Heidegger

A CONVERSATION WITH GEORGES METANOMSKI - PART 2

I26/09/2008

Georges writes:

Many, many thanks Jud.

It’s not a reply to your post. That will come after the second part and will
take some time. I just would like to draw your attention to two places,
where you got IMO wrong.

1. Very marginal, but not insignificant, the danger of labelling. Just
because I call my ontology “Relativistic Phenomenology” (RP) - I had to call it
somehow - you drew a parallel between it and Husserl’s Phenomenology (HP). Now,
RP has nothing to do with HP. It does not even negate it, but simply ignores
it as meaningless.  Inhttp://findgeorges.com/root/relativist…

I write:

**Let’s note that our Phenomenology has nothing to do with what Husserl
called “Phenomenology” by abuse of language. For Husserl the Transcendency is
accessible via intuition and consists of “Phenomena” defined as correlative of
direct and self-evident intuitive mental grasp. Now, such constructs were for
millennia called “Noumena” and Husserl’s “Phenomenology” is in fact a
particularly abusive Metaphysical Noumenalism.**

Jud:
Many thanks to you too Georges. I was looking forward to your reply. Point
taken, acknowledged and understood and complied with Georges - I quite agree
- thus are we in accord.

Georges:
2. You said once:
*There is … the scientists reification of motion, energy and other useful
fictions,*

and

*Density, mass, motion, speed, time, relation, volume, field, strength,
force, charge, amperage, voltage, wattage - all are reifications
[thingifications] of the abstractions such as; quantities: current, potential, and power and
others, which have become entrenched in natural language as they have in the
language of science.*

Now, that’s wrong, you just got your facts wrong. Whatever idiocies the
scientists may utter out of their taboos and equations, in Copenhagen or
elsewhere, SCIENCE NEVER REIFIES THE ABSTRACTIONS OF ITS MODELS. Bad science fiction
and kitchen almanacs do. Newtons *hypotheses non fingo* and Dirac’s *Shut up
and compute* assert it briefly, but I learned it from a long correspondence
with Einstein and discussions with Infeld. Actually, I accepted Einstein’s
view, but found it incomplete and my RP is an endeavor to complete it.

Jud:
(A) IMPORTANT DEFINITIVE DISH OR ENTRÉE.
My own view is that to include any abstraction into scientific,
philosophical, psychological political, or theological models (and to a large extent in
natural language) is in order to achieve two quite separate objectives. One
use is acceptable - the other unacceptable.

(B) THE VERIFICATIVE CONCRICITY OF TRUTH.
Before attempting to define the nature of the two uses of abstraction and
reification, I divide such usage of abstraction and reification into two quite
distinct types, i. e., as being acceptable and non-acceptable.

But note, by the use of *acceptable or non-acceptable,* I do not mean that
there exists some human, scientific, philosophical, theological or ethical
authority (least of all me) who or which has the power to pontificate, judge,
adjudicate or decide on what is qualified as being ontologically adequate or
acceptable abstractive or reificative description for the purposes of narrative
communication or modelic description in any sphere or domain of human
intercourse.

ULTIMATE TRUTH.
Human attempts to pontificate, judge, adjudicate or decide on what is
qualified as being ontologically adequate or acceptable description of states of
affairs which correspond to *truth* or being *true* amounts to no more than
interesting entertainment, usually achieved via the expulsion of hot air from
the lungs passing over the vocal cords and being modified by the wagging of
the tongue, but also achieved via writing, gesticulations, images and recorded
sound. Access to ultimate or perfect truth is only accessible for human
beings in their experience of their own corporeality or by the contiguous contact
with physical objects. The ultimate *truth* as a formal assertion of
validity exists wholly and perfectly as a necessary feature of the existential
modality of the material object AND NOWHERE ELSE.

Please note that I am not claiming that *truth* exists – I reject any notion
of the idea – it does not. What I claim is that ontologically and nominally
the words: *object, entity, matergy, force-field can equally be referred to
as embodied *truth* or adjectivalised as:* a true object, a true entity, a
true matergy, a true force-field, for material objects always exist as they
truly are as the objects they are as physically lawful entities. It is
impossible for an object not to exist in the apodeictic manner, mode of style in
which it exists.

