Hindsight's a great retrospective tidier and organiser of the forking paths
that punctuate our crazy journey along the byways of our transient human
actuality. If only we can make sense of the sidetracks and doubling-back — the
sudden veering off. If only we knew what the underworld of our hidden lives
revealed — what strange causal factors are at play - what tangential touchings
there are — the origins of the secretive chains? Why do we meet this
particular person at this particular time? Are we the toys of the gods, as the Ancient
Greeks believed? Do some omnipotent beings look down from partings in the
clouds above and play with us like toys on strings?
Perhaps, as Omar Khayyam suggests in his great Rubiat, God plays Chinese
chequers on some vast infinite board with us for pawns? If only we can expose
the concealed framework and wiring of our brief moments in time. Life would be
complete — be fully rationalised. In other words the overcomplicated
assumptions and quasi-academic ponderings and arrogant assertions of Heidegger in his
ivy towered world in Freiburg University are upon closer examination merely
a reflection of the normal questionings of any of the multitude of people
that inhabit the earth. Yes, but they are tortured and twisted into the
artificial, strictured nomenclature of an already outdated ex-Jesuitical scholar,
whose single intellectual cotyledon in an age of scientific achievement was that
of a demeaning, backward looking transcendentalism, which suited the
Hitlerian mysticism of which he was part.
The bottom line is that if you had the patience, you could find all the
Heddegerian and Sartrean concepts and observations embedded in the conversation
and consciousness of any alcoholic bum in some back alley skid row — that is —
if you had the patience and the fortitude to sit down amongst the empty
cans and rotting refuse and tease these things out of him or her.
What I'm saying is that what has been lauded and hailed as a great
contribution to twentieth century philosophy is really no more than a descriptive
regurgitation in fancy language of the universals of human conscious experience
and folk wisdom, recognised by all, (even the most uneducated), without the
need for didactic reminders larded up into some highfalutin academic
nonsense-language and labelled with the cachet of a 'philosophy.'
Having read both the excellent translations of Parmenides' poem 'The Way of
Truth,' I can now see the Parmenidean postulation as illustrative of
Heidegger's misunderstanding. When he addresses '*Being*' — he tries to explain the
nature of *Being* ontologically — and confuses *Being* with existence —
something that 'is' and is impossible not to be, for if it 'wasn't' then it
'isn't' and could not be.
It is rather like trying to explain 'white' to a blind man without having
'black' or any other colour or shade to compare it with. Intellectually
Heideggerians suffer from a kind of cognitive blindness. The *Being*ness of
'*Being*' is a meaningless term.
When the egg is fertilised and the cells begin to divide and multiply there
is no consciousness of aliveness or 'Being.' The chemico-organic processes of
life are already underway, but the awareness of the fact of existence comes
only with the gradual appreciation and awareness of ones surroundings as a
result of the received stimuli and information arriving at and being stored in
the cortex. For the awakening brain there is no tryst, courtship and marriage
with aliveness or being, there is no psychic ceremony at the altar of
existence, where the soul is united with the 'isness' of *Being*, for '*Being*ness'
is impossible and to 'not to be,' [in spite of what Hamlet proposed], and
'deadness' is also impossible. A dead body is merely a lump of rotting flesh
without 'aliveness' — there is no 'deadness' in a corpse — it has simply lost
the state of 'aliveness' but it still exists. There is no '*Being*ness' in a
living body or dead body.
A living body is simply something, which is in lack of 'deadness' — which is
inharmonious — for there is no such thing as 'deadness,' — so better to
rephrase it and say: "There is no '*Being*ness,' in a living body — it is
'alive' and is simply something, which is in lack of existing as a dead human
carcass."
