Heidegger

In a message dated 28/09/2006 _metatron99 at hotmail.com_
(mailto:metatron99@hotmail.com)

writes: Jud,
I don’t think you responded to this, so I thought I’d resend it.
Kevin Winters

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Hi Kevin,
You were right - your first message had gone astray - it is the first time I
have seen it.
Ah well - better late than never.

JUD EVANS - (EARLIER)
An interesting response, though not very surprising as I anticipated many of
your responses in my post. Let me demonstrate:
“Hi Kevin, What you have written is an excellent and well polished
description of how an westernised, observing human being exists whilst observing a
baseball bat and absolutely zilch concerning the *being* of a baseball bat. An
Amazonian native who had never encountered a *baseball-bat* before would no
doubt characterise the *Being* of the object as some sort of weapon, whilst an
employee of a New Caledonian brothel on Port Arthur’s waterfront would
perhaps regard it in awe as some monstrous imported American dill-doll brought
ashore by some randy US seaman and initiate an instant modification of their
former assessment of American manhood and womanhood.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
But a “baseball bat” *is* a Western phenomena?

JUD EVANS (NEW)
No. The causal object we refer to as *a baseball bat* is only perceived of
as a *baseball bat* and *is* a *baseball bat* for its human labellers and
perceivers.
It is only a *Western phenomena* in the sense that the phenomenological
state or process which westerners imagine they experience through the senses
rather than by their intuition or reasoning results in their labelling it as a
*baseball bat.* A phenomena may well be thought of as a remarkable development,
but I am NOT ADDRESSING *remarkable developments* or *phenomenological
states and processes* as imagined by humans - for they do NOT EXIST - only THE
OBJECT EXISTS - and that object simply exists as the entity it is, stripped of
all its humanly attributed *properties* connected with *baseball games* or
*dildoes* or anything else. Outside of the anthropocentric version of *reality*
it doesn’t EVEN simply exist as *a bit of wood,* for the human quantifier
*bit* and signifier *wood* are anthropocentric attributes too. The entity simply
exists in the way it exists as a thing -in - itself insensately totally
unaffected by all things human. These concepts were far beyond the onto-Folkish
intellectual capability of the so-called *phenomenologists* Heidegger or a
Husserl to grasp.

KEVIN WINTERS:
When I say, “This *is* a baseball bat,” it includes all the (Western)
considerations (and more) that I mentioned; they are positive constituents of the
being of the baseball bat such that it would not *be* a baseball bat without
that relevant context. Now, in the case of the “Amazonian native,” what they
are seeing *is* not a baseball bat, as the world of baseball would be
foreign to them. Hence, they would see something else: as you say, perhaps as a
weapon or an erotic object. But I already included this fact in my statements
(i. e. I have already answered this objection): the object that is the baseball
bat can appear in different ways *as* a baseball bat, namely as an
instrument to be used in the game or as a museum piece, each including the important
context of baseball that determines its being *as* a baseball bat.
Furthermore, it can appear *as* different things: a weapon, an erotic object, a door
stop, etc., none of which require the context of baseball in their being what
they are. The important fact is that we use the copula in every single case–it
*is* this or that–and this is meaningful for us, it is not “nothing” in
the sense of the empty set/nihil. I don’t believe that your reply adequately
accounts for this positive fact.

JUD EVANS - (NEW)
All of the above describes what it is like to exist as a human in a western
city or a human living in the jungle addressing the entity he familiarly
calls a *base-ball bat* or unfamiliarity whatever the native chooses to label it
- and nothing whatsoever to do with the actual un-anthropocentric entity upon
which this abundance of exotic anthropocentric attribution is decanted.

JUD EVANS - (EARLIER)
Yes, TO A HUMAN according to the way that HE exists - it can appear *as*
different things: a baseball bat, a weapon, an erotic object, a door stop, etc.
but IN ITSELF it just exists AS IT IS. “In other words human perceptions of
existential modalities are very much in the eye of the beholder [remember the
Hottentot woman’s bum?] It is NOT just the abstractions of *Beauty,
dependability, honour* and to quote a famous one Socrates’ *piety* which is very much
in the eye [or the mind-eye] of the beholder it is the same with any other
human attribution or label that mankind slaps upon his fellows and the objects
both living and insentient with which he shares his world. In other words it
is only a base-ball bat or a weapon or a dildo for the human who happens to
be regarding it and NOT for the object it self.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
Ah, and here we come to the smoking gun, or better put the smoking
assumption: that there, apparently, *is* only one thing, and that is the “object
itself,” everything else being a “subjective projection” of man on the
meaningless object. But does this stand up to scrutiny?

