Date: Tue, 6 Aug 2002 22:09:01 EDT
Subject: Persius Project



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Content-Language: en

In a message dated 06/08/2002 22:36:34 GMT Daylight Time, crifasi-AT-hotmail.com
writes:



Jud: [smiling]
 You are up to your foxy tricks of putting not only words but also ideas into
my mind. YOU may conceive of the  existential modalities of the hewer and the
hammerer as existing, but that doesn't mean that I do. For me the only things
that exist are material things

Anthony:
Material things? Where is the "appearance" of matter? Remember, not color, or
sound, or smell, or hardness, since these are qualities OF material things.
Again you inconsistently apply the criterion of appearance vs.
non-appearance, and yet you rant:

Jud:
The constituent elements that populate the conglomerates or communities of
micro-entities, the nexus of which we call =E2=80=9Centities=E2=80=9D [singularities] are
appraised or apprehended by us via our sensual mechanisms. The resulting
collection of data is awarded the various names or symbolisations that we
employ to ticket our interpretations.  These labels are then pasted onto the
entities as coincident markers for OUR purposes of identification. The
so-called =E2=80=9Cqualities=E2=80=9D to which you refer are chimaeras which do NOT EXIST IN
THE ENTITIES, but =E2=80=9Cexist=E2=80=9D only as identificatory, classificatory and
nominalistic ideas for the purposes [and points] of humans.  YOU may believe
they exist - but the rest of the universe doesn't. The entities simply exist,
and are present in the cosmos as unpurposeful, uncategorized, insensate,
nameless, soundless, colourless, odourless, pointless singularities.

Jud: (Previously)
I TOLD you that the religionists have messed up our ability to discuss the
ontological nature of reality rationally, and NOW you can see the results of
their intellectual vandalism.


Anthony:
Your ontology is far more obfuscated than anything the religionists offered,
because even if they were wrong, they were at least consistent.

Jud:
CONCRETE examples please? You seem to be more interested in catching me out
in some slip than you are in discovering the truth, for you offer no opinion
of your own which might throw some light on the discussion. Perhaps you
consider that you are in receipt of the truth already and have no need for
your own ideas to be exposed for criticism, as I willingly reveal mine?

Anthony:
Rather, the sense of purpose you must have had in mind in your rejection was
something of beings themselves independent of us.

Jud:
Again you persist in putting your own interpretations of what I must have had
in my mind.

Anthony:
1. You were REJECTING purpose before.
2. But you DO accept the existence of purpose as an existential modality of
mankind.
3. Therefore, the sense of purpose which you rejected could not have been as
an existential modality of mankind.

Jud:
The sense of purpose which I am consistently and steadily rejecting is that
inanimate objects have any purpose WHATSOEVER in themselves. I KNOW that you
are aware of my  real claim.  Are you claiming in front of this listening
[reading] audience that a hammer or a billiard ball has an inherent purpose
of its own?  May I have a straight answer please?  I claim that a billiard
ball exists for no other purpose than that purpose to which a human being or
human beings see fit to attach to it namely {but not exclusively] that of
enabling the player to play the game of billiards.
The sense of purpose which I am consistently and steadily accepting is that
focussed and determinate brand of human activity which we label as exhibiting
 =E2=80=9Cpurpose=E2=80=9D or being =E2=80=9Cpurposeful=E2=80=9D like taking a hammer and nail and knocking
it into the wall ON PURPOSE!

Anthony: You are trying to reply like this:

ME: The pink elephant in my dream last night was not real, but the blue
dinosaur was.
YOU: That is inconsistent; by what criterion do you accept the blue dinosaur
but not the pink elephant?
ME: I never denied the existence of the pink elephant - it existed as an
existential modality of me.
YOU: But that is not the sense in which you were denying it before.
ME: Stop putting words in my mouth and ideas in my mind!
A first year philosophy student could see the obvious equivocation here.


Jud:
Any  first year philosophy student could also see a red herring being
introduced via the back  door.  First of all I reject the introduction of
dream states and irreal examples as part of the discussion - with your
permission I will forget about =E2=80=9Cpink elephants=E2=80=9D and =E2=80=9Cblue Dinosaurs=E2=80=9D and
reform your text as follows:


My Version:

ME: The grey elephant I saw last night wasn't really grey - it's =E2=80=9Cgreyness=E2=80=9D
was my usaul  word-label which I pasted on its rump to signify (for MY
purposes) an existential identificatory modality of my sensual apparatus -
the same goes for the so-called =E2=80=9Cblackness=E2=80=9D of the cat I saw
In other words I would like you to quote EXACTLY where in the text I have
written in our discussion that one entity existed as an existential modality
of me and another did not?
My stance has been a consistent one of denying the existence or 'point' [Hi
Allen!]  and purpose, colour, smell, sound, hardness, softness, size, shape
and any other so-called =E2=80=9Cquality=E2=80=9D you can dream up of any inanimate entity,
other than that of it representing a human version of a =E2=80=9Cquality=E2=80=9D as
apprehended as a feature of a human "existential modality" of classification,
identification and nominality. [Sorry Allen.)

