Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 4

[Pharoah]

I agree with Steve's comment that what Pharoah is claiming concerns the hard problem. It seems to me that Pharoah is simply denying the reality of the hard problem. This is why we need you, @Pharoah, to be specific in explicating and supporting your claims that the HP can be dismissed by your theory.

Here again as Steve quoted them are your essential claims:



These are my questions at this point:

Re 1., I think it's reasonable to claim, even obvious, that you, Mark Pharoah, an Englishman writing in the early 21st century, experience your own consciousness in numerous ways that cannot be identical with the ways in which any other extant human being experiences his or her consciousness, either at every new moment of awareness or in the personal integration of past lived experience in the world that every consciousness accumulates and refers to. My first objection is that the recognizable individuality of human consciousnesses does not obviate the fact that there are basic characteristics/structures of consciousness shared among all humans, as demonstrated in phenomenological analysis of consciousness. My second objection is that Mark Pharoah's consciousness in this lifetime might not remain the same if the 'essence' of Mark Pharoah is or has been reincarnated in another lifetime in the stream of universal time and evolution. You seem to be claiming an essence that has formerly been referred to as the 'soul', a permanent entity that seems in numerous cases investigated by reincarnation researchers to return to a temporal lifetime in another body (indeed another biographical identity), pursuing another, separate, lifetime in the time and place of its reincarnation. Reincarnation research must be considered in thinking about the possibility of one temporally embodied identity maintaining permanent Being that transcends experience {edited:} in the continually changing and evolving world in which life and consciousness is necessarily situated historically, temporally, and geographically.

re 2., if your current experience of the world as available to your own consciousness cannot be in part generalized as similar to the experience of others both in situations similar to yours in England and in thousands of other concurrently lived situations on planet earth, how is it that you can identify with the problems, struggles, and feelings of your contemporaries elsewhere? How is it possible for you to empathize with any others anywhere, even those living closest to you (your family, your friends, even your llamas)? Do you really think that your lived experience and awareness of it is not coherent with what's called 'the human situation' in our time and even the situation of non-human but sentient animals living in our time?

re 3., the point needs further clarifying. Here is what you wrote: "3. not because my experiences are unique to me as it is outside the phenomena of interactive experiences." First question: does the pronoun 'it' refer to your experiences? {EDIT to add: Or does it refer to the personal, essential, timeless Being you think you possess?} Second question, and the most interesting one for me: on what basis do you conclude that your own "unique Being" has nothing to do with the interaction of your current biographical consciousness with the 'world' in which you presently live, the historical situation you currently occupy with its factical limitations on what you can think, how you can act, how you experience your temporal being?

Ok @Constance. This post is a good indication that we are not seeing eye to eye.
point 1. The objections: I agree with your sentiment, which means the sentiments cannot be objections to anything I think or have intended to mean.
Reincarnation is one of four possible theories off the top of my head that can be considered.
point 2. Experience can be generalized but the nature (essence) of each unique Being cannot. There is a distinction between Being and Being in the world (the experience) because 'I' am uniquely me in the spatiotemporal expanse of the universe i.e., Being is delineated through experience but not by experience. So, yes I can empathise but that's not the point.
oooint 3 . "it" refers to Being... but not necessarily timeless or permanent in the way you might think. Second question: two answers... because it's mine and not anyone else's, and because I am not anyone else. A hundred years ago, I wasn't anyone else.
What initial experience (in utero perhaps) could have presented my Being as that particular Being in the world? or what combination of chemicals makes my Being rather than another? or why should a physical structure or process be the defining feature of My spatiotemporal Being? yes they might rxplain Beings as Being-in-the-world... but not my particular one

 

[Constance]

Hmm, let me mull that over.

 

[smcder]

@Constance I am sorry you did not get the email... drop me your email and I'll give it another attempt.
I haven't written up my notes from Nagel's book yet, so I'll do so tonight. I can relate this topic to B&T too which might be interesting (or confounding!)
@smcder: you may remember the comments of a reviewer to my AJP submission... that I confused the metaphysical with the epistemiological through my use of the terms 'information' and 'fact' in the same sentence.
Now... I reject the notion that there is such a thing as observer-independent facts. This view may be misconstrued as implying that I am an idealist—that i am of the view that facts are (mind) dependent in some way. But this is not the case.
Morality concerns itself with the evaluation of actions and the determination of principles underlying Good action. To try and find such rigid designations—i.e., moral facts—is to believe there are principles: to believe there are indomitable moral ideals (heaven forbid ideologies).
But from my stance, morality relates to action: it relates to responding to the world. Morality is a necessary evolutionary consequence of the hierarchical constructs. Each construct reacts to interactions:
Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response; the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.
HCT says something of the origin of morality—of the 'cause to act' and our conceptual contemplation of 'principles of action'. But this morality is of the world to: it has to exist in the physical world whether we know of it or not. HCT explains that morality had to have evolved by accident... by trial and error. The next hierarchical level will transcend this (by extrapolation this must be the case)
So am I a moral realist? Yes and no I think.

I'm putting you down as:

_X_ don't know, because there is a "I don't know" contained in that:

"Yes and no I think"

If philosophy doesn't work out ... consider politics?

;-)

 

[Pharoah]

Morality concerns itself with the evaluation of actions and the determination of principles underlying Good action.

To try and find such rigid designations—i.e., moral facts—is to believe there are principles: to believe there are indomitable moral ideals (heaven forbid ideologies).

Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; - what relationship does this have to morality?

phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response; the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.

Can you give an example of such principles?

Morality concerns itself with the evaluation of actions and the determination of principles underlying Good action. To try and find such rigid designations—i.e., moral facts—is to believe there are principles: to believe there are indomitable moral ideals (heaven forbid ideologies).

Not sure yet about the (quick path) from moral facts to indomitable moral ideals to ideologies - although it feels like "heaven forbid ideologies" is taking an ideological stance on your part?

Does HCT give you, personally, the tools with which to make moral decisions?

Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; - what relationship does this have to morality?
—The origins of progressively complex actions that are good and actions that are bad... for a specis and ultimately for the individuals of a species

the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.
Can you give an example of such principles?
do to others, what you would have them do to you... harming others is wrong because it leads to pain which then impacts on society in lots of (usually bad) ways.

Does HCT give you, personally, the tools with which to make moral decisions?
No. Hence there is no ideological framework.
But it enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice.
it provides a understanding of the nature of the conflicting dynqmics that affect the behaviours we might judge to be right. It limits the dominance of rational thought in the evaluation of judgments. There is a book in this.

 

[smcder]

Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; - what relationship does this have to morality?
—The origins of progressively complex actions that are good and actions that are bad... for a specis and ultimately for the individuals of a species

the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.
Can you give an example of such principles?
do to others, what you would have them do to you... harming others is wrong because it leads to pain which then impacts on society in lots of (usually bad) ways.

Does HCT give you, personally, the tools with which to make moral decisions?
No. Hence there is no ideological framework.
But it enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice.
it provides a understanding of the nature of the conflicting dynqmics that affect the behaviours we might judge to be right. It limits the dominance of rational thought in the evaluation of judgments. There is a book in this.

I can't figure out how to word this without sounding a bit of a bastard - but note that I know I sounds like a bit of a bastart and know that I'm acting out of a sense of befuddlement when I ask what good then is HCT?