JUD EVANS (NEW)
I dunno? Maybe if you produced some *human projection* we can examine it in
the laboratory and make a pronouncement as to whether the substance you claim
exists really exists or not. Can you see, smell, taste or hear this
remarkable new object that you claim exists. If you can detect your new psychic
substance* ectoplasmically, you will make it to Stockholm before the good Doctor
Eldred, for he is on the verge of bringing evidence to the world of the
existence of various abstractions and universals in a German TV spectacular which
has already arranged re-production rights with TV companies all over the
world.

In the light of Darwin’s experience of almost being pipped to the post by
holding back on the publication of *The Origin of the Species* I heartily
recommend that you PUBLISH YOUR EVIDENCE IMMEDIATELY. During their lifetimes,
Alfred Russel Wallace and Charles Darwin shared credit and fame for the
independent and near-simultaneous discovery of natural selection, but nowadays Wallace
is almost entirely ignored. Possibly, (and I suggest that you contact Dr.
Eldred privately on the matter,) you two could agree in forming a partnership
to spearhead one of the greatest ontological revolutions in modern history. If
you neglect to do this and Dr. Eldred decides to go ahead and publish first,
you could end up like Darwin’s great rival, for few people today know much
about Wallace, and the same thing could happen to you and you could remain an
isolated forgotten, bitter man on some Australian Sheep Station far away in
the deserts of the Northern Territory ruefully playing with your bat.

KEVIN WINTERS
The “object itself” is a necessary component of our understanding of it.
For example, in what I wrote I mentioned that the bat had to be constituted in
a particular way: it would need to be a certain kind of wood, it could not
have a cork core (according to the norms of baseball), it could not be made of
jello (which would simply be ineffective), etc.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
The bat of which you speak *had to be* constituted in a particular way in
order that humans might be able to attribute the name *baseball bat* to it in
the sense that it is a genuine acceptable bat in the eyes of the baseball
fraternity. But the non-anthropocentric causal object does not exist as a *a
necessary component of our understanding* it is an *INSENSATE OBJECT.

*It is ONLY YOU who are attributing to the object the human
personificational attribution of existing in a state of *a necessary component of our
understanding.* If the object-as-it-is COULD think - it would no doubt say it didn’t
give a shit about being *a necessary component of human understanding.* But
I know that by suggesting that I am merely introducing worthless
counterfactuals - for the folk ontological appetite for *Let’s pretend philosophy* is NOT
a characteristic of eliminativist thinking nor its methodology.

KEVIN WINTERS:
Are you saying that this fact, which is utilized and in fact necessary for
the being of the bat, is also simply a human concoction with no reference to
the bat “in itself”?

JUD EVANS (NEW)
No Kevin - the human refers to his own version - the human version of
perception of the bat [rather than how a kangeroo would perceive the bat.] The
entity just exists as a lump of atoms which appears to the sensorially equipped
human observer and to the kangeroo in a certain mereological existential
configeration. The bat the human and the kangeroo have no *Being* - they all
simply exist in the spatial position they occupy. YOU EXIST in the modality
of seeing the thing-in-itself and mentally registering it as *a bat* but that
is the way that YOU EXIST not the [so-called] *bat.*

KEVIN WINTERS:
While I do not reject the fact that the “eye of the beholder” is also
necessary, we cannot reduce the being of the baseball bat *solely* to that eye;
the being of the bat, including its excess (the baseball player is not under
the illusion that his intention includes every possible aspect of the bat, even
within that context; thus, his intention necessarily includes that which he
has not uncovered), includes that which you mention and, in fact, is a
necessary aspect of being able to play baseball at all.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Whatever [useful] fictions the human attributes to the object he calls a
*bat* including the curious onto-Folkish old-fashioned notion that an object not
only exists but HAS SOMETHING IN ADDITION which is a mysterious intangible
*aura* called its *BEING* addresses the way that SOME HUMANS EXIST
transcendentalists ( nowadays known in most universities as *Folk Ontologists* ] and not
the object which they attributionably abuse with their homocentric old
fashioned, amusing imaginings.

