File spoon-archives/heidegger.archive/heidegger_2003/heidegger.0309, message 112


From: GEVANS613-AT-aol.com
Date: Sat, 13 Sep 2003 18:32:58 EDT
Subject: Ouzo or Ousia? Thoughts in a Greek Fish & Chip Shop.


Fish and Chips.

Leaving aside the mention of 'existence,' which to me is an abstraction which 
doesn't exist, and believing as I do that only existents like these chips 
lying in their newspaper winding-cloth bathed in sodium and vinegar,  exist - not 
the existence of the existents, I must point out that I was never under the 
misapprehension that Heisenberg was proposing a chaotic universe, but rather 
drawing attention to the way in which certain philosophers of a 
transcendentalist leaning seized upon Heisenberg's conclusions and have attempted to use them 
as an argument against the scientific explanation of the primacy of the 
naturalness and explicability of the physical laws of nature, as opposed to a 
creationist stance whereby some superior individual [depending on the particular 
religion] is held responsible as a prime mover.

I don't see the connection between Heisenberg's principle and "chaos." 
'Chaos' and for that matter 'order' are also anthropocentric concepts, which for me 
are in the same categories as 'Being' and 'Essence' and 'Properties' and 
'Nothing' and much else of the transcendentalist trumpery we inherited from certain 
Greeks. Heisenberg's uncertainty principle is anthropocentric -- claiming 
that WE cannot know both a subatomic particle's location and momentum at the same 
TIME. It says nothing about the nature of the universe, only the nature of 
how WE can or cannot know the universe through observation -- that is, it speaks 
to the nature, and the limits, of the human mind. Hitherto I had assumed, 
because of the various graphical representations of the phenomena, that the 
haphazard behaviour of the electrons was a fact of actuality, and when the 
particles are fired from the nozzle of the electron-gun it is impossible to predict 
which way they will fly because of the existential perverseness in the behaviour 
of the electrons, not the cognitive inadequacy as an existential modality of 
US in our observational role. 
 I have always rejected the religious notion of 'matter' being created out of 
nothing, [ex nihilo.] I must point out however that as to such an existent 
being classified as 'belonging' to a certain 'type,' that these are 
anthropocentric categorisations, which have nothing whatsoever to do with the actual 
existent - which simply exists in the way it exists. In other words it is only a 
thing of a particular type for us, and not for itself or for something else.
When I say that  'fortuitousness, indefiniteness, and randomness at the 
quantum level is merely a reflection of what goes on at the macro-level,' I do not 
mean that the trillions upon trillions of atoms that constitute our 
Gesamtsumme [total sum] are specifically involved or actually affect in an 
interventionist manner either communally or individually the chance occurrences of a macro 
object, [say a human being,] but rather that behavioural perturbation appears 
to happen and be mirrored at all entitic levels, from the entities that 
inhabit the micro world of quantum physics, through the medium sized [on the human 
index of such things] objects that we interact with on a human scale, right up 
to the titanic world of huge stars and constellations and galaxies.

The so-called free radicals or reactive species of oxygen, nitrogen or 
chlorine. Superoxide, hydroxyl ions, hydrogen peroxide, and nitric oxide are 
examples of free radicals. These are atoms or molecules with an unpaired electron. 
Free radicals are naturally occurring and an important part of biological 
functions such as immunity, inflammation, growth and repair. Free radicals can have 
negative effects when they damage proteins, lipids and nucleic acids. They are 
normally held in balance in biological systems by antioxidant defence 
mechanisms. Environmental insults, infections, smoking, radiation and sunlight can 
also cause the formation of free radicals. Is not the aberrant behaviour of such 
particles at the sub atomic level and their deleterious effect on body cells 
an extension of their effects into or upon the macrocosm of which they form a 
part, for the diffusion of their effect upon the entity of which they are 
members of the composite is certainly observable as a breast tumour or some such 
malignant neoplasm? The very term 'free radicals' suggests a species of 
particle that does not observe the common rules of the majority, although it may well 
be observing the rules of its own molecular gooseberry-on-a-date kind as it 
goes about the human body seeking an electronic partner and wreaking all kinds 
of damage in the process. Do you think perhaps that free radicals are part of 
the mechanism of change, of progression, of degradation, of modification?  If 
such things are the result of purposeful planning  is 'God' to be blamed for 
planning the cancer that Mother Teresa rejoiced in? 

