My Animalistic Philosophy of Truth- Please give me reflections and debate!

Jonah Tobias

Hey all- I'm going to stir a bit of controversy with this one- But I think in Nietzsche's writings there's the seeds for a philosophy of truth that goes beyond the current controversies.

I call it the Animalistic Philosophy of Truth.

TLDR: Truth tells us not about the world itself but how we as animals can best change to thrive.

You may recognize many of these thoughts are common in Deleuze, or Hegel, or Bergson- but not in the systematic form I give them here so that I can say its a new philosophy.

I know this kind of arrogance usually suggests ignorance- so I invite you to show me my mine! My point is that this philosophy i'm presenting is a strong and self coherent philosophy- that even if you disagree with- deserves a place in the current debate and in its full form- is not found anywhere else.

Here's the steps of my philosophy.

Begin with Cartesian doubt. Break down our belief in knowledge being correlative to an external reality as it is. Instead All of our senses are our own creations, relative to our own bodies, and not the window into an external objective world.

Reject Kant's solution that we do know time and space- because as Nietzsche quotes A Spiro- our experience of time is different than our concept of it.

Follow this with Nietzsche's embrace of Heraclitean becoming- the world is constant flux and change- the only thing that doesn't exist is the self same- the frozen moment- being. etc.

But- constant becoming is senseless- Something must remain constant to compare to and draw comparisons.

This something is 'being"- and it is the creation of our senses and our minds.We turn waves of light (Which are constant change- i.e. a wave) into static identities (red, blue, etc). It is we who imposes identities upon the difference (deleuze), it is we who stamp "being" upon "becoming" so that we can compare and make changes.

We only interact with the world and change it by changing ourselves... i.e.- to move the apple- I'm really just moving my hand in a manner that the apple with eventually be moved.

The first simplest organism was probably something that could change how it behaves into one of two ways- moving towards or moving away. And this changing itself gave it an advantage. So for it, the world didn't need to be red and blue and loud and soft and full of identities. For it there were just two identities- things to move towards- and things to move away from. Like a robot that sees the world as only x's and o's.

Take two lightbulbs one thats red and one thats green. Thats our amoeba's world. Now multiply and shrink these until you have thousands and add colors like blue and yellow, and now you may have a convincing image of reality- like a television screen or our own world. But what started as light bulbs- no matter how complex and convincing- still remains lightbulbs- and the images we see do not somehow become reality itself.

Now picture the simplest amoeba- moving towards things and away- and as it gets complex and evolves it turns eventually into a human being, ducking under branches and jumping over rocks and emitting complex sounds and making sophisticated movements. And in correlation to this sophisticated actor is an internal world just as sophisticated. But what started out not seeking the nature of reality but rather- seeking how the organism could change itself to better thrive in the world- why should all the complication convince us this has changed?

In fact if you think of a baby, a new born infant looking around- before it knows true and false- it is a consciousness guided by interest- what its interested in and what its not. And what its interested in is usually whatever is most related to its interests. True and false is a way to decide between our different opinions. But seeking truth is not our primary concern. Just like that amoeba- its still our interest that guides us- in other words- we think we're trying to figure out the world with our thoughts but rather we are really concerned with how we must change ourselves to best interact with that world. Our theoretical early amoeba doesn't need to know what the things around it are- but since it has only two options- move towards or move away- it just needs to know which it is- a thing to move away from or a thing to move towards. For it, these are the only two types of things that exist in the world. Our world is far more complicated- but still perhaps the same in principle. We think we are figuring out the world but really we are only figuring out how we need to change ourselves in relation to it.

Truth then is not correlative to an external reality- neither is it just a perpetual delusion or an endless stream of becoming. Truth is instead like a programming code to the change that we need to be- and therefore it is relative- or better yet- perspectival. And yet it is absolutely vital and not "anything goes". Its also multiple. If truths are like program codes- different truths would lead to different ways of being. Just like the Monkey and the Snake and the worm all play different roles and you wouldn't say one is correct and the rest are false- so too when you look at people's truth's as rooted in the way it leads them to behave- you can see how many different types of people can all function in the world- and many different types of truths.

So everything is relative?

No.

In kungfu there are many different truths- some lead to Dragon Style- Some to Tiger Style etc. Not every truth is equal. If you believe that everything is relative you will suffer the consequences in combat. There is a rigorous response. But different truths are effective at different times.

When you re-root our truths in the way a person behaves- how it effects them- we come across some of the Old Aristotilian moralities. When its a matter of this way or that- the answer is not one or the other in general but to have balance. This also agrees with the more Hegelian notion of truth as a process- not a this or that. Philosophy again becomes one of the arts.

Philosophy then must be reinserted into life and the body- as a fundamental counterpart to developing ourselves in the best way possible. Not simply a dry dead logical game but a means of self creation.

So is everything meaningless?

Meaning is similar to Interest- that which guides the baby's gaze before he knows what is true and false. True and False can't be applied to meaning because meaning is what guides them to begin with. If something is 100 percent boring to us it is impossible for us to think it- this is how strongly interest guides our thought. We'll daydream or fall asleep. Interest and Meaning here are interchangable. The Valuation- the interest that guides our true and false comes first.

Analytic philosophy likes to talk about false questions- and there's a ton of them perhaps in philosophy. One of the central sources of false questions- is posing a question that makes sense for an animal in a certain time and place and situation (the natural thrownness of our existence that every question is posed from)- and then trying to answer it abstracted for the world itself.

What's the meaning of life? "Who's life!? In what moment!? Every life in every moment?!" If meaning is what guides our thoughts and actions- it would be foolish to always be guided by one thing. We would be killed off by more complex creatures. So there is no 1 "Meaning of life." Life is diffused with meaning throughout. On the other hand-a true meaninglessness would lead to no action at all. Every thing we do is driven by some meaningfullness. Meaning is what guides life.

Is there a true and false? "There's a million truths and falses!" Thought is a process of thinking. life is constant change. its like asking the martial artist what's the best fighting technique. Depends on the situation. But there is always an answer (or multiple answers).

Life must be seen as an art- again especially like the art of fighting. There is no right or wrong way- just a million different styles of varying quality. We're always inside of a perspective gaining feedback from the world- self learning and hopefully improving our style. The urge to step outside of life and see things as they really are is illusory. Only a particular life can see. The world itself is constant change- not thought or vision or anything like that.

Is there room for god?

yes. This philosophy of truth as a very animal and not divine thing accords well with spirituality. For most spiritual traditions teach that god must be approached not as something to be conquered dissected and pinned down with the intellect- but rather the intellect and the ego can be an obstacle. Spirituality is something to obey rather than understand and control. Something beyond us, bigger than us, that we must do our best to surrender to.

The animalistic philosophy of truth takes truth away from the idea that our reason can play god- take a question from our own thrownness and apply it to the entirety of reality itself- and instead teaches that our reason can make us better animals. Reality Itself- God or spirituality- is not to be delimited by the mind. It reaches us from beyond our concepts.

hks

And … ??

It sounds like you have the start of something very fresh and new.

I do not believe animals could change themselves however. I suspect they were changed by the environment.

When I was a kid in elementary school we learned about cosmic rays morphing our DNA by slicing it randomly. Ergo the animal is changed by the environment starting with the cosmic rays and then the environment naturally selects for those changed animals that are superior to unchanged ones so far.

You have started with microbes, which is very difficult from a philosophical point because they do not have brains. Higher animals such as worms and fish and amphibians and reptiles and ultimately mammals have brains however. With brains they can at least react to their environments.

So microbes is a dead end in your own new and fresh philosophy. Try again but with something smarter.

Aristotle started with humans. I think you are probably going to have to do the same. More specifically Aristotle started with Athenians. You may want to pick a more primitive group like the Corded Ware Culture of Northern Europe -- more primitive than the Greeks -- since you are trying to get back to the human basics. All evidence tells us that the Greeks moved into Greece from the north in prehistory.