JUD EVANS - (EARLIER)
“It is not surprising that you have not been able to say anything about the
bat for if you have been reading my dialogue with Dr. Eldred you will see
that we both agreed that *Being* does not exist, whether that *Being* is the
*Being* of a bat, or a batty philosopher like Heidegger. how do beings appear?
What makes the bat anthropocentrically *what it is*, is the human being that
selected the wood, set it upon the lathe and shaped, polished and sold it. -
the igneous material simple exists in the existential modality in which it
exists independent of any human-centred attributions of what it is TO THE HUMAN.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
The issue, though, is whether adding the human component necessarily covers
over the “being itself” (or replaces it?), in this case the bat. I have made
the case above that it does not: that the bat in itself is a necessary
component not only of my human intention but also of its being *as* a baseball
bat. To say otherwise is rather solipsistic (and our ‘discussion’ is really a
sham): that our understanding of the baseball bat *as* a baseball bat is
entirely subjective, internal (for the typical inner-outer distinction),
anthropomorphic. Let me ask you this, in the hopes of solidifying this fact: when I
take the bat and I hit it against the ground, is my feeling of the bat’s
solidity completely subjective or does it reveal something about the constitution
of the bat itself?

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Any change or alteration to a causal object, either as a result of external
impingement [being hit by a falling meteorite] or intrinsic (a dog
experiencing an internal cancer) or as the result of human intervention ( a human
turning a block of wood into a chair spindle) makes not one jot of difference to
the thing existing in a modified version of existing in the way that it
exists. EVERY OBJECT IN THE COSMOS EXPERIENCES CONSTANT CHANGE including you, the
modality, manner or nature of that change matters not - in every case the
object ends up existing as a thing in itself existing in PRECISELY the way it
exists AND NOT in the way that the human attributant claims, imagines or for
purposes of HIS OWN ANTHROPOCENTRIC CONVENIENCE proclaims that it exists. When
you take the bat and hit it against the ground, your sensorial perception of
the bat’s solidity either confirms something about the constitution of the bat
that you already knew- or if that which is called a bat was something quite
new to you like in the case of the jungle-dweller would provide new,
additional information about the bat.
Whichever of the two results it would BE YOU or the native that existed in a
new modality of neurological understanding - and NOT THE BAT.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUS)
“You appear to have an unconscious and instinctive understanding of my
approach, even though you do not actually manifest such awareness, for above you
make the point that it is OUR UNDERSTANDING of the object and therefore the
way THAT WE exist that instantiates OUR OWN internalisation of such
attributions to the object AND NOT the way in which the object actually exists - for
noumenally the object simply lies there under our identificational,
descriptional observation – featureless, and insignificant, is-nesslessly and
non-essentially existing in it’s noumenal in-itselfness..”

[KEVIN WINTERS:
No, I have a direct grasp of your understanding because it is probably the
most common (supposed) counter-argument to this view, and the one that stems
most easily from your reductionistic assumptions. The issue I am raising is
whether “our understanding” is necessarily “subjective” or “solipsistic.” I
am arguing that it is not; indeed, that it cannot be without becoming
incoherent or meaningless. Let me look at this from the museum context: are you
saying that when I see the bat in its particularity (i. e. as Babe Ruth’s bat, as
having this kind of grain, etc.) that I see *absolutely nothing* of the bat
in itself? If not, then what do I see?

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“No, Kevin. Inanimate objects NEVER appear - we perceive them.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
Could you please clarify the distinction? Until you do I do not know how to
respond. As for “secondary qualities,” please refer to what I’ve already
said above, including my questions to that effect.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
To attribute the anthropocentric intention of *appearing* is to *personate*
or *personify* and *attribute* human qualities and behavioural
characteristics to inanimate causal objects. An example is some loony suggestion that the
moon is *hiding* behind a cloud.
When objects [such as Babe Ruth’s old bat] are said to *appear to us* it is
an ontological fantasy, for in reality what happens is that our optical
system registers the object - there is no intention of volition on the part of the
observed object to make itself available to our gaze. The experience is
TOTALLY a human one - for whilst the human exists in a neurological modality of
observing the object - the object DOES NOT EXIST in a neurological or
ontological modality of BEING OBSERVED. The object exists in exactly the same way
that it existed before you cast eyes upon it.
As far as the way that you exist neurologically as you observe Babe Ruth’s
bat is concerned - I am suggesting or claiming the that when you perceive the
bat in its particularity (i. e. as Babe Ruth’s bat, as having this kind of
grain, etc.) that you see *absolutely nothing* of the bat - but that you
perceive an aspect of the bat in accordance with the nature of your human sensorial
equipment? You DO NOT for example see the bat as a dog might see it or a
fly. It follows then that the bat cannot physically exist in these multiplicity
of modalities as it is perceived via the sensorial equipment of these various
observing entities. It does NOT exist as a series of echoes as perceived by
a fruit bat and it does NOT exist as a composite of many images as perceived
by a fly - so what in God’s name gives you the right to claim that it exists
only in some anthropocentric mode? OBVIOUSLY the entity exists in the way
that it exists irrespective of the ocular instruments and sensorial apparatus of
sentient creatures and it is this *raw* existence that we refer to when we
speak of * the stripped down existential noumenal thing as it is in itself.*
What I am firmly stating is that any account of the way YOU perceive the bat
and the way a dog, cat, elephant, giraffe, alligator, butterfly fish, whale or
blind mole perceives the bat concerns the way YOU and the dog, cat, elephant,
giraffe, alligator, butterfly, fish, whale or blind mole exist, and not the
ACTUAL way in which the baseball bat as a thing in itself exists beneath the
internalised ontological descriptional overlay of anthropocentric or
solipsistical assumptions.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“You are cute when you are being humourous Kevin - I love it - MORE please!”

KEVIN WINTERS:
I’m trying to consciously include some Nietzschean humor in my philosophical
writings.
Next you mention again the “human-centric” aspect of the bat’s appearing as
a weapon or a dildo. I’ve already addressed those above, so I won’t repeat
myself.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“Correction/reminder - Rather, the baseball bat now appears - to the
anthropocentric human attributant - in its singularity– *the* bat that Babe Ruth
used to hit his last home run; it has a particular grain with nicks and
imperfections here, here, and here. The *bat* doesn’t know about *Babe Ruth* or is
oblivious to its *imperfections* which are only perceived as imperfections by
the perfectionist human observer.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
It doesn’t matter whether the bat is ‘aware’ of any of these things. Unless
you are going to completely abolish history, the bat’s association with Babe
Ruth is correct.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
History DOES NOT EXIST - only that which was/is historical [existed or still
exists] exists. The bat’s association with Babe Ruth is correct for the
human museum visitors - but not for the bat - for that is a thing -in - itself
that does not assume or comply with ANY of the human attributes of human
labellers, and just exists as it exists in its glass case - NOT AS an *observed
bat* NOR AS *Babe Ruth’s famous bat* - but just as it is in the way it is as its
own non-anthropocentric bunch of atomic-self.

KEVIN WINTERS:
As for the issue of “imperfections,” yes, such can only appear with a human
being who has values of form for the bat; but, again, are you saying that I
really see *nothing* of the bat itself when it appears in its imperfections?
That seems rather fantastical.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
I wrote that the *bat* doesn’t know about *Babe Ruth* or is oblivious to its
*imperfections* which are only perceived as imperfections by the
perfectionist human observer.” I include you as someone who would notice WHAT HUMANS
perceive as *imperfection.* If on the other hand you believe that the object
humans call a *bat* DOES know about *Babe Ruth* or is conscious of its own
[humanly attributed] *imperfections* please let me know immediately and I will put
in a call to the nearest hospital to you and have you taken in for
observation.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“This is NOT because the bat exists that way, but because the human valuer
of the bat exists in the existential modality of valuation with regard to the
object. The bat remains the same whether it is tossed unwanted into a
cupboard or arranged on display in the grasping hands of a waxwork model of Babe
Ruth.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
Yes, I already addressed this in referring to the bat’s excess: that bat is
genuinely “the same” in those situations (though even there we delved into
the supposedly “subjective” aspects that you seem to champion). The question,
though, is whether in its appearing we are actually seeing the bat itself,
even if not in *all* its modalities of appearing. Again, if you say no then we
must conclude that *I do not see the bat at all*, but instead some
solipsistic internal representation or something, which doesn’t seem true to the
phenomena.

