Heidegger

09/11/2008 _jPolanik at nc.rr.com_ (mailto:jPolanik@nc.rr.com) writes:

snip

[Joe (new)]:
however, it sounds like you have redefined ‘universal quantifier’. a
statement like ‘I am’ is more like an existentially quantified statement;
particulaly after one explicitizes the implicit complement. ‘I am’ = ‘I am an
existent’. this would be treated as an existentially quantified statement: There is an
x such that x is an existent and I am that x.

Jud: (new)
I have already defined the so-called *universal quantifiers* of natural
language and have identified them as *is* and its fellow conjugates. Below I
spell out my position at greater length, rather than in the fragmentary way that
it has emerged in list-discourse.

EXEGESIS.
NATURAL LANGUAGE UNIVERSAL AND EXISTENTIAL QUANTIFIERS.
Copyright 2008. Jud Evans

Description of Alternative Quantitative Usage.

There are two different historical sentential semantic symbols of
instantiation or existentialisation employed in all human natural languages.. The choice
of one or the other depends upon whether a Designatum and/or a Nominatum is
being referenced. The technical terms Designatum and Nominatum represent
the two existential modalic categories of that to which the appropriate sign
refers, and which may be called the existential addressees of the
referential noun-signs involved.

The EQ and the UQ

1. An EQ string is a sentence in which the word *exists* is employed to
indicate and confirm that an actual object, technically known as a Nominatum
is being cited by the subject noun. In such sentences the expression
*exists* operates as a secondary, confirmatory or auxiliary natural language version
of the backwards E or existential quantifier used in logic. An explanation
of the collateral, corroborative or adjuvant nature of *exists* is given later.

2. A UQ is a sentence in which the word *is* is employed to indicate that
a grammatical object, or the recipient of the attributed implicative
existential status of the self-instantiated subject, technically known as a
Designatum is being referenced by the subject noun in the manner of the universal
quantifier X of predicate logic. The inclusion of the universal quantifier
*is* is predominantly overt, but it continues to appear as a sentential
termination in an archaic form is such sentences as *God is.* where the
existentially modalic predicate is implicatively covert. Such archaisms mislead many
people into mistaking this form of the universal quantifier as performing the
dual role of an existential quantifier. The designatum referenced by the
subject noun and prefigured by the indicant *is* designates something (whether
existing or not) that is referred to by the linguistic expression. The
semantic outcome of the use of such universal (existentially unrestricted)
quantifiers such as: *was, were, am, are, is, be,* etc., means that both the
existential modality of an actual object and/or certain predicational adjectival
or adverbial description can be attributed to either an abstraction
(reification) or an actual concrete object when accordingly appropriate.

The Self Instantiation of Subject Nouns.
It is important to understand that in both designatum and nominatum
orientated sentence-types both subjects or noun phrases are self referentially
instantiated or existentialised as appropriate, depending upon their respective
ontological status. The secondary existential quantifier *exists* does not
function as the prime instantiator or instancer of a subject, for in the case of a
denotatum specific or non-specific instances are mediated by the use of
definite or indefinite articles *the* and *a* and are subsequently
ontologically confirmed as a concrete actualities with the predicated confirmatory
modalic existentialiser *exists.*

Thus in such sentences as: *The Eiffel Tower Exists* the word *exists* is
not the primary existentialiser of the nominatum *The Eiffel Tower* (which is
automatically notionally existententialised by the referential symbol *Eiffel
Tower* known antecedently as pointing to a real nominatum.)
The existential quantifier *exists* merely confirms the term: *The Eiffel
Tower* as authentically referencing an actual object referred to by the
linguistic expression: *The Eiffel Tower* for those people who may not already
know the subject’s ontological status as an actual concrete object.

The universal quantifiers of natural language are the symbol *is* and its
conjugates. *Is* permits the subject of the sentence to label both a designatum
and a nominatum. Its use allows the subject to act as a linguistically
universal instantiative operator, whether what is instantiated is an abstraction,
a reification, an idea or a real concrete object.

The Universal Quantifier *is* functions as an designatory indicant in the
following manner:

Functions.

Operation One: It acts as an enabler of the subject- designatum relation.

Operation Two: It points to the predicate and confirms the self-instantiated
subject’s implicit payload of: individuality, plurality, historicity or
contemporaneity by corroborating the number and tense by means of the número
temporal switch: *was, were, is, are, am, was* etc.

Operation Three: It confirms the self-instantiated subject and in the case
of the designatum being a concrete object indicates the predicational
existential modalities as expressed by the predicator which follows in the string.

Operation Four: It enables descriptors of adjectival and adverbial
predication to be attributed to abstractions, reifications or *states of affairs.*

Semantic Mechanisms:

The denotatum is that object which is denoted by the subject noun. It is an
actual object referred to by a linguistic expression and is a natural language
version of the existential quantifier used in logic.

The abstracta and reificata beloved of the *any metaphor will do*
transcendentalist fraternity lack such existentially precise denotata. Because of this
they favour the use of the ontologically obfuscational universal quantifier
/be/ (cf. Heidegger) and its conjugates: been, be, being, was, were, am, is,
are, etc., which many linguists continue to mistakenly characterise as a
verb.

Strictly ontologically speaking, the transcendentalist employment of
inappropriate expressions employing the universal (*designatory*) quantifier /is /
rather than the existential *nominational* quantifier /exists/ are not worth
the paper it is written on or the time of the reader reading it.

Semantically and syntactically neither the universal operator *is* or the
existential operator *exists* is a verb - for they are not NOT a doing or action
words. The words was/were/is/are/ act as deictic pointers or indicant
symbols which operate much like indicative arrows tipped with number and tense.

[Jud]: [earlier]
Thus the complexity of God’s implicit existential modes is different from
believer to believer.

[Joe (new)]:
how could God have an existential modality? you’ve indicated that only
existing existents exist; that existing existents only exist as matergy; and, that
only an existing existent can have an existential modality. so, most of
those who believe that there is a God would be alleging that God has no
existential modality as you define that term.

Jud:
Please do not play silly-buggers my words. It wastes time and furthermore it
is excruciatingly boring. Look at the sentence again. It says:
*Thus the complexity of God’s implicit existential modes is different from
believer to believer.* Patently I am NOT a believer and think the God-idea is
a total load of steaming meconium-type crap.

[Joe (new)]:
have you redefined the word ‘God’ so that it can only refer to a physical
object contrary to the stated intention of many who use that word to refer to a
being that is not an existent existing only as matergy?

[Jud]:
the utterer of any word (never mind logical redundancies like
*I think therefore I am* is more aware of anyone else in the cosmos of
his/her existential modalities (the way he/she exists)

Jud:
You deliberately ignore the above - why? Are you frightened of its
implication for you doctrine?

[Joe]: in any event, if the statement ‘I am’ is expanded to explicitize the
implicit complement of the naked copula, we would get one of the following:

‘I am’ = ‘I am an existent (of some sort)’ ‘I am’ = ‘I am a reality (of some
sort)’ ‘I am’ = ‘I am a being (of some sort)’

Jud: The *of some sort* is total childish crap!!! EVERYBODY ON EARTH KNOWS
THEY ARE HUMAN - and whether they are male or female (or somewhere in between,
Chinese or Danish, white or black etc.

Joe: we have to add the qualifier ‘(of some sort)’ because of the ambiguity
as to the mode of being/existence/reality of the referent of ‘I’.

Jud: NO WE DO NOT - you are writing TOTAL CRAP!!! There is NOTHING at all
*ambiguous* about being human and knowing it.

[Joe (new)]:
we don’t expect a chemist to say “this stuff is gold; and, that’s all we
need to know; so, stop asking about the internal structure
(if any) of a gold atom”. why would anyone abort an inquiry as to the
structure of a human as soon as they learn that ‘human’ is the name we give our
species?

Jud:
I am all for any inquiry as to the structure of a human. But there is
nothing remotely *ambiguous* about a human any more than there is something *open
to two or more interpretations; or of uncertain nature or significance; or
about an orangutan or a piano.

Joe:
Inquiring minds want to *know*.

Jud:
Enquiring brains also *know* and reject that which is patently purile.
Enquiring brains also want to know why some uninquisitive brains continue to
believe in imagined *ambiguities* in spite of wealth of evidence to the
contrary and there being NOT ONE SHRED of proof that such *ambiguities* can be
found in spite of thousands of years of hot air and no results other than
interminable wars and other transcendentally inspired carnage.

Jud

Posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 7:00 am
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