I really do want that question answered. So take the following as the best approach I know - the modified Socratic method I learned (by being on the receiving end) in law school - here in America the system is adversarial and while that turns out in practice to be a lousy way to do law ... it might not be a bad way to challenge claims of something new in philosophy. At any rate, for now it's the best way I can think of ... and please pardon any rhetorical flurishes.

Now, if you'll take the stand, I'll begin the questioning:

Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response; the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.

1) phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response - if I remember, HCT doesn't show how or even that it does mitigate behavioural response ... correct? I've not seen anything anywhere that definitively does so, if I'm wrong, I want to know.

2) Morality has nothing to do with the survival of the species. I don't think you are saying this, but I just want to be sure. I presented some hypotheticals in another thread and skipping the details, the bottom line is that some people saw the right choice as being the one that lead to the end of the species and even possibly all of intelligent life. They arrived at this conclusion through rational moral thinking.

3)
Does HCT give you, personally, the tools with which to make moral decisions?
No. Hence there is no ideological framework.
But it enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice.
it provides a understanding of the nature of the conflicting dynqmics that affect the behaviours we might judge to be right. It limits the dominance of rational thought in the evaluation of judgments.

Can you give me a concrete example of how HCT "enhances relevancy and scope of tolerance" and so affects choice? (In other words - where were you last Tuesday night?) And does so in a way unique to HCT. I honestly don't understand this sentence but what I think it means ... well, there are lots of things that already do this. If you were to rely on HCT as an alibi, how would you argue it?

You've backed off of HCT and 1)phenomenal experience (although you still make claims for mental causation), the "hard problem" or (s)

2) you've backed off of teleology (although "inevitability" is still in play and freely used)

3) now you're backing off morality but still use "good" and "bad" in unqualified ways

The origins of progressively complex actions that are good and actions that are bad... for a specis and ultimately for the individuals of a species

you've rejected moral facts and ideology as searching for principles, but you say:

the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.

and so we're left with

• the puzzle of individual consciousness
• meaning, purpose via inevitable trial and error
• the Golden Rule with no ideological framework
• a vague claim that HCT enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice

So I see that you've taken a series of positions on philosophical problems and put these on top of an evolutionary model of physical reality ... and I'm just missing what is new about HCT, what is revolutionary?

The more I think about all of this the more I'm convinced that even revolutionary ideas can be expressed clearly and simply and with concrete examples ... with exceptions that shrink as I think about them, being expressed clearly and simply doesn't mean they will be understood, so there's still a chance you can eat your pie in obscurity.

But do you really want to?

 

[smcder]

Yes Pharoah, I remember discussing with you in part 3 your idea about the uniqueness of your personal being {?} or identity {?}, but it's good that you bring this forward again and attempt to give us a clearer sense of what you are claiming in terms of your independence from being and Being. I join Steve in asking you for a clearer exposition of your concept and its grounds.

This text by Heidegger may be useful to you in understanding the relevance of his thinking to your own:



A very helpful summary posted at amazon:

"Thinking the ground of metaphysics...
By Brian C. on April 3, 2011

This is a very short book composed of two essays (The Principle of Identity and The Ontotheological Constitution of Metaphysics). The actual text of the English translation is only around fifty pages which means the text is very dense and terse in formulation even by Heidegger's standards. In order to understand what Heidegger is up to in this text you either have to already be in possession of a basic understanding of Heidegger's later philosophy (especially Heidegger's understanding of the 'truth of Being', 'event of appropriation', and the belonging together of thought and Being) or you will have to find a good secondary source that deals with this text (there is a short but enlightening discussion of the two essays in this book in a book by Otto Poggeler titled Martin Heidegger's Path of Thinking). While this is a very interesting book the fact that it is so short does not make it a good stand alone text, or a good general introduction, to Heidegger's late philosophy. I will attempt to summarize, to the best of my limited abilities, the two essays contained in this work. Anyone choosing to read my summaries should bear in mind that I am by no means an expert in Heidegger (yet) so these summaries should be taken as very provisional. If anyone spots what they consider to be errors in my interpretation please feel free to respond under the comments section of this review.

In the first essay Heidegger attempts to think through the principle of identity (A is A) which is often considered the highest principle of thought. This principle is not, however, merely the highest law of thought, the principle to which all thought must conform in order to be coherent, it is also supposed to say something about the Being of beings, namely: every being is in such a way that it is identical to itself. If beings were not encountered in their identity with themselves something like science would not be possible. The principle of identity as it applies to Being is, therefore, a necessary presupposition for something like science. But is this the most profound understanding of identity? Heidegger does not think so. Heidegger believes there is a more profound form of identity which underlies our ability to encounter beings in terms of the identity they bear towards themselves. In order to elucidate this more profound notion of identity Heidegger turns to one of his favorite sayings of Parmenides "For the same perceiving (thinking) as well as being" (pg27). This is a strange translation but what is being asserted here is an identity between perceiving (thinking) and being. This identity is no longer the identity which we represent as a characteristic of the Being of beings since Being is one of the terms of this identity (it cannot, therefore, ground the identity). Heidegger interprets this identity as a belonging together of man and Being. Being only is within the clearing that man provides while man is only the response to Being. Heidegger believes that Being becomes present to man today primarily in the form of technology. Beings present themselves as what is manipulable or representable. The most difficult aspect of Heidegger's later thought is that he no longer conceives this as a projection of man. In Being and Time Heidegger analyzed what he believed was an inherent tendency of Dasein to misunderstand the world in terms of merely present-at-hand things. This tendency could still be overcome, however, by providing a deeper ontology of Dasein and Dasein's various modes of comportment. But the later Heidegger (the Heidegger after the turn) no longer believes that things are quite this simple when he writes, "Technology conceived in its broadest sense and in its manifold manifestations, is taken for the plan which man projects [which would be the standpoint of Being and Time]...Caught up in this conception, we confirm our own opinion that technology is of man's making alone. We fail to hear the claim of Being which speaks in the essence of technology" (pg34). Reducing technology to a projection of man is itself part of the technological worldview which views everything in terms of its origin in the subject. Heidegger is attempting to understand how man is 'delivered over' to such a worldview which he calls the frame while not being the origin of this understanding. The frame, according to Heidegger, is "more real than all of atomic energy and the whole world of machinery" (pg35) but we are not aware of the frame because the frame itself determines the Being of beings as presence and the frame itself is not something that is present. It is not too difficult to understand the notion of an impersonal conceptual framework that determines our relation to beings (similar in its own way to Kuhnian paradigms). What is difficult to understand is Heidegger's insistence that this frame is a claim of Being which man is delivered over to in what Heidegger calls the event of appropriation (I believe that some of the post-Heideggerians attempt to overcome what might be called Heidegger's mystical understanding of the 'sendings of Being' by connecting these impersonal frameworks to more material structures like social practices and institutions and language). Heidegger does believe there is a way out of this impasse. If we are able to think technology and metaphysics in terms of the history of Being then we can pass onto an experience of the 'event of appropriation' which is the belonging-together of man and Being. We can, to some degree, free ourselves from the thinking which takes what is representable by the human subject as the measure of what is real and remain open to the mystery that is necessarily a part of every unconcealment of Being (since concealment belongs necessarily to every unconcealment). We can do this by thinking the more profound identity between thinking and Being which lies behind identity as a characteristic of the Being of beings. The goal of the first essay is precisely to think this more profound identity as the 'event of appropriation'.