JUD EVANS: [NEW}
What I am contending is that the descriptional sheathing with which you
ontologically encapsulate the object does NOT EXIST.
You can call it this and call it that - you can describe it as big or call
it small. The object just exists and does not in some magical way *take on*
these descriptions with which you identify and describe it - ontologically it
remains ABSOLUTELY UNCHANGED in spite of all your earnest and well meaning
categorising and defining. You can call it *Babe Ruth’s Imperfect Famous Bat* as
many times as you like until you go blue in the face - but all you are doing
by that is reinforcing the anthropocentric version of the HUMAN IDEA of the
way HUMANS perceive of it and have agreed to describe it as existing.
The entity itself however remains existing in the way it has always existed
and will continue to exist until it turns to dust as an
un-anthropocentrically affected, individuate, nameless, propertyless, essenceless thing in itself,
just like every other individuate, nameless, propertyless, essenceless thing
in itself in the cosmos INCLUDING YOU AND ME.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Heidegger wouldn’t have a clue what we were both talking about in this
conversation - he was just a ontofolk-clown from the sticks. I am NOT ADDRESSING
the way you, I or Heidegger or any other anthropocentrically brainwashed human
exists in relation to the objects that surround us - the objects that we [of
useful necessity] label in order to create order out of chaos in our world.
I am {as I ALWAYS am)
As for Heidegger’s crude misunderstanding of the existential modalities of
entities it characteristically hinges on his clumsy use of the abstract noun
[gerund] *presencing.* Linguistically is one unbolts the word *presencing*
what does one find? There are two ways of examining this ontological
jiggery-pokery.

[…]
“(B) The moon, suddenly appearing from behind a cloud IS NOT PRESENCING
itself for it is an inanimate object bereft of the human intentional ability to
make themselves available to the detection of the sensorial equipment of those
that it wishes to present itself to - i. e., the eyes, ears, nose and touch
of the prospective parents in law or the judge and jury of the court etc.
“(C) Sometimes a human or an animal however may wish to present itself [be
seen] for many reasons - just as it may intend not to be seen and conceal
itself.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
I thought you said “two ways”? But let me go ahead and stop right here, as
everything else doesn’t add anything to your objection. The question of
presencing has direct relevance to the phenomena of inattentional blindness,
namely that attention (or intention, as the case may be) acts as a ‘filter’ of
sorts in relation to what appears. In my example, the difference between the
intentions of “using” the bat and “seeing” the bat has positive effects on
how it appears (or doesn’t appear, as the case may be), how I presence it. To
put it one more way, the horizon in which it appears determines what aspects
of the object become salient in my perception. *The* question is whether, in
all these filterings and presencings, the object appears, even in a limited
way (i. e. as it relates to humans). Again, to think otherwise falls into
solipsism.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
WAY (1) POINTS TO THE LACK OF INTENTIONALITY IN INSENSATE OBJECTS.
WAY (2) POINTS TO THE PRESENCE OF INTENTIONALITY IN SENSATE OBJECTS.
As for the rest of what you say it addresses only the way that you perceive
humans to exist in their modes of perceiving an insensate object such as what
they call *a bat,* and not the real and ONLY way in which the object exists,
which is as a thing in itself is irrespective, inaccessible, and remote from
human attribution.

JUD EVANS (EARLIER)
“BUT HOWEVER MUCH I got to know you, or you me, we would NEVER EVER discover
all of the existential modalities that form the everchanging nexus of our
neurological and corporeal reality. Most is hidden. It is for this reason that
one can never merge completely with the one you love, for like an iceberg the
main mass of an objects ontological existential reality is noumenally
inaccessible and closed off completely, not only to the would-be modalic explorer,
but to THE HUMAN ENTITY ITSELF. In other words one is a noumenal object
ONESELF in relation to that part of the neurological network which [imperfectly]
coordinates the data which nature deems to be important correlatively to
humans in order to monitor the entity in relation to its surrounding environment.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
True, and (yet again) I’ve included this in my response: there is *always*
an excess of “existential modalities” (to use your term) that is not
uncovered. The question (yet again) is whether this means that we do not capture some
part of the being, even if only in one ‘modality.’ As for your neurological
reductionism, I see little reason to accept it or the unproven assumption
that drives it.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
*Being* is a saying of the ontofolk - a pseudo-philosophical fantasy much
like a Christian dialogue with Harry Potter, a concept which belongs to the
days of human sacrifice, of elves and be-spirited oak trees - it has no place in
ontology - but in the pages of books for children and pantomime
representations of primitive human ignorance.
“However none of this phenomena in relation to the way others sensorially
perceive us has ANYTHING TO DO WITH *BEING.* It is the beings called Jud and
Kevin that exist - NOT the* fact* or the *perception* or the *existence* of
those creatures which exists. as perceived, felt or sensed by either Jud or
Kevin or anybody else involved.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
So, you readily admit to the charges of being solipsistic?

