I’d argue that being is the precondition for consciousness — Mikie

:up: If being is interpreted as existence I agree. If being is the nature of a person, I might argue that that essence must involve consciousness.

So the self ceases to exist when asleep.

Sounds about right.

So the self ceases to exist when asleep. — Banno

Well wakefulness ceases anyway. The “self” is too loaded a term to say anything useful about, in my view.

If being is interpreted as existence I agree. — jgill

Yeah…although now I realize Jung may have meant being in the sense of being a human. But it doesn’t look that way.

Ever wonder about why humans are, in fact, designated as 'beings'? What significance does that term have? And to what category does the word 'being' apply? I would think, apart from human beings, that there would be agreement that some of the higher animals - apes, elephants, whales, dogs - might be considered 'beings'. Obviously the religious believe in spiritual beings - whether deities or celestial bodhisattvas in Buddhism, for example - but it's not essential to the point.

So - is not consciousness invariably associated with beings? Isn't consciousness a fundamental attribute of beings, generally? (as jgill suggests) A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing. So consciousness is intrinsic to being, isn't it? I'm tempted to say that to be, is to be conscious.

Yep. So we need to be clear as to whether we are talking of existence or being.

Plenty of pedantry to be found on this topic.

Why “consciousness” is given such primacy is puzzling at times, especially when you take a serious look at how we live as human beings in our daily lives.

Opposed to all this, I’d argue that being is the precondition for consciousness — just as living is the precondition to being awake. We’re not always awake — and we’re not always conscious. — Mikie

I don't know what Jung meant when he wrote that consciousness comes before being, but I have some idea what Lao Tzu meant. The Tao, the primal oneness, comes before distinctions are made. Naming, which I take to mean consciousness, is what breaks the Tao up into what we see in our everyday world. Language is what people use to make distinctions. If there was no one around to call an apple an apple, it wouldn't exist as a separate object, only as part of the inseparable whole. Naming, consciousness, brings things into existence.

Of course, this is a metaphysical position, not a factual or scientific one. To me, it makes sense to say that anything that hasn't been observed by a conscious entity does not exist. Many people don't, or can't, see the sense in that.

A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing — Wayfarer

So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet?

I think Carl is paraphrasing Descartes. Like Descartes, it appears he has it ontologically backwards. — Mikie

Idealists (i.e. spiritualists) like Jung just ignore Sartre's pre-cogito maxim "existence preceeds essence".

A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing
— Wayfarer
So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet? — 180 Proof

Does it count that I once dreamt I was a toilet?

Does it count that I once dreamt I was a toilet? — Joshs

Possibly. :sweat:

A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing
— Wayfarer
So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet? — 180 Proof

It would be prudent to avoid that presumption.

Does it count that I once dreamt I was a toilet? — Joshs

I hope you awoke flush with happiness.

↪Wayfarer Yep. So we need to be clear as to whether we are talking of existence or being. — Banno

We may want to include the idea that existence and being point to the same concept, that of becoming as difference.

It would be prudent to avoid that presumption. — Wayfarer

And likewise also prudent to dismiss your statement about a "non-conscious being" which implies such a presumption.

becoming as difference — Joshs

Explain how this "idea" follows from a distinction of "existence and being".

So we need to be clear as to whether we are talking of existence or being. — Banno

Any dictionary you look at will use being and existence as synonyms for each other. If you don't think they're the same, what is the difference?

Not I. Existence has been given an excellent and clear analysis after Frege. Being suffered many confusions in Germany, which doubtless will carry this thread through quite a few more pages without benefit.

Any dictionary you look at will use being and existence as synonyms for each other. If you don't think they're the same, what is the difference? — T Clark

I'll leave that question for you, @Joshs.

which doubtless will carry this thread through quite a few more pages without benefit. — Banno

Yes! Another omnibus consciousness thread. They're like lantana.

lantana — Wayfarer

Too obscure a reference for our foreign chums?
When I was a kid I had a job pulling lantana with a chain on a tractor. Several times I was nearly killed. Nasty stuff.

