You found your answer. — Fooloso4

Yes, but that does not mean that being is not for Hegel. It is the same and not the same as nothing. Logical, because they are both empty concepts, denoting the same 'no-thing'. Yet, they are by their very definition antthetical to eachother.

But you make the distinction:
Being is not the same as 'beings',
— Tobias — Fooloso4

Yes an neither are they the same for Hegel. 'sein' is not the same concept as 'etwas'.

Heg does not thematize the concept of sein as Heidegger does and therefore also not the distinction. Something appears quite early on the Logik but after being has been aufgehoben.

Here is why:

We think differently about things — Fooloso4

Trivial. Every day we think differently about things. Does walking also change according to you when we walk to different places?

Thinking without what is thought is an empty concept — Fooloso4

Well, Hegel tries to articulate thinking, thinking itself. Such a conception can also be found according to some by Aristotle. Hegel's analysis is conceptual and perhaps indeed empty. I persist that you look with a pehnomenological lens at Hegel.

We did not think about QM at all until the 20th century. We did not know that the quantum world existed. Our thinking is changing in order to understand what is still inadequately understood about what is going on at the quantum level. Old concepts, old ways of thinking don't work at this level. — Fooloso4

No we did not. Neither did we think about nuclear weapons. So? Suddenly the way we thin changed because of nuclear weapons? And the remote control, did that have such an impact as well? black sewing thread too, or is it just QM?

Are you claiming that Hegel made the Heideggerian distinction? He distinguishes between pure being and determinate beings. Pure being is not. — Fooloso4

What do you mean by 'pure being is not'? Hegel does not thematize the Heideggerian distinction. In fact 'being' is prety quickly 'aufgehoben' into becoming in Hegel's Logik.

For Hegel 'Concept' 'Begriff' has both an overarching sense of the movement or working out of spirit and concepts as in the concepts of mathematics or physics. It is this latter sense that both enables and impedes knowledge. For example, QM does not fit within the division of the concepts of 'wave' and 'particle'. Here thinking had to change to get more in line with being, that is, with what is. — Fooloso4

I o not see why 'thinking' has to change. We think differently about things, thinking itself did not change at all. It casts the concepts of QM in the same mold it always casts theories in. It uses identity, difference affirmation, denial etc. Our understanding of the world around us changed, yes. Not because something is in a different way, but because we conceptualize what is in a different way, based upon theoretical reflection or on empirical observation or both. QM probably better accounted for the things we saw than did earlier theories of physics. Or what is also possible QM is based on theoretical reflection only, I do not know. However, the jump from we think about things differently now and that is because they correspond now to what we think about them and not then, is a leap of faith. The leap is I think unnecessary.

nature before humans existed — 180 Proof

What is this 'nature' you speak of? When I think of nature a host of images, assumptions and juxtapositions come to mind. Nature as a pristine state, nature as green leaves on trees and unspoiled brooks, nature as opposed to culture etc. What characteristics did nature before humans have and which did it acquire only after humans came on the scene?

"A shadow is cast wherever he stands, stacks of green paper in his red right hand".

I am thinking of the song in the context of radicalization, polarization, propaganda, the attraction of violence on anxious minds.

I don't see what this is supposed to show. One might argue that if thinking and being are the same then we should be able, a priori, to deduce all that is.

I should add Tobias that the identity of thinking and being for Hegel is based on the aufheben of the difference between thinking and being. It there is no difference there cannot be an identity. — Fooloso4

That last part is true, of course. thinking and being are not the same thing, yet they are identical, one finds upon reflection. Yet, it takes time for this insight to break trough.

The first part is interesting. I think you have a too phenomenological reading of the "phenomenology". Being is not the same as 'beings', thinking for Hegel is not the thinking qua intentionality that the phenonologists seem to me to support. If something is to be an object for us, ('Gegenstand', standing opposed to us, against us), it must be thinkable for us in so far as it fits within our web of conceptual relations. Of course we might discover new things, we will discover new things until the end of time. However for it to be discoverable as a 'new thing' it has to fit within the conceptual makeup of 'spirit' that whole of rational relations in which 'we' dwell.

That insight, the insight that there is such a realm in which we articulate ourselves (maybe close to Heideggers Seinsverständnis, though that has much more realistic connotations) broke through with Hegel. Not only the emergence of this realm though 'appeared', our relation to it appeared as well, which is a dialectical relation. I always see myself as different from reality, as a perspective on reality, but at the same time I know I am part of this greater whole. We are 'being the same in difference'.

Actually, the idea that everything is deducible is very un-hegelian I would say, because it would fall into some sore of transcendental subject an all knowing mind. The whole dialectic would be unnecessary. However, we 'find ourselves thrown into a world which seems to be not-mind, which seems totally different. It remains different, just also the same as thought in the sense that it must be understandable for us, we assume it can be understood, the world is not totally alien in the end.

