The Void and the Absolute Oneness of the Universe

@fresco,

fresco wrote:

Both Freud and Nietzsche would have loved you !

Not exactly, but they both would have appreciated the struggle you interlocutors are currently involved in on a level that you are not, at least actively, appreciating...

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Frank, if I were to try to decide which of the two (becoming nothing or becoming everything) I would become upon death, THAT would have to be a blind guess--which of the two: i.e., eenie, meening, miney mo.....

By writing what you just wrote there, JL...you are, in effect, repeating that "nothing or everything" is what one MUST "become" after death.

How do you know that...or are you just guessing? How do you KNOW those are the only two options for what happens after death?

(Hint: You do not know it. Nobody KNOWS what happens after death. You ARE just guessing.)

Quote:

The notion that I might become (and have always been) both was an intuition (right or wrong or both) not a guess.

It is a statement about what happens after death...something we can only guess about.

It is a guess, but obviously one you cannot acknowledge as such for some reason.

No problem. You have that right.

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@Frank Apisa,

Frank, of course I do not KNOW with certainty. All my constructions are provisional. But they are not blind guesses. I like to feel at least that they involve insight--which, of course, is no form of epistemological guarantee. At most they are sensitizing-working hypotheses (They are not scientific hypotheses insofar as they are not testable/falsifiable propositions). But I also think that your central proposition (viz., reality is whatever is) is not an empty tautology; indeed it is full of intuitive force, as useless as it may be.

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@JLNobody,

Sorry but I disagree on that "intuitive point", because that ostensibly simple proposition involving the word "is", fails to take into account that an attempt is made to transcend "being" itself . That was Heidegger's insight in "Being and Time", one of the subtle conclusions of which was that the term "existence" could only be applied to the active operation of a Dasein (a human). The human consciousness "brings forth" things according to its dynamic interchanges with its world but we (in general) logically cannot escape those limits of "being" any more that a fish can escape from the water. To attempt to transcend such "being" would also be an attempt to transcend "time" which is the dimension within which "being" operates.

I suggest therefore that a meditator might have reached similar intuitions about the word "is" and might be aware of the problems with that word (as with all words), but we cannot assume that such "intuition" is operating in Frank's case, albeit that ascribing it to him is a social nicety.

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@JLNobody,

I agree with the part where you said you do not know with certainty (on the issues we are discussing), JL. Fact is, you do not know at all.

You do not present your constructs as provisionals...you offer them as certainty...which is the reason I object when you do. If you offered them as provisionals, I would not object to them.

When you "tell" us what happens after death with the certainty you do...you ARE making a blind guess...whether you are capable of acknowledging that or not. An intelligent guy like you could make excellent use of that acknowledgement...so I hope you change in that regard.

There is nothing "intuitive" or "useless" about the proposition "whatever IS...IS." It has impact on many things...although not on people determined to consider it useless.

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@fresco,

Occasionally I will step on your religion here, Fresco. That's the way it goes in an Internet forum. If you do not want it to happen...take your religion and its dogma elsewhere.

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"Transcending" time is what reason does...
...if it didn't work we wouldn't have it for starters, we wouldn't have "us". No Homo Sapiens around to be seen.
Moreover if it was unreliable we would have given up on it long ago.
When I plan what I am going to do tomorrow I do so with hope and sufficient reason to hope it will be useful. It usually pays.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Quote:

"Transcending" time is what reason does...

No, because reasoning takes place in time. It is a dynamic process. We are not talking about an abstract static time line here which humans use to plan with. To make the trivial point, try telling your dog you will take it a walk tomorrow but not today.

In short "being" implies "persistence in time" but we know from science that all is in flux. WE are the ones whose concept of our own persistence as "selves" evokes and ascribes persistence to "things" relative to our lifespan. Today's "tree" may functionally persists as the same "tree" as yesterday's, even though it may have changed biologically. Or consider "the wave" being ridden by a surfer. It persists as the same wave throughout his ride even though not a single molecule of water need accompany him on his journey.

If you think about it, the concept of "time" has no significance except with respect to OUR "being". That is what Heidegger is getting at.

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@fresco,

I am well aware of what you are referring to. My point is that you transcend time by making successful predictions about the future when you do.
Its the essence of what prediction does that transcends time. Reason is that essence seeing the pattern in the present before it happens.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

I would not call that process transcendence. It is predicated on the assumption of a persistent "self". A relation of mine starting with Alzheimer's sent me three separate Birthday cards for the same birthday. Note that "success" of prediction is also predicated on the "persistent self " which measures it.

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@fresco,

The prediction has to exist somewhere ok ? you call it a mind...such prediction is made in the present not tomorrow. Tomorrow you verify it or not. If you have done anything resembling a successful guess you transcended in the least your own future perception of reality.

