Heidegger

In a message dated 01/01/2007 14:01:55 GMT Standard Time,
_artefact at t-online.de_ (mailto:artefact@t-online.de) writes:

Jud: [earlier]
Wrong. You forget about the nominational implication or designatory
discrimination implied, inferred, deduced and derived both by the addressor and
addressee in such sentences, together with the employment of the definite or
indefinite article. Antecedal [historical] sentential implication also plays an
important part in the negation or instantiaton or representation of a form or an
instance of universalisation. Thus: the sentence. *The frog hopped on to the
lilypad* nominates a PARTICULAR frog and a PARTICULAR lillypad.

ME:
Here you confuse particularity with singularity. Particularity is merely the
way a universal breaks down or particularizes itself into species, as in
“The daffodil is a flower.”

Jud:
Reminder: My caps are always for emphasis - not overbearingness or
discourtesy. Ha ha! How can a *Universal itself* - which is just a mental fiction -
*break down? Hahaha! Does an individuate frog *ascend upwards Jesus-like* into
an imaginary component in an imaginary *accumulate* or conglomerate *whole?*
This is crazy stuff which goes back to mankind’s most primitive, naive and
crude past, which can be traced to the belief in spirits, hobgoblins, pookars
and bugbears. These *mentalisations* cannot be found in the world. They are
no more than cognitive tools or mental grappling-hooks for getting a purchase
on our environment and TALKING ABOUT IT.

The mentating activity that goes on in the brain has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO
DO WITH A FROG ON A LILLYPAD. We are NOT addressing the Platonic abstraction
*particularity* [see above] the reference was to a *particular* frog/lillypad.

A *particular* [see any dictionary] is a small part that can be considered
separately from THE WHOLE - but there exists no WHOLE - what exists are
millions of particular, individual, unique, specific frogs and lillypads. Neither
frogs nor lillypads exist as one huge concentrated conglomerate ball of
salientian or liliaceous plant matter of which each animal or plant is a
constituent part.

Look. I will illustrate it in dialogue form.

*Do *UNIVERSALS* exist?* says one primitive, mentallly-challenged Greek with
a peculiar flat-faced physiognomy to his companion as they sit in the dust
of the agora. We shall call the enquiree: *Dimitus Nescientotle.*

Dimwititus Nescientotle:
*Damn these frogs - they are everywhere! Look! there is one cheeky
long-tongued batrachian catching the flies that buzz around my lunchtime snack of
black olives, capturing those irritating Haematobia irritans with its sticky
lingual lash and wolfing them down with a satisfying blink of its yellow eyes.

Are we suffering from a plague of these slimy creatures? These frogs can be
found everywhere. The streams and rills that runabout my home village in
Pharsalus in Thessalia are full of them. Every Athenic pond and puddle seethes
with them. A hoplite recently returned from service with the Great Alexander the
Macedonian told me they are to be found all over Asia - their existence is
truly ubiquitous and universal.

Taurorhupos:
*But hold! it is not their EXISTENCE that is ubiquitous and universal. Each
individual frog exists in one PARTICULAR spatio-temporal spot - but the
*existence* of that frog does not exist - only the individual frog exists.

Dimiwittus Nescientotle:
But the fact that they are to be discovered everywhere in our world means
that their presence on earth can be described as being universal - is that not
so Taurorhupos?

Taurorhupos:
No - it is not so. The FACT that we are aware that other frogs exist
universally in Pharsalus, and others exist all over Asia does not mean that the FACT
that we are aware that frogs exist in Pharsalus, and others exist all over
Asia itself EXISTS. FACTS do not exist - only that which is factually
described by a statement or assertion of verified information about something that
is the case it is claimed to exist - exists.

Nor does it mean that we are free to reify that fact into a semantically
meaningful noun complete with a nominatum - for no such nominatum called a
*universal* exists. Only the thinking, cognising humans - you and I - sitting here
in the dust claiming or disclaiming the existence of *universals* exist.

Each frog exists separately as a uniquely individual object wherever it
exists. A crowd does not exist. Only individuals which are crowded together
exist. The term *crowd* is merely a mental tool we have developed to avoid naming
each member of the public separately crowded together in close proximity. In
a like manner the term *universal* is also a mental tool we have developed to
avoid [the impossibility] naming each element scattered over a wide area of
our world or the cosmos.*

Jud:
[earlier]
(A) Have referred to the frog or lillypad in some earlier dialogue or text.
(B) Will continue by introducing additional information concerning the frog or
lillypad in a subsequent sentence or sentences, in which the precise nature
of the frog and/or lillypad is added to establish its ontological
singularity. It can clearly be seen from the above that what is addressed is a single
unique frog and a single unique lillypad and NOT all the frogs and lillypads in
the cosmos.

ME:
Here, having already confused singularity with particularity, you now
confuse generality with universality (das allen Gemeinsame with das Allgemeine)..

Jud:
No confusion reigns. A particulate (an object composed of distinct
particles) or a particular object is one that is separate and distinct from others of
the same group or category.

A singularity (being one of a kind) is simply another way of describing the
same thing. Your confusion lies in reifying the human brain-processes by which
we organise the way we conceive of things and mentally package those things
into convenient *KINDS* AND *CLASSES.* Confusion as yours results in
reifying such instrumental classificational activities of the brain into REAL
THINGS. In this manner there is little difference twixt your position and
Meinong’s, fantasy of the Crystal Mountain, or even some aspects of the wilder shores
of Berkeleyism.