I agree. However, I think "the relation" is factual (Witty) and not just virtual (Bergson). — 180 Proof

... and in order to show the fly the way out of the Kant-Fichte-Hegel fly-bottle, this break follows:
Thought comes from being, but being does not come from thought [ … ] The essence of being as being (i.e. in contrast to the mere thought of being) is the essence of nature.
— L. Feuerbach, Vorläufige Thesen zur Reform der Philosophie — 180 Proof

I am still struggling with the following: to what extent did Hegel also want that relation to be real and to what extent did he succeed? He prioritizes 'life' sometimes he feels rather naturalistic. I do think he was looking for this actual relation. When 'my' prof explained the absolute to me, he hit his hand on the table, and said 'this, this is absolute'. I feel he is right, yet, what Hegel does in his work is all conceptual, on and on, spiral after spiral, circle after circle. He does try to be bodily but it is a very abstract, conceptual 'bodyliness' if that makes sense. Does he succeed in making the break on through to the other side? I am not sure.

I feel that is why one of the reactions against him is the phenonological, more realist approach leading to a reappraisal of the body, seen in the French thinkers, Merleau Ponty, Foucault to a lesser extent, perhaps even Nietzsche. If he can not, if his system cannot account for nature or life, because it is in the end one sided, then there resides the 'more', the abundance of life over and above the concept. The price for that is high though. We rescue some sort of abundant 'physis' but what is our place in it? We are essentially drifting never knowing whether we are at home in nature. It is by all means the prevailing view though. Hegel's enlightenment homeliness has lost its place to ecosophical estrangement.

Great discussion by the way. Even if do not react I am keenly reading what you write. If it starts to involve QM, I am out because I simply do not know enough of it. Back in the day Hegel was almost not studied at all and no one on the PF was really into a discussion. Now we have a number of perspectives... :fire:

This reminds me almost too much of 'Dreydegger' and some interpretations of Wittgenstein. I guess I'd understand the softer version of absolute knowledge as a kind of introjection or ingestion of that which was previously projected as an external trans-human or non-human authority or indigestible kernel 'behind' appearances. — lll

To my shame I must say that I know too little of Dreydegger to really comment but from what I do remember it does sound similar. The wiki quote is also how I would see it, but better articulated than I could. I do not know if the appearance of this insight is anti-climatic, I do not think it is. With the ' Phenomenology' (appearance) of spirit (a necessarily assumed horizon of meaning) we realize that we ourselves are not some free transcendental subject as Kant would have it, but that our self actualization takes place within a larger whole, later to be called horizon or maybe even 'episteme'. I must be careful here though, Hegel assumed continuity, the later emphasis on discontinuity is a reaction (in dialectican fashion) to Hegel. I think 'absolute knowledge', is an even stronger realization than that though. With its procedural way of thinking the 'Pheno' is an introduction to and vindication of the method employed in the Logik, his truly metaphysical work of conceptual analysis. The dialectical process also proves itself as the ground structure of thinking (logos/ logic) and from this ' absolute' standpoint the conceptual analysis proper may be undertaken.

Do you think nothing happened before there were humans or something else that was able to discern change? — Fooloso4

Indeed if it wasn't for the appearance of a mind able to discern 'change' nothing happened. It is only by abstraction that we say something must have happened before the emergence of us. We discern change so we cast the universe before our onset in the same terms. However we can only do so from our own standpoint and in our own categories of explanation. Had we or anything else discerning change not been here, nothing would have changed.

There is no color grue because 'grue' is a word that was made up that does not name a color. — Fooloso4

The grue word denotes a color we cannot discern and because it cannot be discerned we cannot say whether it is or is not there.

What happens and an articulation of what happens are not the same. Something must happen in order to articulate it as something that happens. — Fooloso4

Something takes place, certainly, at least something appears to us. That is what we know. What exactly, we cannot know. We cast it in terms of change and happening. They are exactly the same until we find out our articulation of it was somehow inadequate.

It is not a question of "thinking as such" but of what is thought, and that changes. — Fooloso4

No, it is exactly of 'thinking as such'. What is thought always changes of course, but we are dealing with the categories in which we think. They remain the same. Of course, the contents of my thoughts at a present moment can never encompass being as such. Metaphysics is about being qua being, not a kind of being or a certain being.

But for Hegel the identity of thinking and being is realized, made actual in time. Prior to this they are not the same, and it is only through the dialectic of difference that thinking and being become the same. How does your interpretation differ? — Fooloso4

Hegel's thinking is circular. the identity of thinking and being is always there. Substance is always subject in the language of the pheno. However it is not realized it is such. We always spent our time within this horizon of meaning, yet, Kant for instance did not realize it yet and posited a free subject. Spinoza also did not realize it yet and proposed a substance without rationality, a godlike unbound substance. Only with Hegel did substance realize itself as subject, in other words, it came to self knowledge, reflexivity.

Beautiful. Do you mean that 'he' realizes that this 'he' or 'subject' is another piece of the 'map,' and that even the 'map' metaphor depends on everything else for its significance? 'He' makes the 'map' according presumably to his desires, themselves historically generated, but only according to the map that makes him along with itself. A whirlpool of traces. — lll

What I do see, in this discussion with you and Fooloso4 is that I am using those two notions of subjectivity, the Kantian one and the Hegelian one and that does not bode well for consistency. In my boat and captain story I relied on the Kantian version, but that indeed spells trouble from a Hegelian perspective, so I am thankful for the life buoy you threw me III ;)

I like your articulation, of what I in fact stated very incompletely... yes the Captain realizes this. Also in answer to @180 Proof I would not call one variable independent, the other dependent, both map and map maker exist within this horizon of conceptualization in which the map and territory metaphor also has its place and from which it derived its meaning. I would not give any metaphysical priority to one or the other, I think it is not needed to commit oneself to either a materialist or idealist metaphysics. Yet, maybe it is me though. I like and feel at home in a world where nothing but the relation is real.

