Are you a being? — tim wood
It seems fair - and seems to mend usage - to allow being to refer to that which works. The engine works, but in its essence of being an engine, it seems unchanged. — tim wood
Can this be right?
to my mind the phenomenological is reality. It is the only thing we can say we really know (and while we can be wrong about what it entails, we cannot be wrong about what we actually experience), the world literally presents itself to us. Science explains why reality appears to us the way it does, but that explanation is dependent on what was experienced or observed.The present experience is fairly called a phenomenon.
I think here you're conflating these two 'domains of discourse' in a not very satisfactory way by using this analogy. [E]ngines are manufactured objects which are designed by humans to execute a function. Beings are of a different ontological order - and the very term 'onto-' is derived from 'being'. — Wayfarer
to my mind the phenomenological is reality. It is the only thing we can say we really know (.... we cannot be wrong about what we actually experience), the world literally presents itself to us. — Cavacava
In asking, "Are you a being," however, my question was really, is your being-ness defined - or realized - in something static or something dynamic. I could as well have asked a Heracletian question, "What is a river?" (that you cannot step into twice). — tim wood
The easy answer is science. I can say scientific things about them. The engines works - the rock just "rocks" - either way an answer in terms of function, dynamism, potential, change: continual becoming always new, effervescent. — tim wood
Spirit is a virtually real construction, in the same way logic, and mathematics are virtually objectively real. — Cavacava
This giveth and taketh away. I'll have to take your word for what Buddhists think, but I wonder if they have the concept of a moment, the slice of the temporal, "worldy" world small enough to admit of no change within it.Well, Buddhists, as is well known, deny that there is anything static or changeless.... Nevertheless, Buddhists also recognise that there is a 'beyond' which transcends all the vicissitudes of worldly life. — Wayfarer
I prefer to define science as organized thinking. By organized I mean thinking capable of self-criticism to arrive at a supportable conclusion. History, then, becomes scientific. I should like to say that psychology does as well, but it seems to me that psychology in many cases simply omits the self-critical part.But this is also a deceptive answer, because science deals only with objects, — Wayfarer
I should like to think that we can break that conditioning. There are at least two ways - probably more than two - but only one (of the two) seems right. I'm not sure being "philosophical" works, understanding the term to mean arguing against, which in this case I take to be digging in deeper, as opposed to getting out. Douglas Hofstadter, writing in Godel, Escher, Bach,..., coined an acronymic verbal imperative, joots! Jump Out of the System. I like to think the smart jumper jumps not just from, but also to. In this case, to Phenomenology. A system in itself, to be sure, but one consciously intent on setting aside, "bracketing," that which obscures.The reason it's deceptive is because our idea of what is normal or what is real, is itself deeply culturally conditioned, masquerading as 'objective third-person knowledge', the kind of thing that 'everyone knows'. Being philosophical, is being critical of that. — Wayfarer
I wonder if [Buddhists] have the concept of a moment, the slice of the temporal, "worldy" world small enough to admit of no change within it. — tim wood
Spirit is a virtually real construction, in the same way logic, and mathematics are virtually objectively real"? — tim wood
There is, monks, an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated. If there were not that unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, there would not be the case that emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated would be discerned. But precisely because there is an unborn — unbecome — unmade — unfabricated, emancipation from the born — become — made — fabricated is discerned.
Godhead is the divinity or substance (ousia) of God, the substantial impersonal being of God, as opposed to the individual persons or hypostases of the Trinity; in other words, the Godhead refers to the "what" of God, and God refers to the "who" of God. The concept is especially important in Christian negative theology, e.g., the theology of the Godhead according to Pseudo-Dionysius. — Wikipedia
I like to think the smart jumper jumps not just from, but also to. In this case, to Phenomenology. A system in itself, to be sure, but one consciously intent on setting aside, "bracketing," that which obscures. — tim wood
How do you make clear your distinction between a "virtually real construction" and something "virtually objectively real"?
Our self, the I, our virtual organism, is constructed through our experiences in the world.... Our virtual self is.... self actualized, by our prior experiences, our feelings, wants and desires.
There are instinctive aspects to this ability in my estimation. The way we think and infer, our regard towards pleasure and away from pain, form the 'mortar' for our construction and are common/typical to how we are constituted as a species. — Cavacava
The virtualization of phenomena is based on our... observations,,, from which we infer or add to previously learnt commonalities. The train does not proceed from transcendental ideals.
My admittedly rough thought is that... phenomenal experience provid[es] the presuppositions for transcendental ideals. Reality is not hidden or occluded, it is experienced as such. Our...experience... is dependent on the reality of experience. — Cavacava
How it works, or how it is? Are these the same thing? Does working reduce to being? Or vice versa? — tim wood
Spirit is a virtually real construction, — Cavacava
but I interpret your initial questions (in the quote) as asking, ontologically, "how do things exist/behave?" — numberjohnny5
But this offers no account of what changes or moves. It appears that some account of being comes first, then comes movement or change. On that account, though, we need an account of what change is. We could call that spirit, but at the moment that's just a name, and not an account.working" or "being" in particular ways are identical ways of describing states of change or motion. — numberjohnny5
Let's suppose that spirit (dreams, awareness, intentionality, etc. - the content of these things) is just phenomenon. Then isn't spirit real? Reality blushes at this, and the runs away from it. What am I to make of it?
Time for you to write a bit more on what spirit is, perhaps how it relates to life itself. I assume that for you, no life, no spirit - yes?
