Existence Isn't Everything


AndrewED

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Andrew,

I've condensed your last response and am working on my reply. I just wanted to let you know I haven't passed through a time warp, my current avatar notwithstanding. I am going to post my responses in parts, and I may place emphasis on things which you didn't consider central. So please be forgiving if I seem to be putting up straw men. I intend to cover stipulation and connotation in later posts. My first one will address why the entire issue itself is important, and I don't mean to imply by using you as a foil that you yourself don't.

Ted

Edited by Ted Keer
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But actually, I feel more and more what a waste of time these [ontological] concepts are within the context of philosophy… They're big "a priori" whirlpools, invitations to blow hot air

While ontology should not become a never-never-land of celestial speculation about "angels dancing on the heads of pins," it is not disposable. Most of the nonsense of our modern culture results from what you might call epistemological-ontological co-dependence. Think about the Christian notion of “grace” which is treated as a substance (primary existent) that can be transferred from God to a priest to holy-water and then to congregant as if it were some sort of contagion or artificial sweetener. The absurdity of this is obvious if one realizes that virtue is not an entity nor a quality is but properly a relation – a proper orientation between a man’s chosen actions and reality.

Likewise, think of the reaction of drug warriors toward marijuana joints, or of puritans to porn-magazines, or of gun-control advocates toward weapons. They act as if dry crumbled leaves wrapped in paper or glossy photographs are not only misguided – but literally untouchable. Think of Dana Carvey’s "Church Lady" putting on gloves to pick up a playboy and you’ll get my point. Gun-control advocates often speak about "addressing the root causes of aggression" when the criminals are the root causes of the aggression. They act as if "we only had a law" to proscribe the proper list of arms – like a list of toxins that pregnant women shouldn’t consume – that somehow these evil weapons would stop being a scourge on society. They act as if evil were a physical substance that could be kept locked away, could be embargoed, or could be destroyed forever with the right type of disinfectant. If you have ever watched the children’s fantasy movie Time Bandits you may recall how, at the end, the child-hero Kevin blew up the Devil into smoky bits of charcoal. His parents, whose house had burnt down, found a chunk in the microwave. Kevin vainly warned, "Don’t touch it! It’s Pure Evil!" They did so nonetheless, and vanished in a puff of smoke. And if this last example seems to be grasping for straws, then think about how the throat-slitters held in Gitmo think about their "holy" texts. They see them not as mere pieces of parchment teaching some supposed virtue, with the paper being just a physical medium to carry a conceptual message. They see the paper and the ink itself as holy and not to come into physical contact with the bodies of infidels. Ontology may not be the most concrete of sciences, but it is undeniably the most vital.

I won't go into detail now, but consider what the ontological misconceptions or outright deceptions arethat lie behind the following phrases, and the reasons why they are used:

"Comes with available four wheel drive."

"My truth is that I am a Gay-American."

"Bush lied, people died."

"It depends what the meaning of is is."

Ted Keer, 16 October, 2006, NYC

(end part 1)

Edited by Ted Keer
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But actually, I feel more and more what a waste of time these [ontological] concepts are within the context of philosophy… They're big "a priori" whirlpools, invitations to blow hot air

While ontology should not become a never-never-land of celestial speculation about "angels dancing on the heads of pins," it is not disposable...

Good heavens, I did not mean that ontology or metaphysics are disposable. I meant that the concepts, existence and non-existence, are. If anything, my whole essay is a testament to the ultimate power of this science, far greater (and potentially destructive) than, for example, nuclear physics. Thus, the need for precision with concepts when discussing it.

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Andrew,

I'm not sure if you read the edited version of my next-to-last post, but I did say that I realized I might be caricaturizing your view. Hope to have next response up Weds night.

Ted

Edited by Ted Keer
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  • 9 months later...

Hi, everyone. I have been gone a long time--since October. It's nice to be back.

Thanks to Michael for letting me make a couple small changes to the essay after it had been locked--just the removal of a weak paragraph and the strengthening of a point, both at the beginning.

Besides clearing up an important issue for me, something great happened because of this essay. An estranged friend, with whom I studied Ayn Rand in the early 90's, read the essay and got back in touch with me. We cleared the air, and I got to see him again over Christmas. Thanks to everyone who participated here.

He also made a striking observation. He said that the word, being, has exactly the same problem with it that I observed in the word, existence. That is, the word, being, specifies too much to be the "biggest" possible word in the language. In fact, I mention the grounds for this accusation in the essay. The problem is that to be, partly means "to live, to grow." Etymologically, it implies that what is is alive.