Neither the dogs or us need the categories to taste the difference. — Fooloso4

indeed, that is what I responded above.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, if we would have no ability to discern change from sameness it would not happen. Just like there is no color 'Grue' because we do not have the ability to discern it. You need the conceptualization of it in order to articulate it as happening. Perhaps a dog's life is just for us different every day. I do not know what it is like to be a bat.

Change happens whether we are able to think change or not. That is the point. It points to the separation of thinking and being. — Fooloso4

No, we articulate it as 'happening whether we can think it or not' , but without a mind for which change is an issue change does not 'happen', just like nothing really 'happens'. Also a happening is somehting that is an issue for someone, an object for a subject.

So, thinking changed but thought did not. — Fooloso4

Thinking as such did not change, we just managed to articulate the process more richly.

Right. So they are not hardwired. And dogs do not share in the history of spirit that realized in western culture. — Fooloso4

They are, they are already present 'in itself', just not 'for itself' in Hegelian terms. In dogs they are perhaps also present in themselves however, the chance they are also actualized for themselves is very questionable. In Western culture they have become 'for themselves', at least according to Hegel.

I agree, but I see that insight in terms of becoming, history, and culture. Not the realization/actualization of spirit in history, the concretization of thought, and the overcoming or aufhaben of the difference between subject and object. — Fooloso4

I also do not, like I told you. My Hegel interpretation does not follow that rather traditional path.

But to note that a dog can taste the difference between cheese and carrot does not mean it's mind:

mind wired to see 'difference'.
— Tobias — Fooloso4

I do not understand. It certainly notices difference or it would eat everything, but it does not. It does not articulate the difference. Indeed, dogs do not engage in metaphysics.

You got here by arguing that things:

... conform to our categories of thought
— Tobias

You now expand our categories to include dogs. But a dog does not need the conceptual category of 'difference' to taste the difference between carrot and cheese. — Fooloso4

Dogs are not categories of thought. The categories of thought (as Kant articultaed them) represent necessary distinctions the mind makes when it perceives the world. Dogs do not need to articulate the category of difference, neither do we, to taste the difference. That does not mean that the category of difference is not a necessary category, without which our world would be vastly different from what it is now. It is odd, because I think you and I disagree because of a misunderstanding. Our thinking conforms to the world and vice versa, yes, but that does not mean that the moment we become self conscious of a certain mental operation, our world changes. You seem to impute that on Parmenides as well, who articulated something like the thesis of the identity of thinking and being. However, it is not because we found the possibility to incorporate change in our conceptual apparatus, magically change happened in the world. Or that when we could not articulate it, thinking was somehow not identical to being. We simply did not comprehend how it could be an later we learned. I wonder if we are actually far off or not.

Do you mean according to Hegel and contrary to or pace Parmenides? If so, it is odd that on the one hand you argue in favor of Kantian categories and on the other Hegel, who rejected them. — Fooloso4

Hegel rejected them because he thought Kant's table of categories is too static and too 'formal', based on some kind of luminary self understanding which we do not have. For Hegel we come to realize the categories of thought through a dialectical process in the course of practical history and not through a process of clear introspection. this insight opens up the historical nature of our way of thinking. I applaud that.

If you are arguing in favor of Hegel then it is only at the completion of history, with Geist's self-knowledge, with the realization/actualization in time of the real being the ideal, that it is true, for him, that subject and object are unified. But none of this means he was right. Many consider it metaphysical overreach, wishful thinking, or idealist fiction. — Fooloso4

Sorry, pro Hegel, contra Parmenides. Yours though is is a very thick, metaphysical reading of Hegel and I think a much lighter reading is possible, based on Robert Pippin and Walther Jaeschke. 'Absolute knowledge' amounts to no more than the realization that thinking progresses dialectically. Only after this realization is it possible to engage in the 'Science of Logic', the dialectical articulation of the different concepts, or, in terms used throughout this post, the categories. With Kant 'Geist' opened up the possibility of self knowledge and Hegel completed Kant's project (or so he hoped).
Overrreach in a sense yes, there is a lot to say about Hegel's claim that with him a fundamental insight broke through in philosophy and also a lot to say about what results the dialectical method brings us, but that would take us far out of bounds. For now, I do not see at all why it would be necessary to read Hegel in the light of some cosmic world spirit, that would reach some sort of historical endgame as Fukuyama or Kojeve seem to hold. That is more Schelling than Hegel and perhaps late Hegel when his pride and fame got the better of him.

My dog can see difference and smell difference and taste difference. Is her mind wired with Kant's categories or some other a priori categories? — Fooloso4

I guess a dog's brain is hard wired too yes. Actually in dogs we tend to find it much easier to believe and call it ' instinct'. What a dog does not have and mankind does, is self reflection. At least there is no evidence that the question of being is an issue for dogs, but it is for humans.

Parmenides denied change. It did not fit his thinking. — Fooloso4

Yes, he denied it, because he considered only static relations to be really thinkable. I think that is not true. Being is indeed a fixating concept, but it itself can only be thought in relation to nothing, leading to the concept of becoming, pace Hegel.