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@Fil Albuquerque,

Once again, you are not transcending "time" as a "thing", you are merely exercising a human pre-occupation with "expectancies" which language the currency of thought, serves like the contents of a "bank account".

I am describing the view that Heidegger takes when he rejects beingS (things) but describes beinG (the process). Thus "time" cannot be "a thing transcended". His concept of transcendence seems to involve the occasional awareness we may have of the dynamic nature of our being, in which "self" comes and goes. Such awareness is for Heidegger a prerequisite for "living authentically".

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And Heidegger not only knew everything about the REALITY of existence...he was never ever wrong about anything, Fil.

So...apparently you do not have a leg to stand on.

Right? Wink

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@JLNobody,

Frank, my propositions are ultimately provisional insofar as they may encounter contradictory evidence someday. They emerge without certificates of certitude. But they are not provisional in the sense that I never feel that I'm onto something. That would be terrible, a life of blind guesses. I think your "full" tautology feels gratifying when you utter it--otherwise you would be silent--but it is "useless" in the sense that it adds nothing new,

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@fresco,

Fresco, I wish I had read Heidegger's "Being and Time"; it sounds much like the notion of Dogen (founder of Soto Zen) who stressed that we cannot experience being without process (an expression of the anicca or impermanence inherent in everything, especially our process of prereflective perception. When I meditate I have the unavoidable habit, for the last 55 years or so, of expecting to fix my gaze upon a static "is" (a form of permanent self or ego-being). But at the end of my forty minute look I always feel rewarded that I never saw it; I always see only process. As Dogen assured us I see only being-time or process/becoming, a very un-Hindu conclusion I suppose.

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@JLNobody,

I'm misleading here. By at "static is-ness" I am not referring merely to a perception of an "I" or "me". That too, but I refer to any kind of still(-ness) of sensation, feeling, anything "caught" (and tamed) by my mind ("my" and "mind") are expressions of it, I suppose. The point is that by looking at experience intently one realizes that there is nothing that permits such a capture. There is only a complex, open-ended and ambiguous process that--pardon the paradox-- is me

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@JLNobody,

Quote:

Frank, my propositions are ultimately provisional insofar as they may encounter contradictory evidence someday. They emerge without certificates of certitude. But they are not provisional in the sense that I never feel that I'm onto something. That would be terrible, a life of blind guesses. I think your "full" tautology feels gratifying when you utter it--otherwise you would be silent--but it is "useless" in the sense that it adds nothing new,

I liked that. What's happening when we're "onto something"? (a great feeling, but not just a feeling -- the mind doing what it does best?)

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@JLNobody,

JLNobody wrote:

Frank, my propositions are ultimately provisional insofar as they may encounter contradictory evidence someday. They emerge without certificates of certitude. But they are not provisional in the sense that I never feel that I'm onto something. That would be terrible, a life of blind guesses. I think your "full" tautology feels gratifying when you utter it--otherwise you would be silent--but it is "useless" in the sense that it adds nothing new,

If they are conditional, JL...start presenting them as conditionals. All it takes is a "may be" once in a while...rather than the dogmatic way you present them.

There is nothing about my tautology that is useless. It simply states something clearly. The fact that it adds nothing new does not change that.

If you presented your conditionals as conditionals (and you say they are conditionals)...they would present nothing new.

1 Reply

@Frank Apisa,

Frank, I say, as a matter of principle, that my propositions are "ultimately" provisional. I've said that as an epistemological principle many times in the past. But I don't want to weaken my rhetorical style by "confessing" before every utterance that I may be wrong, that I'm not certain, etc.. It is unpleasant to realize that you would like to have that kind of rhetorical advantage. I prefer to think of our discussions less as "debates" than as "conversations" (please see the latter part of my signature line).

Also, when I credited your Grand Tautology (that Reality is what is) with being a "full" rather than an "empty" tautology I was acknowleging that it has the psychological value of being meaningfully rewarding for you--like my favorite mantra, tat tvam asi, is for me--subjective truths, both of them. But when I assert that the "objects of my experience" ARE me rather than objective forces impinging on (a) delusional "me" (tat tvam asi), I am not presenting compelling evidence that could persuade a skeptic like, say, Setanta; in that sense it is logically empty. And what I say about my mantra is also the case with yours.
Now do I have to add that all this is provisional (or what you call conditional)?

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@JLNobody,

This " oneness universe " is non-sense to me

A devine intelligence maybe true but in the end it is up to this being , living being , HUMANITY to find a way to exist to the bitter end .

Need I say more ......

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The Void and the Absolute Oneness of the Universe

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