Dr. Eldred:
A universal does necessarily refer to all members of a class.

Jud:
The term *class* has no nominatum [it does not refer to any object in
particular]. *Class* is just an imaginary or *let’s pretend* box into which
similarly perceived objects are pretended to be thrown. *Let’s Pretend -Universals*
don’t tidy frogs into one group. *Let’s Pretend -Universals* tidy the human
brain-processes for ease of recall just like we order a computer to save
things in appropriate folders and files.

Dr. Eldred:
In fact, in the statement, “This is a singularity.”"singularity” is a
universal.

Jud: You keep obsessively introducing abstraction and typically are
confusing two meanings of the word *singularity*

Look again at the sentence you have just typed.

What leaps from the screen at hits you in the face? THE INDEFINITE ARTICLE
has either been subconsciously or deliberately excluded. WHY?

The FIRST use of the term is fine: *This is a singularity.* But then comes
the typical Heideggerian *modal switch* or obsessive obfuscation. You insert
the word *singularity* bereft of a definite or indefinite article thereby
CONVERTING the word from a noun which points to a definite singularity as in your
“This is a singularity.” [employing the adjective *this* which = unique or
specific to a person or thing] to one of your beloved abstractions, which has
the same base coinage as *love, or freedom or any other such otherworld
generalisation.

Look.

(A) Singularity - [noun] That which is singular.
(B) Singularity - The quality or condition of being singular.

See the difference?

(A) A single frog is a living, breathing singularity.
(B) Refers to no particular object - has no denotatum and is simply a human
mentalisation which does not exist. Only the mentating qualifier or
conditionaliser exists.

Dr. Eldred:
All of the three categories in the triad singularity, particularity and
universality are universals.

Jud:
All five abstractions above: [1] categories, [2] singularity, [3]
particularity, [4] universality and [5] universals are simply the way that you describe
the contents of your mental toolshed. They do NOT exist in themselves, but
are only lets-pretend flower-beds into which you seed and plant your pretty
verbal signs.

Only YOU the head gardener who uses these useful fictions to husband the
blooms in your communicational rose-garden exist.

Dr. Eldred:
And no singularity (i. e. unique, single being) can be addressed by language
without raising it to the level of universality (NOT generality).

Jud:
BY *LANGUAGE* *Language couldn’t *raise* a feather with the word *fart.*
The frog on the lilypad is NOT *raised to the level of universality* when
observed and spoken of by a human onlooker. What goes on in the head of the
human has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE FROG OR THE UNIVERSE.

No such metaphysical transcendence takes place for the frog where the
unfortunate animal ascends into some humanly conceived *universal realm.* No state
of being or existence above and beyond the limits of material experience is
undergone by the frog, nor is the frog transmogrified into a state of
excelling or surpassing, or going beyond usual material limits and becoming a member
of some great dimension of frog-hood in some rainbow coloured many-roomed
universal store or commissary in the sky.

The metaphysicalisation takes place in the brain of THE HUMAN universaliser,
whose brain seeks to identify the frog, and classify it with the useful
fiction we call a *category,* ( like we do with all the other elements of our
environment.]

Dr. Eldred:
“This is a frog,” e. g. connects a singularity with a universal, viz. “frog”.

Jud:
*This is a frog,* identifies the object and awards it the name or
recognisable characteristics which correspond or implicitly refer to identifying
qualities which members of the English-speaking language group have antecedally
agreed upon to be communicated by the word *frog*.

Now consider the following carefully.

The word *universal* is simply a *word-icon* or shortcut method of
compacting the sentence:

*Identifying characteristics which correspond or implicitly refer to
recognisable qualities which members of the English-speaking language group have
antecedally agreed upon to be communicated by the word X.*

Therefore to claim that a UNIVERSAL exists, is to at the same time say that
the longer version of the concept - and this can be just about ANY
periphrastic - round the houses - way of uttering it - ALSO EXISTS.

Dr. Eldred:
So the statement has a contradiction within itself, something that mere
understanding must overlook to stick to its abstract, common-sense identities
that (unsuccessfully attempt to) avoid contradiction like the plague.

Jud:
I contribute my position in the manner of an ontologist. Yours are the
misconceptions of the man in the street couched in more educated language. You
deal in abstraction and generality - I deal in objective specifics. You reify
the useful-fantasies of the human brain into real things - I scientifically
deny this primitive method of ideation. It is really as simple as that.

Dr. Eldred:
The tangle of terminological jargon of your eliminativism is elaborate
camouflage for having overlooked the simplest and deepest insights of philosophy.

Jud:
Eliminativism HAS no *jargon.* Read through the page again. The only
neologism I have ever created is the term *causal object.* Where is the jargon? All
my terms are simple, straightforward words, understandable, accessible and
employable by any member of the public educated to a standard High School
level.

No quasi-impressive alien words are needed - no Germanisms or other weird
creations of the continental obfuscationists are required [the sauerkrautisms I
use are for purposes of fun or parody.] All simple English, understandable
even to the common or garden transcendentalist as his sits in his
neurophysical garden-shed sorting out his bulbs of *Being* into helpful universalisms.
;-)

.. regards,

Jud Evans. Personal Website:
_http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/index.htm_
 http://evans-experientialism.freewebspac…)

Posted on Monday, January 1st, 2007 at 6:30 pm
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