So, his thinking was questionable. Do you think that thinking has now progressed to the point where thinking and being are the same but in thinking they were the same he was wrong based on his thinking? — Fooloso4

They always were the same. They are analytically the same. To be is to take part in a state of affairs (free after Wittgenstein). Their identity is not based on empirical findings but on conceptual analysis. That is why the identity of thinking and being is a metaphysical proposal and not a physical one or a psychological one. That is the whole difference between philosophy and physics for me. Philosophy is self referential, a conceptual analysis of only itself. It leads to self knowledge but not knowledge of the world.

I explained the cause of the Ukraine war to my daughter of six as the weakness of old men as being incapable of compromise. — Benkei

"How can I save my little boy, from Oppenheimer's deadly toy"

Russians - Sting

I'm wondering though what place unadulterated fun has in competition. Some people just love what they do and become incredibly good at it. So they might like the competition but the only reason they can really compete is because they love archery, running, skating etc. — Benkei

I think unadulterated 'fun', aka love, lays at the heart of our being in the world. The world is extraordinarily meaningful to us. And yes, sex is a lot of fun as well. That is why is is often referred to as playing. Someone who wants it is often described as 'naughty'.

And it's not as if women don't compete, just in other ways. So I'm not convinced it's just a male thing (which is worrying if true, because that means there's no clear way to avoid wars). — Benkei

Me neither. Women are sexual beings to exactly the same level as men, at least as far as I know. The sexual by the way, does not have any base connotations for me. I think it is rather exalted actually. It shakes the world. So for me it binds the most serious, 'le petit mort', with the most innocent ' playing'. Giver and destroyer of life.

"Secret Side" - Nico

You don't. I don't. As I say above 'maps are aspects of the territory used to delineate, or make explicit, other aspects of the territory', so they are real too, though formally (i.e. abstactions) and not as the concrete (empirical) facts to which they refer.

Again, to my way of thinking, being is the independent variable and thinking is a dependent variable (ergo, 'the being of thinking' (whereas 'thinking of being' makes no more sense than 'map = territory' or 'solipsism')) – and these "distinctions", or ideas, are thinking-dependent-dependent variables. — 180 Proof

The problem, the way I see it at least, is that both are dependent on each other. Thinking ' is' , certainly, We encounter it among all kinds of phenomena and give it a separate name, we refer to it as thinking. Therefore it seems that in this vast ocean of being, there is a tiny ship setting course, and perhaps making a map of this sea, we call this ship 'thinking'. Quite naturally it sets itself apart from the sea it is navigating, the stars it is mapping and the winds it gauges. It does not give it a pause ordinarily on its voyage.

However while far away from home, at a time the Captain cannot sleep and he stares over the ocean at night, something occurs to him. Why does he maps the things he maps? Why does he rwrite 'ocean' on one side of the paper and 'land' on another. "Because they are different" he tells himself. However, something keeps nagging. He notices and sees so much more differences, the water is dark blue on the ocean, light blue in some bays. He does not make note of it. He thinks, perhaps all these drops of water, each and everyone of them, they might all be different from each other. There might be differences we aren't even aware of. Or, perhaps, there might be similarities we are not even aware of. How would God discern between land and ocean? Would he? Or is the distinction as trivial to an omniscient mind as the minute differences between two drops of water are for us?

The captain of the ship of thought realizes that all the differences we make are based upon itself. Het is after all making the map. He realizes that the ship is from the same matter as the land is and as the ocean is, but that all the differences made within this matter are made by thought. He realizes that even him referring to matter, invokes the history of philosophy, wasn't it Aristotle that called it such, he wondered. So yes, he realizes, all this mapping, all this thinking, it is based on the history of it, what we have considered important, what we have considered all this stuff to be. He goes to sleep, feeling puzzled and slightly confused,, but not out of place. He realizes, he is not different at all.

Gotcha. (But I thought that had taken its own turn towards systems science with enthusiasms for things like Prigogine’s far from equilibrium thermodynamics.) — apokrisis

Probably, I am just way more old fashioned. It never was in my curriculum. If anything I subscribe to a perspectivist or constructivist world view. In metaphysics I use the dialectical method and m view of being in the world is phenomenological.

It is a checkable theory, like all metaphysics ought to be … to avoid being word salad. — apokrisis

I think that is impossible, because it would require another meta-theory from the vantage point of which you would have to check it, meta-metaphysics. (see pataphysics). What I think you do is simply conflate metaphysics and physics. Physics indeed needs to work with testable theories. I think though that it is a reductionist view. Metaphysics examines the assumptions with which we relate to the world. It is therefore introspective.

I had to google her... I do not think she would take kindly to my steak loving ways.

I take more to Donna Harraway and Simone de Beauvoir. I should also still undertake a reading of Camille Paglia, but she is on my list for ages so do not know whether it will materialize.

Well if there is a beginning to reality, there must have been a state that is defined as 'unreality', coming before reality came into being. However, at that point that was the state of affairs and therefore that was reality. It is simply the same problem as that of the first cause. It is simply a matter of definition / conceptualization, but that is the whole point of reality, it is itself nothing real.

So you don’t hold to metaphysical naturalism? Are you arguing for dualism or something? — apokrisis

Does me referring the question to a certain type of analysis say anything about my metaphysical commitments? But no, I am not a metaphysical naturalist.