In the second essay Heidegger attempts to determine the nature of metaphysics as onto-theo-logical thought which is itself grounded in the oblivion of the ontological difference (the difference between Being and beings). Metaphysics does think the difference between Being and beings but it thinks it in terms of the difference between 'what-a-thing-is' and 'that-it-is', or as Otto Poggeler writes, "the true world of the permanent what-it-is is distinguished from the apparent world of the vanishing and transitory that-it-is" (pg120). Metaphysics thinks the Being of beings in terms of constant presence which serves as a ground for the transitory existence of beings. Plato, for example, thinks of the Being of beings as Idea, that which remains identical beyond the transitory and fleeting world of sense-perception. But as Poggeler observes this winds up destroying the unity between beings and Being (which is why Platonism winds up positing another transcendent world of Being in contrast to the world of becoming) and this difference remains merely ontic (a difference between two beings rather than a difference between Being and beings). Heidegger is attempting to rethink the ontological difference in a way that does not lead to the positing of another, true realm of reality in contrast to the world that we actually live in (he is, therefore, carrying forward a project of Nietzsche, namely, the overturning of Platonism, though he attempts to overturn Platonism in a way that is not a mere reversal of terms which is what he thinks Nietzsche does). For Heidegger the Being of beings is not a true Being that is separate from beings; rather, "the Being of beings means Being which is beings" (pg64). Heidegger argues that the 'is' in this sentence must be understood transitively. In other words, not in the sense of identity (Being is beings in the sense that they are identical which would obliterate the ontological difference), but in the sense that Being becomes present in the transition to beings (as a sidenote: this terse discussion by Heidegger of the nature of the 'is' as transitive when it relates Being to beings is a key to understanding Heidegger's discussion of Schelling and his relation to pantheism in his book on Schelling). This is a difficult thought to grasp but I think we can understand this thought with an example. The table that lies in front of me 'is', it has Being. But the table itself is not Being (it is not identical to Being, and this is the meaning of the ontological difference). On the other hand, Being (though different from beings) is not something that lies in another realm beyond the realm in which we live. The Being of the table is right in front of us; it does not reside in some inaccessible realm that we can only reach through thought (nor is Being a logical category which we can manipulate in thought). Being is the unconcealment of Being and is present as beings and yet it is not identical to beings nor is it a being (Lee Braver, in his book on Heidegger's later writings, expresses this by saying that Being is an adverb rather than a noun; it expresses a way Being, or a how, rather than a substantive Being; in this work Heidegger argues it is "impossible to represent Being as the general characteristic of particular beings," since, "there is being only in this or that historical character: phusis, logos, en, idea, energeia, substantiality, objectivity..." (pg66); these are the great epochal understandings of Being which determine the how of how we encounter beings; it is impossible to find a single, general concept of Being which would underlie all of these understandings of Being). This is what Heidegger means when he says that "the Being of beings means Being which is beings" (pg64) and that the 'is' in that sentence must be understood transitively. Being is always the Being of beings but it is also always a particular way of understanding beings which both reveals and conceals. This contrasts with metaphysics which attempts to think the Being of beings in the unity of what is general (ontology as the science of what is common to all beings, or, of being as being) and in the unity of the ground of Being (theology which conceives of the ground as God or the divine) (pg58). This is a circular dance according to Heidegger since we seek to ground beings in the general nature of Being and then wind up grounding the general nature of Being on a being (the highest cause). Metaphysics is lead into this circle because it follows the logos which is understood as the process of providing grounds, securing reasons, etc. (which ultimately leads to Hegel's Science of Logic in which Being is conceived as this movement of thought itself, or thought thinking itself; and it should be pointed out that Hegel's Science of Logic is the starting point of the second essay in this work). Heidegger, in other works, attempts to uncover a more original understanding of the logos as unconcealment which will move him away from metaphysics and logic (the giving of grounds, or the grounding of knowledge claims) towards poetry (the saying which uncovers the truth). It should be pointed out that metaphysics, for Heidegger, is inherently onto-theo-logy to the degree that it attempts to provide grounds for beings whether or not any particular metaphysical system winds up having recourse to an ultimate being in the sense of a self-caused being. Metaphysics is inherently onto-theo-logical whether or not it is explicitly theistic. The overcoming of onto-theo-logy is not, therefore, of necessity atheism but only the overcoming of a certain understanding of the divine in terms of a First Cause. But as Heidegger remarks, "Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god. The god-less thinking which must abandon the god of philosophy, god as causa sui, is thus perhaps closer to the divine God" (pg72). This opens up the possibility of a new understanding of religion and the divine which, I might add, remains largely immune to the criticisms leveled against religion by the new atheism since it does not posit a highest being as the ground of Being.

In summary, this book is a very condensed discussion of some of the fundamental notions of Heidegger's later philosophy (the frame, the ontological difference, the essence of metaphysics as onto-theo-logy, etc.). While it is not necessarily the best introduction to these aspects of Heidegger's later thought due to its length and terse formulations it will prove a very enlightening text for anyone who already has some familiarity with Heidegger's later philosophy."

Taking this one paragraph at a time ... I've just read the first one (below) and had several ah-hah! moments:

"In the first essay Heidegger attempts to think through the principle of identity (A is A) which is often considered the highest principle of thought. This principle is not, however, merely the highest law of thought, the principle to which all thought must conform in order to be coherent, it is also supposed to say something about the Being of beings, namely: every being is in such a way that it is identical to itself. If beings were not encountered in their identity with themselves something like science would not be possible. The principle of identity as it applies to Being is, therefore, a necessary presupposition for something like science. But is this the most profound understanding of identity? Heidegger does not think so. Heidegger believes there is a more profound form of identity which underlies our ability to encounter beings in terms of the identity they bear towards themselves. In order to elucidate this more profound notion of identity Heidegger turns to one of his favorite sayings of Parmenides "For the same perceiving (thinking) as well as being" (pg27). This is a strange translation but what is being asserted here is an identity between perceiving (thinking) and being. This identity is no longer the identity which we represent as a characteristic of the Being of beings since Being is one of the terms of this identity (it cannot, therefore, ground the identity). Heidegger interprets this identity as a belonging together of man and Being.

ah-hah (1): technicity Being only is within the clearing that man provides while man is only the response to Being. Heidegger believes that Being becomes present to man today primarily in the form of technology. Beings present themselves as what is manipulable or representable. The most difficult aspect of Heidegger's later thought is that he no longer conceives this as a projection of man.

In Being and Time Heidegger analyzed what he believed was an inherent tendency of Dasein to misunderstand the world in terms of merely present-at-hand things. This tendency could still be overcome, however, by providing a deeper ontology of Dasein and Dasein's various modes of comportment. But the later Heidegger (the Heidegger after the turn) no longer believes that things are quite this simple when he writes, "Technology conceived in its broadest sense and in its manifold manifestations, is taken for the plan which man projects [which would be the standpoint of Being and Time]...Caught up in this conception, we confirm our own opinion that technology is of man's making alone. We fail to hear the claim of Being which speaks in the essence of technology" (pg34)." technicity


"Reducing technology to a projection of man is itself part of the technological worldview which views everything in terms of its origin in the subject. Heidegger is attempting to understand how man is 'delivered over' to such a worldview which he calls the frame (see the "frame problem" in GOFAI) while not being the origin of this understanding. The frame, according to Heidegger, is "more real than all of atomic energy and the whole world of machinery" (pg35) but we are not aware of the frame because the frame itself determines the Being of beings as presence and the frame itself is not something that is present."

