Heidegger

11/10/2008 _jPolanik at nc.rr.com_ (mailto:jPolanik@nc.rr.com) writes:

[Joe]:
You seem to be defending the claim that nothing that is lacks properties by
which one may say what it is.

Jud:
Some more thinking by me to expand on the above. To an eliminativist
materialist everything that exists, exists as some form of a specific conglomerate
of ever-changing matergy. Therefore, for me EVERYTHING in the cosmos and
beyond (into what folk call *infinity) is comprised of matergy. There are no
*matergically unoccupied spaces.* Therefore, logically, *everything that exists*
is really an empty, meaningless phrase ( a redundancy) for (heteronically)
there neither is, or is not *nothing that does not exist,* which, automatically,
becomes in its turn yet another empty phrase or redundancy.

My position is based not upon some new or particularly modern physicality
claim, but upon elements of pre-Socratic philosophy which rejected traditional
mythological explanations for the phenomena they saw around them and opted for
more rational explanations. The crude cosmologies proposed by the early
Greek philosophers have been supplemented and in many cases supplanted by views
based on modern science.

I continue to place great importance on their questions some of which are
penetrating questions that incurious, unprofessional, lesser philosophers like
Heidegger failed to ask, but instead accepted as axiomatic *givens.* The
most notorious was his acceptance of *Being* as a proposition that though not
being susceptible of proof or disproof, he assumed its truth to be
self-evident.

“An understanding of Being is always already
contained in everything we apprehend in beings.”
(B & T. Intro.)

I was much affected by the Parmenidean rejection of occult *that which is
not* ( the to mae on) or non-physicality claims. My ontology comprises of a
reductionist (falling back) upon that which is obviously and verifiably PRESENT
all around us - matergic matter, including of course our own conscious
bodies, our material somatic vantage point, our personal matergic cellular
conglomerate - from which we are self-referentially aware of ourselves and the
matergy by which we are surrounded.

In that sense my position is a more sophisticated version of selective
aspects of the pre-Socratic oeuvre, which incorporates a modern, down to brass
tacks science shorn of its inherited Platonism. My position is one which has
come to terms with the importance of recognising useful scientific reification
and abstraction for what it really is - a useful abstractive bookmark which
fills in temporary gaps in scientific knowledge acquisition.

Once such a view is accepted the only remaining meaningful ontological
phrase or question concerns not WHETHER a matergic entity exists - but *the way,
manner or mode* in which a particular matergic conglomerate exists whilst it
remains extant in a recognisable form long enough to be classified as belonging
to a certain human attribute-type. (compare Descartes honeycomb.)

Before moving on from this concept, there is the question of whether at some
stage in the mereo-microscopy *descent* into the examination of smaller and
yet smaller particulates of matergy we finally arrive at a basic individuate
default component which is NOT composed of yet even smaller parts. Such
considerations are the stuff of quantum physics, and I see no reason to enter into
a discussion of those mereological themes right now, unless you
particularly consider it apposite to our discussion. If you do, as ever (with the
exception of zombic *let’s pretends*) I am always willing to talk about such
things as I’ve mentioned before,

Joe:
I think this is quite plausible and hope you’ll provide your argument in
favor of it soon.

Joe: (referring to the claim that nothing that is lacks properties by which
one may say what it is.)
As I’ve mentioned before, I think this is quite plausible and hope you’ll
provide your argument in favor of it soon.

Jud:
I think the above supplied a broad-brush outline of my approach, and the
spate of scientific interest in the existence of such a *cosmic soup* of dark
matter will someday finally put an end to the religious crap about some
Bedouin sand god creating everything out of a *nothinging kind of crazy
Heideggerian *nothing.*

Joe:
in any event, I do not contest it; instead, I merely claim that I might not
know enough about its properties to say what it is. You apparently believe
that it is not possible to make such claims; but, you’ve never explained how to
get the knowledge of *what* out of the awareness *that*

Jud:
It matters not whether you or I or anyone else has knowledge of the
existential modalities of the way in which a particular matergic accretion exists.
Not to be aware of ANY of the *properties* of a particular matergic mass,
simply means that you are unaware it exists. Matergic references (names mentioned
by others of unknown objects) are meaningless without some basic existential
indicant existential modality - or in your argot - in order to gain
knowledge of *what* out of the awareness of *that.* Referends of known objects are
self-instantiating.

[Jud]: (earlier)
We are not concerned particularly with* *WHAT is** (**what it exists as**
your obsession) we are initially concerned with the fact THAT such an object
exists AT ALL.. Such existential judgements are such that add to the concept of
the subject (formalised predicationally) and such predications naturally add
to our knowledge of WHAT an object is - WHAT KIND of an object is under
judgemental consideration.

Joe: I agree that one’s initial concern may focus on establishing that I am
before considering what I am.

however, you’ve confused the statement using the is of instantiation with a
statement using the is of predication. it is the latter that add to our
knowledge of what the object is.

