I had to make some simplifications to explain things to Russell.

Accordingly, I argued that ontology was, properly speaking, concerned with the nature of being (literally, 'I am-ness') rather than of 'what exists'. This distinction I held to be an example of what I considered fundamental to the proper distinction of 'being' from 'existence', which is hardly recognised by modern philosophers. I was told that my definition was 'eccentric' and completely mistaken. Finally, I was sent a link to a paper I mentioned to you before, 'The Greek Verb 'To Be' and the Problem of Being' , Charles Kahn, whom I was told was an authority on the subject. But I learned that rather than challenging my claim, this paper actually supported it, through passages such as:

[Parmenides] initial thesis, that the path of truth, conviction, and knowledge is the path of "what is" or "that it is" (hos esti) can then be understood as a claim that knowledge, true belief, and true statements, are all inseperably linked to "what is so" - - not merely to what exists, but what is the case (emphasis in original).

[The] intrinsically stable and lasting character of Being in Greek - - which makes it so appropriate as an object of knowing and the correlative of truth - - distinguishes it in a radical way from our modern notion of existence.
— Charles H. Kahn
--

Finally, this conceptual divergence was definitively cemented in early Christian theology
— Astorre

hence Heidegger's critique of 'onto-theology', the 'objectification' of the being. While the basic fact of the matter is that Being is an act, not a thing. (Something that is hardly news to Buddhists.) — Wayfarer

For Heidegger, Dasein’s Being is its existence, but existence understood as the transcendence of a self , an exiting from itself in being ahead of itself in already being in the world. The ‘I am’ , the self, does not pre-exist its relation to the world, but only exists in coming back to itself from the world. The direction of this ‘act’, occurrence, happening, is from future to present, from world to self, rather than the other way around. In the happening of Being, what is the case is secondary to how it is the case, which is in turn secondary to why it is the case. The happening of Being always begins again and again from this wonder.

While the basic fact of the matter is that Being is an act, not a thing. (Something that is hardly news to Buddhists.)

Or to me neither.

That change you’re referring to is ‘metanoia’, a transformation of perspective.

Thanks, a useful word.

An alien may as be different to us as we are to a cat.

Would a cat understand if we explained Sartre's theory of existentialism to it?

Would we understand if an alien explained what they know to us?

But in the example I gave, I was not addressing the likelihood, or possibility that an alien would come along who could tell us. I am assuming that. But rather, if such an alien were to arrive and tell us, we would likely have no difficulty in understanding it.
The secrets of existence may be very simple, like a biology lesson. We are just in the unfortunate position of being blind to this truth.
There may be sufficient information, or clues in the world we find ourselves in to work it out. That it just requires some clever, or intuitive thinking to work it out.

Or rather a change in orientation, ‘metanoia’, in us.

if such an alien were to arrive and tell us, we would likely have no difficulty in understanding it.
The secrets of existence may be very simple, like a biology lesson. We are just in the unfortunate position of being blind to this truth.
There may be sufficient information, or clues in the world we find ourselves in to work it out. That it just requires some clever, or intuitive thinking to work it out. — Punshhh

We are confronted by aliens all the time: alien cultures, politics, ethics and philosophy. We have enormous difficulty in understanding these aliens, and they are right in our midst. They are our neighbors. Thomas Kuhn said that new scientific paradigms become accepted not because everyone is made to understand the new science, but because the old generation dies off.

We are confronted by aliens all the time: alien cultures, politics, ethics and philosophy. We have enormous difficulty in understanding these aliens, and they are right in our midst. They are our neighbors. Thomas Kuhn said that new scientific paradigms become accepted not because everyone is made to understand the new science, but because the old generation dies off.

Yes, we are cumbersome and slow to learn new tricks. But this trick might not be so difficult. I think part of our problem is we have convinced ourselves that it is complicated. Simply because we have not worked it out yet. But this may be a mistake, the trick might be quite simple, but we are blind to it. Have we considered that we are blind, cannot see the obvious?

You see, philosophers and other thinkers have probably thought of the answer amongst all the wrong and equally plausible answers. But we just don’t know if they have, or which one it is. It might well be one of the less plausible answers, or just something so obvious we just can’t see it. I don’t think it is sensible to assume that it is complicated, inconceivable, or profound. We might just be stupid, or blind.

Right - in those debates I had with Streetlight, he referred to Heidegger a few times. Since then, I've read a bit more and am *starting* to understand and appreciate Heidegger somewhat. Mastering the whole oeuvre is a challenge and, I regret, something I'll probably never accomplish, but I'm coming to appreciate parts of it.

The ‘I am’ , the self, does not pre-exist its relation to the world, but only exists in coming back to itself from the world. — Joshs

Why does this remind me of the Libet experiments? :chin:

Why does this remind me of the Libet experiments? :chin: — Wayfarer

Never thought of that connection. Course, one difference from Libet is that for Heidegger we know and feel this transcendence toward the world as it is happening via the authentic mood of anxiety. It is the feeling of being transposed into the ‘nothing’, that pregnant anticipation of a world coming to be in its mysterious potentiality.

It just occurred to me spontaneously - don't want to make too much of it.

↪Joshs It just occurred to me spontaneously - don't want to make too much of it. — Wayfarer

A lot depends on what we want to make of the concept of the unconscious. For Husserl there is no unconscious, only the implicit. For Heidegger there isn’t even consciousness.( Maybe he was anticipating Trump)

:rofl:

For Heidegger, Dasein’s Being is its existence, but existence understood as the transcendence of a self, an exiting from itself in being ahead of itself in already being in the world. The ‘I am’ , the self, does not pre-exist its relation to the world, but only exists in coming back to itself from the world. The direction of this ‘act’, occurrence, happening, is from future to present, from world to self, rather than the other way around. In the happening of Being, what is the case is secondary to how it is the case, which is in turn secondary to why it is the case. The happening of Being always begins again and again from this wonder.

Interesting, this reminds me of the triadic use of ‘I am’ in Theosophy, which can be tabulated this way.

I am————Personality———— Matter——————-Individuality
I am that——-Soul———————Consciousness——Initiation
I am that I am—Monad—————Spirit———————Identification

To me this suggests that the human being ‘I am’ identifies themself as a being in the world, ‘I am that’. This informs the personality which reflects on what it is (It is that which it is). Which results in when that personality is acting in the world, it acts as a thing (that thing it realises it is)*. But this personality is its own interpretation of itself, so is never actually being itself. It is always its own idea of what itself is. It is always acting out (as if on stage), what it thinks it is, or would be. This means that what is experienced as the self is all the baggage from the past, being projected into the future. A future which is anticipated to be a continuation of what happened in the past.

This then through initiation (trial and error) (eventually) identifies with what it means to be this conscious thing and realises the soul. ‘I am that I am’**.This identifies the personality as an individualised thing that is acting out (as on stage) their own identity in the world.

Then at a later stage, the old sage, identifies the monad and imbues the personality with an identification of divinity, or the world and creation as a whole and that it is the embodiment of this whole in the world. And actualises ‘I am that I am’ and sits under the Bodhi tree.


* this also entails self doubt, confidence, or the lack of etc.

**origin of ‘I am that I am’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_that_I_Am

But rather, if such an alien were to arrive and tell us, we would likely have no difficulty in understanding it. — Punshhh

As I could never run a 4 minute mile because I am limited by the physicality of my body, all brains are limited by their physicality. Brains are physical things.

As a cat is limited by its physical brain in understanding Sartre's existentionalism, the human is limited in its understanding by its physical brain.

Even the alien will be limited by the physicality of their brain.

To me this suggests that the human being ‘I am’ identifies themself as a being in the world, ‘I am that’. This informs the personality which reflects on what it is (It is that which it is). Which results in when that personality is acting in the world, it acts as a thing (that thing it realises it is)*. But this personality is its own interpretation of itself, so is never actually being itself. It is always its own idea of what itself is. It is always acting out (as if on stage), what it thinks it is, or would be. This means that what is experienced as the self is all the baggage from the past, being projected into the future. A future which is anticipated to be a continuation of what happened in the past. — Punshhh

This is very important. This is exactly what I am talking about at the start: Not "what I am," but "how I being." It is in this act that our above-mentioned reflections are realized: Substantia is not a noun. Being is not a noun. (which, in my opinion, is a given for languages that do not require a copula)

Is it possible to identify a process? Rather than identify, it is more accurate to compare. Compare, but not with a thing, but with a process.

Asking about "how I being?" we must have something as an example, an image, a template. In this way, one of the key signs of being (which I will propose later) is realized - involvement. That is, something can be itself only on the condition that there is something else or different, from which I deduce that any existence is impossible in a single instance, but is something exclusively in relation to another (Being together).

