In a message dated 03/11/2004 18:34:56 GMT Standard Time,
michael@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx writes:
To ask the question why? (something rather than nothing) is to ask for
grounds; to classify such questions as meaningless or childish without
reasoning why such why? questions are meaningless and/or childish is itself
childish (at least hardly philosophical) but with the added flavour of
adulthood. I must in the face of such charges ask why the why? question is
meaningless/childish?
Jud:
There are SOME questions that are SO OBVIOUSLY plain daft as to engender a
response
that it is not a real answer at all - but the sort of reply one gets in the:
*ask a silly question and
you get a silly answer* scenario. My response DOES NOT fall under that
category.
The question:
"Why? is there something rather than nothing?" is such a question. Apart
from its basic daftness,
it also contains other negative elements and implications. It has
connotations of a hope of
divine intervention, and at its most nastiest of all: *purpose.* But that
is bye the bye [although it is interesting sociologically
in the sense that it is worth studying how some minds actually work.)
The similar, but slightly more profound and more intelligent question:
*How [is it] that there is something rather than nothing* is worth
addressing if the *nothing* element is swept aside and ignored, because at least it
challenges man's intelligence rather than his insecurity and fears, and appeals
to his inquisitiveness and genius for finding out practical things about
himself and the world around him and what makes it tick.
Both questions however contain a fatal flaw, and that is the ontological
assumption that there COULD be *nothing* - that *nothing* is a phenomena
that could exist [or *be*] if there was no *something.* It is this
assumption which renders both questions stupid and meaningless, for the notion that
nothing could exist in the state of being nothing is so bizarre and primitive
that it is beneath contempt.
Looking at it from a Heideggerian viewpoint in relation to the potty idea of
*Being.,* as *nothing* doesn't exist* and thus being incapable of perception
by a human being, *nothing* is ruled out as far as *object givenness* is
concerned, so it can have no *Beiing* either.
So here we have or rather don't have *nothing,* which is not a being, which
is not an object, which is not a part of *Being,* and we are expected to
swallow the tale that it *existed* before there was *something?* They must think
we all came over on a banana boat.
Michael:
What does it mean to suggest that a question is
meaningless?
Jud:
It means that he who suggests it considers the question as having no
meaning, or value or direction or purpose.
Russell [and I think St. Witt also] used to refer to similar types of
*questions* as *meaningless noise.*
Michael:
It could mean that the answer is obvious (common-sense,
self-evident, taken-for-granted) and thus is not a proper question at all
(irony, stupidity, blindness);
Jud:
Precisely.
Michael:
it could mean that the question is self-referential and thus is only a
problem for a certain specific
problematic and is at the very least only a provincial problem, local to the
language game or argot that poses it;
Jud:
Again true. It is a problem for a certain group [the religious and their
trannie hangers-on] and in that sense is philosophically provincial and naive,
and is local to the peculiarities of certain religious and *Being* cults who
have their own peculiar argot of gerundialisms kiddy-wink-speak.
Michael:
it could mean that the elements of the question are themselves highly
questionable as to their "reality" within
some problematic of the 'real' that the problematic (the problematic of that
which questions the question as meaningless) poses,
Jud:
Elements of questions don't have a *reality,* for they are abstractions, and
therefore are not real.
There is no *problematic of the real* an entity is either real or it does
not exist.
Michael:
but that brings us back to the original question about the very be-ing of
beings, the thatness of
the beings that are at all rather than not, which in terms of the
problematic that questions the meaningfulness of the why?
Jud: There IS no *be-ing of beings,* *very* or not-very* An entity [an
entitic being] exists in the way that it exists,
but it is the ENTITY which exists, and not the way in which it exists that
exists. unless your brain-cells are capable of grasping this
fact - you will never be able to understand anything of this discussion.
Michael:
question, means some notion of existence or reality or actuality, etc.
Jud
NO IT DOES NOT!!!! To question means to have some notion of entities which
exist, of entities that are real,
and of entities that are actual. *existence, reality, and actuality* don't
exist. They are merely grammatical abstractions.
Michael:
Obviously such a problematic does not even pause to question the
meaningfulness of its
pronouncements on the meaningfulness of alter's question; the notion of its
'reality' is assumed secure and immune from question; but that possible
question is the question posed by alter, the question as to the be-ing and
non-be-ing of the things that be (in the critic's terms, the difference
between the things that 'exist' and the things (surely, non-things?)
Jud
There is no *notion of reality.* There is no *question as to the be-ing and
non-be-ing of the things that be,* for that is NOT A QUESTION - it is an
ASSUMPTION that
*Being* and *non-Being* are actualities that can be questioned. This was
PRECISELY Heidegger's phoney-ploy approach in B&T.
THERE IS NO QUESTIONING OF *BEING* IN B&T - The *phenomena* is assumed to be
real right from the first sentence to the last sentence.
In fact I am surprised that he was never sued for selling goods under false
pretences.
As to your mention of *non-things* when I read that I reached for the
wastepaper basket in case I vomited.
Michael:
that do not 'exist', which is made into a programmatic distinction between
what is
worthy of speech and that which is not worthy of speech in a serious sense).
Jud:
Because a topic is worthy of speaking about [in order to humour some
confused person such as Heideggerians are]
does NOT instantiate that topic into an entity or a being. The topic of
conversation in such a case remains as brain activities of the disputants,
for there is no denotata to which the words refer.
Michael:
The charge that the why? question is childish-cum-primitive (because????)
seems, without anything other than such a pronouncement, to be without a
why? itself, and can thus be cast into the rubbish bin. Why should (if it be
so) some example of thinking called, claimed, childish/primitive, be seen as
thereby unworthy? Is such childishness itself an example of 'nothing' in
intellectual terms? Is this nothingness not a questionable thing?
Jud:
The notion of *nothingness* or non-things* being questionable is only valid
as a form questioning of the state of mind of the person
who would mentions such *things* as being possible in actuality. So yes, a
psychiatrist would be in order to ask such questions of his patient.
There keep appearing reports of the discovery of the: *religious gene* and
so forth, which predisposes otherwise quite normal people to
believe in the most incredible things. I feel confident that it will be
isolated in the not too distant future, and people will be able to seek
treatment eventually.
Michael:
The why? question seeks a ground. A ground to the assertion that some thing
must be, has to be (using the terms of the problematic that seeks to demean
the question's asking itself, e.g., in the claim {unreasoned} that it is
meaningless and/or childish), is obvious, can not not be (but does not
perceive the very usage of be-ing in that refutation!) is being framed.
Jud:
It is not a question of *demeaning* Any *demeaning* is done to himself or
herself by the person asking such questions
Questions which fall into the category of: *Ask a silly question and you get
a silly answer category.*
Michael:
The only response it to defame the question itself, to de-frame it, cast it
as
out-law, criminalise it. But this very criminalisation makes profound
(though blind) employment of the very questionable (for alter) its self
(what is worth or unworth, what is analytically existent or non-existent).
The blindness of such avoidance and demeaning is itself another gift in its
showing its dependence upon that which it avoids and demeans.
Jud:
The defamation is self defamation on behalf of the questioner who utters
such questions.
The demeaning is self-demeaning on behalf of the questioner who utters such
questions.
It is the philosophical equivalent as noisily breaking wind at a posh social
gathering.
As of this time I do not believe that if is a criminal offense to ask such
weird questions,
it certainly isn't in the UK, though with the return of the Bushite cult to
power in the USA,
questioning the sanity of the questioner or the verity of the question might
well be made a
criminal offence in what used to be America.
Regards,
Jud
Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
(http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm)
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