Yes - Lantana is a South American climbing vine that forms large patches sprawling over hundreds of square meters displacing native species and is extremely resistant to weedicides, nowadays endemic to large parts of Australia.

More to the point, CS Peirce differentiated existence and reality. He said that existence is a binary property that can be ascribed to any concept or entity, depending on whether or not it satisfies certain logical criteria. For example, we might say that unicorns do not exist, because they fail to meet certain logical criteria for existence, such as being observable or verifiable in some way.

On the other hand, Peirce argued that reality is a far more complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses both the logical properties of existence as well as the broader metaphysical properties of being. Reality includes not only the things that exist, but also their relations, connections, and interactions with one another, and such things as probablities and possibilities. There is, for example, a real realm of possibility, but none of its inventory actually exists. But there are other things outside the realm of possibility.

Finally there are things like numbers, logical principles, scientific laws, and the like. In what sense do they exist? They can only be grasped by a rational intellect, but they're nevertheless real. So that's another kind of distinction that could be made.

Why “consciousness” is given such primacy is puzzling at times, especially when you take a serious look at how we live as human beings in our daily lives.

Why would that matter? Would consciousness being more essential make more sense if we lived a different way?

I can see the argument for consciousness being primary. If you think of it psychologically, consciousness, as sensation, is prior to the abstraction of being and of the recognition of the external world as external.

"Being" presupposes non-being, it's an incoherent concept otherwise, but consciousness as simply sensation precedes any such distinctions.

So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet?

Try treating them as either and they'll quickly disabuse you of the idea that they aren't conscious.

There is, for example, a real realm of possibility, but none of its inventory actually exists.

Right, and possibility is plenty efficient. The presence of unrealized possible states is what defines the entropy of a system, thermodynamics, the entire idea of phase space. It's essential for calculating the heat capacity of metals, etc.

As I am extremely influenced by Jung, I have thought about his understanding of consciousness a lot in relation to various thread discussions. It appears to me that there are ambiguities in his writings, which mean that his perspective can be interpreted in various ways. For example, recently I was reading, 'Philosophy: 100 Thinkers', by Philip Stokes, who listed Jung in the section on the materialists. However, in the discussion, Stokes acknowledged the way in which Jung incorporated a form of mysticism going back to the Greeks.

Part of the complexity of his perspective is that he starts from the assumptions of psychoanalysis drawn from Freud, which emerge from humanism and naturalism but he blends in so much from the various writers he has read. In a way, he rejects the supernatural by speaking of the collective unconscious as a natural source, but he does, at the same time, delve into metaphysics, including Kant. He sees archetypes as imminent in nature, but there is some parallel with the ideas of Plato. In doing so, he does come up with an understanding of mind which leans towards idealism, especially as he draws upon ideas in Eastern philosophy.

We may want to include the idea that existence and being point to the same concept, that of becoming as difference. — Joshs

I wonder if you mean the same thing I did when I said making a distinction is what separates the undivided oneness into the things we know in the world.

So while sleeping or comatose, a person is just a "thing", and not a "being", like a sofa or toilet? — 180 Proof

This person would not stop being a person to others. It is a commonplace that we live in a social reality. If you ask whether the person is still a person to themselves when they are not conscious, I don't think the question makes any sense. I don't think anything is anything to an unconscious person. Isn't that what unconsciousness means?

I hope you awoke flush with happiness. — Wayfarer

I don't think anyone commented on this. Maybe I missed it. I wish I'd thought of it.

Lantana is a South American climbing vine that forms large patches sprawling over hundreds of square meters displacing native species and is extremely resistant to weedicides, nowadays endemic to large parts of Australia. — Wayfarer

In the southern US, there is a plant called kudzu which behaves in a similar fashion. It was brought in from Asia to help stop erosion. It works very well for that. If you drive along roads in Georgia or South Carolina, you'll see it completely covering trees and abandoned buildings. Once it gets started, it's hard to stop and overpowers native plants.