Therefore the only true science, is the science that speaks of objects,
addresses objects and describes waves, energy, cause, force, relation, truth,
etc as objects, or, if that find that grammatically or descriptively onerous or
impossible then employ abstraction which is previously acknowledged to be no
more than useful fiction employed solely for the purposes of explication.

To paraphrase Karl Marx whereby he said that: *value is crystalised labour,*
I claim that in the same way that the hidden social relationship beneath
capitalism’s distorted economic surface a material, physical object can be
described as *concretised truth.* It goes without saying that if you take a
hammer and break open a stone, or split an atom into its constituent parts you
will not find *truth* (like the fool Heidegger looked for the *is* in a leaf )–
for neither *truth* (in its abstractive sense) and *is* in its
existentialising sense) do not exist. Material truth can only exist as a material object.

1. THE ACCEPTABLE USE.
The acceptable us of abstraction is one which is welcome, commendable and
useful in the interests of brevity, concision and is helpful in order to cut
out needless circumlocution, ambage and paraphrastic rewording for the purpose.
of clarification. There is one stipulation attached to its use. The
addressor and the addressee must be partners to a mutual understanding that it is
only employed as useful fiction. If either of the communicant users of
abstraction believe or are under the impression that the abstracta or reificata
actually exists, then its use is to be considered invalid for any statement of
ontological import.

2. THE NON-ACCEPTABLE USE.
The use of an abstraction or reification allows the scientist, philosopher,
psychologist, politician or theologian to make statements, posit claims,
theories, hypotheses speculations, submissions and surmises and still remain in
total ignorance of the processes which he or she describes. Additionally
analyses and computations are often made labelling causal phenomena which do not
actually exist at all. In such cases a abstractive name is given to a
non-existent reified pseudo-entity the classical ones being& energy, force, movement,
causality, relativity etc. These terms are in fact no more than theoretical
bookmarks which do not exist in the real world at all.

Take for example *energy.* It is difficult to find a scientist that these
metaphysical phantoms are purely fictional – but it is possible to come across
a few quite influential and respected ones if one searches hard enough.

This is what Richard Feynman – one of the most respected of twentieth
century scientists in the world had to say on the matter:

‘It is important to realize that in physics today, we have no knowledge of
what energy is. We do not have a picture that energy comes in little blobs of a
definite amount. ” [27] (Feynman. 1987)

Surely ‘energy’ like all abstraction is merely a reification of the activity
of an perceive process into a ‘thing? Similar to the way that ’love’ is
reified into a quasi-object, when plainly it is only the human objects we
characterise as lovers who exist? And yes, someone else believes that to be true.

‘Energy is an abstract concept invented by physical scientists in the
nineteenth century to describe quantitatively a wide variety of natural phenomena.’
[28] (Faires & Simmang. 2002)

For the eliminative determinist there is no need for this definitional
confusion and difficulty – ‘Energy IS Matter and vice-versa!’ All talk concerning
the existence and transfer of ‘energy’ is mystical nonsense. And, as if to
cap it all, speaking on the subject of ‘energy,’ Abbott and Van Ness
continue in the second paragraph of their book:

‘Thus it [energy] represents a primitive statement about a primitive concept.
’ [29] (Abbott, & Van Ness 1988)

The way I see it, the idea of attributing some ‘mysterious’ process which
is not understood, as being the work of some ‘secondary’ even more ‘mysterious’
force that is not understood, is hardly different from that of our
primitive ancestors, who, ignorant of the nature of thunder and lightening,
attributed the flashing and banging phenomenon to an unknown, invisible spirit who
lived in a tree or sat upon the clouds above.

If one ceases to believe in spirits or Gods that once satisfied our
forefathers as being responsible for a so-called ‘creation’ of the universe – then
what else is there other than material TO be held responsible? By eliminating
one of only two alternatives, a person is but left with one remaining
available explanation – an explanation which I am forced to cast into metaphorical
language as that of: Matter as being both legislator and legislatee.

Georges:
I shall briefly summarize Einstein’s view, not to argue for it, - I find it
incomplete and hope to argue soon for my RP - but simply to inform you. So,
the chair is now Einstein’s:

We may distinguish 3 domains:
1. W, “objective World Out There”,
2. S, subjective Sensory Inputs,
3. A, subjective Abstract concepts and structures.

