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Sun 14 Mar, 2004 08:40 pm
A thing cannot simultaneously be both "A" and "not-A."
Discuss.
truth
Joe, I think that is so regarding abstract entities. Real things are always in the process of coming into being and going about of being (of being A and not being A at the same time; it is so fundamental that the Hindus have made gods of the two aspects of process: Vishnu and Shiva. It's what we refer to as the process of becoming which applies to all things. Consider the human body. But ideal objects or classes of objects which is what logic refers to are figments of thought, useful figments, to be sure, literally only the way to think about the world.
The line between A and not-A is infinitely fine. We merely round off to the nearest decimal convenient to our ends.
(Edited for clarity.)
If proposition and intention are mutually irreducible...
My action is good [A] to someone but not good [not-A] to another, unless my proposition is sufficiently valid and my intention is necessarily sound to those affected by my action.
quantitatively 'not A" may contain A, or multiples of A, or it may be A-notA.
.
.If you can solve one in terms of the other they are functionally or dimensionally equivalent yet not equal.
Is this a take home or do we have a time limit?
One man's A is another man's B.
Re: truth
JLNobody wrote:Joe, I think that is so regarding abstract entities. Real things are always in the process of coming into being and going about of being (of being A and not being A at the same time; it is so fundamental that the Hindus have made gods of the two aspects of process: Vishnu and Shiva). It's what we refer to as the process of becoming which applies to all things. Consider the human body. But ideal objects or classes of objects which is what logic refers to are figments of thought, useful figments, to be sure, literally only the way to think about the world.
Well, that depends on what you mean by "abstract." For instance, is "life" an abstract concept? Can we say, with certainty, that a thing cannot simultaneously be both alive and dead? Or are all living things in the "process of becoming" both alive
and dead?
Re: If proposition and intention are mutually irreducible...
metaethics wrote:My action is good [A] to someone but not good [not-A] to another, unless my proposition is sufficiently valid and my intention is necessarily sound to those affected by my action.
But this is merely a point-of-view problem. Certainly, if we identify some thing as
the good, then it is good regardless of one's particular point of view. Consequently, with that kind of
objective morality, we can justifiably say that a thing cannot simultaneously be both good and not-good. In other words, if I deem my action "good" and someone else deems it "bad," the difference can be explained by the fact that one of us is
wrong, not that both of us have different perspectives.
truth
Joe, in your response to Metaethics you say that "...if I deem my action 'good' and someone else deems it 'bad'...". This good and bad are examples of what I mean by abstract (there are other forms, of course). In your response to me, you understand death to be different from "going out of being" (or non-being). I see no difference. One is constantly coming into being and out of being in the life-death process.
I would say 'you' are simultaneously both A and not-A
DERRIDA-HUSSERL: TOWARDS A PHENOMENOLOGY OF LANGUAGE
[snip]
SELF-PRESENCE AND RE-PRESENTATION
One final point remains in the parallel that can be drawn between Derrida and Husserl. It concerns the ultimate basis of the subject's openness to language. According to Derrida, "the sub-ject cannot speak without giving himself a representation of his speaking ..." (SP, 57). The fact that he can only indicatively refer to himself points to his nonself-presence. The latter makes pos-sible his openness to linguistic signs. In the Logical Investigations, Husserl takes the opposite position. We have an immediate self-presence. Thus, we need not assert "that in soliloquy one speaks to oneself and employs words as signs, i.e., as indications, of one's own inner experi-ences" (LI, 279). Derrida's critique of Husserl begins with this remark. In his view, it closes off the subject to the possibility of language. In his later years, however, Husserl reversed himself. Abandoning the notion of a direct self-presence, he also came to the position that our objective self-presence occurs through representation. This reversal is demanded by his notion of a self as a nowness defined by a centering temporal environment. To objectively present himself to himself, the subject must represent himself in terms of this environment. Doing so, he objectively repre-sents his nowness, his present functioning, in terms of what is not now.