This ignorance of the frame is what makes AI so hard ... what we might better hope to do is come up with something or a seed of something that can evolve into something that can cope with the frame ... but only if we use something already pretty far along the path toward this ... maybe we have some candidates in something like ANNs?

"It is not too difficult to understand the notion of an impersonal conceptual framework that determines our relation to beings (similar in its own way to Kuhnian paradigms - need to look this up). What is difficult to understand is Heidegger's insistence that this frame is a claim of Being which man is delivered over to in what Heidegger calls the event of appropriation (I believe that some of the post-Heideggerians attempt to overcome what might be called Heidegger's mystical understanding of the 'sendings of Being' by connecting these impersonal frameworks to more material structures like social practices and institutions and language).


Heidegger does believe there is a way out of this impasse. If we are able to think technology and metaphysics in terms of the history of Being then we can pass onto an experience of the 'event of appropriation' which is the belonging-together of man and Being. We can, to some degree, free ourselves from the thinking which takes what is representable by the human subject as the measure of what is real and remain open to the mystery that is necessarily a part of every unconcealment of Being (since concealment belongs necessarily to every unconcealment). We can do this by thinking the more profound identity between thinking and Being which lies behind identity as a characteristic of the Being of beings. The goal of the first essay is precisely to think this more profound identity as the 'event of appropriation'."

I've almost got it ... (now how can I know that I've almost got it??)

@Constance ... what is your understanding of this?

 

[smcder]

Understanding Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology

1. Bang!

It has always been my conviction that the basic insights of the great philosophers can be rendered in pleasing, non-technical prose for everyone to understand. The great ideas arise as a result of experienced reality, a reality shared by everyone. When one strips away the technical language--important in some contexts, but not in others--one is left with that way of seeing and understanding a lived reality that is within the reach of any moderately intelligent mind.
...
2.

Truth, for Heidegger, is what he calls 'revealing,' which embraces more than just knowledge; it embraces all the ways in which we can relate to the things of the world. Humans are not just pure knowers. We have lives, goals, desires, personalities, and a position in history that play roles in determining how we relate to the objects around us and how we manipulate them. For instance, if an atheist and a believer both look at a church, the one might see it as a beautiful work of art and sketch it, whereas the other might see it as a sacred place of the divine and want to pray in it. To the atheist, the church reveals itself as beautiful and to the believer as holy. For Heidegger, the church is revealing aspects of its beings differently to different people according to their attitudes towards it. But both are true. Both are aspects of the being of the church. All ways of revealing are true, because revealing is truth.

bang bang!! this expresses my sense that "everything is true" (@Soupie - you asked me to let you know if I was ever able to put this sense/feeling into words ... there it is (^) and very simple too!

 

[smcder]

Bang bang bang!!!

The following ties in with a statement by Huston Smith that gave me a little trouble - his statement was that science was fine as an idea and an ideal but that it inevitably led to specific changes in the way we see the world that he felt were detrimental ... were bad. And you can see why it's no argument to say that science is the best way to understand the world, to make our lives better (better, of course, defined only in terms of the way that science/technology can change our lives) and even to save or extend the life of our species or transform it into something better (and assumes that is the best outcome). Apart from any religious commitments, one could still argue we are better off for being able to see the world in all the ways that science/technology excludes:

Of all modes of revealing, the mode corresponding to modern technology is unique in excluding other modes of revealing.

The problem with modern technology is that, to order the world as pure resource requires that everything in the world be seen in the light of the modern scientific mind. This way of relating to the world views everything as a 'calculable coherence of forces.' Modern physics is a product of this way of relating to the world and it is used to justify it, and to produce the machinery that reveals the objects of the world as mere resource. The problem is that seeing everything in the world as merely resource in this way dominates the consciousness of humanity. Of all modes of revealing, the mode corresponding to modern technology is unique in excluding other modes of revealing. It is this mode of revealing that limits what counts as truth only to (scientific) knowledge. Heidegger does not claim that scientific knowledge is not true, as it too is indeed a mode of revealing; but Heidegger contests that it is not the only truth and it should not have the monopoly on truth. It is only one mode of revealing, one way of relating to the world, amongst others. The objects of the world really do have the aspect of being resources, a calculable coherence of forces, objects of scientific knowledge, mere relations of cause and effect. However, they can be appreciated aesthetically, poetically, religiously, and all of these modes of revealing are also truth.

Well put, I think.

 

[Constance]

. . . I've almost got it ... (now how can I know that I've almost got it??)

@Constance ... what is your understanding of this?

I'm nowhere near understanding how to put the themes of Heidegger's later philosophy together. And the more I read the less I understand it. I'm going to search out my mentor's book on B&T (might take a day or two to find), where I expect matters will be made clearer than they are in Heidegger and in some of the texts of others that have been linked here. Btw, I can't get the link you added tonight to open.

 

[smcder]

I'm nowhere near understanding how to put the themes of Heidegger's later philosophy together. And the more I read the less I understand it. I'm going to search out my mentor's book on B&T (might take a day or two to find), where I expect matters will be made clearer than they are in Heidegger and in some of the texts of others that have been linked here. Btw, I can't get the link you added tonight to open.

this link?

Understanding Heidegger's The Question Concerning Technology

it's working for me now ... here it is broken apart if you want to try it that way

http://

hubpages.com

hub/

QuestionConcerningTechnology

 

[smcder]

Here's another blog article on Identity and Difference

The first paragraph is on Identity and is similar to the Hubpages article I posted, @Constance in case that link still doesn't work for you:
http://philosopherdhaines.blogspot.com/2014/01/identity-and-difference-by-martin.html
the second part is on The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics

I'll provide a summary of that second part in the next post.

 

[Pharoah]

I can't figure out how to word this without sounding a bit of a bastard - but note that I know I sounds like a bit of a bastart and know that I'm acting out of a sense of befuddlement when I ask what good then is HCT?

I really do want that question answered. So take the following as the best approach I know - the modified Socratic method I learned (by being on the receiving end) in law school - here in America the system is adversarial and while that turns out in practice to be a lousy way to do law ... it might not be a bad way to challenge claims of something new in philosophy. At any rate, for now it's the best way I can think of ... and please pardon any rhetorical flurishes.

Now, if you'll take the stand, I'll begin the questioning:

Good reaction to enviornment in replicating organisms ensures the survival of species; phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response; the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.

1) phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response - if I remember, HCT doesn't show how or even that it does mitigate behavioural response ... correct? I've not seen anything anywhere that definitively does so, if I'm wrong, I want to know.

2) Morality has nothing to do with the survival of the species. I don't think you are saying this, but I just want to be sure. I presented some hypotheticals in another thread and skipping the details, the bottom line is that some people saw the right choice as being the one that lead to the end of the species and even possibly all of intelligent life. They arrived at this conclusion through rational moral thinking.

3)
Does HCT give you, personally, the tools with which to make moral decisions?
No. Hence there is no ideological framework.
But it enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice.
it provides a understanding of the nature of the conflicting dynqmics that affect the behaviours we might judge to be right. It limits the dominance of rational thought in the evaluation of judgments.

Can you give me a concrete example of how HCT "enhances relevancy and scope of tolerance" and so affects choice? (In other words - where were you last Tuesday night?) And does so in a way unique to HCT. I honestly don't understand this sentence but what I think it means ... well, there are lots of things that already do this. If you were to rely on HCT as an alibi, how would you argue it?

