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I was thinking today and rehearsing this thread in my mind. Obviously there is a problem with value and incentive related issue with respects to my previous entries. Thats fine.
The answer is very simple as the word proportionately in everlasting benefit goes.. so to say.
So that takes care of that and I like the idea of the term stuff and have questions and so forth because like some I think that Ive joined the dots on some things.
With regards to the actual self...
Does the actual self comprehend or acknowledge abject or absolute negative behavior in any way what so ever?
( I have a viewpoint on this with reason, so it is not a question which is in all a hopeful find, its a question also for criticism & discovery.
(edit...I think this has very import implications etc.
One misses something because one visits, the visit proves this, because one must visit, even just to express an opinion. To get out of looking like the ass that misses the hemorrhoid, one must then at least post something to look like a half wit instead of an empty headed visitor who misses what one misses, even though one obviously has nothing to say, other wise one wouldn't bother to visit-sort of a bumper sticker, dime a dozen, mentality.
Oh I don't know, one still has to account for stuff. It is easy in mind, and once already existing, to bridge the notion with the actual. For example, I need a seal driver for the rear axle of my F-3 Ford to install a replacement seal. I visualize the process, take measurements, maybe draw a diagram (for common ordinary thought, picture thought), and then go to the lathe and turn it out. Possibilities exist everywhere along the process. I bridge the notion with the thing, or I make it, out of stuff laying around, I mediate the notion into reality. Reason is in all things, so my mind works with that reason in itself and within the material. When finished the notion (here, a spurious notion, not philosophical, and composed of two sublimated ideas, the tool and the seal, into the third "installation," but an illustration, none the less) is actual. For stuff to come out of being and nothingness, before there is the stuff, then the notion of becoming (becoming immediately posits the finite, which brings in negation, measure, etc, etc, etc) must be made actual, otherwise, it, becoming, remains in abstraction, and there is no stuff; or bridged by something, a middle term, that mediates the transition. The existential has the "leap" or the actualization of the notion "leaps" into actuality and perhaps rescues the whole mess from a mere idealism. It seems here that one can get determinate being posited with the aide of this "leap" and posit actuality (as distinct from the "real"); well, because the actual is here, so there is this leap (but this leap may appear as a transition, but it seems to lack content). To begin with what is already here, is the easy part, but then the whole mess is already in process, and that means not to have begun with the beginning; as what now then begins, as an already in motion process, "being-for-self" and "being-for-other," that is assumed to be the beginning.
Been going through trying to get at how I answer these questions for myself,
I think the only content that I can think of in the scope of all in above, is an infinite cycle out of whats being suggested. Plus, it wouldn't seem reasonable to entirely expect to find the same exact style of stuff which caused mans stuff to come about. The assumption man makes I guess is the stuff( reason) must of been in consequence to something greater then reason. Reasoning seems incompatible with infinite as a use, where would the reason be, to reason something.
The other thing I noticed is the idea of originating from abstract thought instead of what is known to be. I think that might be a creation of infinity.
One of the advantages of being married to a career woman, is not having to work, another is getting to tag along on "business" trips. I always hated work, myself, even though there is much truth in that sign over the death camp, "Arbeit Mach Frie," if my german spelling is correct, one would expect a saying like that from Germans, as the two, work and freedom, would be the same, or two sides in a "notion." Of course in the death camp, the Germans mocked their own philosophy, as, if there is no freedom, there is truly no work, and if there is no true work, then there is no freedom. Reason, it would seem to me, would need to be everywhere, or at least prior to stuff (one should at least be familiar with Plato to be an amateur philosopher even). How ever one wants to view the start of stuff, well, even in a big bang, the movement of stuff has to be rational, or one is saying there is this cause and effect relation, or such like activity (one can not say this if there is no rationality-how could this be without it?), and it has no rationality, and as Heidegger said, so it must be true, even the irrational has rationality in it, so the start of stuff could not be termed irrational, could it? The mode of thought, common to common thinking, is to look at stuff, derive ideas, and to then think that the ideas are not "real," and so are held in low esteem as compared to actual stuff, and this movement, this lack of mental esteem, is an act of the human mind! This idea needs to be abandoned in philosophy, because it is shown that the stuff, is only fleeting phenomena, or in mere becoming, and lacks the truth philosophy looks for. Religion finds its center here as well, and that brings it into relation to philosophy. Philosophy then sublimates the stuff, or mere appearance, to the essential or reflection, or better the notion. The truth is sought here, but in entities of the mind, not in stuff, even though stuff is the beginning point (stuff is like the immediate that needs mediation, how is anything known by the mind without mediation?), but a point one moves away from (Hegel worked this out in his Logic). Stuffs do not make a move without reason, because stuffs and their ideas are one in the same even though there is a quality difference between them. In a sublimation, as unity, these two do not vanish, nor do they merge and lose themselves, but they form the notion. Common thinking wants these un-related and set apart, and so thinking and the stuff would be distinct and then there would be no notion.