Thus metaphysics and physics wind up singing from the same hymn sheet. Talk about the origins of reality are informed both by the dialectics of metaphysics and the pragmatics of science. — apokrisis

That is the difference (for me at least) between philosophy and science. Science departs from absolute presuppositions about the nature of what it is looking for. Philosophy examines which absolute presuppositions are being held when people discuss the 'origins of reality'. For me they do different things.

In order to discuss the natural world and everything within it from a third person detached perspective, I would take recourse to science. Why would a philosopher speculate about that? I will not in fact, because I am not a scientist. This: "So all that is the case in terms of the brew which could result in a “real material world” includes the tychism of quantum potential and synechism of mathematical symmetry." is enigma to me. Or maybe it is the current analytic vogue, that is possible, but then equally I will have to fold because I have no idea what this means. But indeed if the claim is that 'the material word' somehow is the world as it is, qua metaphysical position, then no, I do not hold that. I think it is reductionist and well... metaphysical in the pejorative sense of the word.

Why wouldn’t physics and metaphysics be prioritizing this merged approach? I don’t see a problem for the metaphysical naturalist given physics used to call itself natural philosophy for just this reason — apokrisis

They can, they just have to be on the same page conceptually. If one is a metaphysical naturalist maybe. However, then is it nor more likely that the physicist will come to a better understanding? I stand in the continental tradition rather squarely.

Isn't physics part anymore of philosophy? — EugeneW

I do not think so. Neither is law, art or construction. However, there is philosophy of art, philosophy of physics (a sub branch of philosophy of science) and philosophy of law.

Though of course one can argue a question is actually not a philosophical question, but a question of physics. That is a philosophical discussion too, because it is about the limits of philosophy.

The laws and constants are secondary. It are particles, their interactions, and their collective behaviors, that matter. Democritus told us that already. — EugeneW

There must be a 'The Physics Forum' where such issues are vehemently discussed.

Well, not to give the game away too much... — Amity

Because of my line of work I am offered a PhD thesis, nicely bound and printed, quite often. They are usually an uneventful read, not limited to and most certainly including, my own. Literary quality or nail biting subject matter are just not high on the priority list in general. However, if every page is as poetic as the previous post, then a masterpiece looms and I just have to get my hands on your book Amity. Tomorrow I will dive deeper and see if I can put the pieces of the puzzle together and explore more of that triple D work.

What philosophers are said to do.
No. Not navel-gazing.
'Willy-waving' :blush: — Amity

Of course philosophy is nothing exceptional. It is just performed by people who hope the penis mightier than the sword, or more likely, who have no other option. The language of philosophy is tinged with sexual metaphor as well.

Where do the laws of nature or the constants of nature fit into your notion of reality as mereologically the sum of all things? — apokrisis

I do not hold reality as the sum of all things, it is exactly the opposite I would say. Rasmussen, the author of the paradox seems to hold that idea.

Aren’t you looking at this from the point of view of the current “world of medium sized dry goods”, whereas physics suggests that laws and constants - the absolutely general - are all that constitute our reality at its beginning? — apokrisis

No, I hold reality to be a metaphysical concept, not a physical one. I would therefore also think that 'reality at its beginning' is a square circle. As if there was no 'reality' and will at some point not be a 'reality'. Reality is a concept by which we refer to all that is real for us, or all that is the case. It is an abstraction referring to the most general state of affairs.

So therefore reality is the wholeness of every thing, because - as you say - it aint’t the mereological sum?

And thus reality speaks to the maximally general. Which in physics-speak is laws and constants. — apokrisis

I have no idea what physics would say, I am not a physicist. If when physicists speak of reality they actually speak of 'laws and constants' that is well possible. That does not mean anything though in a metaphysical discussion. though when physicists and metaphysicians speak to each other they will first have to clear away such mutual understandings of a concept.

Well physics does divide reality - as the bounding wholeness of concrete actuality - into the two parts of laws and constants. — apokrisis

Ok. than they run into a paradox. Poor physicists. I do not see though why you would give the keys of metaphysics (conceptual analysis) to physicians (analysis of the physical world).

To fix that dichotomy, you then need a systems logic that can find the unity in such opposites — apokrisis

I recommend dialectics ;)

Do we see things differently according to a priori categories or did difference become a category as the result of seeing differences? Kant claims the former. This is not the prevailing view today. — Fooloso4

Well I would not know how you can perceive 'difference' without a mind wired to see 'difference'. It is also very binary, right, it is the same thing or a different thing. This binary view of things to me seems to belong to the human condition.

That supports my point. They are not invariant a priori categories. Or, more generally, it is not the case that thinking and being are the same if thinking leads to the denial of change. — Fooloso4

Why would it lead to a denial of change? Only if you assume that thinking cannot handle change. I don't see why it would not be able to. I conjecture that it is because one considers thinking to be mere logic or 'quantity', but dialectical thinking is very dynamic. I realize that I am the same person I was yesterday and that I am different from the person I was yesterday.

The relationship between Parmenides and Heraclitus is an open question. Some maintain that Heraclitus was responding to Parmenides and others that Parmenides was responding to Heraclitus. — Fooloso4

Ok, but I think we both agree there is more to thinking than monolithic 'sameness' or identity. In your view though it seems like we first have to experience non-identity in order to be released from our slumber that thinking prioritizes identity. I think that assumption, that identity and sameness is the default and change modifies our thinking is not warranted.