Jud (previously)
How do you know what I have in my mind for in your Berklean isolation I might
not exist never mind having a mind? Following from your =E2=80=9Cmust have=E2=80=9D permit
me to introduce a=E2=80=9D might have=E2=80=9D of my own. For all I know Bishop Berkeley may
have believed that beings themselves did not exist independently of his mind.
Now he is gone the being still remain - for me anyway, though patently not
for you in your Berklean isolation, except maybe as painted figures projected
on the revolving magic-lantern of your mind? Do you believe that objects will
cease to exist for others after your death?  I'm waiting patiently for an
answer. ;-)


Anthony:
You must have missed the post in which I explicitly told you that the
conclusions which I am drawing from your position are not my own. They follow
from your criterion of appearance vs. non-appearance.

Jud:
No I seldom miss a point pointless or purposeful. I am beginning to get the
impression that you DO hold to Berkelianism for the lengths that you are
going to in an effort to refute my refutation of purpose, and your employment
of a utility version of his position, which  is JUST the sort of stance that
the Irishman would have adopted if he were a member of this list.

Anthony:
So you cannot attempt to respond now that you never denied the existence of
purpose in the OTHER sense (as an existential modality of mankind), since
that was not the sense we were talking about concerning your rejection of
purpose. Nice try old boy!

Jud:
If you look back over our discussion, it hinged on whether a HAMMER had a
purpose of its own - whether a star could intentionally hidem and was not
concerned with a human hammerer until I introduced one.

Anthony:
Yes, and if we stick to your criterion (appearance vs. non-appearance), then
not only does a hammer have no purpose of its own, but also no matter of its
own; and yet, you inconsistently affirm the existence of matter.

Jud (previously)
CAUSALITY: I have steadily maintained for years on this list that I conceive
and accept that "causality" is the way in which we describe that event or
those events, or series of actions, or existential modalities, of the
billiard player, the "effect" of which, is the collision of one or more balls
with one or more other balls.

Anthony:
No, do not try to revise what you said, which was:

"The Atomic Bomb doesn't explode itself any more than the star conceals
itself behind trees as we walk along, or as the Pepperpot hides itself and
sinks itself into the mountain. WE explode the bomb by pushing the button.
The Atomic reaction of a far off star is the end result of a long causal
chain of cosmic button-pushing, the origin of which we can only speculate
about."

Here, you were specifically criticizing the idea that a star "shows itself"
or "conceals itself" since only we can do this. You were therefore arguing
that self-showing and self-concealing are our existential modalities which we
anthropomorphically impose on the star. In contrast to this, you say that the
star is really an "atomic reaction" that is "the end result of a long causal
chain of cosmic button-pushing, the origin of which we can only speculate
about." You were therefore contrasting "causal chains" AGAINST our
existential modalities, contrary to what you tried to say in this post. Try
again old boy!

Jud:
You entirely missed the point (too much Romanian altar wine?) ; -) My
comparison was NOT one of contrasting "causal chains" AGAINST our existential
modalities, but of contrasting our existential modalities with the
existential modalities of stars.By the way I inadvertantly employed the
word:" anthropomorphically" insteat of "anthropocentrically" somewhere -
please forgive me for this.

Anthony:
Yes, and you contrasted "causal chains" against OUR existential modalities
(such as self-concealing), not against those of the star. So then causality,
unlike purpose, would not be something that we anthropomorphically impose on
things, but an existential modality of those things themselves (such as
stars). Yet, causality has no "appearance" either, contradicting your earlier
use of the criterion of appearance vs. non-appearance in your rejection of
purpose. Contradictions galore from the one who accuses others of obfuscation.