Spirit is a virtually real construction,
What you are is ten to fifteen gallons of chemicals, mostly water - or at least that's one way of looking at it. Not a useful way in terms of your human being. — tim wood
On the other hand, if we focus on how something works - behaves - the question arises as to what it is that works. — tim wood
But this offers no account of what changes or moves. It appears that some account of being comes first, then comes movement or change. On that account, though, we need an account of what change is. — tim wood
We could call that spirit — tim wood
I suggest that the phenomenal is real and that the reductions or abstractions we derived from the manifest are virtually ideal. What we have learned determines how these ideals effect our lives. The societal discourses we learn, share and contribute to enable us to have common values and explain a shared world. The effect is that of a coherent whole, whose qualities form the definitive or typical elements in the character of a person, nation, or group or in the thought and attitudes of a particular period...this what is meant by spirit as a social construction in my opinion. — Cavacava
If it's chemicals/particles, then you don't get to have subjective - there is no subjective. That's why regarding you as chemicals/particles "is not... useful... in terms of your human being."I don't agree, since, using your analogy, "taste" refers to brain states, and brain states are collections of chemicals/particles, in my view. (With the proviso that "explanations" are subjective.) — numberjohnny5
Sure. But in this you affirm properties (as opposed to their functioning). If functioning is all there is, then what functions? You can have all the doing you want, but you have to have something doing the doing (which is neither properties nor functioning!). Properties and functions are different; they cannot be one and a many at the same time.Focusing on how something works/behaves is just focusing on how particular properties function. — numberjohnny5
"Existents" and "existence" are different words and mean different things. Let's try it substituting "thing" for "existent" (with a little editing):...all existents are continually changing/moving... to exist is to change. Existents are collections of properties. So properties are what change. — numberjohnny5
The point was that spirit is just a name, not an account. Back to 1) what do you say change is?Why would we call what changes "spirit"? — numberjohnny5
Is there any distinction in your thinking in your first sentence between "real" and reality? I think we did admit a distinction above - I could be mistaken. If a tree-in-itself-as-it-is-in-itself, ding an sich selbst, is the reality, is "reality" interchangeable with "real"?
(What we see cannot be the tree itself - we see different trees - my image differs from your image!) I agree "the phenomenal is real" - just not reality, or at least not the reality of the tree. Maybe the reality of the perception of the tree. We just have to be careful about exactly what we're affirming. You've left out the steps between perceiving and learning - maybe that doesn't matter.
What we come to is "spirit as a social construction." Admitted and agreed: there certainly seems to be, e.g., national spirit. But this cannot be spirit in itself, can it? You've given an example, not the thing itself. If I look at your description, spirit seems to be the derived, the abstracted, the generalized, gelled into a being. If that's the case, then we have this, that, and the other thing called the spirit of this, that, and the other thing, but we have lost spirit itself, except as an entirely abstract collective term with no content in itself. The questions of the being and existence of spirit simply evaporate.
If it's chemicals/particles, then you don't get to have subjective - there is no subjective. That's why regarding you as chemicals/particles "is not... useful... in terms of your human being." — tim wood
Sure. But in this you affirm properties (as opposed to their functioning). If functioning is all there is, then what functions? You can have all the doing you want, but you have to have something doing the doing (which is neither properties nor functioning!). Properties and functions are different; they cannot be one and a many at the same time. — tim wood
1) is problematic. What is a thing? What is change? — tim wood
2) is a claim without evidence or argument. To be is to be just that that does not change. — tim wood
3) Properties are qualifications of the description of a thing - thing as yet undefined and it needs to be. The description is not the thing. — tim wood
You may not like my arguments, but there is enough in them to point you toward rethinking your own. — tim wood
As a tub of guts, you're different from a human being, yes? No? I think - possibly in error - that you're arguing that tub-of-guts and human being are reducible to a one. Maybe in some aspects, for some purposes, but not essentially. Or do you say they're essentially the same? — tim wood
If the mountain is small enough, one can climb it directly. Larger mountains, indirectly. It appears the path to this one has a lookout onto Kant that we ought to stop at.One reason I have gone to the phenomenal is its objective certainty.... The certainty of the phenomenal is capable of being shared, corrected and enhanced. — Cavacava
I think this collapses to "collections of chemicals/particles/etc" explain phenomena. If not, what am I misreading?We/minds do the explaining between or regarding phenomena.... Mental states are brain states. Brain states are collections of chemicals/particles/etc. — numberjohnny5
I read this as, "A thing is [comprises the] physical components/aspects of matter/things.A thing is (a) a collection of properties (b) moving/changing dynamically in particular ways.... No, ontologically, properties are physical components/aspects of matter/things. — numberjohnny5
You can see from above how a person might have trouble decoding this. And I meant tub of guts. If by "the biological properties of a human" you too meant tub of guts, it were helpful had you said so.By "tub of guts" do you mean the biological properties of a human? — numberjohnny5
One reason I have gone to the phenomenal is its objective certainty. — Cavacava
The phenomenon in itself, is objectively certain. — tim wood
I think this collapses to "collections of chemicals/particles/etc" explain phenomena. If not, what am I misreading? — tim wood
I read this as, "A thing is [comprises the] physical components/aspects of matter/things. — tim wood
That reduces to a classical deterministic movement or a random quantum movement. Take your pick. — tim wood
I credit you with being able to demonstrate the impossibility of such an account. — tim wood
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