Jud:
I beg to differ with the great man (with no diminution of respect.)

1. W, “objective World Out There” Yes, I agree. The world undoubtably
exists. Those that doubt it (Berkeley et al are lunatics and should be totally
ignored .)

2. S, subjective. Sensory Inputs do not exist – a complete myth. Only the
human sensor with (material) sensors (organic structures,) eyes that register
incoming (material) tachyonic quanta, nose that registers material
pheromones, ears that register vibrating (material) air, taste receptors which analyse
chemical matter, and the epidermal skin envelope with registers and sends
(material) electro-chemical signals to the thinking meat (the material
sensorium) above.

3. A, subjective Abstract concepts and structures. Absolutely wrong.
Concepts, ideas, and the new fancy replacement name *memes* do not exist – only the
human conceptualisor, ideator with the neurological memetic storage area
called *grey matter* exist.

Einstein:
Science
-maps S to A representations (AR),

Jud:
Wrong (or more precisely *unclear.* ) Representations only exist when they
are material representations. Graphite or dried ink particles on paper,
pixilations on screens, carvings on wood, plastic or stone etc. Only *that which
is represented exists.* Neurological representations do not exist.
Only the representing brain meat exists.

Einstein:
-endeavors to structure ARs as deductively consistent models,

Jud:
Only the neurologically active modeller (the scientist) and his material
models exist. The model that the scientist ideates actually exists as a mode of
the way his brain exists. if the modeller imparts knowledge of the modular
way he exists to an addressee, the addressee immediately changes the way he
exists to that of a similar existential modality as the informant modeller
or rejects the mode of the modeller and stays the way he exists in a modality
of rejection.

Einstein:
-verifies or falsifies models by regression to S.

Jud:
For the modeller to verify or falsify models by regression to S. simply
means that he adjusts the way he exists in a similar way to the way he might
adjust the way he is sitting upon a chair. His neuronal and physiological state
changes – he exists in a different way to before he verified or falsified his
model or arranged his gluteous maximus in a different or more comfortable
manner.

Georges:
Science NEVER asserts anything about W and is entirely confined in the
subjective domains S and A and their mutual transformations.

Jud:
I am not sure that I understand this Georges? Do not scientists make claims,
file dissertations, hypotheses and theses describing the aspects on the
world in which they specialise?

Georges:
In the scientific context reifying concepts of A as “objects” of W would not
qualify as “reification”, but as psychotic disorder.

Jud:
Then Feynman, Faires & Simmang, Abbott and Van Ness seem to have identified
such a psychotic disorder. Then there is the reification of the existential
modality of moving objects as *Movement* and *force* and all the rest of the
abstraction which bookmarks aspects of the natural world which science does
not understand but employs reification to *paper over* (or *stand in place
of*) the (as yet) undetected facts of the material involved.

Georges:
It’s true that metalanguage shortcuts may give the impression that 4
dimensional curved Space and its P-Equivalent Field and their resulting Big Bang are
constitutive real elements of the real Cosmos of the W (out there). Yet, all
these abstractions are strictly confined to A and their reification into S,
let alone into W is unjustified, absurd and anti-scientific.

Jud:
I am so relieved that you agree with me Georges. You can run rings around me
scientifically and it is refreshing to see that we both analysis these bad
practices not to attack science but to strengthen it and to help to release
it from the residual chains of medieval metaphysics which seem to be as
difficult to remove from scientific terminology as dog-shit from a suede shoe.

Georges:
True, some feeble minded scientists drunken with the intellectual beauty and
power of their equations, out of their taboos neglect the detoxication and
profess inebriated phantasms, some of which I mention in “The EPR Paradox”  inhttp://findgeorges.com/root/second_enl…

But real, level headed scientists, few and far between, share Einstein’s
attitude.

Jud:
I too share Einstein’s attitude towards science and hope that the great man
would be pleased rather than offended if we made some slight adjustments in
order to improve its impact and endeavour to complete it, and help assure its
applicability in this new century. Like you I make my modest suggestions for
improvement out of my love and respect for him alone and not in the spirit
of some punk kid taking on the biggest man in the room to prove his manhood..

Warmly,

Jud.

Posted on Sunday, September 28th, 2008 at 6:01 am
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