Terrapin Station

Break down our belief in knowledge being correlative to an external reality as it is. Instead All of our senses are our own creations, relative to our own bodies, and not the window into an external objective world. — Jonah Tobias

Can I ask first why you'd start with there (and with those particular assumptions)?

macrosoft

↪Jonah Tobias

Hi. I think you presented lots of potent ideas in a way that fits them together nicely [with some stuff that I can't yet make sense of.] .As I see it, it's not so much a new theory of truth as simply a paraphrase of a strain of post-Nietzschean or neopragmatist thought. IMV, this isn't a bad thing. It's hard to bring on an intellectual revolution. It takes long enough just to catch up with the conversation. For what it's worth, I do think you're grabbing some fundamental issues intelligently (though not at all non-controversially.) I hope to engage with specific passages later.

macrosoft

Now picture the simplest amoeba- moving towards things and away- and as it gets complex and evolves it turns eventually into a human being, ducking under branches and jumping over rocks and emitting complex sounds and making sophisticated movements. And in correlation to this sophisticated actor is an internal world just as sophisticated. But what started out not seeking the nature of reality but rather- seeking how the organism could change itself to better thrive in the world- why should all the complication convince us this has changed? — Jonah Tobias

This does seem to be a useful perspective. But is it true? And if it is true, then would it not be true in its own way of not being true in the old-fashioned way? One way to prevent this idea and avoid that difficultly is to simply present it as a suggestion: 'Let's try thinking of ourselves in some situations as complex organisms who fundamentally use language to manage our reality, including our social reality. Representation would be a secondary and derivative purpose, ultimately part of organizing action socially.

By merely suggesting trying this for particular purposes, you avoid appealing to the same representationalism that you are putting in question or outright denying. Btw, I think representationalism gets something right. We do seek a true-for-us or not-just-true-for-me, from my perspective. We just get into trouble when we try to make it explicit --which is not to say that we shouldn't try but only to reveal the question: can we make it explicit? If this is hard, why is this hard? How does it relate to the flow of meaning? Etc.

macrosoft

Life must be seen as an art- again especially like the art of fighting. There is no right or wrong way- just a million different styles of varying quality. We're always inside of a perspective gaining feedback from the world- self learning and hopefully improving our style. The urge to step outside of life and see things as they really are is illusory. Only a particular life can see. The world itself is constant change- not thought or vision or anything like that. — Jonah Tobias

I think this is one of your central passages, and I tend to agree. On the other hand, I think it's reasonable to try to give an account of that urge to 'see things as they really are.' Aren't you yourself trying to see things as they really are by calling other attempts to satisfy that urge illusory? Don't get me wrong. I agree with you in spirit, let's say.

I just think that we keep trying in philosophy to describe what is -- for us and not just me. And we try to say what this 'for us' means for us and not just for me. If we say such a thing is impossible (seeing from outside of our historical /existential situation), we are trying to say that it is impossible for us and not just me. We strive to transcend this limited/time-bound viewpoint and grasp eternal or context-independent truth even in our denial of our ability to do so.

macrosoft

For most spiritual traditions teach that god must be approached not as something to be conquered dissected and pinned down with the intellect- but rather the intellect and the ego can be an obstacle. Spirituality is something to obey rather than understand and control. Something beyond us, bigger than us, that we must do our best to surrender to. — Jonah Tobias

I like the ego and intellect as possible obstacles, but I think you are wading into hot water with 'something to obey,' even if I have a sense of what you mean. A generous interpretation (that doesn't assume that you are sneaking in a Law intuitively/esoterically given) is that we attune ourselves to the way or learn to move with a kind of music. We do by 'not doing' or by getting out of the way of some kind of know-how that is already there but mostly choked down by a need to make everything explicit and certain.

Maybe this is related: I think the 'spiritual' is mostly a matter of feeling. Any concept of God or gods or dominant abstract principles is just a toy for the mind without the feeling that lights it up as a value.

macrosoft

The animalistic philosophy of truth takes truth away from the idea that our reason can play god- take a question from our own thrownness and apply it to the entirety of reality itself- and instead teaches that our reason can make us better animals. Reality Itself- God or spirituality- is not to be delimited by the mind. It reaches us from beyond our concepts. — Jonah Tobias

I like this. I would just say that 'it' appears to us largely but not only through our concepts. Can we grasp the 'absolute' with concept alone? I'd say not. But what is left over? I'd say feeling and sensation. On the other hand, these concepts of feeling and sensation don't perfectly point at the real situation, which is something like a living unity of concept, emotion, and sensation artificially broken into this trinity for certain purposes.

Pattern-chaser

All of our senses are our own creations, relative to our own bodies, and not the window into an external objective world. — Jonah Tobias

This smacks of the position that some objective/science-oriented philosophers go for, whereby even the tiniest step away from Order is deemed to place us straight into Chaos. There are many steps in between. In your example, our senses, and the perceptual process which follows, show us a window into a consistent and (more or less) comprehensible world. It may or may not be "an external objective world", but it is a world, and not a wholly-internally-created artform.

Jonah Tobias

Hii Terrpain and HKS

and Pattern Chaser

and Macrosoft-

Thank you so much for taking the time and consideration to engage! So a lot of the questions come up with this theoretical leap I make- "Take the earliest microbe, yadayadayada." Yeah, this is a lot of conjecture- Useful like Macrosoft mentions- but accurate???

Here's where I'm getting at with that- and why I start there (sorta).

Really I start with the idea that the whole world is Becoming- constant flux- change- This is itself an assumption but we're always "thrown"- starting from some type of assumption and besides- this is what Science suggests. Once we thought the world was composed of atoms (beings)- but that was replaced with a world of waves- energy- constant change. So once we assume the world is constant change or becoming- how does being first arise?

My answer is that being doesn't arise. being is just the name for a certain type of becoming. a stability like the stability of an orbit, a change that keeps repeating. Here I'm aligned with Deleuze I think and maybe Nietzsche (In the end- who really knows what Nietzsche thought, right?)

So what is that becoming that creates this type of becoming we call being, or identity?
The point is this- why would any animal or simple organism have any type of perception or awareness if it could not alter its behavior? It would be like a consciousness in a person with a coma. Trapped in a prison to see and not react. Clearly evolution wouldn't favor this. What must come first is an organism that has options- that at one point can extend its tentacle forward, lets say, at another point can extend its tentacle back.

So now that we have two different ways of being in the world- if this is done at random, it wouldn't be an evolutionary advantage either. Instead- it must be able to discriminate.

Now what does it need to discriminate between?

Forget "Trees" or "Speeding Vehicles" or the color "red" or "Blue".. all of these are more complex identities. None of these exist in the world of the simplest organism.

First just imagine the world as all black- or the opposite- like constant energy- shaking, vibrating, nothing remaining- constant flux. Nothing can be decided here. Instead- the organism must divide the world into two- "Things to extend your tentacle towards"- "things to extend your tentacle away from". Visually we can represent these as red and green. So the organisms world is now red and green- and red leads to one behavior and green another. This organism now has an advantage! Now maybe "things to extend your tentacle towards" is what the organism "sees" every time a slight vibration up to a certain intensity is felt. And "things to extend your tentacle away from" is everything at a higher intensity than this. This type of knowledge isn't fool proof- mistakes will be made- but it does seem like it might give the organism an advantage.

Two important points here-
1. This is my hypothesis of the emergence of "Knowledge" which with further complication can become "Consciousness". This emergence does not come from trying to "know the world"... What knowledge of the world is represented by "Things to move your tentacles towards?" It doesn't say much about whats really there... just like "things that burn our skin" or "hot things" doesn't say much about what's out there- just how it affects us. So knowledge or our senses (Which are a type of knowledge) emerges from the need to distinguish between two or more different ways the organism can behave. And back to the baby looking around example- before it knows true or false or any of those higher order things- don't we see consciousness doing the same thing? Trying to find clues on how it should behave.

