I didn't find what you wrote there understandable without putting in considerable effort. My point was only that it is not the process of perception of an object that bears properties, but the object that is perceived. That some properties of objects (like colour for example) may be said to be perception-dependent does nothing to change this; that is, it is not my perception of a flower which is yellow, but the flower I perceive which is yellow.

It's easy to read that way if you're tacitly assuming a perception is an object that bears properties like a flower bears properties. — fdrake

In that view it is not that a perception is an object that bears properties like a flower bears properties, but that it is an object that bears properties instead of a flower that bears properties.

There seems to be some truth to this in the sense that some properties of the flower are only realized in being perceived. Nonetheless they are properties of the flower, not properties of the perception of the flower.

Knowing this now, I say there is me, and then there are flowers and I have a perception of the flower. The question then is whether my perception represents the flower or is the flower. If the former, we're not direct realists. If the latter, we are. The latter makes no sense to me. — Hanover

Words are multiplying unnecessarily here and causing you some confusion it seems. Your perception of the flower is neither a representation of the flower nor is it the flower. You perceive the flower, you don't perceive a representation of the flower. The flower is presented to your perception, is present in your perception, not represented by it. It is your thought or talk about the flower that represents the flower, if anything does.

Marek's disease is a classic example. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As far as I know, it's not a classic example, but the only example. Do you have another?

But then what of spoilers - story facts kept till last? Are they neither true nor false until presented in the narrative? — Banno

It seems story facts can't be true or false until irrevocably committed to print, because otherwise the author might change her mind. They could be true or false in the context of a draft or even the author's imagination, if nothing is written down, as long as she doesn't change her mind.

Do we move to a paraconsistent logic, in which statements made within the text or inferred therefrom are true, and all other statements neither true nor false? — Banno

Sounds like a good option.

Which raises the intriguing notion of a free, paraconsistent logic. — Banno

Maybe that's the salient difference between the logic of fiction and logic of fact. We say that propositions concerning what we don't know about the world, even what we cannot know about the world, must be true or false, even if we can never know it.

In the case of fiction, it would seem that propositions about what has not been told must be neither true nor false. Even if a later telling were to make them true or false, this would then be a "world" which has been altered or augmented; a "world" which was not prior to the later telling.

Imagine if there was a God (an author) and our world was like that...

Right, so the incompleteness of fictional characters means that we can only infer about them what follows from what is told, and much may remain untold? Now you've gone and made me want to read the book.

What I tell you three times is true. — Lewis Carroll

Does the thrice-telling make it true, or does the Bellman tell it three times because it is true? Perhaps this is the much that yet remains to be said.

I haven't read Lewis Carrol since I was a kid. I have read that he was also a logician.

According to that logic,

If you say three times that if you say something three times, then unsay it once it is false, then it is false.
If you say three times that if you say something three times, then unsay it once it is true, then it is true.

I guess...

Who did the original three-saying?

It occurs to me that there are fictional creations in which such inferences do not hold. Hence, Nonsense as a genre. — Banno

Do you mean literature in which inconsistencies and contradictions abound. I'm trying to think of an example. Twain attributes some inconsistency to Fennimore Cooper's Deerslayer in the linked article. I read Deerslayer a few years ago and enjoyed it. Is poetic licence justification for inconsistency in literature?

If it is stipulated that Frodo walked into Mordor, then it is stipulated that something walked into Mordor; I'll grant that logic.

Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street. Why shouldn't we consider this to be true, within the context of the writings of Doyle and their derivatives? Is there an argument against this? — Banno

More aptly referred to as being stipulated or written, rather than being true. no? We have good reason to believe it is true that it is written that Holmes lived at 221b Baker Street.

If there is a real 221b Baker Street, then it is false that Holmes ever lived there. If that address is also fictional then I would say it is merely stipulated that the fictional character lives at the fictional address.

But what if they actually know, and are above and beyond interpretation? — baker

That possibility (even if it is a possibility) cannot mean anything to me. I think enlightenment is possible, but I don't see how it could consist in knowing (in the absolute sense you seem to be pointing to) any propositional thing, since any proposition entails the possibility of its falsity, any propositional "knowing" entails the possibility of being mistaken.

I acknowledge that an enlightened person could know ("know" in the biblical sense of "familiarity") an enlightened disposition, a presence, openness and freedom from attachment that I don't, just as a great pianist knows a presence, openness and freedom I, as a pianist, cannot.