It not that he did not realize it, he just thought that becoming is a false opinion. His monastic thinking led him to reject change and difference. This is a good example of why we should not accept the premise that thinking and being are the same. — Fooloso4

No, it is a good example of the dawn of philosophy. He held on to assumptions, namely that 'real' thinking deals with the unchanging, which we questionable.

Feuerbach suggests (as I read him), it's merely an anthropocentric bias (blindspot) to reify – project, literalize – our thoughts (e.g. distinctions) and then thereby conclude 'maps = territory' (even as maps are made by / from aspects of the territory and used to make explicit other aspects – yet never 'the whole' – of the territory). :chin: — 180 Proof

Well, I wonder why I have to accept that the territory is real and somehow the map is not. The whole distinction is a map making exercise, done in order for us to navigate better, but reifying this distinction as something that is a really really real distinction is actually what you are warning us against doing.

It may be useful to do in some instances and to say, well this is real and unchanging and this is a changing aspect of it. At least I think that is where I think you are going with your distinction between tides and sea, but I might be wrong of course. It may also lead us astray if one holds on too firmly to these distinctions/ The problem with the paradox, at least from my perspective, is that it reifies a certain concept, namely 'reality', and then compares it to certain 'res' all things that are.

You have got this backwards. They do not conform to a priori categories of thought. It is, rather, that thought was forced to change to accomodate what did not fit existing categories. — Fooloso4

Well they have to, unless you want to go back to pre-kantian days. We need the category of difference to account to perceive things as different to begin with. We do not stumble into the world as tabula rasa.

Parmenides "categories of thought" exclude change. — Fooloso4

Well Parmenides did not have the categories of thought, or the 2000 whatnot years of philosophical development that came after him. Indeed he was puzzled with the notion of change. He had to deny it as real based on what he could logically fathom. It took Herclitus to clear it up to some extent, in the same river we step and do not step. What he did not realize is that becoming is a category of thought as well. He was not right, I am a Heracleitian, but what he got right was the notion that what is real has to be able to be thinkable. He thought change was logically impossible, that was a mistake.

How about starting a war for resources (the usual reason). They said it was the main reason, or one of them, I believe? You would have to do a better job of explaining why this is. I am not saying people are not driven to violence due to some ‘sexual malfunction’ or some such thing, just that I don’t see how it can be viewed as anything like a main reason for driving someone into war/violence.

I am open to a reasoned account of why this may be so (specifically as an item that majorly entwined with war/violence). — I like sushi

Well, it would take a book probably and I am not going to venture it. Wars of course are fought over resources, however there is always more to it than that it seems. In war more is involved than cold calculation, but also pride, competition. The whole terminology of war is tinged with competition, victory, valour, etc. Remember the parades and the statues, the decorations, and the monuments to people who were usually ruthless killers. Now I think at the heart of all this drive for competition, the show and spectacle one makes of oneself, is to show ones virility, if not individually than socially. The language of war, the movements of its pieces, the dancing of the protagonists, are all sexually tinged metaphors.

If your interest is in being argumentative, I am not interested. If your interest is in trying to understand views that differ from your own then you should begin by not misrepresenting what I have said — Fooloso4

Do not be condescending or tell me what I should be doing. It is impolite.

What is at issue is not the division but that there are these very small and very large things that were unknown and unthought. — Fooloso4

Yes of course there are. No one took germs and viruses into account before... and now we do. However. tiny slivers of matter that make us ill are thinkable, they conform to our categories of thought, there is nothing new to it. the identity of thinking and being stipulates that the categories of thought necessarily mirror that which we find in our world. That is at least what I take to be Parmenides' point, read charitably.

I edited out the wheel argument though, because I thought it would lea us astray and it did. However, I like the discussion about where the paradox in fact comes from. I think it comes from equating reality with the sum total of things. What o you think.

Thinking presuppose being like tides presuppose the ocean – nonidentity (e.g. Adorno, Levinas, Zapffe, Rosset, Meillasoux, Brassier). — 180 Proof

Yes, but being equally presupposes thinking. When I say something is, it means it is at issue for me. A rock, a grain of sand, an ocean does not care one iota about its being. An ocean is not in fact something different from a rock, but for someone for whom the difference matters. Materialists and idealists are just birds of the same feather they absolutize a certain an call it absolute.

"What is" is the horizon – unthought – of thought. In other words, thinking does not include, or reach, the greatest (final) number. — 180 Proof

I do agree with this. We know there is so much more than we can now fathom. "is this all", "there must be more to it" and there always is. However it is thought that makes this distinction. It creates its own horizon.

The divisions are a way of referring to things that existed prior to anyone thinking such things exist. — Fooloso4

So the division between the macroscopic and the microscopic always existed without anyone making the distinction? In who's mind, God's?

The wheel is a human invention, the micro and macroscopic world is not. — Fooloso4

Of course it is, or did they found some sort of sign saying "macroscopic world" when human kind first emerged? The division is human, the classification of one thing as different from another is a human made distinction predicated on the way humans perceive their world. That is the whole point of the identity thesis. Not accepting it in fact leads us to 'metaphysics' of the worst kind, the postulation of all kinds of things that are unthinkable.

