Reality - thing or phenomenon?

@fresco,

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Ontology is a fool’s errand, as we have no way of understanding the essence of things as they are.

...or maybe only a fool would think that is what ontology is about.

So what is ontology about, according to St Derrida?

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Your focus on impermanence alone was simply naïve

...hardly naive when permanence was acknowledged as agreed continued functionality.

Impermanence should also be acknowledged as "agreed continued functionality", whatever that means. I suppose in implies "naïve" but oh so much more...

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not thinking that permanence and impermanence are simply the two extremes of the same scale..

....as measured by humans, the only measuring animal as far as we know.

You know very little. How could migratory birds or whales go from Point A of the globe to Point B and back each year along the same routes without measuring anything?

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And there is nothing naïve about believing that there is a real reality independent of observation

....but only .if you don't commune with the transcendent idea that "observation" is always verbal and that "reality" is about the abstract persistence of words implying functional relationships, not things.

Have you ever been hit by "the abstract persistence of words implying functional relationships"? Because I was hit by a hammer I was holding once, and that did hurt much more than any abstract word ever did...

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@Olivier5,

By "ontological persistence", I refer to the myth of continuity of a substantial egoself. That's something I with Fresco, Igm, Asherman, Twyvel and others have described over scores of threads. If you are interested--and I doubt that anyone in disagreement with Heraclitus would be--look them up.

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@JLNobody,

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Olivier, I appreciate your desire to defend the "naive realist" because we are all naive ontologists in our everyday life. "Naive realism" is a technical term for the formal position that chooses not to question question normative categories. It is a position that assumes the descriptive categories of everyday thought are as far as one need go, that they are adquately "philosophical"when in fact they are merely eufunctionally "cultural". The discipline of philosophy looks beyond or, in the case of the later Wittgenstein, behind, the everyday use of the culturally-taken-for-granted as problematical. There's no need to defend anyone against that.

The problem is PRECISELY that I am NOT defending "naive realism" as you described it. I stand ready to examine critically any cultural category you may want to examine. The difference with you I think, is that I don't start from the premisse that cultural categories and popular knowledge are wrong and the masses are in dire need of illumination by us armchair philosophers. On the contrary, my approach is that of a benevolent critique, able to see the pearls of wisdom that may exist in popular, historical and cultural facts, categories, words, myths, beliefs or proverbs. While a critique of popular representations, I try not to throw the baby with the bath water.

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I see, and said somewhere, that polar extremes are purely conceptual devices by which to (impressionistically) gaugue degrees on hypothetical scales of grey. The "impermanence" I refer to is not so much one of the two extremes; it is a formulation that transcends all scales and poles.

It's likewise a concept, whose meaning you contemplate while meditating, and which to be "non-partisan", "neutral", would need to encompass permanence as well, like the other side of the same coin. It is your personal (or Buddha's?) biaised choice to transcend only impermanence and not permanence. It looks as if you had some problem with it, like you try to "transcend permanence away".

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Pardon my passive aggressiion but a passing anger tempts me to accuse you of failing to realize the naivete (and aggressiveness) of your own position

A little anger now and then can't be a bad thing. It reminds us that you are still human... Smile

Yes, i can get polemical. But i also like your posts. I've had worse opponents, shall we say?... Wink

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@JLNobody,

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By "ontological persistence", I refer to the myth of continuity of a substantial egoself.

So, in religious terms, you accept the continuity of the body, but not of the soul?

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@Olivier5,

I see neither "soul" nor a strong corporeal continuity . I wonder how you drew your assumption from what I've said--ever.
Are you sure about Heraclitus?

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@JLNobody,

Oh so no corporal continuity either? Bodies are real, they can be traced and found. Your body is unique and uniquely identifiable.

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@Olivier5,

We are speaking different languages.

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@JLNobody,

You're not speaking different languages; but you are speaking about different realities. It's pretty obvious from where I'm sitting. LOL

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@cicerone imposter,

I was referring to "language" metaphorically. I might have said that we were talking from different paradigms, a process that should be as frustrating for him as it is for me.

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@JLNobody,

But, from a buddhist perspective, the body doesn't exist. I don't understand any of that mumbo jumbo, and can only refer to my own experiences of having lived on this planet for over 77 years. I believe I have consciousness (I'm communicating aren't I?), feelings (for my family and friends), and a body in which I walk this planet.

From Wiki.

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The Buddhist view of personal identity is also a no-self theory rather than a reductionist theory, because the Buddha clearly rejects all attempts to reconstruct the self in terms of consciousness, feelings, or the body.[5]

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@JLNobody,

Okay well use your language to explain how bodies are impermanent...

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

You're not speaking different languages; but you are speaking about different realities. It's pretty obvious from where I'm sitting. LOL

Well it shouldn't be obvious, because if anything...they are speaking about different perspectives and considerations about REALITY.

There is absolutely nothing "obvious" about different realities.