2. Its not such a random hypothesis really- because once we say the world is senseless flux of becoming- we find ourselves having to discuss how identities come about? Are these identities somehow a freezing of the flux of reality? But the flux wasn't sense to begin with. No. These identities don't come from reality outside us at all it seems. They are the reflections of our possible actions. Action is first order- and knowledge is created in order to stamp upon the world of flux signposts to the actions we should take. Now this is not a solipsism- because we are interacting with this world around us. But the identities we create through our senses out of this interaction tell far more about ourselves than the world around us. Again- look at the simplest organism and instead of thinking of me and you and colors and sounds- just imagine everything there none of this and instead only "Things to move your tentacle towards" or "a thing to move your tentacles away from".... how much does that say about the world? Obviously we've far complicated it since then but if you notice how your mind can not focus on something that does not have some relevance to you and will infact daydream- replace it with something that does if you try... it shows knowledge is still motivated by our own interest and possibilities for action.

Pattern Chaser- I'm not sure I understand your comment but let me try a clarification. I'm saying that "sense" exists for animals that must make decisions- and beyond that is not "Chaos" but simply whatever is. Just like an apple or pear are not oranges but we wouldn't say they are "Non-oranges"..... they're just apples and pears. So too rock- a hurricane- a planet are not "non-sense" or "chaos"... they're just what they are. Personally I feel this philosophy is very friendly to all that is not orderly. It basically approaches reality as beyond our order and understanding- it puts our truths on a more humble level. The world remains a mystery and an often beautiful one at that.

Jonah Tobias

↪macrosoft

"This does seem to be a useful perspective. But is it true?"

I don't know how to quote like you guys do. lol Ok- so these are great replies Macrosoft. You've hit upon a central theme of this theory of truth. What is this truth we seek... this "truth not just for me" but "Truth for all of us"... Just like one god for all of us. One Belief system for all of us... can you tell I'm skeptical already?

Why should philosophy search for a Truth that works in every situation possible? Post Modernism and deconstructionism has had a field day pointing out all the fringe situations where, to put it metaphorically and literally, 2 + 2 does not equal 4. The greatest thing we can say I think is some truth is so useful, its almost always useful for every being. I can imagine a deconstructionist highlighting all these exceptions to the rule and a frustrated analytical philosophy saying "well yes if 2 + 2 is referring to water drops they might just combine and not equal 4- or if we're in a different number system that's not based on the unit 10 but instead three and so counts 1, 2, 3, 11, 12, 13, 21, 22, 23 then 2 +2 = 11... but come on! Cut it out! "FOR ALL INTENTS AND PURPOSES"- 2 plus 2 does equal 4!" To this we would reply, for MOST intents and pupososes- not ALL!.... But really in this phrase I think is the answer to the "truth not just for me". The best we can come up with is "for most intents and purposes" this statement rings true.

But what is this "Rings" true? There's a funny double entendre that happens with a lot of our words... the coin always flips between logic and a certain type of quantitative feeling. Take a look at the word "Real"... and also "really". Or something that's meaningful in a logical sense- but also meaningful in an emotive way. And finally true... and also truly. Why do we keep seeing this quantitative underbelly to our most logical words? Because the Truly- the Really- the emotionally meaningful is what guides the logic to begin with. The baby looking around doesn't know what the word "true" or "real" or meaningful" mean- but they do experience these feelings of the "truly!" "really" and Meaningful". This animalistic theory of truth says that our truths are ultimately evaluated by how they help us change. So even my own writing and yours as well, by this philosophie's standards, must be judged in this way. Now this really opens up the can of worms and you'll see why this is really a fruit from the continental philosophy tree.

Doesn't the way a point is expressed (form) then mean just as much as what is said (content). Our sentences cease being logical points and are reintroduced as interventions in life. Of course we don't want to give way to a shallow pragmatism of truth- Its true because I want it to be true! No instead, we want to get beyond just logic to a deeper source of truth. Truth should not be about control- the urge for the mind to control- to say once and for all "This is that!". We're just animals. Like monkeys. Or turtles. Trying to live our best life. Our words are like inventions, tools that are useful. Our senses are genetic inventions. This urge for a certainty that lasts and allows us to cease thinking or listening- this must be lovingly eased. When you give up the Mooring- the apparent solid grounding of- "Fear not- You can rely on Logic giving you the full truth!" It might be scary at first and make people fear the abyss. But the abyss is not really there- its just the shadow of logic. Look past logic and its shadow and you see love and spirituality and the body and life-- we're talking about living right? Look at your own life- look at politics. Put philosophy back into the perspective of living. No. We don't have certainty. We're just funny little animals. Your mind must be balanced with your heart and your gut and your emotions and your spiritual sense.

I think this is common sense from our lives and yet philosophy often acts as if the full answer can be found within reason alone.

Now macrosoft- you had mentioned the desire for "truth for not just me" and yes. we're deeply social creatures. Look at laughter. One person sees things one way. The other sees things in a different way- and then he emits this loud repetitive hahahahah- that makes people look at him- then look at the thing being looked at and try to see it from his perspective. And if it clicks and forms the same relation of truth for them? "Ha-ha-ha-ha"- this perspective spreads. In this way and others our truths are deeply social.

Jonah Tobias

↪macrosoft

Ok Macrosoft- I just read your other comments.

"Aren't you yourself trying to see things as they really are by calling other attempts to satisfy that urge illusory?"

Yeah, good point. As some point you get down to questions that don't seem to permit of multiple correct answers. Is the nature of reality beyond thought being or becoming? Well of course- its neither- because both of these are concepts. So seeing things as they really are is always referred to the mystery. But in trying to claim we could see how our own consciousness really acts... the same problem arises. I think ultimately I really do look at these thoughts as useful and true. I do think they're the way things really are, but this belief of mine comes because "for all intents and purposes"- these thoughts have always served me well. I can only appeal to your own experience and everyone will draw different conclusions. We're limited and so is my ability to argue. In the end we're all like members of a democracy with a right to be heard and make our point. And we all probably have different truths the other will never understand, even if we are at the same time flawed.

I realize I keep flipping back and forth between using truth in the representational sense and in the pragmatic sense... I'm not sure if this contradiction can or should be resolved. I think it further demonstrates the limits of thought.

On your comments on spirituality- yes I agree with you there. "Obey" is a highly personal word I chose. I think spirituality is highly personal- like the story of the blind men touching the elephant and one touches the trunk and one a leg and one a tail and they argue over the nature of the elephant. I don't think muslims will reach spirituality better through christianity and vice versa- I think each of us has a different relation and we must find our own piece because we will never see the whole thing anyway.

And yes- lets not make the mind the bad guy- the obstacle to truth. These dichotomies are just as bad as the obverse. You're right to point that out.

macrosoft

This organism now has an advantage! Now maybe "things to extend your tentacle towards" is what the organism "sees" every time a slight vibration up to a certain intensity is felt. And "things to extend your tentacle away from" is everything at a higher intensity than this. This type of knowledge isn't fool proof- mistakes will be made- but it does seem like it might give the organism an advantage. — Jonah Tobias

You might talk to @apokrisis about this. I personally think it's on the right track. Our primary mode of seeing the world seems to be in terms of significance and care. We see things in terms of what we should do about or with them. We have to switch into a theoretical mode to see them as 'just things,' and even this seeing fits into a larger purpose of trying to model reality (for scientific fame, to eventually cure cancer, etc.)

Really I start with the idea that the whole world is Becoming- constant flux- change- This is itself an assumption but we're always "thrown"- starting from some type of assumption and besides- this is what Science suggests. — Jonah Tobias

This is IMV one of the sketchier parts of your vision. I get it. It is plausible. But our primary and initial experience of the world (as far back as we can remember) is as a meaningful lifeworld. I grant that if we take an atoms-and-voids model of mind-independent reality for granted then indeed we must postulate some faculty that imposes this lifeworld on some mysterious 'flux' or 'thing-in-itself.' IMV, lots of your points don't really depend on this assumption.

I agree very much that we are thrown.

Action is first order- and knowledge is created in order to stamp upon the world of flux signposts to the actions we should take. — Jonah Tobias

I am quite sympathetic to this approach. Well said. Have you explored pragmatism?

My answer is that being doesn't arise. being is just the name for a certain type of becoming. — Jonah Tobias

I am sympathetic to this as well, but I might go further. I think language itself is a 'continuous' medium. In other words, meaning is distributed over paragraphs and across a kind of time that is not only the time of the clock. I we have phenomenological access to this if we can see a little around our throwness --encrusted understandings of language that keep us from really looking. We can't jam definite meaning into a single word like 'being' or 'becoming.' This actually jives with being (in this context) as a certain 'how' of becoming. But 'becoming' can only 'point' in some sense from within a given context (like yours, which is nice.)

macrosoft

I don't know how to quote like you guys do. lol Ok- so these are great replies Macrosoft. You've hit upon a central theme of this theory of truth. What is this truth we seek... this "truth not just for me" but "Truth for all of us"... Just like one god for all of us. One Belief system for all of us... can you tell I'm skeptical already? — Jonah Tobias

Ah yes, I see where you are coming from. For awhile I was working on a theory of authority-- of the structure that all claims to transpersonal truth have in common. They appeal to some entity (God, reason, science) that 'lifts' them from opinion and gives them authority over the 'officially' real.

The greatest thing we can say I think is some truth is so useful, its almost always useful for every being. — Jonah Tobias

Oh yes, I grasp your point here. I made a similar point just a moment ago in another thread about the value and authority of science. It predicts and controls public entities reliably, making it useful for just about everyone and therefore assuring its high status.

But again, what makes the statement quote above true and not just useful? Or is it just a useful way of looking at things, not truly a final pronouncement? Is it even a truth? Or the attempt to share a sense of freedom from an old paradigm?

Because the Truly- the Really- the emotionally meaningful is what guides the logic to begin with. — Jonah Tobias

I agree here. We can't ignore what you call the 'emotionally meaningful.' When we grasp existence as a whole (see it or conceptualize it as a whole), we do so from a thrown and needy position. While we have our reasons (ultimately emotional) for trying to filter out emotion from more 'local' mode of seeing, I think it's obvious that thinking is directed largely by feeling, that it is purposeful --an extension of action in its
desire to make things feel right.

Your mind must be balanced with your heart and your gut and your emotions and your spiritual sense. — Jonah Tobias

I agree. I wouldn't say that it's a matter of 'must' but rather that it's what we already do. We can become conscious however of ourselves as existence clarifying itself --during this same process or becoming of a clarified existence --or a more clarified existence without some terminus.

We're just animals. Like monkeys. Or turtles. — Jonah Tobias

There's much to be said for this, but I can't embrace the 'just' without reservations. Let's say that for your point it is useful here to ignore some radical differences between men and monkeys.

macrosoft

I realize I keep flipping back and forth between using truth in the representational sense and in the pragmatic sense... I'm not sure if this contradiction can or should be resolved. I think it further demonstrates the limits of thought. — Jonah Tobias

Now you are touching on what I am especially interested in lately!

This is what we tend to do. We use different models of what it means to exist or for something to be true. If we really think about them then we see that they don't fit together very nicely. That, to me, is maybe the heart of lots of 'artificial' problems. They aren't completely artificial, but they seem impractical, because somehow we get along without an exact theory of truth.

I postulate (and the idea is not really mine) a kind of 'soft' operating system that we cannot make explicit. Or rather that we can't grab it exactly. Ponder if you get in the mood how elusive 'true for us and not just for me' really is. If I assert or deny a theory of truth, then I am saying that it is true not just for me but you also that truth is like X. But I don't think we usually even use the notion of truth we are attacking or defending as we present or attack that same notion. There is something so 'automatic' that we can't bring it into focus. It is too close for us to see it well. Moreover it is holistic. I picked 'macrosoft' to play on the idea of an operating system, the fuzziness or softness of this know-how or mysterious, initial intelligibility, and 'taking a big or wide view, grasping existence and meaning in language as a whole. I think our 'operating systems' grasp existence and language as a whole in a way that can be made more but not finally explicit, to sum things up.

Language or meaning is quite mysterious in its movements. We can make certain things about it explicit, but intelligibility is strange. What is the meaning of 'meaning'? This seems related to the question of what it means for something to be. Are there many many ways that we use the word 'exist'? I think so.

I mention all of this not to pretend I have the answers but exactly to light up the question (following Heidegger and others.) We swim in a kind of water that we rarely notice. We say things without being able to say exactly what it is to say.

macrosoft

Our sentences cease being logical points and are reintroduced as interventions in life. Of course we don't want to give way to a shallow pragmatism of truth- Its true because I want it to be true! No instead, we want to get beyond just logic to a deeper source of truth. Truth should not be about control- the urge for the mind to control- to say once and for all "This is that!" — Jonah Tobias

Here is maybe one of the more interesting unresolved tensions in your theory. At first it seems radically pragmatic. But you are honest enough to grant that we don't consciously want a shallow pragmatism. Have you looked into William James? He investigated how our spiritual eros and a pragmatic epistemology might be made to work together.

Another approach would be to view spiritual traditions as still being about control. What they attempt to control would be our feelings. We want 'high' and beautiful feelings, and we can view certain sentences as tools for installing and maintaining these feelings (something like a conceptual 'music').

Jonah Tobias

"Let's say that for your point it is useful here to ignore some radical differences between men and monkeys."
- Macrosoft

I laughed out loud at this one.

I've spent a lot of time writing and rewriting the following- You definitely have me thinking, and rethinking.

Lets talk about the fuzzy operating system of experience :)

I have read William James and so many others but nothing in about the last 10 years so bear with me if I don't know whose arguments I may be using.

I believe I mispoke when I said I switch between pragmatic truth and representational truth.

I think I'm really only using one truth- the common sense truth we all grow up with. This truth doesn't exist in a world where appearances are opposed to the objective reality underneath. It doesn't exist in a world where words can somehow be separated from what they reference. Everything's already connected in this world. Common Sense truth affirms thoughts and says "yes- this is the right thought to have"- and it affirms experience, images, etc. When I see a white draped figure I might think this is a ghost. But then I might think- no this is truly a man in the sheet. So now through my senses I see this as a man in the sheet- I see the bulges as the place his head is etc... and in my thoughts I hold the thoughts that apply to a man in a sheet.

I experience a sense of holding on and discarding in my true and false. Truth feels a lot like belief. And there's a sense too of- this is important- when I say that something is real. It is what I must react to. Where as if something is fake- or false- I can dismiss it- and hold onto instead a different understanding- that which it really is. "This is not an opportunity to get rich- (discard that) its a scam (react to that)!"

Think of the person who says something mean- and everyone feels bad- and then another person who finds this ridiculous- and laughs at it- and then everyone laughs. The mean person's perspective is now discarded in exchange for the perspective of the one who laughs.

We have a certain power to create our shared world. I can see a ghost or a man in a sheet. I can see a get rich opportunity or a scam.

Pay attention to this! React to this! This is what's important! This is what can be dismissed! This is what must be substituted for this!

As Vaunted as our reason is- our 10 digit numeral system came from the amount of fingers on our hands and to say X is Y is just to react to our notion of Y when we lnteract with X. Substitution.