Interesting is though that you consider the flaw of the argument to be the acceptance Parmenedian claim, while I think the flaw of the argument is not heeding it. :smile:

The problem is not with thinking that which is not, although more on that below, but with the assumption that what is is limited by what is thought. Until quite recently what was thought did not include quantum physics or astrophysics. We still to understand them and there may be things beyond our capacities of understanding.

As to non-being and indeterminacy see this discussion of Plato's metaphysics: — Fooloso4

Well up until recently there was no wheel either. What is, is limited by what can be thought. that is the thesis of the identity of thinking and being. What it holds is that we must hold that we can comprehend the world for it to be a world at all. It is metaphysics, not physics.

Based on what exactly? That sounds utterly ridiculous and I don’t really understand the obsession with the idea that sexual relations are somehow inextricably entwined with violence/war. — I like sushi

I hold the opinion that sexual encounters are entwined with pretty much everything we endeavor in, so amity's claims seems modest to me actually.

:party: :party: @Amity! That is a very joyous moment and an overwhelming feeling of freedom. It is off topic but may ask you what your PhD is about? I am interested. (Whether the subject matter is accessible to me depends of course, I tried reading a PhD on synthethic organic polimeres once and did not succeed, but those are exceptions).

It is the height of human hubris and folly to think that what is, was, and will be are limited by what we can think or comprehend or given and account of. — Fooloso4

Not really, because saying that 'there must be something that exceed the limits of our thought' as you seem to do, is then still conceptualized as a certain something an therefore thought. Something that cannot be thought, for lack of a better description, since what we are dealing with is the indescribable, cannot be anything for us. Even being is a way of conceptualizing. That which 'is not', is not, as Parmenides indeed held.

The genius of Parmenides is, at least I feel this way, is that he articulated the limits of our thought and by that notion invented philosophy, an inquiry leading to the insight that 'the world' is 'our world'.

1. Everything must have some explanation (PE).
2. Reality in total cannot have an explanation (PU).
3. Therefore, there is no reality in total.
4. If anything exists, then there is the total of all that exists (reality in total).
5. Therefore, nothing exists.

Somehow I must be missing the point... at least none of you gave the answer that is very obvious to me, so probably I am wrong.

The problem as I see it resides in the formulation 'reality in total'. The assumption is apparently that reality is the sum of all things (total).However, indeed, there is no reality in total. Of course we can add all existing things, fine by me, but all those things indeed have an explanation. And so 'the sum of all things' is consistent with premise 1. Premise 2 though targets not 'the sum of all things', but it targets 'reality', the concept we have of a whole in which all existing things ft together, even though we abstract from the actual existence of these things. Reality as such is the most general, but also the most empty concept. I see all kinds of things, but I never see a thing I call 'reality'.

Reality, like being, nothing, becoming, is an abstract concept, a category of thought. Now premise 4 perpetutates the mistake of equalizing 'the sum of all things' with 'reality', indeed if anything exists, the sum of all things exist, but that says nothing about reality because reality is not the sum of all things. It is our conceptualization of 'everything that is the case', but not a sum of things. Because of this confusion the author draws the conclusion 5 but he equates again a sum of things with a mental conceptualization, namely nothing(ness).

The argument can be stated without this mistake as follows:
1. Everything must have some explanation (PE)
2. Reality cannot have an explanation (PU) (Indeed, because an explanation is explains a phenomenon in terms of something else, but reality being the most general concept, we by definition do not have something residing outside of it)
Therefore:
3. Reality is not part of everything

And indeed it is not. Reality being itself an empty totality in which everything else resides, is larger than everything. The paradox arises when one equates realty with 'everything' and the author of the paradox merely proves the futility of doing so.

Of course, everything that is real, must have an explanation. That is true. Reality itself though is neither real nor explainable.

The whole post is quite hermetic I understand, but it can be stated much simpler. Just analyze the phrase 'reality in total'. Is a 'reality in part' thinkable? Does one piece of reality add up together with another piece to come closer to 'reality in total'? The combination of words is gibberish.

I used to think exactly that but I have gradually become less convinced that extinction or even dwindling are anywhere near. — Cuthbert

I agree but what would be the causes for that?

That was 2016 - then Me Too, then Sarah Everard. The expression of fear is getting more confident but I don't see the fear getting any less, because of the 'subterranean norms' and everyday sexism. — Cuthbert

I agree with this too. I do not think there are subterranean norms idealizing sexual violence between strangers. That is generally loathed upon I intuit. However, our society portrays the norm that if you want something you should come and get it, that success is a choice and that if you just want it hard enough success will be there for you. That mentality I consider to be spilling over to the gender relations as well. I just googled around a bit and found this plethora of videos telling us guys how to set up the ideal dating site profile that will get us the match we want. It is sad, everyone trying to be unique in exactly the same way. Authenticity stylized. This kind of commodification of love brings forth the appeal to 'distributive justice'. If love is a matter of goods, why would I have less of a right to them then you?

:up: Elementary Particles was quite good. Sex is like money: some people have a lot of it, most people have some but nothing to brag about, and some don't have any.

But that's about where the similarities end, since nobody deserves sex like how they deserve money (or the means to afford life requirements) — _db

I think that is the root of the problem. We have come to compare everything to money.