If one posits the leap, that gets one over the hump. The leap has fallen out of acceptance because most generally see gradation now, or movement by increments; that morphing by computer gives the impression that a monkey can become a man by just growing into one; and judging from the behavior of most, that computer stuff is true as picture, but men have kept their monkey behaviors internally (of course, we are probably something else not here yet, and then there are no men, but we are just a moment of that thing, which is in all things, including slime-perhaps that alien creature is the top). This incremental movement dominates our thought now, but then one has to posit that in the monkey is a man, and what was before the monkey was also a man, and on into a backwards spurious infinity; perhaps mutations are attempts at leaps, and then getting the human out from under his ape-ness, or better, all the way back to slime-ness, I don't know. No wonder being a human now is not very impressive. To get the leap, one would need to be in the same genus. As I am trying to do, from the idea to the stuff, using the idea of the notion; the idea and the stuff lay within the same notion, so then there is no problem moving from the idea to the sensuous and back again-they are the same. The problem comes up when common thinking, all too common, assumes the sensuous to be distinct from the idea of it. How can an idea be distinct from the thing? Or a thing from its idea? Say a metaphysic distinct from the physical? This distinction can be done, of course, but then the notion is ruined, higher thinking wants to bring them back together, lower thinking like Russel's, I believe it was, avoided paradox, at all costs, and stayed in understanding-but that is hear-say, and I do not want to read his stuff to know for sure. For the notion, the material stuff is included in the notion and sublimated as mere appearance and brought into reflection (essence). This is not a pure idealism, I suppose something like that christian science stuff, because the material "is." So if one loses one's leg, well, one lost a leg, not merely the idea of it. Because the material stuff is in the notion, then the material must be, ie, it is necessary. If the material lies outside of the notion, then there would be no necessity for its being (this impacts the concept, or notion of subjectivity, and that evidently impacts freedom) posited, it would have no concept; course, that can not be imagined, because the notion is truth. Because becoming is finite (all material, stuffs, is finite, otherwise, it would not be material or stuff), this necessary positing of it is momentary, and is reflected back into its idea, or its universality. That is the syllogism.
I will need to start explaining better. These quality entries and disputes require time and importantly non-time. I'm posting a little earlier then whats comfortable.
Regarding the stuff the effort was not to suggest relative to mans reason a hard line of distinction or inseperable value could exist, but different.
Reason seems to be a path for a process in desire relative to man, attainable by the existence of consequence to laws. These settings allow for reasons access in order & by order, in the expression of the settings themselves, thus a manifistation of order by reason.
If the path for reason is entirely from within a defined process, the process would not be subject to perimeters and laws in submission or otherwise. The composition of reason then becomes complete within itself.......( I think I used the word becoming re an infinite idea previously, and can see why it was a crumby word choice.
The stuff relative to man in opinion would only be a potencial flow, toward the flow of order. A limitation consistent with the higher dasein everydayness definition for awareness.So then can reason or the stuff as we understand be mistaken for a subject, something definable as a term? This seems like it may be a good question. The question may then become why? Well..it seems there should be a distinction between the stuff of awareness and the stuff in nature by aware acquisition and consequential affect, that is to say, will-full interaction.
The mediator idea seems vulnerable as a fact . I reasoned it out this morning but would take time on that one, so maybe I will research his writing after doing some patient thought... piecing out the approach.
Well one of the advantages of being married to a career woman, is going to resorts when she goes to conferences, back to back. Years ago, when rabble like me got rich, many just traveled around staying in hotels. I think I could do that. But one needs to be rich.
Thinking does require time and effort, it is hard work, that is why there is so little of it. Of course I am drawing a distinction between thinking and thinking; as with all things there always seem to be a quality issue. If one was to utilize Kierkegaard's existence spheres, this quality or lack makes sense. Most people live in the immediate sphere, its easy to spot. Thinking in immediacy can probably be chalked up to not thinking at all, from a philosophical perspective.