So it seems to me the process of truth is always the same- its drawing connections between, reinforcing, and creating what understanding or image should be affirmed and reacted to.

What is pragmatic truth? I don't think it exist. It seems to be just an adjective describing a possible motivation behind truth. Just like saying a ghost is actually a "man in a sheet" involves you replacing your idea of a ghost with a man in a sheet and responding to that- so too to say truth is pragmatic is to replace the concept of truth with instead the concept of pragmatism. Nothing new is formed- just a replacement. Now instead of deciding if something is true or not- I'm just deciding if something is beneficial. Nothing new is formed so there is no such thing as a pragmatic truth. Only a pragmatic explanation of what drives our truth process or a pragmatic argument for why something should be accepted as true.

So when I argue that something is true- I'm attempting to convince you to see things in a certain perspective. How does this process of convincing work?

"I think language itself is a 'continuous' medium. In other words, meaning is distributed over paragraphs and across a kind of time that is not only the time of the clock."
-Macrosoft

Dialectically- mutually defining- one point in the system helps define another- which in turn defines the original by their relation.

Ultimately I think the process of truth is about affirming the thoughts and visions and imaginings- which altogether make up our experience of the world. Truth is a process that creates our experienced world. It is thus relational. Every argument contains its own criteria of truth.
"That ghost is a man in a sheet because I can see his shoe!"
"So I should accept this because its in my pragmatic best interest to accept it?"
"No you should accept this because you can see his shoe!"
"So when you say the word "shoe" it correlates to the image that I see there or it correlates to the actual reality of a shoe beyond our experience?"
"It correlates to his shoe!"

There are lots of arguments for what makes something true or not. Some try very hard to separate out an objective certain truth from simply our beliefs- (you mention science, religion etc in your comments) but I agree with you that I don't think this is possible. What is True to us is simply a belief that we believe in.

"But I don't think we usually even use the notion of truth we are attacking or defending as we present or attack that same notion. There is something so 'automatic' that we can't bring it into focus. It is too close for us to see it well. Moreover it is holistic. I picked 'macrosoft' to play on the idea of an operating system, the fuzziness or softness of this know-how or mysterious, initial intelligibility, and 'taking a big or wide view, grasping existence and meaning in language as a whole. I think our 'operating systems' grasp existence and language as a whole in a way that can be made more but not finally explicit, to sum things up."
-Macrosoft

One thing about trying to really sketch out a whole system of philosophy is you see how one point from a philosophy will immediately be met with a hundred different objections from a rival philosophy. Its only when we sketch out each part- the epistemology, the psychology, even the politics or ethics- that as it were we construct a mutually reinforcing home for these thoughts to live. We create an operating system.

The parts of our operating system do seem to branch out like neural networks reinforcing and defining each other- but They also function as parts and altering parts. For truth you could appeal to common usage- science- religion- shame or ethics or taboo- predictability/repeatability- pragmatism- passion- lack of passion- etc...and all of these bases of truth might shape your worldview at different moments. So I think its not just that we can't see this operating system because its so big or because we're always in it- but because it is shifting with many pockets and networks and webs of related and mutually determining ideas with varying relations to others. Its multiple.

I'm good with the multiplicity, it shouldn't be replaced. All these multiplicities are reasons why some belief or other should be accepted.

I see now that I am in fact advancing a particular theory of truth- Basically its a deeper pragmatism.

Pragmatism seems to suggest a more exploitative concept of truth- truth is what benefits us. Whereas my animalistic concept of truth suggests that truth is what creates us (hopefully in a manner that benefits us).

We are using the process of truth to create and shape our experienced world which in turn creates us.

One thing that makes this definition of truth unique from pragmatism- is that its hard to argue what is true and what is not based on this definition. Because both the world and ourselves are changing- it becomes more akin to that becoming of flux- not fully- but somewhere in the middle.

It adds a dynamism to our thought- it is the type of thinking that befits the "over-man", the Hegelian-Nietzschean constantly evolving dialectical becoming type of person. And this certainly goes a long way towards warding off shallow pragmatisms and the Last Man.

macrosoft

I laughed out loud at this one. — Jonah Tobias

Great to hear. I like some joy in humor in foolosophy.

I have read William James and so many others but nothing in about the last 10 years so bear with me if I don't know whose arguments I may be using. — Jonah Tobias

No prob. It's really about the ideas and not their source who usually turns out to have yet another source. I mention the names to get a sense of what you have seen and to make certain references (as abbreviations of viewpoints) possible. I've read quite a few philosophers, but there are some famous ones that I haven't got around to. I often find 'my' ideas afterward in some forgotten philosopher (I like to read some outsiders not mentioned much at times.) So no prob & it's about the ideas in our own language today really.

when I say that something is real. It is what I must react to. Where as if something is fake- or false- I can dismiss it- and hold onto instead a different understanding- that which it really is. "This is not an opportunity to get rich- (discard that) its a scam (react to that)!" — Jonah Tobias

Well said. The truth is what one must react to. And another approach is that the real is what resists (as an obstacle between us and our desire.) And the real would also be a tool that will actually work.

Its only when we sketch out each part- the epistemology, the psychology, even the politics or ethics- that as it were we construct a mutually reinforcing home for these thoughts to live. We create an operating system. — Jonah Tobias

Yes, that's also how I see it. As Hegel said, science or knowledge exists as a system. Not only 'ought' to be but always already is, really, in my opinion, because the personality is a unity. One thing I'd twist is that we edit an operating system that we already have in order to start this editing. As you mention, we are thrown. A culture loads us up with a self-reprogramming operating system, a language --along with all kinds of practical knowhow from tying our shoes to knowing how close to stand to others.

In short, we don't start from zero. We start within some kind of 'circle' of the meaning of existence. It's a circle because it is the meaning for us of the world in which we live. I'd say that we extend and brighten that circle. Instead of the circle being a chain of atomic meanings, it's more like a wire through which current flows. Meaning is dynamic and caught up a time that does not belong to the clock (the clock's time emerges from this more fundamental time --not without dialectic trouble or feedback.)

For truth you could appeal to common usage- science- religion- shame or ethics or taboo- predictability/repeatability- pragmatism- passion- lack of passion- etc...and all of these bases of truth might shape your worldview at different moments. So I think its not just that we can't see this operating system because its so big or because we're always in it- but because it is shifting with many pockets and networks and webs of related and mutually determining ideas with varying relations to others. Its multiple. — Jonah Tobias

I agree. It's multiple. We use the same words differently in different contexts. And indeed all the meanings connect in a sort of web. Even this might be misleading. IMV, the fact that words are spatially separated when written encourages us to think of language as a sort of crystalline thing. While there are something like 'clumps' of initial meaning in words out of context, the way they work together is more even continuous more continuous than that. While 'truth' as a string of symbols is a discrete entity, its meaning lives only dynamically with other meanings which also exist only dynamically. (We are back to your becoming which is organized for convenience into discrete beings.)

Pragmatism seems to suggest a more exploitative concept of truth- truth is what benefits us. Whereas my animalistic concept of truth suggests that truth is what creates us (hopefully in a manner that benefits us). — Jonah Tobias

This is similar to Richard Rorty's so-called neo-pragmatism. For him there is no clear line between science, philosophy, poetry, and politics. Truth is created. He tries to think beyond the idea of correspondence. He tries to replace objectivity with solidarity. While I don't embrace every little thing about him, he really tuned me in to radical thoroughgoing holistic pragmatism. Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity is maybe his best book. He synthesizes his vision as a whole. I mention this because you two seem close in spirit, and (if you haven't already checked him out) I think you'd dig his work.