I am prompted to ask what are our purposes here on this list? Surely the 
pursuit of knowledge? Why should a consideration of Heisenberg's notions or any 
other physicist or scientist be excluded from our discussions of philosophy - 
particularly the ontological aspects of what exists  - why diid  '312589' speak 
so disparagingly of science?  If the transcendentalists persist in dragging in 
the Heisenberg principle of uncertainty every time the naturalist mentions 
the physical laws of nature, what are we to answer? If we respond by saying that 
the philosophical implications of such principles of physics to philosophy 
are really foolishly applied will they not accuse us of sidestepping the issue? 
What if we countered by saying that the philosophical implications of such 
principles of unfounded faith or religion or 'soul' or devil worship or whatever 
are really foolishly applied to philosophy?


For me 'Being, Existence, Presence, Chaos, Identity, Property, Essence, are 
meaningless universalistic articulations - acceptable as convenient terms in 
the bar-room or the bus queue, but completely risible idealisms not to be taken 
seriously during philosophical discussion. On a list devoted to theology or 
flying saucers yes. In my book the only things that exist are the things that 
are things - objects that cast a shadow so to speak, the entities that exist, 
and that which is present. That is not to say that I refuse to discuss such old 
fashioned concepts as quaint, interesting historical remnants for purposes of 
entertainment and relaxation, for it is only by understanding such 
transcendentalisms that one can understand the metaphysical notions that lead people to 
crash aircraft into buildings full of people, Protestants to shoot Catholics by 
the hundreds in Northern Ireland and vice versa, for idealistic Nazis to gas, 
shoot and burn six million people, and for idealistic Communists to send 
millions to a freezing death in Siberia because their transcendental views of 
individual politics happen not to coincide with the transcendental faith of the 
Communists in the overarching superiority of the state.. 
 For me 'ideas' and the so-called 'mind' and so-called 'consciousness' or the 
'self' are simply activities of the brain-meat, existential modalities of the 
embodied brain. There is no: 'realm of ideas' or 'mind or 'consciousness' but 
rather a specialised form of behaviour of those existent cells buried in the 
brain-meat which we call neurons. Varieties of the 'self' are included by some 
in an non-conscious world, e.g. the computer that is in most cars these days 
is aware of the engine and the state of many of its 'responsibilities' e.g. 
engine speed, temperature etc., but there is no 'self' of the computer and there 
never will be, no matter how far computers are improved. Richard Dawkins was 
ALMOST there when he said in The Selfish Gene: 'Consciousness arises when the 
brain's simulation of the world becomes so complete that it must include a 
model of itself.' Personally I don't believe that consciousness exists but only 
'that which is conscious' - it is not the 'dancing' that exists - but the 
dancer. Therefore I would re-jig Dawkins' apophthegm thus: 'That which is conscious 
becomes conscious when the body-brain's simulation of the world becomes so 
complete that it must include a model of itself.' 

To transcend is to move apart from the ordinary range of human experience or 
the activity of understanding, beyond, above and outside of the banausic range 
of human participation in a body-brain event or neuronal understanding. Part 
of the ordinary range of human experience or understanding is the activity of 
thinking, and the word 'thought' is an abstract way that we refer to this mode 
of the brain-meat which we call the 'thinking mode.' The brain-meat cannot 
'transcend' its own existential modalities, any more than a so-called 'soul' can 
rise to heaven upon the death of its earthy 'host.' 

