Kenneth called out from the desert:
> "Why is there anything at all? Why, rather, is there not nothing?"
Indeed, Ken'th, this is the most beguiling question that screams its silent
scream whenever any real thinking takes place whether the question is
addressed or not. What does it mean -- to be? rather than -- not to be?
That's the edge of the question on the shifting horizon of the 'rather'.
Be-ing receives its contour of meaning only when non-be-ing is seen as the
limit, the bound of be-ing. Non-be-ing is always a possibility for be-ing.
In terms of beings, a being might not be at all: e.g., taking electrons
(etc, I mean sub-atomic particles), in a high-speed collision with other
particles, an electron (a particular, a this, electron) might vanish (qua
electron, qua, this electron); also we might consider our own death -- when
we die we cease to be a human being, i.e., when we are only a body, and a
rotting or rotted one at that, we are no longer a human being but a body, a
corpse, a once-was-human-being.
The question becomes pertinent too when we consider the (possibly loopy)
scientific notion of the Big Bang. It is almost impossible not to ask, when
confronted with a conception of the beginnings of the universe: why?! Why
should it have ever begun? What does it mean to suggest that whilst space
and time began with the Bang, it needs space-time (even at the coordinates,
zero/zero) to begin at all? And, since all of this is apparently evidenced
from observing the expanding universe (etc), such evidence comes (via the
fact of the finite speed of light) observing stuff from the remote past
(because it is so far far away) which apparently was accelerating away from
all other stuff, is it not possible that the supposed accleration reached a
maximum and now the universe is contracting again, imploding? But much more
importantly, why can we not ask what was in being before the Bang? They say
either "nothing" or that they/we have reached the limits of science (science
can not, cannot, will not, conceive of nothing (as no thing)). If we persist
in asking why? they will declare that all we speak of is nothing (because
they can not, will not, think their, their! nothing) and thus we are
indulging either in mystical claptrap or some brand of nihilism (as if that
was something full of awe and thus deserved war).
At every moment of thinking the question Kenneth has raised is imminent and
immanent, shivering on the brink, whenever a being is present, taken for
granted as be-ing the being that it is. Taken for granted: what a tissue of
possibilities for thinking this innocent phrase contains; what grants?
More later, I need to go walking/thinking in the dim autumnal light, not
caring one jot how the vote has gone...
regards
michaelP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---
> "Why is there anything at all? Why, rather, is there not nothing?"
Indeed, Ken'th, this is the most beguiling question that screams its silent
scream whenever any real thinking takes place whether the question is
addressed or not. What does it mean -- to be? rather than -- not to be?
That's the edge of the question on the shifting horizon of the 'rather'.
Be-ing receives its contour of meaning only when non-be-ing is seen as the
limit, the bound of be-ing. Non-be-ing is always a possibility for be-ing.
In terms of beings, a being might not be at all: e.g., taking electrons
(etc, I mean sub-atomic particles), in a high-speed collision with other
particles, an electron (a particular, a this, electron) might vanish (qua
electron, qua, this electron); also we might consider our own death -- when
we die we cease to be a human being, i.e., when we are only a body, and a
rotting or rotted one at that, we are no longer a human being but a body, a
corpse, a once-was-human-being.
The question becomes pertinent too when we consider the (possibly loopy)
scientific notion of the Big Bang. It is almost impossible not to ask, when
confronted with a conception of the beginnings of the universe: why?! Why
should it have ever begun? What does it mean to suggest that whilst space
and time began with the Bang, it needs space-time (even at the coordinates,
zero/zero) to begin at all? And, since all of this is apparently evidenced
from observing the expanding universe (etc), such evidence comes (via the
fact of the finite speed of light) observing stuff from the remote past
(because it is so far far away) which apparently was accelerating away from
all other stuff, is it not possible that the supposed accleration reached a
maximum and now the universe is contracting again, imploding? But much more
importantly, why can we not ask what was in being before the Bang? They say
either "nothing" or that they/we have reached the limits of science (science
can not, cannot, will not, conceive of nothing (as no thing)). If we persist
in asking why? they will declare that all we speak of is nothing (because
they can not, will not, think their, their! nothing) and thus we are
indulging either in mystical claptrap or some brand of nihilism (as if that
was something full of awe and thus deserved war).
At every moment of thinking the question Kenneth has raised is imminent and
immanent, shivering on the brink, whenever a being is present, taken for
granted as be-ing the being that it is. Taken for granted: what a tissue of
possibilities for thinking this innocent phrase contains; what grants?
More later, I need to go walking/thinking in the dim autumnal light, not
caring one jot how the vote has gone...
regards
michaelP
--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---