You've backed off of HCT and 1)phenomenal experience (although you still make claims for mental causation), the "hard problem" or (s)

2) you've backed off of teleology (although "inevitability" is still in play and freely used)

3) now you're backing off morality but still use "good" and "bad" in unqualified ways

The origins of progressively complex actions that are good and actions that are bad... for a specis and ultimately for the individuals of a species

you've rejected moral facts and ideology as searching for principles, but you say:

the conceptualising human looks to principles underlying the good and bad of experience.

and so we're left with

• the puzzle of individual consciousness
• meaning, purpose via inevitable trial and error
• the Golden Rule with no ideological framework
• a vague claim that HCT enhances the relevancy and scope of tolerance, which affects choice

So I see that you've taken a series of positions on philosophical problems and put these on top of an evolutionary model of physical reality ... and I'm just missing what is new about HCT, what is revolutionary?

The more I think about all of this the more I'm convinced that even revolutionary ideas can be expressed clearly and simply and with concrete examples ... with exceptions that shrink as I think about them, being expressed clearly and simply doesn't mean they will be understood, so there's still a chance you can eat your pie in obscurity.

But do you really want to?

Before I let you get away with this... two negatives do not make a positive if there are differing ways of interpreting the meaning of the terms of use... Not everything can fit into boxes.
Q1. I don't understand the question.
Q2. What is morality about?

Did you hear about the bloke who was unimpressed by Newton because Newton didn't catch the apple? He couldn't figure out what the point to understanding gravity is if you can't then use it to catch a falling apple.

Q3. behavioural choice is a competition between each hierarchical level and their conflicting causes to action.
Typically, by way of example, the crime of passion (emotional non-conceptually induced conflict) drove the murder to kill against his better rational judgments, which would otherwise have been his persuasion that murder was the wrongcourse of action. Or... he was dying of thirst (physiologically induced conflict) but gave the child his bottle of water because his rationale suggested a moral imperative.
To know about this conflict from each level is to understand the biased and prejudiced behavioural origins of others—to understand the potential nature of their inner conflicts— and thereby to come some way to tolerating deviant acts and being better enabled to negotiating and persuading alternative actions. It is important to recognised the non-conceptual, non-rational imperatives, and to understand that rational decisions are driven not, ultimately, by logic but by the need for a stable conceptual worldview (a worldview which is generally logical, but prone to blind and consequently dangerous assumptions of logic's assumed unquestionable truth that thereby fixates the rational rigid 'moral'/ideological stance)

"you've back off of teleology" don't understand!
"now you're backing off morality" don't understand!!
To emphasise: the search for rigid ideologies is human nature, but rigid determinates are not observer dependent: they are not really facts.
The ideology I would propose is a flexible changing ideology—hence the search for understanding and tolerance. The looking is important... it is arrival that is problematic.

 

[smcder]

Here's another blog article on Identity and Difference, first part is on identity and is similar to the Hubpages article I posted ...
http://philosopherdhaines.blogspot.com/2014/01/identity-and-difference-by-martin.html

the second part is on
The Onto-theo-logical Constitution of Metaphysics

Outline of this second part:

• explains the onto-theo-logical constitution of Metaphysics and how it has effected a Western mis-understanding of Being
• Connections to the essay on Identity:
  • necessity of escaping the metaphysical tradition of the West,
  • a leap out of the Western tradition vs a step back
  • the ontological difference
  • modern technology
• key terms:
  • Perdurance - a perpetual bearing up.
  • Arrival - presence or being brought to presence
  • Overwhelming - surrounding and indwelling at the same time; a mutual grounding and being grounded
  • Clearing – the place that is created by the Arrival of beings in Being and the Overwhelming of beings by Being
  • The Ontological difference - difference between Being and beings that underlies all metaphysical thought

What does onto-theo-logical mean?
· “If science must begin with God, then it is the science of God: theology.”
· Why is Metaphysics Theo-logical?
o it distinguishes Being and being
o Being is the ultimate ground of all being
o thus a first cause (ground) can then be said to be God
o Metaphysics deals with Being, so it is ontology
o therefore Metaphysics is Onto-theo-logical.

“How does the Deity enter Philosophy?”

1. man’s desires as to the Being of being
2. man’s error concerning the ontological difference

i.e. philosophical theology is due to faulty thinking and preconceived ideas

1. God entered philosophy through the thoughts of the thinker
1.1. if Philosophy is thinking that freely and spontaneously involves itself with beings as beings, then the Deity can only enter philosophy if philosophy requires and determines “that” and “how” the Deity will enter … Heidegger doesn’t think this is at all necessary
2. erroneous thinking: Metaphysicians “did not step into the difference, but created a distinction” – Heidegger contends a barrier is set up between beings when the idea of God is introduced as the Being that grounds all beings
2.1. difference implies sameness, but the difference between Being and beings is not a distinction, it is not a division; rather, it is an opening
2.2. The difference opens up Being to man by letting him see Being in the beings, Being just is the Being of beings and is only known in beings which supremely are
2.3. This is where arrival and overwhelming come into play:
2.3.1. Arrival - presence or being brought to presence
2.3.2. Overwhelming - surrounding and indwelling at the same time; a mutual grounding and being grounded
Being overwhelms beings, and beings bring Being to presence. It should be said, in fact, that whereas Being grounds all beings, beings, in their own way (probably by the fact that they bring Being to presence in the fact that they are) ground Being. Thus there is a constant “circling of Being and beings around each other”

Conclusion
By being open to the Being of beings, Being is brought to presence in beings, thus there is no room for the God of philosophy, nor, even, of Christian Theology.

Heidegger claims
1. there is either no room for a first ground or cause of all that is
2. or that first cause is himself one of the beings which comes to presence when man is open to Being

God, then, becomes a being on the same level as all of the others
Heidegger: “This ground itself needs to be properly accounted for by that for which it accounts, that is, by the causation through the supremely original matter—and that is the cause as causa sui. This is the right name for the god of philosophy. Man can neither pray nor sacrifice to this god. Before the causa sui, man can neither fall to his knees in awe nor can he play music and dance before this god. The god-less thinking which must abandon the god of philosophy, god as causa sui, is thus perhaps closer to the divine God. Here this means only: god-less thinking is more open to Him than onto-theo-logic would like to admit.”

 

[smcder]

Before I let you get away with this... two negatives do not make a positive if there are differing ways of interpreting the meaning of the terms of use... Not everything can fit into boxes.
Q1. I don't understand the question.
Q2. What is morality about?

Did you hear about the bloke who was unimpressed by Newton because Newton didn't catch the apple? He couldn't figure out what the point to understanding gravity is if you can't then use it to catch a falling apple.

Q3. behavioural choice is a competition between each hierarchical level and their conflicting causes to action.
Typically, by way of example, the crime of passion (emotional non-conceptually induced conflict) drove the murder to kill against his better rational judgments, which would otherwise have been his persuasion that murder was the wrongcourse of action. Or... he was dying of thirst (physiologically induced conflict) but gave the child his bottle of water because his rationale suggested a moral imperative.
To know about this conflict from each level is to understand the biased and prejudiced behavioural origins of others—to understand the potential nature of their inner conflicts— and thereby to come some way to tolerating deviant acts and being better enabled to negotiating and persuading alternative actions. It is important to recognised the non-conceptual, non-rational imperatives, and to understand that rational decisions are driven not, ultimately, by logic but by the need for a stable conceptual worldview (a worldview which is generally logical, but prone to blind and consequently dangerous assumptions of logic's assumed unquestionable truth that thereby fixates the rational rigid 'moral'/ideological stance)

"you've back off of teleology" don't understand!
"now you're backing off morality" don't understand!!
To emphasise: the search for rigid ideologies is human nature, but rigid determinates are not observer dependent: they are not really facts.
The ideology I would propose is a flexible changing ideology—hence the search for understanding and tolerance. The looking is important... it is arrival that is problematic.