JUD EVANS (NEW)
I would rather admit to child-abuse.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“The fact that you lack [we lack] the sensorial equipment to understand the
precise manners in which the bat exists does not mean that those inaccessible
aspects of the bat are noumenally or ontologically any different from those
aspects which ARE accessible, and that the hidden ones are caused by your
inability to perceive them to migrate to another transcendental level of
*ontological difference,* for no such thing exists for you are being neurologically
FOOLED by the feed-back loop, not realising that it is YOU that is existing
in modalities of conceptualising *ontological differences* where non exist.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
That’s a nice claim, but I’m afraid I will need an argument, and one that
is true to the phenomena itself.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
The argument is that only a bat knows what it is like to be a bat.

JUD EVANS (PREVIOUSLY)
“This is no more than a physiological necessity. The brain can only deal
with a limited amount of incoming data at one time. Familiarity can help.
Competent car drivers can handle the car one handed and glance at a map at the same
time etc. We suppress many of our incoming information streams in order to
concentrate on that which is at hand and which is considered more important..
Whilst I have been typing this to you - all thought of the Lebanon peace
process has been shuttered off from what I am concentrating on -which is the text
that I perceive on the screen as I type.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
True, but I don’t see how this refutes that I’ve provided as it can easily
be interpreted in line with Heidegger’s claim.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
What claim of Heidegger are you referring to? Most of his *claims* were no
more than re-textualisations of the words and ideas of others cloaked in a
dense way calculated to deceive and obfuscate. Here is a challenge for you -
NAME ONE - JUST ONE NEW IDEA THAT HEIDEGGER BROUGHT TO PHILOSOPHY?
“But that aside humans have […] unravelled the very dna code or
existential prescription which determines the sort of entity a human will be”

KEVIN WINTERS:
Forgive me, but I have failed to see such a claim proven in the scientific
literature. Rather, it is an assumption, one that many respectable scientists
have rejected. Your reductivistic assumption is not an argument.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Then you need to concentrate more on scientific publications - have you
never heard of the human genome project?
We have much in common with the fruit fly and Scientists have unravelled
virtually the entire genetic code of the fruit fly (Drosophila melanogaster).
The work will be enormously helpful in figuring out the more complex genome of
humans. The scientists behind the collaborative effort are likely to publish
their results next month - 18 months ahead of the initial schedule. The
researchers said they had deciphered more than 97% of the fly’s genetic code and
more than 99% of the actual genes. In all, it turns out that every fruit fly
cell contains 13,601 genes. Human cells, by contrast, are thought to have more
70,000 genes.
The achievement is being widely hailed as a dramatic and important
development in science. Fruit flies share nearly 60% of human genes and are studied by
thousands of scientists around the world. The reason is that fruit flies and
humans use the same or similar genes to develop into adults. And the short
life cycle of the fly makes it an ideal subject for genetic experiments.

Rubin: “They can become addicted to alcohol, cocaine and other drugs. They
have a wake-sleep cycle like humans do. They have complicated rituals of
behaviour. “So in many ways they’re really fully functional animals with a brain
and behaviour, in addition to sharing many of the biochemical pathways humans
have.” Professor Rubin set up the Berkeley Drosophila Genome Project Group in
1992. Since then, he has been sequencing the entire genetic blueprint. The
information can be accessed on the internet by scientists, and Dr Matthew
Freeman, at the Medical Research Council in Cambridge, UK, has been making
practical use of the information. He studies flies with disrupted eyes.
“It turned out that the molecules causing these problems in fruit flies were
the same molecules that we know were responsible for causing cancer in
humans. So our research in something as bizarre-sounding as a fruit fly’s eyes
leads to an understanding of the molecules that cause cancer in humans.”