Now I know that etymology is not everything. But it is something. And my same analysis, which looks to etymology for further clues as to the difference between existence and being--because their definitions are otherwise so similar--applies to being.

He said that the Hindus use the Sanskrit equivalent of the word, being, at the base of their metaphysics, because they wanted to project, to invoke a universe as a living thing. I've studied some Hinduism, and I had to concur. But just as I have written that what is is more than what stands out--what exists--so, he said, that "what is" is more than what lives (I'm speaking here what lives in a subtle sort of way, like moments when the whole universe does seem alive). So once again, we may have been bitten in the butt by semi-hidden meanings lying buried in our blithely used vocabulary.

I asked, well, what else is there? What word would be bigger? Did you look? Did you find one?

Being the thoroughgoing type, skilled with dictionaries and so forth (we were both dictionary fiends from the beginning), he said, Of course. Further, he said he tracked down every possible word and only one really fit the bill:

All.

All says nothing whatsover about the particular (physical or metaphorical) nature of the universe, about reality. It just radically and implicitly includes in the concept everything one might find--all of it.

I said, okay, but we still lack a verb. We still only have the verb, to be. Which was one reason my formulation was so neat.

This is where it got personal. He said, YOU are the verb. In your organic response to it, you marry it and express it through your being.

For a moment I got it, and then it was gone. Many of my own ideas I had to be in very clear states to have, and even to re-apprehend later. This is one of those kinds of ideas. It will take me a long time to sink into it enough to understand, to feel, to sense it. This is what my friend and I do with each other's findings. It is a long slow conversation that proceeds largely in silence.. In the meantime, all I have is a pro hominem argument for it in my friend's profound happiness, his deeply changed and unaffected calm.

I understand if this sounds like mystical nonsense to some of you. But does anyone here relate?

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Hi, Brant,

Thanks for your bracing reminder. Yes, Ayn Rand was magnificent--and magnificently clear. She saved my life, no doubt about it, and I will eternally love and revere her for that and for the greatness of her being and achievement.

Andrew

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  • 3 weeks later...

Brant,

On the other hand, I gather you are saying that, with my essay, I have left you swimming in a sea of words.

Honestly, at first, I was inclined to take offense. But then I went and read the humor section where tndbay's limericks lightened me up.

Now I'm back to say, YES YES YES. Apparently, you're feeling lost at sea, maybe woozy. That's really good. That means that, on some level, what I said connected with you. Many times my foundations have been rocked by my seeing, often with another's help, a major error of mine or by my suddenly noticing big chunks of something I didn't even know was there. I have felt nauseous. Or floating, lost in space. Maybe the person turned out to be wrong, but in the meantime I was wandering far from shore

Sometimes I dismissed it, as you seem to have; sometimes I checked in on it occasionally; sometimes I stayed up nights with it till getting it.

Whatever. The point is the torpedo found its mark. Now what will you do? Because I don't buy your implication that your state of being is caused by my writing,. With regard to your criticism, I think my piece is faultless, and nothing you have said has changed my mind.

Andrew

Edited by Andrew Durham
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Or, did "being" mean to them what it means to us: "that which is"? In that case, the Stoics were out of their gourds. Those loopy mystics!

Andrew

Very little of the original Greek Stoic corpus survives (library burnings and all that) and the little we know comes from their critics. However in the field of logic the Stoics produced a logic that is very similar to modern propositional logic. See -The Development of Logic- by William and Martha Kneale, particularly Chap III. You also might want to look at:

http://tinyurl.com/2vndct

You should not confuse the "classical" Stoics with the later Roman Stoics.

Ba'al Chatzaf

Edited by BaalChatzaf
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Hi, Ba'al,

Point well taken. Since you seem to know something about the Stoics, I'm wondering what you think about Ted's presentation of the Stoic's ontology? Do you think, as Ted does, that they were wrestling with the same basic issue as is in my essay: which word really qualifies as the first axiomatic concept of philosophy?

Edited by Andrew Durham
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  • 1 month later...