This is fun! Here we go ...

Before I let you get away with this... two negatives do not make a positive if there are differing ways of interpreting the meaning of the terms of use... Not everything can fit into boxes.

Get away with what? - you're being obscure again! Can you give me an example or quote text or something?

Q1. I don't understand the question.

Is this what you are referring to as Q1?
1) phenomenal experience is qualitative: it has good and bad qualities which mitigate behavioural response - if I remember, HCT doesn't show how or even that it does mitigate behavioural response ... correct? I've not seen anything anywhere that definitively does so, if I'm wrong, I want to know.

If so, the question is:

Does HCT show or even that phenomenal experience mitigates behavioural response? I am thinking of mental causation ... - all the studies I have seen don't link "I will move my hand" to the moving of my hand ... causal closure, etc this has been discussed endlessly on the thread and elsewhere.

Q2. What is morality about?

Answering a question with a question? Again, by Q2, I assume you mean this:

2) Morality has nothing to do with the survival of the species. I don't think you are saying this, but I just want to be sure. I presented some hypotheticals in another thread and skipping the details, the bottom line is that some people saw the right choice as being the one that lead to the end of the species and even possibly all of intelligent life. They arrived at this conclusion through rational moral thinking.

So, if morality had to do with survival of the species, why would some people say that ending the human species or even all of intelligent life was the right thing to do?

Morality:
principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.
the extent to which an action is right or wrong.

Did you hear about the bloke who was unimpressed by Newton because Newton didn't catch the apple? He couldn't figure out what the point to understanding gravity is if you can't then use it to catch a falling apple.

C'mon ... you can give me a little more credit than that. I'm very impressed by Newton, very impressed by the calculus and differential equations I learned that came from his work, in fact I owe to Boyer's The History of the Calculus and Its Conceptual Development my initial understanding of the calculus and the inspriation to go on and take linear and abstract algebra, foundations (proofs) and differential equations:

This book, for the first time, provides laymen and mathematicians alike with a detailed picture of the historical development of one of the most momentous achievements of the human intellect ― the calculus. It describes with accuracy and perspective the long development of both the integral and the differential calculus from their early beginnings in antiquity to their final emancipation in the 19th century from both physical and metaphysical ideas alike and their final elaboration as mathematical abstractions, as we know them today, defined in terms of formal logic by means of the idea of a limit of an infinite sequence.

A very beautiful story. I recommend it and Lakoff and Nunez's

Where Mathematics Come From

that uses the idea of embodied cognition to take you all the way to Euler's Identity:

e^(pi i) = -1

What I learned in math also helped me to understand and appreciate the beauty in the chemistry, organic chemistry, botany and genetics I took as well as statistics, programming and experimental design (for more instrumental applications) - as a result, I've caught many a falling apple and enjoyed the crisp, tart sensation of first biting into them.

To sum up:

I don't see the value of Newton's theory as being only to make predictions ... but it does.
;-)

I may come back to Q3. I'm just not seeing how HCT helps us catch these particular apples.

you've back off of teleology" don't understand!

Should be:

You've backed off teleology. - I'll try to find a quote.

"now you're backing off morality" don't understand!!

I'll find the quote.

To emphasise: the search for rigid ideologies is human nature,

I'm not sure it is human nature ... I have something from Dreyfus' lecture I may come back with that' very nice on human nature.

but rigid determinates are not observer dependent: they are not really facts.

The ideology I would propose is a flexible changing ideology—hence the search for understanding and tolerance. The looking is important... it is arrival that is problematic.

I agree ... (except, is ideology the right word here? may be ... but to me ideology ultimately can only flex so far) and what about human nature? How do we give them something flexible when they want something rigid?

I am still looking and I hope neither of us arrive!

 

[smcder]

Here are the two quotes I have in response to your questions:

"you've back off of teleology" don't understand!
"now you're backing off morality" don't understand!!

teleology

There is a teleology, but I don't use the word purpose, nor the word meaning in my writing for good reason (except in old versions). If I have to use them now, I have to do so by qualifying them, and neither of us have the patience for that.

The definitions I find for telelolgy include "purpose" - we got bogged down in this before.

morality

Moral realist? That is complicated. I should not have used the term 'moral'

If it seems at times I am literal in interpreting your words ... it's because I don't want to make assumptions about what you mean based on everything you've posted in the forum and just based on my own assumptions ... that would get sloppy and let you get sloppy. For the purposes of an online forum that could be OK - but you are writing a theory for which you make strong claims ... when you go to publish it, all they will have is your words and those words will have to be very, very clear. That said I'm probably not able to be the perfect reader for you because that will vary with the publication you are submitting - and what really counts is who the referee is ... an imperfect system but there it is if you want to get published. This is the best approach I can think of - the best approach I can do, because it's the way I think. So from my POV, I am trying to help you be clear, not just being arbitrarily picky ... that said, we do differ in how we think ... but that will be true of every reader you ever have, hopefully.

So I am trying to be a little pedantic maybe ... or literal or critical - trying to think like someone who doesn't know anything about you (and what do I know about you?) or your writing.

You are pushing at the usual meaning of words of course and I respect that, teleology may not be just the right word - but there may not be just a right word ... but if you are to get a paper accepted, you have to use the words in a way that most (or the right people) will understand ... you ran into that with the issue of what is the commonly accepted meaning of a philosophical term (your first submission you discussed here, I believe - the whole "facts" thing) and that is an issue of catching apples.

And finally, you won't be in a position to defend your writing in the reader's mind once it is published - you may get no feedback at all, or maybe just an idea of how many read it - how many hits on the web: but did they finish it, like it, benefit from it? Still, the other choice is obscurity and self-satisfaction. And that is important too - if you know you are right, and others just minsunderstand you ... then that may just have to be enough.

 

[Constance]

One of several themes developed in H's later writing that I find daunting is the concept of the frame, framing. Another is the claim that technological thinking is an expression of Being, a direction in Being, rather than a development in human being. Half the time Heidegger's writing about 'Being' seems to approach the relation of Being to being teleologically (esp in the later writings); at other times, esp earlier but also later, it does not. I could use some help getting these conceptions sorted out.

 

[Pharoah]

Here are the two quotes I have in response to your questions:

"you've back off of teleology" don't understand!
"now you're backing off morality" don't understand!!

teleology

There is a teleology, but I don't use the word purpose, nor the word meaning in my writing for good reason (except in old versions). If I have to use them now, I have to do so by qualifying them, and neither of us have the patience for that.