Based on this, the act of self-identification with something is meaningless. You can compare your process with another process, finding similarities or differences, but they are always different processes, separate processes, but interconnected processes

As I could never run a 4 minute mile because I am limited by the physicality of my body, all brains are limited by their physicality. Brains are physical things.

Yes I agree with you. I was making a point about our ability to understand the truth about existence. That the idea that the answers are complicated, or inconceivable, because if they were simple we would have worked it out by now, are misplaced. That the reason we haven’t worked it out might be for another reason. We are blinkered, or blind to it.

That the reason we haven’t worked it out might be for another reason. We are blinkered, or blind to it. — Punshhh

It may well be that the truth is simple. The problem is interpretation.

I look at Wittgenstein's duck-rabbit and say "I see the truth, it is a duck". You look at the same picture and say "I see the truth, it is a rabbit".

The truth may be staring us in the face, but we may well see different truths.

You’re flirting with solipsism a bit there. I’ve no problem with a bit of that, but it might not be of much use here.

The truth may be staring us in the face, but we may well see different truths.

We largely speak a common truth. To claim solipsism with regard to other people is quite extreme.

We largely speak a common truth. To claim solipsism with regard to other people is quite extreme. — Punshhh

On the one hand we speak the common truth that "the postbox is red".

But on the other hand, when we both look at this "red postbox", how do we know our subjective experiences of the colour "red" are the same?

We could only know for sure if mind-reading was possible.

But on the other hand, when we both look at this "red postbox", how do we know our subjective experiences of the colour "red" are the same?

We are clones from a common ancestor (small group of pre-mammalian predecessors)*. One continuous living lineage. It would be surprising if we saw different things, when looking at the same object.

*I know that there is genetic and sexual variation, but this doesn’t alter our cloned lineage much.

It would be surprising if we saw different things, when looking at the same object. — Punshhh

I agree, I am sure that we do. But it can never be proved that we do.

Even more impressive, the geneticists concluded that all human beings on Earth right now can trace their lineage back to the Eve gene, a single common female ancestor whom scientists called the Mitochondrial Eve. She lived around 200,000 years ago.
science.howstuffworks.com

I posit that there is no fact of the matter of me having a different subjective experience of red to someone else. because my experience of red can be said to be characterized purely by informational structure in sensory inputs. If we are processing the same kind of structure, there is no fact of the matter that could make it so or distinguish that I was experiencing something different to anyone else. When there are discrepancies in color vision that can be observed, its because the information from the world people are processing is different. To say that someone elses red could be different imo reifies a dualistic conception of mind which I believe is illusory. Its very easy to imagine people having contrary experiences of things like color because its very easy to imagine myself things having different colors in my own perspective. I can conceive of what it would be like for a blue chair to be green instead, and I can clearly picture that. But in some sense, if I were to imagine and generate an actual mental picture of a green chair that in real life was actually blue, what is my brain actually doing? If when I see green in real life, my brain is processing a certain kind of informational structure, then when I imagine a green chair, I am surely just recapitulating that same structure. I can't divorce my counterfactual imaginings from those informational structures, so I cannot actuslly divorce my own subjective experiences and counterfactual imaginings from them either.

Is it possible to identify a process? Rather than identify, it is more accurate to compare. Compare, but not with a thing, but with a process.

Well we have a narrative of process, rather like our interpretation of ourselves, it is an interpretation. It can be refined through experience and trial and error during our involvement in processes. It can be analysed intellectually, but again this is an abstraction a narrative.

There are schools of practice endeavouring to develop wisdom and mastery of these processes and their interpretation. Shiva Nataraja, symbolises this mastery, an expression of self mastery. The actualisation of divinity, or the whole of creation in a being who can say, I am that I am.

[quote
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nataraja

Asking about "how I being?" we must have something as an example, an image, a template. In this way, one of the key signs of being (which I will propose later) is realized - involvement. That is, something can be itself only on the condition that there is something else or different, from which I deduce that any existence is impossible in a single instance, but is something exclusively in relation to another (Being together).

Agreed.

Yes and we know how difficult it is to prove something.

In my opinion, the consensus that red is red for everyone is sufficient for everyday life. Let's look at the consequences: (although this seems a bit pragmatic), but based on the fact that green usually has a calming effect, while red has a somewhat stimulating effect on everyone, including, for example, insects, we can safely assume that red is equally red for everyone.