Very well, what is the flower in and of itself? — Hanover

The more I think about that question, the more incoherent it seems. To be something is to instantiate some attribute or set of attributes, no? Attributes are cognized; so if knowing attributes is dependent on judgements derived from perception, is asking about attributes that are imperceptible in principle not incoherent?

I'd love to see you take this up with a Hare Krishna devotee! — baker

If they are mired in dogma I wouldn't bother. If they are open to other ideas then they must acknowledge the role of interpretation.

Apples are just fruit. Fruit is just apples. Que? Son lo mismo?

Did I say it was all that matters? I said that interpretation is significantly involved in areas other than in directly observed events where, it could be argued, interpretation is of no significant significance. I have no idea where this conversation is going.

The flower itself most certainly exists under this construct, but it's unknowable. — Hanover

The flower is knowable in a multitude of ways, or in other words, via a multitude of different kinds and instances of encounter. It is not exhaustively knowable, but that does not entail that it is unknowable.

You could work your entire life only to make a scratch on the edifice, but you’ll surely be forgotten afterwards. — Nicholas Mihaila

Why is it important to be remembered?

When it comes to empirically observable events, like who was at fault in a traffic accident, or who started a fight by throwing the first punch, and so on, there is much less room for interpretation. There is a realm of determinable facts, assuming honesty on the part of reporters, of course.

Regarding experience there may be an 'as it is', but as soon as it is spoken about interpretation enters. Ideas are always open to interpretation.

I had no thought of trying to "induce" any effect in you. I was telling my thoughts on what we have been discussing.

The flower is there to be perceived and it might be perceived differently by countless kinds of animals, it might feature in many instances of being perceived, and it is not merely any one of those perceptions nor the sum total of them, so it's not clear what you are asking.

What do you mean by "the same world"? This implies the flower is the same to me and the bee, but you've said otherwise. The question then is to describe those features of the flower that are the same regardless of the perceiver. — Hanover

Both bees and we see the flowers at the same places, we know this because we see them pollinating flowers. What could justify saying that we both see flowers, but that the flowers are not the same in each case? Of course the bees seeings and our seeings are not the same; but it does not follow from that that we don't see the same flowers as the bees.

Heidegger would agree with you and Husserl that the past and future are not unreal , but rather the having been and future dimensions belong to the now equally with the present dimension. — Joshs

I relate to the way you've articulated that; that the now is not exclusively identified with the present dimension, and not even identified any more with the present than it is with the past and future dimensions.

I know what you're saying, and I wouldn't say "no," I would say it doesn't come up very often. When it does, I can't see a way around what you're claiming. I think there's plenty of truth in it. There is this activity, there is this being, but it's hard to pin down a "now." — Xtrix

That's it; we cannot pin down a now. I tend to think it's important to be aware of what we are doing in the kind of Buddhist sense of "mindfulness". That's not a presence which can be pinned down, or elaborated into a theory; not a 'thin' present-at-hand kind of presence, but it seems to be the foundation of any examined life,and I can't see phenomenology as important except in this regard.

Maybe it's off-topic and more in line with Heidegger's idea of authenticity. Do you see that idea as being related to his treatment of being?

What is our life: it’s looking forward or it’s looking back. And that’s our life. That’s it. Where is the moment? — Glengarry, Glen Ross

I would say it's right there in that looking forward or looking back or looking out or looking down or looking up. The moment is not fixed or dimensionless, but nor does it move or have a particular dimension; it simply is; not something to be found or determined.

I think this is a matter of presentism and eternalism, with you seemingly argue in favor the the latter.

I think Heidegger would say we don't often thinking about time in this respect -- we're too busy "being" (coping, interacting with, engaging with, "on the way to," etc). — Xtrix

It surprises me that you say I am arguing for eternalism when I am saying that only the now is. But then I can also see the sense in this because there is no privileged now.

But I wasn't proposing any metaphysic, I was trying to speak phenomenologically, which is to try to articulate lived experience. When we are "busy "being" (coping, interacting with, engaging with, "on the way to," etc)" is it not always now that we are doing that?

I think you're taking liberties, because Heidegger is never so clear, but I also think that you almost have to be correct. When meditation is taught in eastern traditions, there is an emphasis on the "now" as well -- and past and future are seen as an illusion of some kind. The only "reality" is the one unfolding in the present.