The definitions I find for telelolgy include "purpose" - we got bogged down in this before.

morality

Moral realist? That is complicated. I should not have used the term 'moral'

If it seems at times I am literal in interpreting your words ... it's because I don't want to make assumptions about what you mean based on everything you've posted in the forum and just based on my own assumptions ... that would get sloppy and let you get sloppy. For the purposes of an online forum that could be OK - but you are writing a theory for which you make strong claims ... when you go to publish it, all they will have is your words and those words will have to be very, very clear. That said I'm probably not able to be the perfect reader for you because that will vary with the publication you are submitting - and what really counts is who the referee is ... an imperfect system but there it is if you want to get published. This is the best approach I can think of - the best approach I can do, because it's the way I think. So from my POV, I am trying to help you be clear, not just being arbitrarily picky ... that said, we do differ in how we think ... but that will be true of every reader you ever have, hopefully.

So I am trying to be a little pedantic maybe ... or literal or critical - trying to think like someone who doesn't know anything about you (and what do I know about you?) or your writing.

You are pushing at the usual meaning of words of course and I respect that, teleology may not be just the right word - but there may not be just a right word ... but if you are to get a paper accepted, you have to use the words in a way that most (or the right people) will understand ... you ran into that with the issue of what is the commonly accepted meaning of a philosophical term (your first submission you discussed here, I believe - the whole "facts" thing) and that is an issue of catching apples.

And finally, you won't be in a position to defend your writing in the reader's mind once it is published - you may get no feedback at all, or maybe just an idea of how many read it - how many hits on the web: but did they finish it, like it, benefit from it? Still, the other choice is obscurity and self-satisfaction. And that is important too - if you know you are right, and others just minsunderstand you ... then that may just have to be enough.

@smcder... so much going on in these posts... glad you are having fun
Picky is good. Taking me to task is good. Being a bastard even better (you know where you are with one of them).

Teleology and purpose: It is quite simple and perhaps a misunderstanding. I don't use the term purpose, because 'purpose' gives this idea of some-'thing' having purpose; that something being a Designer, God or Mother Nature. The terms purpose and teleology are loaded with such pre-conceptions. Sometimes it takes as much effort dismantling pre-conceptions as it takes making the argument to explain what one means by the terms. MH would probably empathise!

Morality: Similar issue really. cf. my paper at Hierarchical Theory of Moral Philosophy | Efferent Cognition | Philosophy of Consciousness
you say "Morality: principles concerning the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior.
a particular system of values and principles of conduct, especially one held by a specified person or society.
the extent to which an action is right or wrong."

So far so good... as I said, morality concerns itself with principles (whose constituents are conceptual constructs) about action... about behaviour.
Therefore, concepts of Good and Bad require reference to the evaluation and judgment of good and bad consequences. Principles are inevitably reliant on the hierarchy that determines what experiences and behaviours constitute good ones and bad ones–their origins are in the hierarchical construct!
You say, "So, if morality had to do with survival of the species, why would some people say that ending the human species or even all of intelligent life was the right thing to do?"
As I have explain in my previous post, causes to act from each hierarchical level are conflicting. In order to make sense of this conflict, humans try to come up with a conceptual worldview that provides the necessary rationale behind their principles that govern their decisive and 'most appropriate actions' to any given scenario. Without this rationale, one is paralysed to confusion and inactivity (hmmm... some mental conditions spring to mind). Unfortunately, logic has it, in some situations, that killing people can be the right thing to do. Of course, with HCT, logic does not have the final word in the assessment of a moral stance. Humans (and particularly academic ones like philosophers) give a great deal of weight in their decisions to act, on their perceived rationale, on their idea of what is logical. This is very dangerous, because they (humans) think that logic is immutable. But, all logic is driven by a blind belief in the accuracy of the individual's worldview, whose conceptual stability takes precedence over any other consideration (no matter how cruel the consequences). The reason why conceptual stability holds sway over logic, is because it defines our self-identity within that world-view we possess. i.e. in summary, we are compelled to defend our worldview (our concepts about reality and ourselves within it), this we do by calling upon a series of logical stances and rational positions that make that worldview valid (sane even). So, we think the logic is immutable and we think a rational is solid. We act on that rational even if it is wrong... because it re-enforces our concept of ourself in the world. Not to do this, is to develop a chaotic or insane worldview. But insanity tends to beget insanity because of the twisted logic that must ensue to prop up the worldview. MH is very interesting to me as an analyst because of his logical and worldview conflicts.

Contemplating morality is human nature. HCT explains why morality is, along with spoken language, an incidental and inevitable consequence of the emergence in early hominids of an awareness of the qualitative phenomenon of conscious. That is why moral realism holds, but like facts, morality is observer-dependent not independent, i.e., not a (metaphysical) fact.

Apples and Newton: I was just trying to make the point that a theory of morality does not have to explain how you should behave. It does not have to explore the scope of the idea to be valid. If the principle holds, then the apple need not be caught.

@smcder I have a problem writing philosophy because I don't seem to fall into any ...-ist camp and do not see the divisions in metaphysics, epistemiology, and ontology. So I am doomed... to a life of obscure obscurity. But that was always to be expected. Nearly everyone will come round eventually though...

Let me know if I have missed anything out in my response. Don't apologise (if that was one) for being pedantic etc. I find the criticisms and questioning helpful. You can be much more brutal if you feel the urge.

 

[smcder]

One of several themes developed in H's later writing that I find daunting is the concept of the frame, framing. Another is the claim that technological thinking is an expression of Being, a direction in Being, rather than a development in human being. Half the time Heidegger's writing about 'Being' seems to approach the relation of Being to being teleologically (esp in the later writings); at other times, esp earlier but also later, it does not. I could use some help getting these conceptions sorted out.

Frame Dreyfus critique of AI is something I've wanted to talk about and I think we can do so in terms of frame (Gestell)

Hubert Dreyfus's views on artificial intelligence - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'll come back to this ...

Technicity as to technicity, I'm fascinated by these ideas too: the below is from the review on Amazon:

"Heidegger believes that Being becomes present to man today primarily in the form of technology. Beings present themselves as what is manipulable or representable.

The most difficult aspect of Heidegger's later thought is that he no longer conceives this as a projection of man.

In Being and Time Heidegger analyzed what he believed was an inherent tendency of Dasein to misunderstand the world in terms of merely present-at-hand things. This tendency could still be overcome, however, by providing a deeper ontology of Dasein and Dasein's various modes of comportment. But the later Heidegger (the Heidegger after the turn) no longer believes that things are quite this simple when he writes, "Technology conceived in its broadest sense and in its manifold manifestations, is taken for the plan which man projects [which would be the standpoint of Being and Time]...

Caught up in this conception, we confirm our own opinion that technology is of man's making alone.

*We fail to hear the claim of Being which speaks in the essence of technology" (pg34).

Reducing technology to a projection of man is itself part of the technological worldview which views everything in terms of its origin in the subject. Heidegger is attempting to understand how man is 'delivered over' to such a worldview which he calls the frame while not being the origin of this understanding.

The frame, according to Heidegger, is "more real than all of atomic energy and the whole world of machinery" (pg35) but we are not aware of the frame because the frame itself determines the Being of beings as presence and the frame itself is not something that is present. It is not too difficult to understand the notion of an impersonal conceptual framework that determines our relation to beings (similar in its own way to Kuhnian paradigms).