It adds a dynamism to our thought- it is the type of thinking that befits the "over-man", the Hegelian-Nietzschean constantly evolving dialectical becoming type of person. And this certainly goes a long way towards warding off shallow pragmatisms and the Last Man. — Jonah Tobias

You touch on what was so controversial about pragmatism when it first emerged. It seems gross, shallow. It liquefies the crystalline representations of the Higher Things. But often this was a projection from the outside that couldn't see the kind of 'spirituality' involved, a sort of Feuerbachian humanism (which is extended and problematized in Nietzsche). This guy more or less identitfied humanism and pragmatism. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._C._S._Schiller

The objects of the physical sciences form the lower orders in the hierarchy of existence, more extensive but less significant. Thus the atoms of the physicist may indeed be found in the organisation of conscious beings, but they are subordinate: a living organism exhibits actions which cannot be formulated by the laws of physics alone; man is material, but he is also a great deal more.[8] — Schiller

That quote will be controversial here, I think. If man is not just defined in terms of a talking monkey, there is a whiff somehow of impending theocracy. But I'd say that insisting that 'monkey' is an essentially correct metaphor is problematic (not accusing you of doing that, to be clear), even if it gets something important right. Any 'hardened' understanding will, I expect, have its blindspots. If man is a monkey, then he is surprisingly sentimental about a truth that exceeds prediction, control, and comfort. Man is an animal who can commit suicide in cold blood and sacrifice his life for an abstraction or an ideal community which does not exist yet and perhaps never will. I'd say that any ambition to describe and clarify what is has to take not only that into account but also its own possibility (a rich space of shared meaning presumably inaccessible at such a resolution by any other animal.).

macrosoft

Truth is a process that creates our experienced world. — Jonah Tobias

This is an exciting line. It reminds me of truth as disclosure. People can only argue about entities that are already mutually disclosed. But some speech acts bring the background to the foreground so that they can be argued about in the first place. This is what is great in Heidegger, IMV. What I get from him is not arguments but the revelation of things that were always there without me grasping them conceptually. He analyzes the evolution of human clocks in terms of care. By really looking into the concept of time he opens man's essentially historical existence--existence as a thrown project, or a project that finds itself with a past that it must use for this project, that makes this project possible. From the point of view of truth as disclosure, poetry (poesis, creation) takes a more central role. If I lay down a strong metaphor for my brothers, their world is changed. I have extended their circle without an argument. I have wired new neurons together. As Nietzsche said, truth is a mobile army of metaphors --which is one more marching metaphor itself.

Tediously I maintain that that vision of truth does not exhaust the use-meaning of 'truth' as a token within ten-million meaning-currents. But it is itself one more example of truth-as-disclosure about one aspect of truth -- creation/disclosure.

Jonah Tobias

Ah I was trying to place where the talk of time but not the time of the clock and "care" came from... Heidegger! Heidegger's interesting for me because when I was really reading this stuff I was an atheist and very Nietzschean and I followed Heidegger in all his thrownness, Neitzschean resonating talk- But then when he got to the sort of disclosure more Eastern sounding aspects I was "thrown" off lol. But then after my philosophical journey came my spiritual journey- and I began to believe after arguing for only beliefs- that there was capital T Truth... Only we don't possess or create it. We can only listen to it.

And it fit well with the philosophy only as if coming from the other side. Beginning not with small b becoming, but big B Being. To put it clear. I believe from my own experiences, that among the other experiences of spirituality- there is a kind of knowing that one can listen to. It is very quiet, especially at first. But the more one listens, the louder it gets. To me it is an obeying, but I'm also Jewish and I've noted different peoples seem to have a different relation/concept of spirituality (Christians go to India and they still talk all about love and christ consciousness lol). So here in philosophy- I think there's only beliefs. But in Spirituality- I think there is a Truth- and its not a truth for us to understand- but to "obey" for me- or for others to channel or harmoniously merge with.

Now this opens up a chilling line of thought for me as a Jew discussing Heidegger. I always thought about this spiritual voice- that like Kierkegarrds discussion of Abraham and Isaac- the Big T Truth is anything but Humanist! It follows no rules at all that we can proscribe. The chilling prospect of giving up your will to it is that it could tell you to do something monstrous.

Can you imagine what a monstrous possibility that is?

What if God told Heidegger all the Jews should be sent to camps!!!

That being said- I wonder if I reread Heidegger now if I'd have a much different understanding of it having had spiritual experiences myself. Although when you've been out of the world of dry abstract books for a while its not as easy to dive back in I think...

In regards to Truth as metaphor- yes, when we bring philosophy back into real life- people don't just change when the logical button has been pressed. Often it takes repetition. Art. Music. Its one thing to make an argument and another to make it in a thousand different ways from a thousand different perspectives- weaving all the different perspectives together with this new one. Than it really takes hold and transforms.

And Nietzshce also said the worst crime academics committed was to make philosophy boring. Because if philosophy does not grab you- it can not change you. Speaking of which...

I read the Schiller wikipedia article you attached. and I remember reading some of the pragmatists... here's the thing for me- For some reason I do get excited about some of their ideas- but more often than not, they seem to quiet my thoughts. To replace thinking with common sense. it almost seems like a quieting of philosophy some how. I'm not sure if these are just personal reflections or they have some greater significance.

This is what is great in Heidegger, IMV. What I get from him is not arguments but the revelation of things that were always there without me grasping them conceptually. He analyzes the evolution of human clocks in terms of care. By really looking into the concept of time he opens man's essentially historical existence. — macrosoft

Can you explain this to me?

Jonah Tobias

In short, we don't start from zero. We start within some kind of 'circle' of the meaning of existence. It's a circle because it is the meaning for us of the world in which we live. I'd say that we extend and brighten that circle. — macrosoft

After Studying philosophy I decided to go try and live it and basically- start revolution lol These days I'm primarily a musician and community organizer. For Community Organizing/Revolution I thought of it in this way. You start in a king of circle of existence. You can work on this problem or that- but you're going to meet up against the same circle that keeps things as they are. The self reinforcing aspects of a society. Now the goal of Revolution is to piece by piece- leap off into a new circle. You start with Circle A- and at first everything you throw up must contend with that Circle's Orbit. But the more pieces you throw into the air- the better chance you have that they may coalesce and form a new orbit. Now you have twin stars lol. Still effecting each other but there is a second society to refer to.

This is my view of revolution in both thought and society. You work on one aspect- and then another- and then another- and its only after enough aspects have been altered that the big picture begins to emerge.

I notice that you don't speak of two circles- you speak of brightening the one. Which is beautiful. And I think this metaphor works too. And here instead of two separate circles- you add enough to its rings that suddenly the whole circle starts to rotate around a different center. For me this circle we're born into is often very isolationist and solitary- from the individual to the nuclear family. And the new center I seek- is also the old center. Tribe.

I work to create radical grassroots community centers- new genres of music- (my band- www.bukubroux.com- I play the african harp instrument) and I also help organize the Mardi Gras Indian Tribes of New Orleans.

http://bittersoutherner.com/wild-creation-mardi-gras-indians/#.W-pbZS3Mw_U

macrosoft

Ah I was trying to place where the talk of time but not the time of the clock and "care" came from... Heidegger! Heidegger's interesting for me because when I was really reading this stuff I was an atheist and very Nietzschean and I followed Heidegger in all his thrownness, Neitzschean resonating talk- But then when he got to the sort of disclosure more Eastern sounding aspects I was "thrown" off lol. — Jonah Tobias

I've been thrown off Heidegger a few times, but some itch always brought me back. I still can only really enjoy his work from the mid 1920s (I have some of the lectures and the tiny first draft of B&T which I've read more than B&T itself. Of course some secondary literature too.) It has slowly opened up for me.