Andrew:

~ I do see your point about a distinction re the terms 'being' and 'existence'...all depending upon what limitations of meaning one accepts as properly applicable to one term, b-u-t, not to the other. However, I have a prob with your decision to limit the 'meaning' of existence to what you see as meant in its original etymology: 'stand out.' As Rand (re 'selfishness'), should you accept this specific meaning for 'existence' in all *your* discussions re what you mean (contradistincted from 'being'), such is understandable; however, unlike Rand, you haven't presented a good argument as to why all others should see the term as limited to only that in all other communication contexts they discuss (reading or talking); ie, why they should take your 'definitions' to heart, and personally think that way.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited by John Dailey
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Andrew:

~ I really don't see any dif 'twixt 'being' and 'existence', all said and done. The term 'existence' may have the etymology of a source-meaning being [!] nothing more than 'stand out,' but, in Rand's parlance, consider that she included the meaning of things YET-TO-BE-DISCOVERED. Such things do not, yet, 'stand out', correct? For that matter, it seems that the distinction you point out (given your view herein) of such applies equally well to the concept of 'being', no? You make it...'stand out'! A paradox appears here, methinks. 'Being' apparently also 'exists', ergo, the dif is then...? --- Shades of Fritz Pearls' 'background' and 'foreground'! Maybe we're talking more Psychology here than Ontology? Given that Rand stresses the term 'focus', (aka: to make 'stand out'!), such just might be the case.

2Bcont

LLAP

J:D

Edited by John Dailey
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Andrew:

~ Re etymology of a term's source, consider: for everything in the universe, physically and biologically, 'evolution' applies to all changes...including word meanings. Whatever the term 'existence' may have originally 'meant', it means much more to most people now. As fascinating as etymology may be to some, it doesn't pay to get too myopic. Let's keep the word 'existence' as meaning to refer to 'all' existents (past, present, yet-to-be-found)...and not just 'some part' of...being-ness. 'Being' is to 'exist' as cars are to automobiles.

~ Why, oh why, a need to hair-split types of angels on the head of a pin, hmmm?

LLAP

J:D

Edited by John Dailey
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  • 1 year later...

Hi, John,

Thanks very much for your comments. I haven't visited here for a long time, but I hope you'll consider my response better late than never. This will be quite long as I'm replying here to all four of your posts from last year.

Re: John's First Post:

Andrew:

~ I do see your point about a distinction re the terms 'being' and 'existence'...all depending upon what limitations of meaning one accepts as properly applicable to one term, b-u-t, not to the other.

Yeah, that's what I'm getting at.

However, I have a prob with your decision to limit the 'meaning' of existence to what you see as meant in its original etymology: 'stand out.'

It is really a matter of just taking what I could get in the way of a distinguishing characteristic. Since I could find nothing else in the entry, I used the etymology. I thought, "Oh, it's not everything but a part of everything that's meant here."

Also, "to stand out" was the original meaning of the word, existence. And when I began looking at things like this consciously, I began to see that I had always looked at things this way. Further, it became apparent just about everyone else was, too, including Ayn Rand and a lot of the philosophers she both agreed with and disagreed with. Ayn Rand, herself, constantly asserted, through her characters and her non-fiction alike, that people use words exactly the way she was using them, without necessarily knowing, understanding, or being willing to admit it. It was an objectivity of language, deriving from the structure of the conceptual faculty, that even Ellsworth Toohey used, in scene after scene in The Fountainhead, against heroes, and with fellow villains, half-way characters (such as Peter Keating and Alvah Scarret), as well as the readers of the Banner.

I would only ask that you see for yourself. If you adopt this as a hypothesis for awhile, I believe you will come to see what I am seeing, too. I think it only affected me so drastically because of my own problem of relying too heavily on the verbal part of my intelligence. Other, more balanced personalities can shrug off some of the more noticeable negative affects of equating existence with being. I could not. So if I'm neurotic, I may also be a canary in a coal mine.

Further, I have observed that things stay with people and with a culture essentially in their original form for a long time. The reason we still have these two words is not primarily because we are bored and need synonyms with which to fill our terms papers (though two words are better than one for this). But because they still fulfill a deep need of the psyche to distinguish certain facts from each other. And here, we have the single most important fact of anyone's life. If we split hairs about anything, if we spend time clarifying any single idea, I think this should be this one. This is not a time for casual usage or conflation, but the most rigorous, exacting logic.

As Rand (re 'selfishness'), should you accept this specific meaning for 'existence' in all *your* discussions re what you mean (contradistincted from 'being'), such is understandable; however, unlike Rand, you haven't presented a good argument as to why all others should see the term as limited to only that in all other communication contexts they discuss (reading or talking); ie, why they should take your 'definitions' to heart, and personally think that way.

I think I see what you mean. Reading it again now, I came across a small break in my argument which could undermine it. Right after the paragraph in which I present the etymology of the word, existence, I wrote:

To exist is to stand out. Existence is that which stands out.
.

It may not be perfectly clear that, in my usage, the distinguishing characteristic of "standing out" is merely an addition to the meanings in the dictionary's entry, not a replacement. Let me try to make this clear.