To me reason is in all things, and those things manifest the reason in them (that is how the thing-in-and-for-itself give access to it). By things I mean so called actual stuff as well as objects of thought, well, all things are objects of thought, but I mean thought structures that do not necessarily have actual objects that are in extension, or the term, I believe, is the existent, as opposed to the existential. Dasein would apply to both, but consciousness would be a different dasein as it is self-reflective, where as the reason in nature, both animate and inanimate, can only be seen by consciousness-nature does not see itself except through the eyes of men, well when men rise out of common thought and get to spirit (those people who think men have no purpose here are morons of the highest caliber as are those that think there is no difference between man and nature and his value is no greater than nature, Al Gore is a dick head when he wrote that a pine tree is more valuable than ones child). Course by being seen, I mean not seen with the eye, as who sees reason directly? Who sees gravity? Magnetism? And all the other Laws and powers? And yet all the geniuses believe in them. What one sees is the movement of the existent, and then infers these powers. One sees the apple drop and calls the drop gravity, and then proves there is gravity, by the apple being dropped, and the whole experience is without seeing "actual" gravity (the term "actual" means the idea becoming an existent, where as "real" means in the mind as existing); so there is something of a tautology with this gravity and such.
By syllogism in my last post I meant it as the old term "notion" and it is similar to regular syllogisms. Regular syllogisms sometimes have lots of problems, but are still used a lot. I read somewhere where Leibniz found over 2300 of them but the good ones where reduced to about 24. These get categorized in a few types. It is kind of strange that probably most people use these in everydayness and perhaps have no idea of it.
One of the bad ones is something like this, an old example-men have beards, Socrates has a beard, therefore Socrates is a man. One can see how bad this is as men have more determinations than a beard, so the syllogism points to an infinite number of additional structures. But I am sure many rabble would rely on a singular structure like this to define their reality (such as a racist). There is another class called "comparative" and it would go like this-primates are monkeys, man is a primate, therefore man is a monkey. One should see what is wrong here, as the infinite problem exists here as well, and one can turn this around and make monkeys men, or any other primate into any other, there are some others but I forget now, and don't feel like doing research. When one builds those charts, say of primates, its misleading as just because one is a primate, does not make one a monkey. This is too obvious, but I am sure many forget the infinity of determinations, and trust just one or two syllogisms. Generally it is understood that thought will make up the difference, so when one says, "the dog is brown" one assumes the movement can not go the other way, such as "brown is dog", because brown is a color, and therefore is a quality that is not determined by specific things, ie, brown can be on anything nearly, but "dog" is a pretty particular universal that can not be applied to monkeys. All this is one sided reasoning, or for the understanding, philosophical reason gets a little beyond. As notion, the subject and predicate can interchange, or come out of each other, subject can become predicate and predicate subject; this was needed to interchange the subjective with the objective. If one where to look at a systems social theory, one sees that individuals are out side the social system, or they are in its environment as social systems are formed from communications. So individuals are an object of these systems, but from the perspective of the individual, a psychic system (biological too), the system is the the environment, or object, and within systems themselves, there is the system environment relation as well, such as the political being in the environment of the religious subsystem, within the same social system. Hegel needed this to overcome Kantianism and get past transcendence. But common thinking probably is using the syllogisms in bad ways. But reason is still in there.
I guess one should be aware that reason does not want to be one's friend, it does not care about one, it does not matter to it how it is used, falsely or correctly, good or ill, truth or lie, or whatever. It has a monopoly on consciousness, so it has no competition within the closed system that consciousness is, even feelings are involved with it-it is everywhere and the truly cosmos universal. But its streams do not guarantee the proper or truth out come, and each movement of it probably has an infinite possibility for directional change.