JUD EVANS:
Do you not believe that we [and all living creatures - flora and fauna] are
all born with a genetical coding already present in the entity?
“The fact that you lack [we lack] the sensorial equipment to understand the
precise manners in which the bat exists does not mean that those inaccessible
aspects of the bat are noumenally or ontologically any different from those
aspects which ARE accessible, and that the hidden ones are caused by your
inability to perceive them to migrate to another transcendental level of
*ontological difference,* for no such thing exists for you are being neurologically
FOOLED by the feed-back loop, not realising that it is YOU that is existing
in modalities of conceptualising *ontological differences* where non exist.”

KEVIN WINTERS:
That’s a nice claim, but I’m afraid I will need an argument, and one that
is true to the phenomena itself.

JUD EVANS (EARLIER)
“This is no more than a physiological necessity. The brain can only deal
with a limited amount of incoming data at one time. Familiarity can help.
Competent car drivers can handle the car one handed and glance at a map at the same
time etc. We suppress many of our incoming information streams in order to
concentrate on that which is at hand and which is considered more important.
Whilst I have been typing this to you - all thought of the Lebanon peace
process has been shuttered off from what I am concentrating on -which is the text
that I perceive on the screen as I type.”

JUD EVANS (EARLIER)
“You are unconsciously arguing my anti-transcendentalist object [rather than
subjective] case for me and making a good job of it too. You are emphasising
that the assessment or appreciation is to be found in the way the human
exists and not the bat. The human observer may change, the circumstances of
ascription may change but the bat remains the same - it is NOT EVEN A BAT - it is
a nameless, propertyless lump of * that which exists.*”

KEVIN WINTERS:
No, I am not doing such, but simply emphasizing a fact that you have not yet
addressed in all your response: that the assessment or appreciation is to be
found in the human uncovering of the bat, not simply in the human itself.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
I am not quite sure Kevin what you mean exactly by: *the human uncovering of
the bat.* Could you please expand on that?
Do you mean the manufacture of the bat? The discovery [after some time] of
the bat?

KEVIN WINTERS:
As for the “nameless, propertyless lump,” that sounds dangerously close to
Heidegger’s understanding of the excess of all beings, that it necessarily
exceeds every uncovering of them and, hence, we cannot describe it except for
largely negative terms—the ‘nothing’—or in positive terms—the ‘excess.’ The
major disagreement, it seems, is whether our “assessment or appreciation”
actually reveals an (albeit limited) aspect of the bat. Again, to argue
otherwise seems to teeter on solipsism.

JUD EVANS (NEW)
Heidegger wouldn’t have a clue what we were both talking about in this
conversation - he was just a ontofolk-clown from the sticks.
I am NOT ADDRESSING the way you, I, or Heidegger or any other
anthropocentrically brainwashed human exists in relation to the objects that surround us -
the objects that we [of useful necessity] label in order to create order out
of chaos in our world. I am {as I ALWAYS am) addressing the FACT that objects
in our cosmos have always existed, exist, and will forever always exist in
the way that they exist IRRESPECTIVE of human influence. Though humans may
initiate change in certain objects those objects will always WITHOUT EXCEPTION
EXIST IN THE WAY THEY EXIST at any given time.
“What is MUCH MORE important is educating people regarding the fantasies of
the *ontological argument* and disabusing folk of the nonsense that this God
or that God exists who wants us to kill those who believe differently”

KEVIN WINTERS:
But you have not educated me at all. Rather, you have thrown the
reductivistic assumption in my lap and then proclaimed victory. Scientific reductionism
is a methodological assumption, not a proven fact. Or, to put it in Heidegger’
s terms, it is a specific attunement that may cover over more than it
uncovers.

JUD EVANS (NEW}
What I write is a claim that the ooky-spooky ontological duality you
proclaim is a myth. You and your fellow folk ontologists make these bizarre claims
regarding the existence of abstraction etc., so it is up to you to provide
PROOF. I have my TV satellite dish tuned in to the majority of the German
stations and await with mounting interest the moment when the dynamic metaphysical
Ossie duo hit the airwaves and your metaphysical wares are laid out in public
for all to see.

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

Posted on Saturday, September 30th, 2006 at 4:35 pm
comment | rss 2.0 | trackback