The mountain example is just to demonstrate how definitions work. Transcendent doesn't mean the "most" exactly. Something that fully transcends existence is itself is best articulated apophatically. Categories of being, reason, causality, etc. simply don't apply to it. It is beyond everything, sustaining everything, and underlying everything. It is your ground and the ground of all existence.

fully transcends existence — Dogbert

– is only nonexistence.

Sounds strained.

This post exists.

We might proceed from that, without the constipation.

My apologies, Dogbert. There is a rash of really poor idealist tending OPs at the moment, and yours is one that caught my ire. It starts out wrong and goes astray from there.

all good

No, actually. Another way you could phrase the transcendent ground is as the transcendent heart of being. Maybe that's more intuitive.

Edit: Im liking transcendent heart better. Thanks for the unintentional inspiration lol

There's something extraordinarily compromised about a view that seeks to demonstrate "existence". — Banno

It seems like a rather normal reaction of someone under strain.

Have you never been bullied? Have you never been told that you should do the world a favor and die?
What do you think are the metaphysical implications of having been bullied, or otherwise experiencing duress?

are you saying this in a "leave that poor guy alone" way or in a "He has a point" way?

Existential crises as a reaction to trauma? A bit tangential, perhaps. While that might explain the motive, it doesn't resolve the incoherence.

Indeed.

the transcendent heart — Dogbert

Sorry, more evocative gibberish – "heart" cannot transcend – your analogy makes even less sense now.

But in that case "you" don't and can't know what "you" were. All you know is that "you" weren't what "you" are now.

Why call it " you" in that case?

Speaking for myself, being bullied and told I should die wouldn't convince me I don't exist.

Identity can get tricky. In my mind, the big picture is that I was some bit of commonplace matter that transformed into a human. Me becoming human is super fortunate, to the extent it defies coincidence. I then want to rationalize my luck. Thats the gist.

Heart means core. Heart directly points to the essential, central part of being--what everything else flows from. Ground invokes structural support, which is a bit off. Plus you feel it in your heart, but that's mushy gushy feelings stuff which we don't approve of around here.

↪jgill It’s because it's the last single digit, and it sorta gets reset to 0 when you get to 10. People have historically attached meaning to that fact I guess. — Dogbert

That is a somewhat superficial property, a feature only of the modernish decimal system. It does have more ancient significance as the number of the fates, and the muses. It is associated with the nine months of gestation and female deities in general. The triple triple is the first number to have a central unit as its core, (as has any product of two odd numbers arranged as a rectangle). And 3 is the sacred number of the Trinity and of the ancient Triple Goddess, at least according to Robert Graves, in "The White Goddess".

Anyway, your choice has a traditional significance that makes it appropriate to your topic. As to "brute" being the ground of all being. Well only a brute would maintain that. :wink:

Heart is core ... the essential, central part of being — Dogbert

– does not "transcend" being anymore than the center of the Earth "transcends" the Earth. Only not-X (nonbeing) "transcends" X (being).

are you saying this in a "leave that poor guy alone" way or in a "He has a point" way? — Dogbert

The latter.
Not to make this personally about you, though.

Speaking for myself, being bullied and told I should die wouldn't convince me I don't exist. — Ciceronianus

Indeed, but it just might push you into looking for a justification for your existence.

Not to say that this is what is happening for the OP. There is something fair-weather-ish about so much of philosophy. As if someone could spend one's days trying to figure out things like "Oh my, I don't know what's real!", and then close one's notebook, and then go and have a beer as if everything was totally fine.

There's the saying that the difference between a philosopher and a religious man is that a philosopher deals in expendable theories, while the religious man puts his life on the line for his ideas.

I think it's strange to think about questions like, "How do I know what I think I know? How do I know what is real?", and then turn around and go about one's business as if one hadn't thought about those things.

In the spirit of taking one's reflections seriously, and taking seriously the act of reflecting, it seems rather natural to also wonder about things such as a justification for one's existence.

Although I have seen professional philosophers dismiss particular themes as being simply a matter of "poor self-esteem" or some such "psychological problem" that doesn't warrant a philosophical exploration.

Yep. "While that might explain the motive, it doesn't resolve the incoherence".

Like, why didn't the atoms in my body end up becoming part of a mountain instead, or part of a star a billion light years away? Why are they exactly as they are, forming my physical body? (etc.) — Outlander

Sorry, this slipped through the cracks and I didn’t respond.

The OP and I had a fruitless discussion of this issue in a previous thread. That’s why I didn’t carry the subject any further.