Jud:
Within the eliminativist ontology, freed of the shackles of the dualising
occult, we are free to employ the existentially ecumenical *is* of
instantiation in its true existentialist indicant role of pointing to the *predicational
properties* of individual matergic conglomerates.

Joe:
I’m planning another post to address your complete agreement with and/or
misunderstanding of what Kant said about *exists* as a predicate;

Jud:
I look forward to that.

Joe:
meanwhile, let’s consider some of his remarks that are more to the point:

“I am conscious of myself, neither as I appear to myself, nor as I am by
myself, but only that I am. … this shows that I have no knowledge of myself as
I am, but only as I appear to myself. The consciousness of oneself is
therefore very far from being a knowledge of oneself…” [Muller 92-93; B: 156-160]

clearly the judgement that I am is made before there is knowledge of what I
am.

Jud:
Muller was mentally shit-bound and conceptually constipated like all
trannies. He stupidly (there is no other word to describe such juvenilia) splits his
matergic totality into a *mind* and a (separate - or at least *different*)
body. Then in common with all such idiots he renames *mind* *myself.* and like
some scum reporter from the gutter press looks for an imagined *CONFLICT*
betwixt his crazed spiritualistic creation. He needs screwing with a rolled up
copy of The News of The World (Britain’s most scurrilous newspaper.)
The trannie dualism is variable you see - a mentalistic horse for each
transcendentalising course - here it is ego - there it is id, here it is psyche -
there it is *I* here it is anima– there it is soul etc.

Muller and everybody else *has* no *consciousness* (like *tiredness* it is
not a property)
Muller exists in a modality of being CONSCIOUS. *Properties* are the
words we employ to ascribe aspects or states of the way that objects, matergy,
force-fields call them what you will, exist. You exist with the properties
of hands to pick up things and manipulate them, but when your hands get tired
you do not exist with an additional *property* called *tiredness* that has
been lurking behind the somatic scenes waiting for your hands to grow tired –
when you hands tire – you exist in a state of mode of HAVING TIRED HANDS.

[Jud]:
I will proceed on the basis that I am defending the claim that in order to
be the subject of an existential judgement that which is named and known of a
priori will have been automatically the recipient of some existential
modalities as attributed by past human instantiators, i. e., the persons who have
encountered the name previously, approved it, and mapped it to a known
denotatum in the past.

would you explain what you mean by *known of a priori*?

Jud:
A pewter beer mug is an object that has been known to most Englishmen of my
generation all our lives (from when we first started going for a drink in a
pub and holding one in our hands.) They are unfashionable and not used
anymore, and there are lots of people (younger perhaps) nowadays who have never
seen a pewter mug, but deducting that it would be possible to make a mug from
pewter would deduce it as reasonable to accept that pewter mugs exist based
upon the a priori reasoning from a general principle that Englishmen often
drink beer from mugs to a necessary effect that some of those mugs are of have
been made of pewter.

[Jud]: If the current human judge, faced with a name, is already a member of
that class of antecedal instantiators, then the connection will be made and
the name will be referentially linked (complete with its acknowledged
existential modalities i. e., *the white ship* or *the tall man* or The Russian
girl* etc., to the existentially modalised denotatum, the link will be judged to
be a valid one.- and the object
-properties relationship will be approved. If the name is unknown to the
person who encounters it, either aurally, or visually, or in the case of a blind
person by touch (braille) then it is impossible for such a person to assign
any properties to it whatsoever, and as far as that person is concerned (not
being a member of the class of antecedal instantiators) there is no evidence
that the object exists at all and FOR THEM the object will be judged bereft
of a denotatum and declared existentially invalid.

Joe:
it is certainly true that, when considering an existential construction such
as *god is*, one encounters a word or name to which is associated any number
of past statements (by self and others).
Jud:
Apart from this list and others I have never personally witnessed anybody in
real life say *God is.* because here it would simply generate the response
*God is what? Maybe in America people run around saying such a thing, and on
the basis that more Americans believe in God per head than most other places
in the world probably accounts for such curious behaviour.

Joe:
but, we are supposing that at least some of those who encounter the name
that is the topic of apophasis will reject all those past thoughts and arrive at
a conclusion like, *and yet, god is* or *and yet, the Tao is* or *and yet,
the Self is* or *I know that I am; but, not what I am*.

Trannies are capable of all kinds of strange behaviour – the bomb, they
torture, they dominate, they carry out mass extermination, they lie, the laugh,
they cry they slap tambourines and cry out: *and yet, god is* or *and yet,
the Tao is* or *and yet, the Self is*
But you are the only one I have ever encountered in all of my 73 years who
says: * *I know that I am; but, not what I am*.

Joe:
this, of course, is what Descartes did. after concluding *I know that I am;
but, not what I am*, he sorted through the thoughts he formerly had about
humans and rejected all but a single idea, that the I is an experiencing thing.

Jud:
Then he was a complete nut and fruit cake.

