Being and Dasein - two types of representation

Greetings to members of this list.

I find the discussion on Being and Dasein quite interesting and would
like to put forward my ideas on the question concerning what these
two terms used by Hegel and Heidegger actually "mean."
My approach is not one based on a scholarly study of the writings of
these two philosophers but by starting from scratch and attempting
to erect a new formal system. I have just finished writing the first three
papers on this new formalism and have called it *generic theory*.
The papers can be found in my NEW STOA web page. How these papers are
going to be accepated in the academic world is a complete unkown
for me at this stage. (are they "too philosphical or too
scientific")

The approach involves developing a constructionist/deconstructionist
formalism based on an arrow theoretic approach borrowed from
mathematical Category Theory but without any axioms. (sounds
daunting, but ignore all that because what I have to say here is
free from any technical jargon). Unlike classical formalisms in the
sciences and mathematics, the actual details of the formalism are not
announced as an a fait accompli, but are placed on the other side of
the Stating Point as something to be achieved.

This means that the Starting Point is of a Socratic nature - all you know with absolute
certainty is that you don't know anything. This absolute knowledge
placed in opposition with absolute ignorance is seen as an embryonic
and *generic* form of Heisenburg's uncertainty principle. I manage to
get around this seemingly intractable situation by introducing
absolute relative types. The most elementary of the relative types is
the type of entity which has merely an attribute and the other type
of entity which is this attribute.

A single attribute, one _ has_ it and one _is_ it. I call this relative type
*gender*. The entity which _has_ the attribute is said to be of
feminine gender and the entity which _ is_ the attribute is said to be
of masculine gender. Clearly, two entities which only differ by
gender are
(a) different
(b) indistinguishable (if Distinguishablity is seen as being
based on a difference of attribute .. the case in the classical
sciences and mathematics)
This gender construct is rather more tractable than Hegel and
Heidegger's "Being" and "Being-there" (Dasein) primitives.

Rather than using natural language as the basis for expressing the
constructs I use the double sided mechanism of the arrow theoretic
approach (It is important that philosophers come to at least a
philosophical appreciation of how (potentially) radical the category
theory approach is from classical non-constructive approaches such
as Set Theory in maths - unless if one is forever content for
philosophy to be a literary discipline only)

Eventually I arrive at two distinct types of (arrow theoretic) representations of generic
entities. One type can be thought of as a formal _ontological_
representation. This is the type of representation that an entity _has_. Classical science and
maths is uniquely concerned with representations of this type. The
other type is a formal _gnoseological_ representation. This is the
representation of the entity which has an ontological representation.
In short the "Being" entity can be known (represented) as an entity
of ontological type. The "Being there" entity is known (represented)
as _gnoseological_ typed.

These two representation types are the two primitives of
spatio-temporality. The ontological is profoundly synchronic
(spatial) and the gnoseological profoundly diachronic (temporal) in
nature. The synchronic is based on a triad of dyads. The diachronic
on a doublet of consisting of a dyad and an antidyad.
They are inseparable and combine to make up the generic spatio-temporal
entities. I use this approach to provide the foundations of quantum
mechanics and the new , highly structured infinitesimals of a new
mathematics.
However, because of the _generic_ nature of this new science, there
are no bounds to what this theory can bind to. Take theology, for
example. One finds that all of the great religions (as for the
philosophies) are based on trinities. These are representations of
ontological type - synchronic representations. Sometimes, the
representations involve dualities -God and Satan, for example.

In the theological arena, a good example of a religion which
puts the gnoseological side first is the ancient Iranian
religion founded by Zoroaster in the sixth century BC. Early
zoraterism, offered a monotheist solution to traditional Iranian
dualism. The wise lord Ahura Mazda ruling over two spirits who
made distinctive choices between "life and not life". Ahriman
was the evil one which chose the "non life" option - a kind of
incarnation of the second law of thermodynamics, the god of
inevitable thermal death. The good spirit was vitalist and
embodied the mysterious principle of emergent Life. In later
zoraterism, Ahura Mazda becomes known as Ohrmazd and finds
himself in direct opposition with the evil Ahriman to produce a
dual deity system with a clear choice between two gods, one good
and one evil.

Also of interest is the "generic" morality of the Stoics, which
was based on a duality between Nature and the individual- a
relationship between the literal and the non-literal. The Stoic
reasoning is that although the literal influences the non-
literal and conversely, the details of this relationship are
inherently unknowable and thus cannot be used as a basis for
objective choice. Thus the excluded reasoning along the
literal/non-literal and non-literal axes and only accepted the
literal/literal and non-literal/non-literal axes (the total
opposite to present day sciences) Translated into a Theory of
Choice (generic morality) This means that the literal (the
individual) must reason locally based on what is in its power to
comprehend and the non-literal (Nature) does likewise. Each to
its own. The two work in harmony *in some inexplicable way*
giving rise to the Stoic belief in some kind of divine
Providence. Basically, this form of knowledge is of a
gnoseological nature (Dasein).

In a final (possibly grotesque) schematisation, could it be that
the "Care" that Heidegger speaks about as being analogous with
the divine Providence of the Stoics?

I would very much appreciate comments and criticisms on the above.


Doug Moore
========================================================
Dr Douglas Moore
Computer Science Department voice: 61 3 9479 1142 (office)
La Trobe University, 61 3 9857 9964 (home)
Bundoora,3083 fax: 61 3 94793060
Australia email: doug@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
see THE NEW STOA page -Generic Science and Stoic Philosophy
http://www.cs.latrobe.edu.au/~doug/generic/generic.html





--- from list heidegger@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ---

------------------

Partial thread listing: