Being ... Just What Is This Thing Anyway?

[_Gadianton]

Philo,

Pretty simple, you've come to the right place to ask.

First of all, ontology for normal people arguing over the reality of straightforward things like atoms isn't easy and so imagine how hard it is for an existentialist who doesn't divide up reality into things we are familiar with like atoms or matter. Straightforward: The ball DocCam is bouncing, the ball Meadowchick rolled down the cobblestone path, and the ball Mikwut is spinning on his finger are all real things in the world. But is a ball in the abstract a real thing? We might say it's not, it's just a convenient fiction, and this is what a strict scientific empricist would say. It's easy to wave away "ballness" as a real part of the world. But a scientific realist may point out that balls are really spheres, and we know what a sphere is by a certain mathematical description, and that description is a universal, which make those three balls I mentioned are particulars. If we wan't a "picture" of reality, the universal is more real than the particulars. How about the laws of physics, aren't they real? I can't see an equation through a telescope. But if we're tempted to describe science in terms of universals -- laws etc. -- then we're giving credibility to realism, even if we say afterword it's all just a convenient shorthand or fiction, because sometimes in the way we say things we really want people to understand what we have in mind, but it's more believable we're saying something else.

Okay, while I don't have an answer, you can see why ontology is confusing, and you can see kind of how the problem is framed. So what is Being?

First, there are particular beings. You, DocCam, Meadowchick, and possibly Mikwut are beings. Existentialists think about "things" like beings instead of balls, "things" that aren't really "things" at all. So "Being" definitely isn't a "thing" as you frame the question, a "being" isn't even a thing. You are a being, and out of the beings you are possibly dasein, which is a being that can ask questions about being, a "self-aware" being. So, what about Being? Heidegger was a realist. And so the beings DocCam and Philo have the "property" of being, but that being (lowercase) is local, like being alive, and Being is somewhat like the mathematical relatia we call a sphere as a realist is to particulars we encounter -- bowling balls, planets etc. Being is the possibility of being.

So there you have it! Not really a big deal if you get past what makes ontology hard in the first place. I'd say Google the terms being, beings, dasein, and Being and copy and past the various descriptions from 10 different sources and see if looking at it from so many different angles makes more sense of it.

[_Philo Sofee]

Excellent ideas Gad and Doc...... I will goggle those terms and keep reading. I suspect Existentialism may give me a wider (?) better (?) or at least different view of "things", both material and immaterial. I have also read a book by David F. Haight and Marjorie A. Haight "The Scandal of Reason, Or the Shadow of God" that really has me buzzing also. A very deep yet well written book. Can't agree with all of it, but the analysis of Being is over the top fascinating to me at this point in my journey towards the infinite.

Ah..... infinity! Good Lord WHAT A SUBJECT! I am hoping I can generate and participate in many wonderful conversations about it here. I can't think of anywhere else I would rather mull things like this around than with you good people. Infinity has the maddening ability to get you talking about religion, science, and mathematics like no other topic I can think of off the toptitty top loftical point of my head (apologies to James Joyce)....

[_Doctor CamNC4Me]

The four existentialists I read back when I left the Church was, not in this order, Camus, Kafka, de Beauvoir, and Sartre.

I can't recall who posted this here:

https://existentialcomics.com/

But man oh man does this comic strip really help you conceptualize a particular existential philosophy. The particular philosopher(s) is always linked at the bottom of the cartoon.

Also, you'll want to read the About:

https://existentialcomics.com/blog

It's a tidy little breakout of various philosophers.

Just bear in mind nihilism seems to have a strong gravitational force for those embarking on this journey.

- Doc

[_Philo Sofee]

Thanks for the links. Yes I am not believing Nihilism at all right now. It makes no sense. Severino has demonstrated the problem of our Western philosophy, following Plato's erroneous lead concerning Being, and the logical outcome of believing Plato is our very science and technology, the focus on the "thing" as Severino puts it. If a "thing" (and every-thing is "things" because of how Plato muffed it, and Aristotle followed suit) comes to be and then ceases to exist, then technology - focused on creating things, and destroying them - will ultimately lead to annihilation - we will destroy the earth, in time. Hopefully it won't happen in our life times... Severino severely disagrees with Heidegger that Being is Time. Being is separate from time, it does not come and go, get birthed and dies. it just IS, the ultimate background of all. What it is not is a nothing says Severino.

All fascinating stuff to be sure!

[_Meadowchik]

I also will begin Aristotle's "Metaphysics" here shortly.

Thanks again. I will spend a few years getting my bearings on this.

I read Metaphysics in 1999. Luckily someone had gifted me a study guide of some sort. I think it might've been from one of their old college courses. I was 28, had one foot in the church, and one foot out, not totally understanding why my view of the world was shifting so much. I really believe reading that book when I did pretty much laid the foundation for my eventual awakening. As I was working my way through it, I recall thinking there was so much more, I dunno, thoughtfulness and intent to discover truth in that book, by a man who lived so long ago, than anything I read from Mormon scholars and prophets combined.

When compared to The Teachings of Joseph Smith and the Journal of Discourses, among many other LDS books I had read up to that point, Metaphysics wasn't even in the same realm. LDS theology just reeked of bad fiction and braggadocio.

Anyway. Good luck with it. It's definitely work, and I'd recommend getting a companion study guide to go with it.

- Doc

I'm listening to King Follett and, gee wiz, did something jump out at me. Joseph Smith prefaces by demanding complete loyalty if people feel he gets it right and then complete forgiveness if they find he has it wrong.

It's treasure-hunting disclaimers all over again. Every thing that benefits him is true until it doesn't.

[_Maksutov]

The four existentialists I read back when I left the Church was, not in this order, Camus, Kafka, de Beauvoir, and Sartre.

I can't recall who posted this here:

https://existentialcomics.com/

But man oh man does this comic strip really help you conceptualize a particular existential philosophy. The particular philosopher(s) is always linked at the bottom of the cartoon.

Also, you'll want to read the About:

https://existentialcomics.com/blog

It's a tidy little breakout of various philosophers.

Just bear in mind nihilism seems to have a strong gravitational force for those embarking on this journey.

- Doc

Yeah, well, I did it backwards. I read the existentialists first and Kierkegaard last before trying Mormonism. I took the "leap of faith" thing quite literally, I'm afraid.

[_Philo Sofee]

Mak
I read the existentialists first and Kierkegaard last before trying Mormonism. I took the "leap of faith" thing quite literally, I'm afraid.

Actually, in light of how infinity works, the leap of faith is the literal only way to get to it. We can never calculate our way to infinity from below. There is a definite eternal gap between the two. Leibnitz was simply wrong to imagine one can legitimately fudge it in the calculus. Sure, we can do it fro our human practical matters, but if one wants reality, the bottom up towards infinity is eternally condemned for never making it. One must leap to infinity or start with it to get there. There is no other way. You can divide the line in half infinitely and you won't get to infinity, since the whole is entirely encompassing the parts, as well as being in the parts. It's an entirely different animal, which is why the rules for it differ so dramatically from regular finite math.

Soooooo, in thinking through it, if one wants to get to infinity, the leap of faith is the only gate, otherwise we are fudging and it ain't real.

[_MeDotOrg]

Maybe I'm being overly semantic, but I think what you are talking about is consciousness, not being. I don't think a bunch of rocks are sitting around having a discussion about God, existentialism and antidepressants. I think it's an important distinction to make.

[_Meadowchik]

Maybe I'm being overly semantic, but I think what you are talking about is consciousness, not being. I don't think a bunch of rocks are sitting around having a discussion about God, existentialism and antidepressants. I think it's an important distinction to make.

Wasn't it Descartes' point that, because he is self aware, he is?

Or, for emphasis, because he is self-aware, "he" is.

A rock is an "it." But, with consciousness, a human being is an "I," while a rock is not. Maybe try to imagine the entire universe and all the matter in it like a bowl of soup, where only the conscious beings "are," distinctly, in and of themselves, and although they live in and are components of the soup, they, we, I, and you, are all distinct entities, while the broth--all the other stuff--is not.