It's about maintenance of perpetual power by a certain kind of regressive, repressive male, no?
I know that's a simplification but a useful start to another necessary discussion, perhaps... — Amity

Yes. I wonder which way round the explanation goes. I mean, do men get the opportunity to be nasty because they have power or do they maintain power on account of being already nasty? Well, both, probably. In a matriarchal society would women end up being the nasty ones on account of having power or would the world be kinder on account of women being in charge? — Cuthbert

Well, it raises a lot of very thorny questions and none of the conclusions seem especially agreeable to either sex. First of all, who teaches the aggressive (rather than regressive) repressive male? Or are males somehow by nature bound to be aggressive and repressive and is it best to keep them under perpetual surveillance? If it is somehow a natural defect in males, is it then far fetched to hypothesize that females have some natural traits that cause them to become more easily attracted to a certain class of men?

Secondly, if it is cultural: where does machismo come from? It is a cultural trait perpetuated in a patriarchal society, but as the advantage men have over women due to superior physical strength (in terms of 'bursts' of strength, not tenacity or fitness in general as women love long than men and if the sport emphasizes durability fmelae bodies tend to outplay men's at some point) dwindles, so too should the advantage in terms of societal power. It would make the authoritarian male a species on the verge of extinction.

There are indications however that it is not very clear cut. Feminist criminologists hypothesized that crime rates of women would come to resemble men's. That has not happened.

My hypthesis is that there is a system of 'subterranean norms' squarely in place that keeps the existing structures of dominance and power alive. Both men and women keep them intact. These norms which are perpetuated in everyday conversation, on television, in movies, on school playground and on university campuses and tell us that having a sexually attractive man or women as a partner is superior to having a bright or witty one. From Lady Chatterly's lover to Material Girl by Madonna and from James Bond Maria Magdalen, the sexual always trumps the intellectual. That is no complaint, just an analysis. You and I, all of us, perpetuate these subterranean norms. 'Officially' though we all argue against them and tell ourselves but especially others we all want a partner that is intelligent, smart and kind.

Also, I want to clarify that declaring a war is different from self-defense. If a country is invading another country, the self-defending country should not be considered as declaring war. — Howard

What you claim is that war out of self defense is just. That is the problem, when is self defense justified and by what means may a country defend itself? the state of affairs in this framework is very clear cut, either there is war or there is peace. However, the problem is that of 'casus belli'. What infringement can trigger your self defense justification?

Oxford philosopher Amia Srinivasan has written about this: — Olivier5

Thanks for the resource!

Isn't this precisely the problem? They totally internalize the gaming pressure AND the rules saying which kinda girl/boy is popular and hence likeable by all, and which type of girls/boys is NOT popular hence NOT likeable by all. There's such a thing as a 'canon of beauty', everywhere, but they sacralized it. They carve it into the bloody stone that their brain is made of. — Olivier5

Yes I would agree, though I would not blame their brains. I would point to the societal forces feeding them this kind of morality. It is the story of our age.

Another 'theory' is that of Houlebeck in his Elementary Particles: sexual liberation during the 60's and 70's led to high sexual competition between males, and between females, with the most attractive people screwing all their content and less attractive folks living in eternel sexual misery. Freedom leads to inequality between the haves and the haves not, now applied to sex as well. — Olivier5

Too deterministic and neo-liberal for my taste. It would only work when there is some objective criterion for attraction and only on the assumption everyone wants the same thing screw around as much as possible. I think there are deeply felt anxieties around sex but not of the sort, "hey, I want to do only a prince or princess". That to me smacks of rationalization. "yeah, I do not have sex but I have too high standards".

I would look to a sociological explanation. Sexuality, like many other walks of life have become gamified, framed as competition and considered markers of success. The current anxiety around sexuality is not very different from the anxiety around having the best education, the highest grades, the best most earning job etc. The law of competition is a man made law, not a given

Yes, that's the thesis of The Mass Psychology of Fascism. Interesting note. — Olivier5

↪Amity Yes. This view is in contrast with Freud's, who frequently spoke of how repressed sexual energy can be turned into socially acceptable creativity and hard work through 'sublimation'. Reich says: "it can also be turned into hatred". He posited that as an explanation for the rise of fascism in the 1920s. I read the book a long time ago and was left unconvinced that Reich 'nailed' it. — Olivier5

The theme is rather current. We have turned sexuality into a means of oppression and the vice of this oppression gives rise to violence. Even J.J. Martin argue that Game of Thrones was built around this theme. There is something peculiar in that line of reasoning though, because the solution is so obvious, release the taboos around sexuality. However, that has never been the case. One of the oldest most universal taboos is the prohibition of incest, a law regulating sexuality. If we take both tendencies seriously we have within ourselves the conflicting desire of regulating sexuality and of releasing it.

I think anthropological research could show us how societies cope with these two opposite demand. Does it have something to do with patriarchal structures? Are the 'means of reproduction' somehow the real 'means of poduction in the Marxist sense? Is sexuality how it is practiced among man somehow conjoined to religious ritual, with a similar root as butying one's dead?

Thus, all the question-begging woo-of-the-gaps sophistry called to account (not "trolled") — 180 Proof

Sure. I think the two positions, the metaphysician who fills the gaps and the one that cleans the debris out again, belong together since Plato's dialogues. I consider metaphysics to be part of the human condition. Immediately when we claim that there is something unknowable or illusory, as Parmenides did, we desire to know it. I consider the mind to be dialogical.