In a message dated 29/08/2004 03:25:00 GMT Standard Time,
calypso_1001_2000@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
Jud wrote
"The "way" the holism carries out the existential cognitive processes, is
the "way" that the holism is existing in those moments of time that it is
existentially cognising.
The "way" is not redolent in any way of oriental notions of "way" [path]
which one encounters in Taoism etc. ;-) There is nothing "mystical"
about the way or the ever-changing modal states in which a human being
exists. The way a human being acts/thinks is just another way of expressing
the notion of "modality, or manner, or fashion, or style," in which some
existential action is performed.
In that sense it expresses adverbiality and describes the manner in which a
human being executes some holistic action.
If a human holism is existentially engaged in climbing a ladder, the way it
climbs the ladder is described with adverbs, such as "quickly, slowly,
carefully, nervously, etc., and the "way" it climbs the ladder corresponds
with the "way" it is existing at that particular period of its animation
[which we call: "its life." "Way" itself does not exist, for it simply
represents current manner in which the holism performs some act during its
existential sojourn here on earth."
Thanks, but I thought you were referring with "the way", not so much to a
taoist idea (however interesting) but one that encompassed the ways any
entities (not just humans, or "human holisms") are or exist.
Jud:
Hi Calypso,
You are perfectly right of course, when referring to a holism I refer not
purely to a human holism, but to
all entitic individuates. All entitic individuates change their existential
modality [the way in which they exist]
and change is a characteristic and necessary prerequisite of all existents.
Existential events such as the movement of Calypso's arm, or Henk's
cognising of an empty set, but these physical movements and cognitive activities are
not existential "events" or "situations" which EXIST, but merely our
perception and translation into language of the way [mode, manner or fashion] in
which Calypso is existing during those few seconds whilst she moves her arm and
Henk's way of existing during the times that he is cognising of the notion of
empty sets.
My way of looking at the world, which is the mode or manner in which I exist
whilst I am thinking about these problems of philosophy could I suppose be
labelled: "Eliminative Nominalism," in the sense that it completely removes
the Kantian need for "possible experience" and the Heideggerian twee obligatio —
nay "requirement" for the crude mechanism of an imagined observer, or
subjective experientialist of possibility "being there" as an atemporal "token
human subject of experience."
Calypso:
If so then my question was about whether the ways an entity exists (let's
say, a non-human
entity, for now) themselves exist (in the ways you mean "exist" which
property (that some entity "exists" rather than not) seems to confer a high
value in your philosophy.
Jud:
My head naturally recoils tortoise-like into my shell at the mention of that
word "property" Calypso,
and I am not entirely sure what you mean by your question?
Let's address something tangible. Pick up that pen on your desk. As you
pick up the pen, certain existential changes
occur, both to the way the holism Calypso exists, and to the way that the
entity we have nominated with the word "pen" exists.
For the pen the existential changes include the loss of certain surface
molecules which are transferred to Calypso's fingers, and the
acquisition of certain molecules which are transferred from Calypso's skin
to the surface of the pen. The temperature of the plastic pen rises as the
heat from the contiguous Calypso holism is conducted to its physical structure.
These changes are existentially inseparable from the holistic pen in its
state of existing as the entity we call a "pen," and the biological changes
taking place in Calypso's soma [burning of oxygen and the calorific transfers
taking place as a result of the call for energy to cope with the arm and hand
movements of picking up the pen, together with the electrochemical
expenditure involved in powering the neuronal activity involved in calculating the
special characteristics of the outreached arm — the velocity of the fingers as
they approach the pen — the speed-to-weight ratio of the two converging bodies —
the likely force of impact when pen meets hand, and finally the likely
minor cantileveric stresses to be expected by the arm in order to support the
additional weight-load of the pen as it is lifted.
All of the above description concerns the ways in which the holisms "pen"
and "Calypso were existing, during those moments when they existed in the
variety of changing ways in which they were existing.
Calypso:
You see my point? Entities do not just "exist",
they always "exist" in certain "ways."
Jud:
I COMPLETELY AGREE - furthermore this is the conceptual entablature upon
which my eliminitavist nominalism is grounded - THERE IS NO "ONTOLOGICAL
DIFFERENCE" — the whole thing is age-old misunderstanding on the behalf of the
"tradition" of the completely IMAGINED "relationship" between an entity and its
"properties" or [even worse] its "essence." The whole creation of the
cognitive absurdity of "Being" with its original semantic meaning of "property" stems
from this original Greek cognitive cock-up. There is no "ontological
relationship" — no "differential relationship" exists between an entitic object and
its mythic "properties" because there is no "difference" to be resolved or
discriminated. As you say — the entities do not just "exist" in some
Heideggerian pure state, which is juxtaposed against their existential modes whilst
they are being they entity they are — the existing object exists in constantly
changing ways or modalities. I have been on this list for years, and you
are the first person who has been able to grasp this fact — a fact that was
beyond Heidegger himself to comprehend.
Calypso:
In what ways do the existing of what "exists" and the "ways" the existing
"exist" exist or not?
Jud:
There is no "existing of what exists," in the same way that there is no
"dancing of what dances."
There is only "the existing existent existing" and the "dancing dancer
dancing."
Calypso:
Sorry for the convolutions.
Jud:
Please don't apologise Calypso - if only Heidegger would have allowed his
brain to "conceptually convolute" with a little more effort and with more
serious application — the way yours is doing - the history of philosophy
would have been different, and the intellectual damage he wrought upon our
youth wouldn't be taking place, sapping away the intellectual energies of the
west when they are needed most.
Cheers,
Jud.
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