The word 'essence' is a 'cop-out' word that merely allows the user to avoid 
facing some ontological difficulty squarely. It simply means the 'isnesses' of 
an entity, the indispensable quality or element identifying a thing or 
determining its character; fundamental nature or inherent characteristics. [[Middle 
English via Old French from Latin essentia, from esse 'be'] 

It can easily be seen that the quality or element identifying a thing or 
determining its character; fundamental nature or inherent characteristics is only 
indispensable to US as the determiners, the characterisers, the qualifiers, 
and the identifiers and has absolutely zilch connected to the entity undergoing 
such anthropocentric attribution. Being a green frog rather than a white frog 
is not some 'property' of 'greenness' that 'belongs' to the frog, but simply 
one of the ways [existential modes] in which the frog exists or its particular 
particles are associated in the composition of its Gesamtsumme. A green frog 
certainly exists - but the essence of 'greenness' no more exists than the 
property' of 'baldness' exists as part of the 'essence' of the bald man. The green 
frog - Yes. The Bald man - Yes! 'Greenness and Baldness - No! The ideating man 
- Yes! Ideas - No! 

For the record, I do not hold that our brain activity of thinking is linear 
but rather reticulate. There are certain brain processes [processes = ways of 
existential behaviour] which force linear or analogue brain activity when one 
is thinking logically, but even then the neuronal network is casting around the 
nets of cognitve entanglement to encompass elements of lateral thinking to 
reinforce or supervene upon the one track mind. 

 I believe, that the existential modality of the embodied-brain - 
embrained-body is undoubtedly NOT linear in its operational mode, but on the contrary 
weblike, having accessible cognitive interstices resembling a reticulum does not 
as far as I can see prove the existence of some higher dimension, but merely 
the totally understandable bifurcate model which can be seen in basic biology? 
Please elaborate I am intrigued as to why reticulation = the transendental?

How do we 'see' these 'intangible' soul-like isnesses? And what has 'morality 
got to do with it? Are  folk who do not accept the existence of these old 
fashioned concepts of 'soul' and essences' etc., mmoral or in need of some 'moral 
guidance' from those who believe such things? And who or what 'purposed us to 
be 'governed' by such weird notions. Surely an acorn is not 'purposed' to be 
an oak IT IS AN OAK in its early existential stage. Why on earth do we need a 
concept of 'purpose' to comment upon the developmental stages in the growth of 
an oak tree? It is subjected to the same laws of physics that we were 
addressing earlier. Existing as what we humans [the English-speaking ones] call an 
'oak tree' is simply the form that that particular entity has developed as being 
suitable in order to take advantage of the available niche or vacancy in the 
natural environment of certain areas of the world. I don't see where 'purpose' 
enters into it at all? Do you think that somewhere, perhaps in the sky, 
whirling around like the 'forms' of Plato's fantasies - tumbling around like the 
pack of playing cards in the court scene from 'Alice in Wonderland' there are 
'plans' for 'oaks trees' or 'fruit flies'? 

Reesa: 
It is easy to understand that the rules by which we see the necessity of the 
truths in physical reality (if I stick my hand in fire I am burned,) are 
reflected in the transcendent realm as well, though beyond any measure we can 
discern. 

Perhaps there is a transcendental fire into which I can put my hand to make 
me see these potty 'truths?' I know that in the past religionists were very 
fond of forcing peoples' hands and often their whole bodies into the flames to 
make them believe such antiquated ideas and dangerous anti-human notions.

Most Heideggerian notions are notions of faith rather than philosophy and  
cannot be defined, and I fail to see why it [the ideas] should be automatically 
elevated to some sort of 'moral imperative' rather than caste as simply ideas 
which are beyond explanation in the English  [or any] language. As the English 
language is said to be [amongst others] one of the most descriptive forms of 
communication, and adverbially and adjectivally one of the richest languages 
in the world, then it seems to me that it is the fault of the addressor's 
ideas, which are at fault - not the language of the addressees. 


Cheers,

Jud.

<A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A> 
Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY.
<A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com</A>


--- StripMime Warning --  MIME attachments removed --- 
This message may have contained attachments which were removed.

Sorry, we do not allow attachments on this list.

--- StripMime Report -- processed MIME parts --- 
multipart/alternative
  text/plain (text body -- kept)
  text/html
---


     --- from list heidegger-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005