them and what we call rocks just fine. — Mikie

I think the difference you and I are having is a metaphysical not a factual one. There's no need for us to get into a back and forth, but here are two quotes from the Tao Te Ching that lay out my understanding of how Taoists see this. Both are from Ellen Marie Chen's translation. The ten thousand things represent the multiplicity of things, i.e. distinctions. Being applies to them. Non-being represents the Tao, the undivided unity.

Verse 1:
Non-being, to name the origin of heaven and earth;
Being, to name the mother of ten thousand things.

Verse 40
Returning is the movement of Tao.
Weak is the functioning of Tao.
Ten thousand things under heaven are born of being.
Being is born of non-being.

As I said, we don't have to take this any further. I don't want to distract from your discussion.

The OP plainly doesn't want to go down this road so I'll leave it at that. — Wayfarer

Really? I thought we were right on target. Still, I think I said all I had to say anyway.

[Edit] I see @Mikie's later comment now.

I think making the distinction between beings and things is part of a different discussion
— T Clark

Customarily, the subject matter of ontology, which is suggested by the thread title. — Wayfarer

I think the being/thing equivalence I am discussing is ontological while the being/thing distinction you are discussing is ethical.

You'd have to read Wayfarer's post from which I quoted and responded to with my post. — 180 Proof

This is what Wayfarer wrote.

So - is not consciousness invariably associated with beings? Isn't consciousness a fundamental attribute of beings, generally? (as jgill suggests) A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing. So consciousness is intrinsic to being, isn't it? I'm tempted to say that to be, is to be conscious. — Wayfarer

I guess I don't see the difference between "beings" and "things." Maybe that's not right. Maybe I just don't think the distinction is useful here. As I see it, consciousness brings all the differentiated aspects of the world into being, existence. In that context, we are just as much things as apples and hand grenades.

I think making the distinction between beings and things is part of a different discussion which can't take place until all the things, including us, are brought into existence. In that different context, the distinction makes more sense. Mixing them together doesn't work.

“The physical world is not as the world as it is in itself. The physical world is a representation, an appearance, on the screen of perception, on the dashboard of dials. Physicality does not have standalone existence, a standalone reality, for exactly the same reason that the images on the screen do not have standalone reality.” — Art48

Keep in mind first of all that my grasp of quantum mechanics is at the level of an intelligent but relatively uneducated amateur. I understand the outlines of the theory and some of the consequences, but I'm not capable of judging in any detail or depth. In particular, I struggle with action at a distance as it is described in current science.

I watched the portion of the video you described. Kastrup uses the language of Kant; thing-in-itself, noumena. He also mixes in action at a distance associated with quantum mechanics. Kant's formulation is one that has parallels with other philosophers - Schopenhauer, Lao Tzu, and Merleau-Ponty I am aware of, but I'm sure there are others. These formulations are metaphysics. They're assumptions, what are called absolute presuppositions. They are not facts. They are habits of thought that form the foundation for science, but aren't science themselves. Quantum mechanics, on the other hand, is science - a set of theories established based on experimental and theoretical physics and then validated by further observations. These two ways of looking at things don't belong together.

Kastrup isn't stupid. I'm guessing I am misinterpreting his ideas. As I noted, my understanding of quantum mechanics is at a relatively unsophisticated level. But I don't know how to take this discussion any further.

I agree, and this is not the question I've asked. — 180 Proof

I also considered that the person we are discussing is still a person to others, even if the person is unconscious. I assume you don't mean that either. I guess I don't understand the question you were asking.

More to the point, CS Peirce differentiated existence and reality. He said that existence is a binary property that can be ascribed to any concept or entity, depending on whether or not it satisfies certain logical criteria. For example, we might say that unicorns do not exist, because they fail to meet certain logical criteria for existence, such as being observable or verifiable in some way.

On the other hand, Peirce argued that reality is a far more complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses both the logical properties of existence as well as the broader metaphysical properties of being. — Wayfarer

Would Lao Tzu say what he calls "existence" or "being" are the same things you and Peirce call "reality." That creation of the "complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses both the logical properties of existence as well as the broader metaphysical properties of being," is the process that brings things into existence.

I hope you awoke flush with happiness. — Wayfarer

I don't think anyone commented on this. Maybe I missed it. I wish I'd thought of it.

Lantana is a South American climbing vine that forms large patches sprawling over hundreds of square meters displacing native species and is extremely resistant to weedicides, nowadays endemic to large parts of Australia. — Wayfarer

In the southern US, there is a plant called kudzu which behaves in a similar fashion. It was brought in from Asia to help stop erosion. It works very well for that. If you drive along roads in Georgia or South Carolina, you'll see it completely covering trees and abandoned buildings. Once it gets started, it's hard to stop and overpowers native plants.

So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet? — 180 Proof

This person would not stop being a person to others. It is a commonplace that we live in a social reality. If you ask whether the person is still a person to themselves when they are not conscious, I don't think the question makes any sense. I don't think anything is anything to an unconscious person. Isn't that what unconsciousness means?

We may want to include the idea that existence and being point to the same concept, that of becoming as difference. — Joshs

I wonder if you mean the same thing I did when I said making a distinction is what separates the undivided oneness into the things we know in the world.

So we need to be clear as to whether we are talking of existence or being. — Banno

Any dictionary you look at will use being and existence as synonyms for each other. If you don't think they're the same, what is the difference?

Why “consciousness” is given such primacy is puzzling at times, especially when you take a serious look at how we live as human beings in our daily lives.

Opposed to all this, I’d argue that being is the precondition for consciousness — just as living is the precondition to being awake. We’re not always awake — and we’re not always conscious. — Mikie

I don't know what Jung meant when he wrote that consciousness comes before being, but I have some idea what Lao Tzu meant. The Tao, the primal oneness, comes before distinctions are made. Naming, which I take to mean consciousness, is what breaks the Tao up into what we see in our everyday world. Language is what people use to make distinctions. If there was no one around to call an apple an apple, it wouldn't exist as a separate object, only as part of the inseparable whole. Naming, consciousness, brings things into existence.

Of course, this is a metaphysical position, not a factual or scientific one. To me, it makes sense to say that anything that hasn't been observed by a conscious entity does not exist. Many people don't, or can't, see the sense in that.

Sorry about @Darkneos. You'll find that there is a lot of hostility to religion here on the forum.

Welcome to the forum. I'm sorry it couldn't have been with a more gracious poster.