But then after my philosophical journey came my spiritual journey- and I began to believe after arguing for only beliefs- that there was capital T Truth... Only we don't possess or create it. We can only listen to it. — Jonah Tobias

Fascinating. I'm probably more in tune with essentially Christian themes, but I find that these are not so innocent. Nietzsche's sketch of Christ in The Antichrist sounds quite a bit like Nietzsche! A few passages in that book, even though they are intended to be critical or distanced, are nevertheless some of the best spiritual writing I am aware of. It's basically the incarnation myth --a sense of complete at-home-ness and non-alienation by either fixed concepts or some distant authority. Luciferian, really. But of course Blake explored the marriage of Heaven and Hell long ago, and Jesus was viewed as The Adversary of the religion of his day.

To put it clear. I believe from my own experiences, that among the other experiences of spirituality- there is a kind of knowing that one can listen to. It is very quiet, especially at first. But the more one listens, the louder it gets. To me it is an obeying, but I'm also Jewish and I've noted different peoples seem to have a different relation/concept of spirituality (Christians go to India and they still talk all about love and christ consciousness lol). — Jonah Tobias

Thanks for sharing this. I think you make a good point about our hardware or OS following with us wherever we go. The religion of our childhood probably sticks with us. We can come back and make it more sophisticated. But maybe it stains us in an important way.

Now this opens up a chilling line of thought for me as a Jew discussing Heidegger. I always thought about this spiritual voice- that like Kierkegarrds discussion of Abraham and Isaac- the Big T Truth is anything but Humanist! It follows no rules at all that we can proscribe. The chilling prospect of giving up your will to it is that it could tell you to do something monstrous.

Can you imagine what a monstrous possibility that is?

What if God told Heidegger all the Jews should be sent to camps!!! — Jonah Tobias

Yes, you raise some great points. Humanism is very nice and rational, but there is an aspect of spirituality or call it what you will that wants to transcend the nice and rational. Feuerbach was so liberated/inspired by his insight that he perhaps expected to much from others. 'If only man overcomes religious alienation, then ...utopia.' But some of his critics saw that abstractions like humanism can be every bit as alienating or artificial.

It is hard to make sense of such a strong philosopher being sucked in by Nazi rhetoric. I have read some history from that period, and to me it's just obviously hypocrisy. A fever-dream. There is some crude quasi-pseudo-Nietzsche mixed in with it, and it's an example of how initially liberating ideas can be transformed into tyranny and stupidity if held fixed or without the care that develops them.

I read the Schiller wikipedia article you attached. and I remember reading some of the pragmatists... here's the thing for me- For some reason I do get excited about some of their ideas- but more often than not, they seem to quiet my thoughts. To replace thinking with common sense. it almost seems like a quieting of philosophy some how. — Jonah Tobias

I can relate to that. I think of (later) Wittgenstein as an extension or alternate version of linguistic pragmatism. The futility of a certain kind of nitpicking approach is...disclosed. But what is stirring about it for me came mostly through Rorty. He liquifies thought to such a degree that it reminded me of Taoism. It verges on a mysticism that is completely earthly and flexible.

Can you explain this to me? — Jonah Tobias

I get the sense that you already understand the essentially historical nature of existence. But to clarify the words I happened to pick: existence 'is' its past in the mode of no longer being it. And existence 'is' its future in the mode of not yet being able to be it. (That's Sartre's version.) Existence is fundamentally caught up in time. Who I am now is possibility that haunts facticity. The past 'leaps forward' into the future in the way or the how of my interpreting what is possible. At the same time, my care for what is possible or investment in a project reveals the so-called past in a new light. I write so-called because in this sense the past is not dead and fixed.

Moreover our thrownness is deeply social. I emerge from the way of looking at the world that Everyone shares. I am everyone and no one before I am able to become someone, to overstate it. So the past is everyone's past at first in one sense. He calls this 'interpretedness.' The conscious already-been-interpreted is not really the problem. A 14-year can have the nihilist insight. It's the water we swim in that we can't see that really traps us. This is the 'hidden' past that lives in the how of our initial grasp of things. This is the method we don't know that we have.

Philosophy (among other things) foregrounds this bad method so that better questions become possible. Are questions more essentially human than answers?

The clock comes in when Heidegger traces its birth and radicalization (the everyday clock is pushed to extremes by natural science.). Let's go back to the German peasant of 1905. We have certain projects that require daylight. Soon the sunrise has the significance of a 'now it is time to drive the cattle out.' All the individual projects are sewn together by this significance. We learn to talk in terms of a publicly present indicator of appropriate nows. The man who has the least time is the man who wears a clock accurate to milliseconds on his wrist. Our immersion in the business of life (in everyone's time) covers over our historical nature, including the flow of meaning. I have to go at the moment, but I hope that helps. If you want to read the 10 pages that cover this, you can find them in The Concept of Time (the 100 page first draft of Being and Time and not the lecture of the same name which is even shorter.) These pages were one of my ways in since they are very concrete.

macrosoft

After Studying philosophy I decided to go try and live it and basically- start revolution lol These days I'm primarily a musician and community organizer. — Jonah Tobias

Cool. I am (or really was) a musician too. Never been very political though. Always an outsider trying to understand (while some might say I should be doing and not just describing/clarifying.)

But the more pieces you throw into the air- the better chance you have that they may coalesce and form a new orbit. — Jonah Tobias

That makes sense to me. Paradigms are sometimes maybe shattered. We can go back and take a different fork in the road. It's maybe not always assimilation and transcendence but starting from 1/2 if not from 0.

This is my view of revolution in both thought and society. You work on one aspect- and then another- and then another- and its only after enough aspects have been altered that the big picture begins to emerge. — Jonah Tobias

There's a great quote to that effect in Hegel. The baby gestates 'continuously' but then there is a true break and the child is born.

I notice that you don't speak of two circles- you speak of brightening the one. Which is beautiful. And I think this metaphor works too. And here instead of two separate circles- you add enough to its rings that suddenly the whole circle starts to rotate around a different center. For me this circle we're born into is often very isolationist and solitary- from the individual to the nuclear family. And the new center I seek- is also the old center. Tribe. — Jonah Tobias

Right. The world-as-significance-with-offers gets larger and bright (if all goes well and ignoring dark nights of the soul that may be necessary for this intermittently.) I like your addition to the metaphor. It becomes re-centered. A spinning, expanding wheel whose center is not fixed.

I think I know what you mean by isolated / solitary. There are two ideas that unexpectedly blend. Lemme see what you think. Facing mortality can give you distance from what is petty in one's community. In that sense it is isolating, especially if most don't want to face embarrassingly deep issues while there are gadgets to collect and while there is respectable worldly position to enjoy. On the other hand, the terror of death forces us to flee from what is petty or less important in ourselves. Flee where? To universal virtue which is more like poetry or music than a fixed idea. Mozart and Hegel and Einstein live on by being reborn in those who approach them with care. And then in a less grandiose framework there is just a increased ability to see virtue in those in your ordinary life. Instead of obsessing over the right words or details, one grasps them as a whole, 'musically,' and learns their language in a spirit of generosity and they learn yours. You understand that the children to come will be again what you found most important in yourself. They will find the same treasures of the interior, if you are lucky with your help, because you passed on music or existence-clarifying concepts or a kinder and wiser political structure.

hks

Constant change is one of the proofs of God by Aquinas.

There must be One Thing that never changes. That thing is God.

Roughly quoting.

Terrapin Station

Really I start with the idea that the whole world is Becoming- constant flux- change- This is itself an assumption but we're always "thrown"- starting from some type of assumption and besides- this is what Science suggests. Once we thought the world was composed of atoms (beings)- but that was replaced with a world of waves- energy- constant change. So once we assume the world is constant change or becoming- how does being first arise? — Jonah Tobias

In my view the world is dynamic ("becoming"/changing), but it's not nothing that's dynamic, there has to be something ("being") that is changing, or the notion is incoherent

So what is that becoming that creates this type of becoming we call being, or identity?
The point is this- why would any animal or simple organism have any type of perception or awareness if it could not alter its behavior?