Husserl's position depends on our distinguishing between our reflective and our prereflec-tive self-awareness. As noted, we have an immediate prereflective self-awareness through our on-going present activity of retention and protention. This awareness is inherent in the self-reference of these processes. Since they are part of our present functioning--being, in fact, the functioning that defines us as temporal centers--this awareness is direct. It is, however, only a background awareness. When we want to focus on ourselves in an explicit manner, we have to reflect on our-selves. The difficulty here is that reflection always splits the self. On the one side there is the re-flecting self, the self that is actively functioning. On the other, there is the self that is reflected on. As Husserl describes this: "Whenever I am occupied with myself and my specific egological func-tions, I have this distinction between myself and what I am occupied with, i.e., between my being actively engaged and that with which I am actively engaged." Given that the latter is the object of my reflection, my "actively engaged" reflecting self is not itself objectively present. For Husserl, this nonpresence is its anonymity. As he states the conclusion, "The actively functioning ?'I do,' ?'I discover,' is constantly anonymous." It cannot be made an object of reflection.
[/snip]
What is being talked about here, in my understanding is the unobserved observer,. I.e. the conscious ?'self' cannot be observed.
So ?'you' exist simultaneously as an objectification, i.e the ego-thought-body self, lets call it A.
And the unobserved observer self lets call not-A
I am both present, as objectification and absent, as subjectivity; A and not-A
Re: truth
JLNobody wrote:In your response to me, you understand death to be different from "going out of being" (or non-being). I see no difference. One is constantly coming into being and out of being in the life-death process.
So something that is dead is also "somewhat" alive?
twyvel wrote:What is being talked about here, in my understanding is the unobserved observer,. I.e. the conscious ?'self' cannot be observed.
So ?'you' exist simultaneously as an objectification, i.e the ego-thought-body self, lets call it A.
And the unobserved observer self lets call not-A
I am both present, as objectification and absent, as subjectivity; A and not-A
That's just idle word-play,
twyvel, unless you mean to suggest that the "ego-though-body self" and the "unobserved observer" are
contradictories.
This thread is in essence a discussion of the applicability of bi-valent logic.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bivalence_and_related_laws
Reference to the above gives leads into non-bivalent logic systems some of which relate to to a nondualistic reality. (E.g. Neutrosophy). Some of these logics or "systems of coherence" are transcendent of the "law of non-contradiction" introduced by Joe. Irrespective of the system of logic used, much depends on the definition of the word "truth", which dualistic systems tend to hold to be "objective" and non-dualists tend to believe to be relative and transitory.
truth
No, Joe. I did not wish to imply that because a living being is also simultaneously in a continuous state of "dying" that a "dead" body (a non-being) is, conversely, in a continuous state of coming to life. But now we've transported from the logic of your topic to the fringes of biology.
joefromchicago wrote:
Quote: That's just idle word-play, twyvel, unless you mean to suggest that the "ego-though-body self" and the "unobserved observer" are contradictories.
No it's not word play.
I'm saying it is the case where A and not-A are present simultaneously as presence and absence. Presence being, that which is objectified---A, and absence being the subjective which cannot be objectified---not-A. (subjectivity is absent as objectification, but present as subjectivity or observing)
And ?'you' and/or ' I ' are both (always) but we'll say especially when (dualistically) the objectified is that which is taken to be the ?'self', (ego/body).
Re: If proposition and intention are mutually irreducible...
joefromchicago wrote:metaethics wrote:My action is good [A] to someone but not good [not-A] to another, unless my proposition is sufficiently valid and my intention is necessarily sound to those affected by my action.
But this is merely a point-of-view problem...
Even what you call "perspective" may have a value or certain property, which can be called "a thing." A thing A with the property of goodness may exist at the same time the same entity A with the property of non-goodness does.
I knew an A once who most definitely was NOT and A.