That is what is obvious to anyone with an open mind.

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@Frank Apisa,

No question involved there, ci. You can read it...and no answer or response is required.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

Can you get it through you head that what may not be permanent...is human perceptions and comprehensions of REALITY.

Why wouldn't I? Of course they aren't permanent.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I have no idea of what the REALITY is...an I strongly, strongly suspect you don't either.

But you don't know... you only suspect... conclusion... you don't know.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I will grant you that it may or may not be "useful" to see that your blind guess about REALITY is that it is not permanent. But to take that from there to "...it is useful to see that 'first' it (REALITY ITSELF) is not permanent."

I don't have to guess that reality is not permanent, I just have to let go of that notion. The reason I let go is that I'm surrounded by evidence that things are not permanent. The next stage is to let go of the notion of impermanence... again no need to guess, one just lets go of that notion because on sees that without permanence there can be... no real impermanence as it needs to be judged against the concept of permanence which has previously been let go of.

Frank Apisa wrote:

The really funny thing is that you can accept that about REALITY...but have so much difficulty seeing that whatever REALITY actually IS...it actually IS.

I have no difficulty with your tautology it is WHEN you say therefore it MUST BE OBJECTIVE (how many times to I have to repeat this?) that I have a problem with your 'single' unsubstantiated statement.

I've already said that if reality is not permanent then there is, 'no time' for it to be objective because it never remains the same it cannot be labeled correctly... it has no time.... to be.

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@Olivier5,

I disagree... but of course in everyday life I go along with convention... it is only at the time of philosophical debate, as in a dialectic or in personal contemplation or for example here on this forum do I question the permanence of things; but it is not useless because it is done to undermine' wrong views' about reality... the root cause in my opinion of so much suffering in the world... Much of the suffering in everyday life across the world has the notion of permanence as its hidden root cause.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank Apisa wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

You're not speaking different languages; but you are speaking about different realities. It's pretty obvious from where I'm sitting. LOL

Well it shouldn't be obvious, because if anything...they are speaking about different perspectives and considerations about REALITY.

There is absolutely nothing "obvious" about different realities.

That is what is obvious to anyone with an open mind.

...these guys can't abstract Frank...Reality is the realm of all "reality's"...drop it...

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Fil Albuquerque wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

cicerone imposter wrote:

You're not speaking different languages; but you are speaking about different realities. It's pretty obvious from where I'm sitting. LOL

Well it shouldn't be obvious, because if anything...they are speaking about different perspectives and considerations about REALITY.

There is absolutely nothing "obvious" about different realities.

That is what is obvious to anyone with an open mind.

...these guys can't abstract Frank...Reality is the realm of all "reality's"...drop it...

igm is being particularly blind...but that is the only way he can handle his mistakes.

I prefer not to drop it. I'm actually enjoying all this.

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@igm,

igm wrote:

Frank Apisa wrote:

Can you get it through you head that what may not be permanent...is human perceptions and comprehensions of REALITY.

Why wouldn't I? Of course they aren't permanent.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I have no idea of what the REALITY is...an I strongly, strongly suspect you don't either.

But you don't know... you only suspect... conclusion... you don't know.

Frank Apisa wrote:

I will grant you that it may or may not be "useful" to see that your blind guess about REALITY is that it is not permanent. But to take that from there to "...it is useful to see that 'first' it (REALITY ITSELF) is not permanent."

I don't have to guess that reality is not permanent, I just have to let go of that notion. The reason I let go is that I'm surrounded by evidence that things are not permanent. The next stage is to let go of the notion of impermanence... again no need to guess, one just lets go of that notion because on sees that without permanence there can be... no real impermanence as it needs to be judged against the concept of permanence which has previously been let go of.

Frank Apisa wrote:

The really funny thing is that you can accept that about REALITY...but have so much difficulty seeing that whatever REALITY actually IS...it actually IS.

I have no difficulty with your tautology it is WHEN you say therefore it MUST BE OBJECTIVE (how many times to I have to repeat this?) that I have a problem with your 'single' unsubstantiated statement.

I've already said that if reality is not permanent then there is, 'no time' for it to be objective because it never remains the same it cannot be labeled correctly... it has no time.... to be.

Open your eyes, igm...and see how wrong you are. I'd explain it to you...but I have several times...and you simply cannot grasp it.

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@igm,

Still, you understand that one cannot logically talk of change if objects are not somewhat durable. It is only if you look at your car as a durable object that you can say: it is rusting. Same with the sun: it is only growing older, day after day, because we are talking of the same sun, day after day.

Why do you feel a need to "go along with conventions in everyday life"???

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@Olivier5,

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Still, you understand that one cannot logically talk of change if objects are not somewhat durable.

What does the durability of objects have to do with logically speaking of change? It is possible to speak of changes occurring where no objects are involved.

1 Reply

Reality - thing or phenomenon?

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