More to the point, CS Peirce differentiated existence and reality. He said that existence is a binary property that can be ascribed to any concept or entity, depending on whether or not it satisfies certain logical criteria. For example, we might say that unicorns do not exist, because they fail to meet certain logical criteria for existence, such as being observable or verifiable in some way.

On the other hand, Peirce argued that reality is a far more complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses both the logical properties of existence as well as the broader metaphysical properties of being. — Wayfarer

Would Lao Tzu say what he calls "existence" or "being" are the same things you and Peirce call "reality." That creation of the "complex and multifaceted concept that encompasses both the logical properties of existence as well as the broader metaphysical properties of being," is the process that brings things into existence.

In accordance with general usage I see no reason to think that 'being' is not synonymous with 'existence' and 'beings' is not synonymous with 'existents'.

I hope you awoke flush with happiness. — Wayfarer


I don't think anyone commented on this. Maybe I missed it. I wish I'd thought of it. — T Clark

I noticed it but did not wish I had thought of it. I think it is best to leave bad jokes, like sleeping drunks, undisturbed.

I think I might have introduced a red herring, but I was objecting to:

We may want to include the idea that existence and being point to the same concept — Joshs

by trying to point out a philosophical distinction between 'being' and 'existence'.

But, getting back to the OP, on reflection, I agree with what Jung is trying to say. Elsewhere in the title he says 'without consciousness there would, practically speaking, be no world, for the world exists for us only insofar as it is consciously reflected by a psyche' - a point I have been arguing for in another thread.

I think that The Undiscovered Self is a Jung essay I must get hold of. From the Introduction:

The plight of our civilization, accurately diagnosed by Jung in Modern Man in Search of a Soul, is here presented as a specifically individual struggle for moral and spiritual integrity against the ‘mass psychology’ generated by political fanaticism, scientific materialism and technological triumphalism on a global scale. Ultimately, this is a religious as much as a psychological problem, which is not solved by passive adoption of some established creed, but by opening oneself up to the ‘religious instinctive attitude’ and inner symbolic vitality possessed by each and everyone of us by virtue of our humanity. One of Jung’s most profound, yet accessible, texts. — The Undiscovered Self

:pray:

What is more, most of the natural sciences try to represent the results of their investigations as though these had come into existence without man’s intervention, in such a way that the collaboration of the psyche – an indispensable factor – remains invisible. (An exception to this is modern physics, which recognizes that the observed is not independent of the observer.) So in this respect, too, science conveys a picture of the world from which a real human psyche appears to be excluded – the very antithesis of the “humanities.” — Carl Jung

:100: :clap:

If you ask whether the person is still a person to themselves when they are not conscious, I don't think the question makes any sense. — T Clark

I agree, and this is not the question I've asked.

I agree, and this is not the question I've asked. — 180 Proof

I also considered that the person we are discussing is still a person to others, even if the person is unconscious. I assume you don't mean that either. I guess I don't understand the question you were asking.

You'd have to read Wayfarer's post from which I quoted and responded to with my post.

You'd have to read Wayfarer's post from which I quoted and responded to with my post. — 180 Proof

This is what Wayfarer wrote.

So - is not consciousness invariably associated with beings? Isn't consciousness a fundamental attribute of beings, generally? (as jgill suggests) A non-conscious being is not actually 'a being' but an object or a thing. So consciousness is intrinsic to being, isn't it? I'm tempted to say that to be, is to be conscious. — Wayfarer

I guess I don't see the difference between "beings" and "things." Maybe that's not right. Maybe I just don't think the distinction is useful here. As I see it, consciousness brings all the differentiated aspects of the world into being, existence. In that context, we are just as much things as apples and hand grenades.

I think making the distinction between beings and things is part of a different discussion which can't take place until all the things, including us, are brought into existence. In that different context, the distinction makes more sense. Mixing them together doesn't work.

Ask Wayfarer about his terminology. I tried to tease out the implications that call his terms in question, but not to much effect.