For example:
Elliot, A. J., & Maier, M. A. (2007). Color and psychological functioning: The effect of red on performance attainment. Psychological Science
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17324089/#:~:text=Red%20is%20hypothesized%20to%20impair,outside%20of%20participants'%20conscious%20awareness

I had to make some simplifications to explain things to Russell. — Astorre

It really is not necessary to simplify your ideas for me to understand, I will try to keep up.

I am interested in the other question: whether there is something that is regardless of whether we speak of it, think of it, or conceptualise it. This is the difference between epistemology and ontology. — Astorre

I was just wondering how we can approach the ontology of being, something that is external to our language and thoughts, without using language or thoughts.

I was just wondering how we can approach the ontology of being, something that is external to our language and thoughts, without using language or thoughts. — RussellA

The question of how to approach the ontology of being that which exists beyond language and thought—is a central one in philosophy, since language and thought inevitably shape our perception of reality. However, a number of philosophical traditions, both Western and Eastern, suggest that being can be accessed through direct experience that transcends conceptual and linguistic structures.

In the West, phenomenology, developed by Husserl, Kierkegaard, and Heidegger, offers ways of understanding being through intuitive, pre-reflective awareness. Husserl, for example, proposed the method of epoche the suspension of judgments about the world in order to focus on pure phenomenal experience. Heidegger, for his part, in Being and Time emphasized the importance of Dasein (being-in-the-world) as the way in which being is revealed in immediate experience rather than through abstract reflection. Kierkegaard emphasized the existential leap of faith that takes one beyond rational analysis to the authentic experience of existence.

In the East, similar ideas can be found in Buddhism and Taoism, which emphasize overcoming dualistic thinking and linguistic categories to achieve direct contact with reality. In Buddhism, especially Zen, meditation practices are aimed at achieving a state of "emptiness" (shunyata), where conceptual differences between subject and object disappear, allowing one to experience being in its purity. Taoism, through the teachings of Lao Tzu, offers the concept of Tao as the unnameable basis of being, which is comprehended not through words or thoughts, but through intuitive adherence to the natural order of things. These traditions converge in the belief that language and thought, although powerful tools, limit our understanding of being, and that only through practices that go beyond them—whether phenomenological contemplation or meditative absorption—can one approach the true ontology of being.

The question of how to approach the ontology of being that which exists beyond language and thought—is a central one in philosophy, since language and thought inevitably shape our perception of reality. — Astorre

It depends which line of enquiry you are considering.

There are two distinct lines of enquiry, the ontology of being within a Realist framework and the ontology of being within an Idealist framework.

Ontological realism of being is the view that being exists independently of our language and thoughts. Ontological idealism of being is the view that being is fundamentally of the mind, where reality does not consist of mind-independent particles or forces, but is grounded in consciousness and reason.

Husserl's phenomenology is certainly that of ontological idealism, where any belief in the world's independent existence is put aside to focus on human experiences.

Heidegger's Dasein is also about ontological Idealism. It is about "being-in-the-world", in that we are not detached observers of the world but embedded in our experiences.

Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" is within ontological Idealism, where truth is an inward movement towards a lived experience.

Zen Buddhism has similarities to Husserl's phenomenology, and again ontological idealism.

Philip J. Bossert wrote:

I believe that a discussion of this issue of language and paradox might provide a fruitful point of comparative philosophical dialogue between Zen Buddhism and phenomenological philosophy.

For Taoism, the ontology of being is possibly a meaningless question, in that it emphasises direct experience rather than any metaphysical speculation.

Are you considering ontological being just from the viewpoint of idealism?

Ontological idealism of being is the view that being is fundamentally of the mind, where reality does not consist of mind-independent particles or forces, but is grounded in consciousness and reason.
Husserl's phenomenology is certainly that of ontological idealism, where any belief in the world's independent existence is put aside to focus on human experiences.

Heidegger's Dasein is also about ontological Idealism. It is about "being-in-the-world", in that we are not detached observers of the world but embedded in our experiences — RussellA

Right, but these are peculiar forms of Idealism. Heidegger’s Idealism puts into question the priority of mind, reason and consciousness, associating all of these with the Cartesian subject, which is still operative in Kant and Hegel. Dasein is more radically in the world than any notion of a conscious subjectivity perceiving objects can convey.

There are two distinct lines of enquiry, the ontology of being within a Realist framework and the ontology of being within an Idealist framework. — RussellA

Provide a link to the person who made this classification and where you can read more about it

Dasein is more radically in the world than any notion of a conscious subjectivity perceiving objects can convey.

Interesting, I hadn’t realised that philosophy had gone this far. Has a vocabulary been developed, for this subject?