Date: Sun, 17 May 1998 21:44:45 -0700
From: Bob/Diane <guevara-AT-rain.org>
Subject: Re: Clarity


thank you so much for your detailed reply.  i'm getting sucked in on this
conversation.  if i don't respond right away, it is because i'm busy.  i
promise to get full value from all mails and respond when i can.

also anthony.  i'm not arguing in what follows.  i want to make sure that
you understand my position.



>Robert wrote:
>
>> about the hammer.  tony, in the default configuration we have our moments
>> of authenticity.  clearly we do.  our lives are heavily and rigidly
>> organized by "conceptualization" but sometimes, in certain contexts, we
>> just let go of our "idea" of the world and just "hammer."
>
>Actually, I would agree with Heidegger that "for the most part" (ie, 
>the vast majority of the time), we are not "rigidly organized by 
>conceptualization." That is precisely why, in Being and Time, 
>Heidegger characterizes everydayness by readiness-to-hand (concernful 
>absorbtion) instead of presence-at-hand. Everydayness by the very 
>name suggests what is ordinarily and for the most part the case. With 
>that move, Heidegger overturns the entire history of philosophy, 
>which instead characterized everydayness as a deficient mode of 
>presence ("unreflective perception" or something along those lines).



yes tony.  in reality that is so.  we do get absorbed in what we do.  but
we do so habitually.  absorbtion is what happens.  however it's being so is
governed by a mechanistic behavioral "system."  our particular way of being.

remember.  the training that gives my being was not heideggarian at all
prior to the mid-eighties.  it was just as powerful but not as workable as
H's casting oneself into the future.  i was telling someone privately that
i call heidegger a capitolistic zen.  a westernized zen.

my point here anthony is that i may not see everything eye to eye with H.
and then that may be because of the dead symbol of the written word having
to be relied upon in H's stead.



>> about your kids.  of course they are your kids.  despite the obvious case
>> of reflection you also mentally check with an "idea" of your child before
>> (in real-time actually) interacting with him/her.  what i'm saying is that
>> this mental checking isn't always on the level of "the little voice"
>> talking in an psuedo-audible way.  it is that we be our "minds" as
>> metaphysically grounded beings.  we are that the world is a certain way.
>
>If I am understanding you (and Heidegger) correctly, I believe 
>Heidegger would disagree with your equation between the world being a 
>certain way and our being "metaphysically grounded beings." For 
>Heidegger, the metaphysical world is only one way that the world is; 
>nor is it the most primordial way that the world is. For Heidegger, 
>the metaphysical world is founded upon the "practical" world, which 
>is actually how the world is for the most part. In that "practical" 
>world, we do not "mentally check with an idea" of something before 
>interacting with it. Rather, the latter characterization presupposes 
>a prior, more primordial interaction - one which is not metaphysical, 
>and has nothing to do with "ideas."



this is precisely my point.  the metaphysical world is founded upon the
"practical" world.  the world of "things."  the world of ratiocination.

anthony that is my point exactly.  our everydayness is farthest from
primordial.  it is mechanistic, technological and is given by "reasoning."
the end result of which is *thingification*.  the practical world has
"nothing" to do with the truth.  we, in everydayness, do not truth truth.
or bring forth into the *open-ness* that which is new.  we manipulate what
is.  we shape and mold.  for the most part, as an everydayness.  to be
fair, humans be creative, of course.  but haphazardly.  and in a random and
capricious fashion.

we do so in at the next level of abstraction as well.  as beings being
human in the manner given metaphysically.  i say that mountains and buses
and things are there in a practical sense as well.  in an actual sense.
these "things" do not exist independent of language.  the language of the
"unfolding" of all that is.



>> i mean that this is a good thing.  it adds "workable" structure to the
>> world.  see it's not only for us as individuals that the world is a certain
>> way.  it is for everyone a certain way in that many "things" exist as if
>> they are "independent of language." (eg mountains. cars. chairs etc)
>
>The characterization of "things" as "independent of language" is a 
>conceptual one, and therefore (according to Heidegger) is founded 
>upon a mode in which we encounter beings prior to such 
>"independence." Even the "as if" which you add in your last sentence 
>is a conceptual analysis of the pre-conceptual. For example, while I 
>am absorbed in hammering, there is no hammer which appears "as if" it 
>is independent of language. Rather, it is that way only upon 
>conceptual reflection.



i say that "this" is the heart of the matter, like a crevace, between me
and you all.  i hold language as "that" which grants "access" to being.
what you call a conceptualization is indeed so.  i've repeadedly warned
that my explications are merely crude maps of an undefinable reality.  a
wire-frame model of the actual.  but (and crucially) the "technology" that
enables my transformation in merely a device.  it is language in that it
grants being-ness.  in and of itself it is merely a device.

see.  as i said technology can be useful.  ultimately useful as it turns
out.  and ultimately blinding.

we must see clearly to choose.

i'm an engineer.  i produce results.  i think that in the zeal to not be
technological, you guys are missing the whole point.  which is producing
the result.  in the real world. (pls no offense.  it don't mean this in a
personal way.)




>> so i'm sure that you have a great relationship with your kids.  however
>> some folks have varying degrees of workability in relationships.  my
>> experience in observing many folks work through to higher levels of
>> workability was that inevitably, it was their interaction through a
>> "filter" or adaptation mechanism that presented the limiting factor in such
>> workability.  it appears that we (for the most part) interact with the
>> world through an intermediary structure.  and we do this involuntarily.
>> the psych people would say: "unconsciously")
>
>The problem with making this the fundamental explanation is that it 
>attempts to characterize the non-conceptual conceptually, thereby 
>cutting of the possibility of encountering beings at all.



see above.  the crucial gotcha of overintellectualizing.



>If what is 
>fundamentally going on is that we "interact with the world through an 
>intermediary structure," then the problem immediately arises - how do 
>we know that it's not all the "structure;" ie, how do we know that 
>there is a world at all?



anthony.  i'm not talking theoretically.  i'm talking about what is so.  a
shift in the ground of being to Being.  to the nothing.  as a completed
human being Being.  and this is an ideal expression.  in reality.  the
shift has to be maintained ecologically. (i know that this is cryptic.
sorry but not enough time)

once the shift happens your "problem" is a moot one.  it becomes
irrelevant.  it is essentially sidestepped in that a new domain of
existence is accessed.



>The analysis of experience in terms of us 
>experiencing a world through some intermediate filter is precisely 
>that - an analysis, and is therefore a conceptual characterization of 
>the non-conceptual. This does not mean that this explanation is not 
>one way of encountering beings. It merely means that this explanation 
>cannot be treated as if it is the most fundamental characterization 
>of our encounter with beings.



not so.  as before. the device, properly designed, becomes throwaway and
not integral.

sorry about the concise response.  more later.  please pursue this anthony.
 it helps tremendously for me to articulate my position.


Robert T. Guevara   | guevara-AT-rain.org
Electrical Engineer | guevarb-AT-mugu.navy.mil
Camarillo CA, USA   | http://www.rain.org/~guevara


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