It seems weird to me here that you jump from nuts and bolts ontological ideas to specific issues in philosophy of perception.

So now that we have two different ways of being in the world- if this is done at random,

This is not a mini-rant directed specifically at you. You just brought it up. ;-)

I really, really wish that people would stop framing issues like this as randomness versus something else. Science does NOT posit anything as being random. The idea that there are any real random ontological phenomena is actually quite controversial. I know that firsthand because I don't rule out that there are any real random ontological phenomena, and allowing the mere possibility of that, in a context where you're discussing anything with folks at all versed in the sciences, is almost universally treated as if one has just put a turd in the punchbowl. So why do people keep bringing up the idea of evolution or anything else being random, as if science is at all suggesting as much?

Forget "Trees" or "Speeding Vehicles" or the color "red" or "Blue".. all of these are more complex identities. None of these exist in the world of the simplest organism.

But creatures easily do discriminate between such things, regardless of whatever interpretational apparatus you're relying on to parse them as "complex."

I don't want to do too much at once. These longer posts always have potentially tens of different topics in them, which is one reason I prefer that we stick to short posts. I almost wish there was something like a twitter limiter on post length.

Jonah Tobias

In my view the world is dynamic ("becoming"/changing), but it's not nothing that's dynamic, there has to be something ("being") that is changing, or the notion is incoherent — Terrapin Station

Hello Terrapin-

We're probably using different definitions of being and becoming. To me becoming is referencing a constant change- while being is referencing that which remains the same. My argument is that there is no "thing that remains the same" that becoming is created out of. Our language needs to posit a thing so there is something to talk about- our sight has this need as well so crashing constant change waves are turned into static colors and identities. My point is that becoming and change does not arise out of or is added to a base thing that remains the same. Just like atomic science when they posed all change came from unchanging base units- atoms. But instead it was later seen that these atoms were actually energy- waves- which is constant change with nothing staying the same.

This is I believe the common argument of philosophers who posit becoming as original. Its a difficult concept but not an impossible one.

It seems weird to me here that you jump from nuts and bolts ontological ideas to specific issues in philosophy of perception. — Terrapin Station

It may seem weird to you but if becoming is primary- then how does being arise at all? In what state is "being" real? And again, I'm saying that being is a creation of becoming- that "being" is stamped upon becoming to paraphrase Nietzsche and Deleuze and others- and this act of treating "constant change" as if it were "the identical" is something created by life. Thus the move from Ontology to perception. My argument is there is no "self same identical in ontology"- to find it we have to speak about how life acts towards becoming.

So now that we have two different ways of being in the world- if this is done at random,

This is not a mini-rant directed specifically at you. You just brought it up. ;-) — Terrapin Station

Brother- I did not bring this debate up. You picked out a clause in a sentence you didn't even quote the entirety of and ran with it. When I said random- I meant random in regards to the benefit of the organism- and I said this was unlikely. Of course scientifically nothing is random. But if in this case, the animal was changing itself- moving this way or that- without some means to "know" when one should move this way, when one should move that- it wouldn't make sense. if someone is blindfolded and told to walk a maze- on the strictest sense, no, none of its movement are random. On the other, for common understanding, we can say that they are. Keep in mind there's a philosophy called deconstructionism that could raise a potential problem to every single word or concept used in the english language. "What is a problem?" "What do we mean by potential?" "What is language?" These are all important questions but they're not relevant to every discussion.

But creatures easily do discriminate between such things, regardless of whatever interpretational apparatus you're relying on to parse them as "complex." — Terrapin Station

Creatures don't discriminate between "Blue" or "red" when they don't have eyes. The world we experience with the identities we experience our not universal- they are an effect of our ear drums registering vibrations- our eyes parsing light waves- etc etc. Creatures navigate a world- but it is not our world with our identities.

I almost wish there was something like a twitter limiter on post length. — Terrapin Station

We've all got our rights to opinions and I understand the difficulty of responding to longer posts. On the other hand- what can be said in a full page can not be said in a few sentences. Do you think Hegel or Heidegger could have made their impact through twitter? What is common and already widely understood is easily communicated through a sentence or two. What is different and doesn't want to be understood through old perspectives requires explanation.

macrosoft

What is common and already widely understood is easily communicated through a sentence or two. What is different and doesn't want to be understood through old perspectives requires explanation. — Jonah Tobias

Exactly, which is a classic Hegelian point. One cannot compress a philosophical result into a proposition in the usual language. The meanings of the terms [itself a misleading expression, since terms don't have significant individual meanings] evolves dialectically. In short, the potent philosopher extends the language not primarily through a few neologisms but far more radically so that all of the terms of encrusted common sense are enriched. The desire for bite-sized philosophy that already fits on paradigm is the desire for no philosophy at all --or, more generously, the desire to stick with the relatively trivial part of philosophy, the machine-like inference from ideas already grasped to other ideas already grasped. It is the construction of these ideas that demands so much, and grasping a philosopher is repeating that construction by repeating not their result as a meaning-poor mantra but rather by taking approximately the same path that they did within one's mind. Hence the necessity of long posts where there is not already a mutual grasping of the issues. Such length does not ensure success, obviously. But de-contextualized aphorisms are even worse, since they offer the illusion that one has understood.

macrosoft

Think of the person who says something mean- and everyone feels bad- and then another person who finds this ridiculous- and laughs at it- and then everyone laughs. The mean person's perspective is now discarded in exchange for the perspective of the one who laughs. — Jonah Tobias

Nice example. We impose on the shared space of meaning not only with words but through smiles, frowns, body language, rude tones, welcoming tones. I think contributes to the continuity of the meaning space. Other thinkers might stress 'embodied cognition.' While it is useful to break experience into pieces for some purposes, it is also useful to try to grasp consciousness as a living unity of concept, emotion, and sensation. I use these three words to point at a unity which is not a simple sum.

Gilliatt

Animals have some "conception" of truth. I think it is right. I don't think, however, that "animals is truth". I don't think in that way; but I think that animals have a understandable language by humans.

macrosoft

Life must be seen as an art — Jonah Tobias

Great line. The art of existence, the art of life. A clumsy beginner learns to dance. The young mind that starts by repeating common sense can end by revolutionizing common sense.

Terrapin Station

But instead it was later seen that these atoms were actually energy- waves- — Jonah Tobias

We're using the words in the same way. I don't believe that the idea of "just becoming" is coherent.

And in my view, the idea of positing "just energy waves" is incoherent. You can't have just energy. Something needs to be in motion. It's not possible to just have "motion of nothing," or "just potential motion of nothing" which is even more nonsensical. (I don't even buy the idea of potential energy per se, by the way.)

It may seem weird to you but if becoming is primary- then how does being arise at all? In what state is "being" real? — Jonah Tobias

That's all still ontology though. Not a jump to suddenly talking about a much more specific philosophy of perception topic.

this act of treating "constant change" as if it were "the identical" is something created by life. — Jonah Tobias

What would support that belief?

. . . On the other, for common understanding, we can say that they are. — Jonah Tobias

Yeah, but in context, shouldn't we be using a more formal sense of "random" there? If we're getting all sciency, talking about evolution, etc.?

Creatures don't discriminate between "Blue" or "red" when they don't have eyes. — Jonah Tobias

Haha. You said that creatures don't distinguish between such things. They do. I'm not saying "every single creature does." The fact is that plenty do.

Do you think Hegel or Heidegger could have made their impact through twitter? — Jonah Tobias

I think that both probably would have been much, much better writers with far more limitations on their writing. (Keeping in mind that personally I think both are horrible authors as is.)

My Animalistic Philosophy of Truth- Please give me reflections and debate!

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