Joe:
Heidegger describes a similar process happening involutarily when an
existing-here

Jud:
*an existing here* is an infantile nonsense. *Here* does not exist nor not
exist. It is the object which spatially occupies a relative position that
exists.

Joe:
immersed in the *they-self* (whence comes all its self-identifications and
self-knowledge) hears the call of conscience and becomes an
*existing-here/experiencing-guilt*. presumably some or all of these previously held
self-identifications will fall away as the existing-here begins to live an authentic
life.

Jud:
How can you abase your intellect to such a depth by even wasting your time
copying out such utter shite?

Joe:
In view of these considerations, I don’t think you’ll be able to argue that,
because you believe these statements are meaningless, the grammar of every
language on earth must be altered to make the verbalization of these thoughts
…. ungrammatical. who’s in charge of making sure that happens? and, how
would we make such a judgement retroactive to cover now dead languages? if
Augustine can get away with saying *si fallor sum* then the problem hasn’t gone
away.

Jud:
The consensus of the world’s 478,367,213 English speakers will decide what
words are adopted as common currency into our language – not the mental
clinic ravings of some crazy Nazi kraut on the run. Cults always create an
reificative argot of their own – they have to, in order to accommodate the
transcendental meaninglessness they feed to the naive.
The only ( out of the ordinary) words that I have accepted are *matergy* and
its derivatives and they are terms being used increasingly by the modern
scientific community.
_http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lan_eng_spe-language-english-speakers_
 http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lan_en…)

[Jud]: Such predicatationally truncated, sententially orphanic verbalisms
are meaningless.

Joe:
on the other hand, perhaps you are trying to argue that existential
constructions are ungrammatical and therefore meaningless. if that is so, you*d have
to show that they were ungrammatical in all languages on earth before you
could conclude that such thoughts were meaningless.

Jud:
Yawn, here we go again with needless repetition. I have no agenda to
*ELIMINATE* any words existential or otherwise from any language on earth – least of
all my own tongue. My project (if one can call it that) is to make people
aware of the dangers of abstraction and reification (see Twin Towers, see
world *money* crisis, see religious wars and massacres etc.)

Joe:
would describe just what sort of relation, if any, exists between *is
grammatical* and *is meaningful*?

Jud:
The importance of descriptive clarity and ontological precision

[Jud]: I would appreciate it if you did not insult my intelligence with this
via negativa crap. I am not some half-arsed theologian attempting to
describe *God* by negating the crackpot attributions of Christian sheep, nor do I
seek to speak of God only in terms of what may not be said about the word God.

Joe:
the question is whether the world will let you revise the grammar of every
language on earth just to make the statements emerging from a via negativa
sound ungrammatical.

Jud:
Less of the straw men Joe – such crudity is beneath you.

I HATE the idea of God - not because I hate the belief in some disgusting
phantom that does not exist - but because of the real things in the real world
that are committed by fanatics who believe in this monster of the imagination.

Joe:
I realize that you may be contesting what you call transcendentalist
thinking in an effort to make the world a better place;

Jud:
My Gawd! The penny has finally dropped!

Joe:
but, telling people that love doesn’t exist and that compassion doesn’t
exist? how could that help?

Jud:
By disabusing the more intelligent ones of their misconceptions in the hope
that they will concentrate on loving and compassionate humans rather than
upon reified non-existent expectations (compare world money crisis.) The hoi
poloi seem to be a lost cause and will remain so whilst education remains
predominantly in trannie hands. So please drop the *via negativa* crap,
which has no place at all in any discussion with an eliminativist.

Joe:
the via negativa is just apophatic discourse or apophatic meditation
happening in a theological context.

Jud:
OK, the please cease associating me with any * theological context.* the
best thing to do as far as *theological context* and *theologians* is concerned
is to get away as far as one can from them – preferably in a good bomb-proof
shelter and keep your arse pressed firmly against the wall.

Joe:
the same process is at work in the opening lines of the Tao Te Ching: the
way that can be spoken of is not the true way. anyone can do an apophatic
meditation on *Self* without any theological context at all.

Jud:
Chinese trannie rubbish is just as stupid and boring as western rubbish as
well as being more difficult to understand as the first Catholic missionaries
to China soon discovered.

Joe:
you ask whether “and, yet, god is” refers to

(A) The *term *… and, yet, god is {god}* means that the iconoclast is not
referring to him or her self but to the twits who still continue to believe in
such godly guff - in spite of the iconoclastic denier’s exhortations?

or

(B ) The mental state is one of some inadequate iconoclast, who, though
rejecting all that is modally attributed to God, finally concludes that in the
last analysis and in spite of all that he has said: FOR HIM *God still exists.*

Joe:
I think it means something like option B but without the prejudicial
verbiage.

Jud:
I get the message – you obviously prefer supportive verbiage - for the:
“and, yet, god is” irrationalism?

Jud

**************

Posted on Sunday, October 12th, 2008 at 6:03 am
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