I wrote, "To exist is to stand out". We could stretch this out a bit to, "For something to exist is for it to stand out". We're talking about something--a being--which stands out. This something is what the two dictionary entries share. But to use your example below, it is not merely an automobile that is a car, but an automobile that is a sedan. That is, it is not merely a synonym, but a further distinction, a narrowing of the idea which calls for--and gets--a different word.

Likewise, in the next sentence, "Existence is that which stands out," do not overlook the word, that, and all it refers to. We could change the sentence to, "Existence is everything which stands out," or "Existence is being which stands out." I mean that, in this sentence, "that" refers to everything shared in common by the entries, and "which stands out" refers to the distinguishing characteristic of the word, existence.

Thanks again for the comment. I'll think about how I might make this clearer in the essay. In the meantime, does what I've just written make any difference to you? Or is it still equivocal?

Re: John's Second Post

Andrew:

~ I really don't see any dif 'twixt 'being' and 'existence', all said and done. The term 'existence' may have the etymology of a source-meaning being [!] nothing more than 'stand out,' but, in Rand's parlance, consider that she included the meaning of things YET-TO-BE-DISCOVERED. Such things do not, yet, 'stand out', correct?

Not necessarily. What is undiscovered and what stands back are two different things. They may or may not overlap.

For that matter, it seems that the distinction you point out (given your view herein) of such applies equally well to the concept of 'being', no? You make it...'stand out'! A paradox appears here, methinks. 'Being' apparently also 'exists', ergo, the dif is then...? --- Shades of Fritz Pearls' 'background' and 'foreground'! Maybe we're talking more Psychology here than Ontology? Given that Rand stresses the term 'focus', (aka: to make 'stand out'!), such just might be the case.

As you say, I make the concept of being stand out. But I don't make being itself stand out. Further, I'm not talking about an existent that stands out from other existents, eg, one which is the object of someone's focus. This is a more common usage of the phrase, stand out. I'm talking about existence's standing out from whatever stands back.

At that, can you feel how the whole thing becomes quite mysterious? I think it is because we've approached the edge of a cosmological discussion we, as philosophers, don't need to have.

Re: John's Third Post

Andrew:

~ Re etymology of a term's source, consider: for everything in the universe, physically and biologically, 'evolution' applies to all changes...including word meanings. Whatever the term 'existence' may have originally 'meant', it means much more to most people now.

Thank you, thank you, thank you. This is exactly the kind of cosmology--the use of scientific arguments in philosophical discussions--which, in my essay, I attribute to the placement of the divisive word, existence, at the root of one's philosophy. In defending existence as an axiomatic concept, you were eventually compelled to use a scientific argument. This, I submit, is the beginning of all schisms in Objectivism.

As fascinating as etymology may be to some, it doesn't pay to get too myopic. Let's keep the word 'existence' as meaning to refer to 'all' existents (past, present, yet-to-be-found)...and not just 'some part' of...being-ness. 'Being' is to 'exist' as cars are to automobiles.

Hmm. So since I'm fascinated with etymology, I'm silly? And if I look closely at something, I'm myopic and it won't do me any good, even though I said as simply and sincerely as I could that it did me a lot of good? That's my impression of this comment. I think this represents further proof of my previous point about Objectivist schisms.

Etymology is not merely a dalliance of the historically curious. Even in the pocket dictionaries designed and written for compactness will you find it. Why? Apparently for the same reason everything else in a dictionary is included: to enhance one's understanding of the word.

I'm afraid your argument completely breaks down at this point, John. I suppose I'll think for awhile about what that might mean to me. I learned a great deal from meditating on the initially baffling comments of people here two years ago. So I will do the same with yours. Probably it is related to the still proclaiming, strident, stiff, and/or combative tone of the essay. I hope one day to get off it. In the meantime, thanks again.

Andrew

Edited by Andrew Durham
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  • 1 year later...

I just have one argument... I think existence and 'being is' is the same thing. Language nuances however would make it awkward for any discussion to always use the term 'being is'. If you can identify a 'being is' with the same process you identify any 'existing' body, the it would follow that these words have the same characteristics and therefore definitively similar.

Conversely, if something is 'non-existent', then one cannot identify it as whether what specie of 'being' it belong to i.e. 'being is' and 'being is not' and therefore no way to prove it. However, if there had been a way to identify a 'being', it would automatically group it to 'being is' and therefore an 'existing' body.

In conclusion, only existing bodies and existence is everything you will be able to make sense with.

There's my ten cents.

Edited by David Lee
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