Jud:
My criterion of accepting the notion of =E2=80=9Cpurpose=E2=80=9D or =E2=80=9Ccausality=E2=80=9D is that
the word-labels must correspond to the event patterns for which they stand.
In order for me to accept that I am witnessing those forms of human activity
that correspond to the received notion of purposeful behaviour, I need to be
aware that those activities conform to the usual accepted notions which
humans hold to be of that class of targeted activity which is accepted as
=E2=80=9Cpurposeful.=E2=80=9D

 It is the same with causal relationships.  If as a magistrate I hear a case,
or I see a man knocked down by a car, I have to decide whether the =E2=80=9Ccause,=E2=80=9D
(and subsequent responsibility,) was that of the driver, who was perhaps
driving inattentively, or the man who was maybe walking across the road
without looking [jay-walking] etc. There are other philosophical
ramifications to the tangential conjunctive presence of man and motor in
modalities of relative spatial positionality, which I will not explore
further at this juncture.
Mankind and certain animals can deliberately =E2=80=9Cself conceal=E2=80=9D=20but inanimate
objects cannot.  Perhaps you believe that they can?  Straight answer please?

Causal chains are nothing else than the existential modalities, [sorry Allen]
of other entities up and down the engagemental domino tegument of cause and
effect.
Our DESCRIPTIONS of the existential modalities of stars (including their
names] are attributed to the stars by us - there is nobody else [that we know
of] but us humans who are capable of performing this attributive activity.
This is NOT Star Trek!

Jud:
Previously)
My point was that just as the hammer lies there purposelessly, and is maybe
picked up by the hammerer in order to pursue HIS purposes, in the same way
the star just occupies its existential relative spatial positionality
purposelessly. It has no conception of the human beings millions of miles
away on planet earth and certainly has no intention or desire or purpose to
show itself to them if a break in the earth's cloud cover affords the
opportunity. In the case of the star it is undergoing a continuous
existential modality of nuclear reaction, the causal chains for which events
we can, [with the help of cosmologists] construct theories about. What I was
addressing here was the originative cause that set the chain in action which
led to the star's existential modality of continuous atomic reaction, [that
which you call God] that I referred to metaphorically as cosmic
button-pushing, the origin of which we can only speculate about."

Anthony:
Whether you are addressing the originative cause or the resulting causal
chain, which led up to the atomic reaction, you are still inconsistently
accepting causal chains in the same sense that you rejected purpose (as an
existential modality of things besides us), even though the criterion you
used (appearance vs. non-appearance) would demand that both be rejected.

Jud:
There is a difference between the insensate activity of the interacting
entities involved in an unpurposeful event in a chain of cause and effect
activity, and the purely idealistic notions of human  =E2=80=9Cpurpose=E2=80=9D involved
when a man decides to take up a hammer and knock a nail into the wall. In the
former event there is no =E2=80=9Cpurpose,=E2=80=9D in the second there is human =E2=80=9Cpurpose=E2=80=9D
which drives or brings about the event, and achieves fulfilment in the
conjunction of hammer against nail, and THEN  there is the unpurposeful
dimension to the same event on behalf of the hammer and the nail and the
wall, which are the insensate unpurposeful agents of the action. The sleeping
ontological partners so to speak.

Jud: (previously)
COLOUR: As for colour, I accept "colour" as the human apprehension
[existential modality] of that which results as a product of the transaction
of the human sensual apparatus with the incoming data of an exterior entity.

Anthony:
Yes, even though color HAS an appearance, and you had rejected purpose before
for precisely the reason that it does NOT have an appearance. In other words,
you are contradicting the very reasoning you gave earlier
(appearance vs. non-appearance). And now you say that the ontologies of
transcendentalists and religionists are obfuscated?

Jud:
I consistently pointed out that purpose exists in the sense that it is a word
or reificational noun which we employ to describe an existential modality of
a hammerer - it has no appearance of its own, for it is the proposal or
intention of the hammerer to commit himself to a certain action. The hammerer
certainly exists in the world - but his purposes and intentions only exist
reificationally as ideas expressed as words.

Anthony:
Which means, once again, that you are rejecting both purpose and color as
existential modalities of the HAMMER, even though the criterion you
explicitly used (appearance vs. non-appearance) would demand that color be
accepted as an existential modality of the hammer. Contradictions,
contradictions, contradictions, and yet you say:

Jud:
I have NEVER said anywhere or at anytime  that colour is acceptable as an
existential modality of =E2=80=9Ca=E2=80=9D hammer, =E2=80=9Cthe=E2=80=9D hammer or =E2=80=9Cany=E2=80=9D hammer - that
which HUMANS, through their sensory apparatus, apprehend as =E2=80=9Ccolour,=E2=80=9D
[=E2=80=9Cyellow=E2=80=9D for example] is attributed as a convenient verbal=20description of a
HUMAN version  of the  existential modality of the hammer, and that which
HUMANS through their hopes. desires, assignments, determinations, and
purposes, apprehend as expedient to  the satisfactory achievement of them is
attributed to the HAMMER as its USEFULNESS to the accomplishment of those 
HUMAN purposes.

Jud Evans.



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