So you say: 'If it has no '*Being*ness' and no 'deadness,' what does it have
— what is its nature? "Beingness" and "Deadness" do not exist — only that
which is living and that which is dead exists. The answer is that it is an
object, a swirling mass of micro-material and energy, which has or has not the
status of 'being animate.' As Parmenides says: There is no such thing as
'nothing.' There is no such thing as '*Being*,' it is just another imperfectly
attributed word that we use as far as entities/organisms are concerned to
describe the condition of being 'physically present.' Unfortunately, due to
problems of linguistic change which took place in early medieval times, we use the
same IS-word to introduce some information about or describe a stone or a
lollipop, for we say; "the stone 'is' on the table," using the third person
singular present tense of the verb to 'be.' Whilst the stone 'is' it is not
'being' in the same sense as the living human who is *being* in some state in an
entirely different way, i. e. he or she *is alive. * 'Aliveness' and
'non-aliveness' are simply words we use to describe different temporary arrangements
of the swirling electrons and particles which perform their ever-changing
dance that takes place in the ballroom of the cosmos that may or may not
recombine in the Nietzschean Terpsichore of eternal recurrence, depending on how
much a gambler you are, and whether you are willing to take on long odds and
look to the long term.
Now to discuss and describe the relationship of the brain of the human
holism in its interaction with other brains and the surrounding environment is
another subject completely, for which other branches of science are undoubtedly
better fitted for the investigative and descriptive process. This is not the
province of the false and artificially created wraith of '*Being,*' or even
worse the con-man substitute "Dasein," but human life-forms in their
interaction with the natural world and other human life-forms, a dimension which
metaphysical philosophers from within the perfumed kiosks of their notorious
purdah from reality are ill equipped to handle. Far better for them to peep
through the bars of the predominantly male harem of their intellectual
incarceration and throw the occasional poetical lapidate into the ever widening circles
and eddies of existentialist hot air.
I say again Heidegger wrongfully conflates the function of the *is-word* in
normal sentences. Yes, we can say: "The haystack is burning." But we cannot
say: "the man is
*Being*." Why not? Well, because the man already 'is' and the brain
recognises this fact and will not allow the statement because it anticipates the
tautologous nature of the assertion. The mind knows that a man, (a *Being*),
can't "be" (exist,) twice in its earthly presence. If on the other hand you
produce the sentence: "The man is **being** brave." Then the brain-logic accepts
the sentence as valid, because now the subject has a proper predicate and the
*BE-word* is acting in its true primordial function as a signifier of the
present continuous form of the verb *BE*. In other words the human brain
instinctively knows far more about **Being** than Heidegger could ever know. Put
another way, there is no such thing as "A *being*'s mode of *Being*," for by
its very nature a *Being* already * is. *
Of course the brain accepts the sentence:
"A man's mode of being brave is to face up to his foe," for the brain
realises that the BE-word is about existential modality and NOT about 'existence.'
It is impossible to discuss or describe "a *being*'s mode of **Being** in
the same way that we can refer to a computer's mode of operation, or the modus
operandi of a criminal. **Being** as far as the human brain is concerned is
NOT a mode of **Being** but rather a multiplicity of ongoing modalities and
activities of the animal physiology during its continuance as an alive
conscious entity in that particular configuration. *Being* DESCRIBES the present
continuous mode of something which exists within, the cosmos. The brain rejects
any sense of dualism of existence in any given *thinking entity* such as man.
It recognises it as an ontological falsity, and in the same way that it
rejects the sentence illustrated above — here it is again for you to look at:
We can say: "The haystack is burning." But we cannot say: "The man is
being*." Why not? Well because the man already 'is' [otherwise we could not use the
tern "the man...") the subject noun makes him an ontological fait accompli,
sententially he is already: "old news," and once his presence has been
extantally imbued he cannot be existentially reconstituted with an entitic duality,
and the brain recognises this fact and will not allow the statement because
it anticipates the tautologous nature of the assertion. The mind knows that a
man, (a *human being*) can't "be" (exist,) twice in its earthly presence.
Heidegger admitted his ignorance not understanding this basic semantic and
grammatical actuality in black and white, and you can read his words in Basic
Concepts.
Cheers,
Jud Evans.
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