Many today want to live without thought; I know that sounds strange, as being human is thought, but then there is thought and then there is thought-the two are not exactly the same, and as with any thing, there usually is a quality issue. There is a philosophy called transcendentalism, and it is related to the "act." There is also a philosophy movement termed idealism, and that is related to "being." Obviously, what else is there? Perhaps a synthesis of the two-but that is for theology and theology only has the answer for this, is it the right answer or not I will not discuss here and now (by synthesis, I mean the "notional" idea, not the obliteration of one or the other or both). Those that want to live in act, are orientated toward the existential (mistakenly some what, but once anything [X] reaches the rabble, it gets bastardized into "X" of a sort; but we have plenty of leeway here so exactness ain't a data forum issue). In "act" one thinks one gets existence, as acting seems "real," whereas being seems to be just a static "state." In act, on gets existence by acting, and then, existing is a series of acts from beginning to end; thinking is just one of those bothersome things that existence requires, that one wishes one could dispense with. Being, of course, is a state, and act is something on the periphery to it. But the advantage here in being, is that one is this being, or in a state from beginning to end (I imagine it depends on how one views this as to its advantage, for example, if the christians are right, well some of them, well, very few now, as most are concerned with act, but if there is a fall for all [hahaha], then one is in a "being in Adam," from beginning to end, and, therefore, is eternally screwed, and act won't do much for one. I might as well use christians for "act" at this spot as well, for example, if act is the foundation, then falling into the land of the dead or being on one's way to nirvana depend on each act within one's life series of acts, so both are conditional in the now, or instant, as one has no being, so life is really iffy and subject to a life of "either/or" or as the existentialists called life, a "crisis," and one should add, a life long repetition of such, like Dante's "Inferno" if one asked me). Humans are a synthesis of being and nothing, a notional synthesis where being and nothing are sublated, so each keeps its characteristics, and yet the collision of the two produces a third-that third is "becoming." One can not talk about being and nothing at the same time, as distinct. One talks about one, and then through a transition [or not], talks about the other. Lower thinking does this, concentrate on one at a time, keeping them from colliding as they cancel each other, near together they form a contradiction if one insists that they occupy the same position. Higher thinking knows them as distinct and can mimic lower thinking, but it also knows that actually, both terms are the same, even though there is a "quality" difference; that is because both are "pure" or lack a determination; each comes out of the other. The higher thinking can speak both simultaneously by speaking "becoming." Humans have becoming, well, because they become. This would seem then to give priority to act. And intuitively, I suppose many people drift this way, as one looks around, and all finite things change, or become. The problem with this, is that one then does not have being; or, one does not really exist, but as the ancients had it, one was mere appearance. So act will not get you into existing or being, no matter how much one acts; as it all is passing away, so as soon as one acts, it is gone, so one does not have being. Being (as in idealism) is in man as well, as he has becoming that illustrates that his being is negated by the nothing (this sets in logic, or the syllogism and moves through the form, as the negation by nothing is internal to being and through the transition, this negation is negated by the determination of a differentiation of the nothingness in being; or a distinction is made, and becoming-the result but not as yet posited, negates the negation by nothingness, that is the positive, and re-enters being, or qualifies being as becoming, and that becoming is now posited), well if I got all that right. This lays in man's higher order thinking, which is able to objectify his own "I," and everything else, as it is the moment of existence, the appearing, or the "shining" of the thing that manifests its being through the reason in it to consciousness which operates with reason (this transcendentalism can not do as the thing transcends consciousness at every moment, even your own objectified "I" as it to is a "thing"). This forms an infinity, a circle (linear infinity is the false infinity, or was termed the "spurious infinity") from mind to the object and back to mind, this is in idealism, where especially the "I" knows the object "I" and as such, both 'I" come out of each other, or they are the same without differentiation except itself as one, or what was called the pure "I" just like pure being above. Course, the problem here, is that if one was just here at the pure "I," one could not project himself into existence with act, so "becoming" would slide away, and one would not be a finite person but something non-human, as, all extension enters the finite and becomes. The difference between these two systems are striking and yet they actually have the same foundation in essence, and that is the closed system. One never, ever, ever, ever, thinks out side the box.
I suppose one could say there are two great schools of thought amongst men; the eastern and the western. These are based on a naturalism in the east and a spiritualism (mind in consciousness where thought is the substance not nature as the east) in the west. Either is probably now dead in the water as distinct, but they do play out some today. This is in the dialectic of the subjective and the objective, or better, the particular and the universal. In the east, the particular, say, you, are an evil, or troublesome thing and the goal is to un-determine oneself and re-enter the universal. In higher thought, the universal would be the absolute substance with no determinations, so the goal is to think oneself into nothingness, to vanish into the whole, to become one with it. In lesser thought, I suppose this absolute substance could be taken over by the state as the substance is too abstract for moderns, and then one dissolves oneself into the state (in the post modern this could be many things, race, gender, the union, military, the party, etc, etc); or, my property belongs to the state, my thoughts belong to the the state, as does my life, work, family, time, etc (one should read about the show trials in the USSR and see an actual existence of this thought, one example of a form as a trickle down theory, and its coming to me). Is