What is difficult to understand is Heidegger's insistence that this frame is a claim of Being which man is delivered over to in what Heidegger calls the event of appropriation (I believe that some of the post-Heideggerians attempt to overcome what might be called Heidegger's mystical understanding of the 'sendings of Being' by connecting these impersonal frameworks to more material structures like social practices and institutions and language). "

smcder:
so we need to know more about:

• identity
• delivered over to
• Kuhnian paradigms
• appropriation

"Heidegger does believe there is a way out of this impasse. If we are able to think technology and metaphysics in terms of the history of Being then we can pass onto an experience of the 'event of appropriation' which is the belonging-together of man and Being. We can, to some degree, free ourselves from the thinking which takes what is representable by the human subject as the measure of what is real and

remain open to the mystery that is necessarily a part of every unconcealment of Being (since concealment belongs necessarily to every unconcealment).

We can do this by thinking the more profound identity between thinking and Being which lies behind identity as a characteristic of the Being of beings. The goal of the first essay is precisely to think this more profound identity as the 'event of appropriation'."

should we read the essay on Identity and The Question Concerning Technology?

 

[Constance]

@Pharoah wrote:

"Q3. behavioural choice is a competition between each hierarchical level and their conflicting causes to action.

Typically, by way of example, the crime of passion (emotional non-conceptually induced conflict) drove the murder to kill against his better rational judgments, which would otherwise have been his persuasion that murder was the wrong course of action. Or... he was dying of thirst (physiologically induced conflict) but gave the child his bottle of water because his rationale suggested a moral imperative.

To know about this conflict from each level is to understand the biased and prejudiced behavioural origins of others—to understand the potential nature of their inner conflicts— and thereby to come some way to tolerating deviant acts and being better enabled to negotiating and persuading alternative actions.

It is important to recognise the non-conceptual, non-rational imperatives, and to understand that rational decisions are driven not, ultimately, by logic but by the need for a stable conceptual worldview (a worldview which is generally logical, but prone to blind and consequently dangerous assumptions of logic's assumed unquestionable truth that thereby fixates the rational rigid 'moral'/ideological stance)."


From a phenomenological perspective I have to dispute your overall claim that in humans "behavioural choice is a competition between each hierarchical level and their conflicting causes to action." In conceptualizing and demarcating only three stages [in your term 'constructs'] of biological evolution on earth you are painting with too broad a brush, specifically in the differences you've presented in the past between stage 2 and 3. I've remarked on this before. In your posts yesterday and today you seem to acknowledge that human consciousness as well as the physical brain are multiply layered, still carrying influences and impulses originating deep in subconsciousness inherited from our evolutionary forebears. Not all of those influences and impulses are negative or destructive; indeed few are. In fact we inherit some of the characteristics we most admire in ourselves (empathy, nurturing, sharing, even self-sacrifice on behalf of others) directly from our primate ancestors. [see the work of Franz de Waals and other biologists and ethologists] What Panksepp recognizes as 'affectivity' even in primordial organisms becomes affection in the evolution of species, expressed not only in the primate line but in many others. The competition of conflicting desires and motivations in human behavior, which you attempt to characterize as an impersonal competition of abstract hierarchical 'constructs' in nature, is in danger of missing almost entirely the complex nature of human be-ing, which is both emotional and rational. Phenomenology and existentialism confront this whole, complex nature of human being and recognize that the struggles over desires, values, and proper action [always necessarily referred to others as well as to the self] are individual struggles for each man and woman, struggles that are personal and not at all abstract.

 

[Constance]

While casting about today for some enlightenment about what H meant by 'enframing' I came across this account, which is very clear. {Now why could H have not expressed his ideas so clearly?}

CriticaLink | Heidegger: The Question Concerning Technology | Guide to pp. 325-328

"We dare to use this word in a sense that has been thoroughly unfamiliar up to now. . ."

The German word Gestell has a number of meanings, some of which Heidegger mentions: rack, skeleton--the basic sense is of an armature or framework. Heidegger develops a new application of this term to describe how human beings have come to relate to the natural world.

Heidegger makes a brief detour here to justify his coining of a new term from an everyday word. He returns to the Greek word eidos, familiar to us from the example of the chalice, and explains how Plato redefined this word. Eidos originally designated the outward, visible appearance of an object; Plato, however, uses the word to mean the abstract, universal essence of that object: the "chaliceness" of the chalice is the eidos. From Plato's redefinition comes our word "idea." Heidegger's use of Gestell, or "enframing," follows a similar path: he takes a word meaning something concrete (a bookshelf, for example), and uses it to designate something abstract.

We often hear people criticized for wanting to "put everything into boxes." This expression usually means that a person thinks uncreatively, narrowly, with too high a regard for established categories. The "frame" metaphor in Heidegger's concept of "enframing" corresponds to these "boxes," but for Heidegger, all of us have a tendency to think in this way.

We noted before that nature reveals itself to us in its own terms, and all that humanity can directly control is its orientation to the natural world. We should think of "nature" here in the broadest sense, as the entire realm of the non-human--but also including such things as our physical bodies, over which we have only limited control. What characterizes the essence of modern technology, for Heidegger, is the human impulse to put the world "into boxes," to enclose all of our experiences of the world within categories of understanding--mathematical equations, physical laws, sets of classifications--that we can control.

When Heidegger states that "the essence of technology is by no means anything technological," he means that technology's driving force is not located in machines themselves, nor even in the various human activities that are associated with modern modes of production. In his example of the automobile, the parts the make up the machine as well as the labor of the factory workers all belong to technology, but are not its essence. The "frame of mind" that views the world--its reserves of metal ore, its chemical structures, its human population--as raw materials for the production of automobiles approaches more closely what Heidegger means by the essence of technology. Heidegger's argument, however, is more far-reaching. He claims that enframing stems from the human drive for a "precise" and "scientific" knowledge of the world.

Heidegger now sets out to place technology within the history of the modern sciences. He makes the remarkable suggestion that in at least one sense modern technology comes before the development of modern physics and actually shapes that development. This claim will make sense to us if we remember that for Heidegger the essence of technology is that orientation to the world he calls "enframing." Insofar as the human drive for a precise, controllable knowledge of the natural world paves the way for modern physics, we can say that "enframing," and thus the essence of modern technology, precedes and determines the development of modern science.

Where does this enframing tendency of human thought begin? Heidegger does not answer this question here, but rather describes the philosophical context in which that question can be asked. For Heidegger, philosophy is "the painstaking effort to think through still more primally what was primally thought" (303). His fascination for ancient philosophy and his interest in tracing back the meanings of words is, of course, closely related to his larger project of uncovering the "primal" significance of important concepts. For him, what is most primal is also the most enduring; the most fundamental concepts are those that will continue to shape the concepts that come after.

One of Heidegger's clearest statements of what he means by "enframing" appears in his discussion of the dilemma of modern physicists, who are discovering that that the physical world does not lend itself to measurement and observation as readily as they once thought. Physics, Heidegger argues, is bound to a particular way of looking at the world:

that nature reports itself in some way or other that is identifiable through calculation and that it remains orderable as a system of information. This system is then determined by a causality that has changed once again. (304)
The model of causality that shapes modern physics, Heidegger goes on to say, is neither the "original" Greek one of "ways of being responsible" nor the traditional one of the four causa, but a model of "numbers crunching" in which things exist and come into existence only insofar as they can be measured.

We often think of technology as the "application" of the discoveries of science. Much of the discipline of "Applied Physics" is devoted to the construction and testing of useful devices. Heidegger concludes this section by reminding us that the essence of technology precedes the historical emergence of both modern science and modern machine production. In that sense, we might view modern science as the "application" of enframing. But Heidegger has yet another question: what, exactly, is enframing?

. . . ."