Seems true. On the other hand, is this not simply another interpretation from a present-at-hand mode of being? While the now might not be quantified, we're stilling conceptualizing it and speaking of it. If anything, I see us as only being able to piece it together second-hand, in a way -- like automaticity or even deeper aspects of our being that are unconscious, and in fact largely beyond our ability to be it to individual awareness (like the internal workings of our liver and circulation). — Xtrix

I am taking liberties in the sense that I don't claim what I am saying is what Heidegger would say. I don't say the past or future are illusions, but that they exist, as past and future, only now. This does relate to Husserl's notions of retention and protention. Do you think Heidegger would say that dasein, the 'being-there', is now?

I am not suggesting that there is a succession of nows, although it might appear that way as we hop from one 'island moment' of conscious awareness to the next. Underlying that there would seem to be no succession, but a continuity or continuum.

Perhaps everything we say "is another interpretation from a present-at-hand mode of being", but isn't it true that we experience the past and future only now? The present can be thought as the now regardless of what is consciously experienced as present. Or it can be thought simply as what is consciously experienced as present. Same word, different senses.

Artistotle is interpreting time as something present-at-hand, according to Heidegger. Whatever secondary sense you're referring to, it's not at all clear. "Continuity without any nows" is what, exactly? Perhaps citing Aristotle to support whatever claim you're making would be helpful. — Xtrix

If time is objectified it appears as a flow or movement from past through present to future. But this is an abstraction; for lived time there is only now, not a 'dimensionless-point' now but an infinitely expansive now in which, and only in which, the future and the past exist as such.

Yep. like it or not, we all do it.

:ok: cheers

Ideas are not for respecting though. They are for slapping sense into if possible. — I like sushi

When it comes to ideas you wouldn't be thinking about "slapping sense into them" if you respected them.

I get that you don't respect Heidegger; it seems his work doesn't speak to you. That's alright, it's reasonable to expect that any philosopher will not appeal to everyone.

Can't see that this helps, if the point is to defend a misuse of language. — Banno

I'd say you're thinking too much in terms of propositions if you think the point is about defending anything.

But remember, the question isn't "What kind of word is 'being'"? The question is what is "it"? What is the meaning of being? — Xtrix

When we ask 'what is being?' we are asking what being is for us, no? Surely the usages of the word and its relatives should give us some clues, Of course we can also extrapolate upon those usages and try to examine what it is to be a human, which is the work of phenomenology, so I agree that looking at language use alone is not enough.

How can this be contended? '-ness' forms a noun from an adjective, expressing a state or condition. — Banno

Except 'being' is not an adjective, but a verb. 'kind', 'calm', 'cold', 'fierce'. 'wild' are all adjectives. What about 'wilder'?

Perhaps 'beinghood' would have been clearer. Think of parent and neighbour, both nouns to which hood may be added to indicate a state or condition. Interestingly, 'parent' may be a verb too (not sure about 'neighbour').

I wonder if I've I've clarified anything. Although I agree with @Xtrix that looking at language use, and critical analysis in general are not enough to constitute the whole of philosophy, I also don't think they can hurt. Clarity is not always the aim; sometimes we can expand our more or less fuzzy 'feels' or intuitions, which themselves can constitute kinds of understanding; understandings which may be expressed more aptly in metaphor than in proposition.

"What is being" is one question among several of philosophical concern. Add "what is knowledge?", "What is beauty?", "What am I?"... and a few others. Each has at one time or another been claimed to be the prime, defining question in philosophy. — Banno

Those other questions have, at their heart, the question as to what kind of thing (being) they are. The "is" in the questions guarantees that.

Cheers, that's interesting.

I would invoke an analogy to perception at this point, but perhaps that’s not helpful in this context. — Xtrix

Not sure what you mean, but I'm intrigued...

No, but I don’t see “it” as separate from change either. I don’t really see it as anything. Yet there are all kinds of things in the world— obviously. Beings all over the place. When asking about the beingness of beings, I think all we can say is that there have been many interpretations, and perhaps ask about the human beings doing the interpreting. — Xtrix

It seems that beingness should be though of as a noun. I can't remember if Heidegger uses that term or simply 'being'. The being (verb?) of a being (noun?) would seem to be its existing. ( Interestingly 'existence' is, like 'beingness', a noun while 'existing' is a verb). The logic seems to be that just as being is not a being, that it doesn't exist in other words, so it is with existence, which does not exist either.

The thing is language is pretty loose and sloppy. So while we seemingly cannot be precise about these kinds of things, we can kind of think around them intuitively feeling the logic of how we use terms.