it any wonder that our modern politics moves this way, especially with the democratic party; but in all likely hood the republicans have this as well, or is it any wonder that many are becoming associated with Buddhist, Hindu, and other eastern thought, where the goal is the riddance of the particular (it is the christian religion that brings this differentiation out to the foreground which the Greeks had begun especially with Socrates, and puts "eternal value" on the particular; in this way christianity is the enemy of universalizing that wishes to absorb all particularity, and if christianity can not be turned into a universalizing simulacrum through a liberal expression [one needs to look carefully at terms like the "universal church," the dissolving of one christian into the other, universal salvation, god all in all, and other such like expressions one hears now without thinking], mystical form, a socialistic religion, and such like, than it is to be despised and one need only listen to those who despise it, or are attempting to turn it into a substance itself, to see where they are headed and where we will all be draged along with them). The idea is that a substance or universal is unchanging but goes through many qualities. For example, Allen is Allen from birth through death, but I become many things, change, and such, but I am always Allen; therefore, that absolute substance, or the universal is the same, and I am merely a momentary change in that substance, and so, the goal would to be rid of me and return to the substance. In the west, the idea was the spiritual or thought in consciousness, and as it is only the particular that thinks, then, out of the substance, I must appear, and that means movement out in differentiation of the substance, of many particulars, not the return to undetermined substance. The two forms oppose each other in that one expands and one contracts. In sociology, the idea was that I as an individual was part of the social (many sociologists are Marxists [here, this man Marx, was critical of Hegel, because Hegel followed the spiritual too close, and Marx, wished it more naturally orientated, hence his dialectical "materialism"] so one can not be surprised about this), and it is the social, that I am merely a moment; I come out of it and return, the social is eternal, or the universal substance, perhaps one could say in modern dumbed down thought. The spiritual, of course will lose in the west as it is on a fast track to do so, and as we all have the gift of prophecy, and what we foresee may come true or not, the obsession of the west on the natural and universality, will pull it further eastward; we brought down the USSR, we may as well absorb it and not learn from their mistakes.
A system is an attempt at a complete structure it seems to me. To be complete would seem to be its truth; as structure itself, where all the moments, or parts of the structure together, form the truth. Or the truth is enclosed in the system. Hegel saw in Heraclitus three dialectics. And one may assume a three part structure to these (I do not know if Heraclitus viewed it this way), say the old "thesis, antithesis, and the two then synthesized into a "one" or the synthesis. This "one" could then become a thesis, which would give rise to a new antithesis, etc, and the process could just continue. One either stops the process by reaching an absolute, or a point where the process concludes and can go no further or one may arbitrarily stop it at some point, as incomplete. The first was a dialectic that never reached a conclusion. Whatever the structure was about, it remains immanent, or never coming forth, or "shining" forth as the dialectic never concludes. I suppose there are several reasons for this. Another form was a dialectic within subjective contemplation. And here I suppose the result of a dialectic never reaches actuality, so it always remains abstract, or one might say, "I thought about mowing the lawn and really finished the job in my mind." And the third dialectic he referred to as principle. I assume here, he means where the dialectic reaches conceptual level form, or concludes, with the result being a principle, or maybe one could say, a truth. One could sum this dialectic up as the "notion" where he (Hegel) says that the notion in so negating itself as infinite or universal as to become finitude and particular, and in negating this finitude then re-establishes the infinite in the finite. Or the universal is negated by the particular, and this particular is then negated as well, with the universal then being brought together with the particular and found in it. For truth, it would seem that it gets a determination at this unity. The process is self contained as a circle, so the truth is in its moments and the process brings it out, but it is not from the outside, even if out side data is the immediate form, as the circle is that of consciousness.
If I could tentatively, place the first dialectic in a Sophist mouth, the second in Socrates' mouth, and the third in Hegel's. The first, is in relation to Kierkegaard's existence sphere of the aesthetic, is the most common one today. I relate this to the sophists because it panders to subjective caprice and flatters the individual. It is reason or rational to be sure, but reason without a conclusion, and in this form then, the individual stops it where he will, as the individual is its conclusion. This elevates personal opinion, feeling, and ideas then to truth. This destroys, or potentially destroys any universal concepts that are to be held in common, or those concepts that one attaches oneself to, and what one attaches oneself to is one's own thoughts. Historically, this type of dialectic contributes to the fall of Greece and Athens, just as it is doing to us. We lose a sense of a common held morality, religion, ethics, political goals, and such, or we become a "civil society" where each shifts for himself, while in need of others for one's own ends. The so called post modern merely elevates this sophism to a group "consciousness" rather than to a lone individual trusting his own thoughts. This reasoning, because it can not conclude, can essentially (this term "essence" means like the thought content of a thing) prove and disprove anything, and that is the reason for its enigmatic character, and it is limited only by the subjective's ability to argue for or against some topic. If I say, "to execute a murderer should not be done because the state then murders," that is a sophism, as it neglects the universal notion of the state. I can merely counter the argument that he should be executed because he took a life, and then one should see that there is no conclusion here but mostly the emotional baggage of the listeners. Nothing is really proved, and each is left with his own opinion as the "proof."
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