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Existence exists subsidiary thread

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ad hoc (adjective): concerned or dealing with a specific subject, purpose, or end

Existence is something specific. You consider me "jumping" in such a manner as to achieve a physical understanding of everything. Please give me an instance (or example) of what you think I am doing is wrong.

Consider:

ad hoc (adverb): for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application 

 

An ad hoc committee is a thing formed, hence adjective.

An ad hoc application is a thing performed, hence adverb. You are doing it in an ad hoc manner. Doing, being the verb ad hoc is modifying.

 

Yes, you bounce all over, trying to connect things without regard to a clear method or systemized approach as to how to assemble them.

 

Analogy: A interlocking jigsaw puzzle.

 

Just because two or three pieces of the puzzle appear to fit together - does this mean they necessarily contribute to the overall picture?

 

Just because you envision 'vacuum' and 'cosmos' as 'contexts' of 'non-existence' - does this mean it is necessarily so?

 

cosmos: the universe especially when it is understood as an ordered system

vacuum: an empty space in which there is no air or other gas : a space from which all or most of the air has been removed

non-existence: absence of existence :  the negation of being

 

To extrapolate the analogy further:

Metaphysically, existence is akin to a 3-d puzzle box top - what the puzzle put together in all its glory looks like. You can see it, touch it, move around in it, hear it, taste it, smell it,  manipulate it, rearrange it, etc.

 

Epistemologically, the puzzle pieces are concepts. Just because you can piece together several concepts into a proposition, does not mean that they contribute to the overall picture. They need to be formulated correctly, that is, abstracted properly. Concepts are used in conjunction with other concepts, assembled, if you will, to put together a mental grasp of the incontrovertible facts observed in and derived from the metaphysically given. Units are epistemological. Thus the units of the concept of existence are every existent, action, relationship, etc., you can abstract from what you perceive.

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 I choose it and am convinced by it, though.

 

Which is precisely what's pissing everyone off.

 

Please explain once again, in the simplest and clearest terms you can, what you mean by the proposition "Existence is identity only if nonexistence is existence".

 

---Edit:

 

This is primarily a rhetorical question, but I am curious to see how you would answer it.

Edited by Harrison Danneskjold
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Consider:

ad hoc (adverb): for the particular end or case at hand without consideration of wider application 

 

An ad hoc committee is a thing formed, hence adjective.

An ad hoc application is a thing performed, hence adverb. You are doing it in an ad hoc manner. Doing, being the verb ad hoc is modifying.

 

Yes, you bounce all over, trying to connect things without regard to a clear method or systemized approach as to how to assemble them.

 

Analogy: A interlocking jigsaw puzzle.

 

Just because two or three pieces of the puzzle appear to fit together - does this mean they necessarily contribute to the overall picture?

 

Just because you envision 'vacuum' and 'cosmos' as 'contexts' of 'non-existence' - does this mean it is necessarily so?

 

cosmos: the universe especially when it is understood as an ordered system

vacuum: an empty space in which there is no air or other gas : a space from which all or most of the air has been removed

non-existence: absence of existence :  the negation of being

 

To extrapolate the analogy further:

Metaphysically, existence is akin to a 3-d puzzle box top - what the puzzle put together in all its glory looks like. You can see it, touch it, move around in it, hear it, taste it, smell it,  manipulate it, rearrange it, etc.

 

Epistemologically, the puzzle pieces are concepts. Just because you can piece together several concepts into a proposition, does not mean that they contribute to the overall picture. They need to be formulated correctly, that is, abstracted properly. Concepts are used in conjunction with other concepts, assembled, if you will, to put together a mental grasp of the incontrovertible facts observed in and derived from the metaphysically given. Units are epistemological. Thus the units of the concept of existence are every existent, action, relationship, etc., you can abstract from what you perceive.

Excellent! You can understand my Model after all. You can also see how the application is widest when you apply axiomatic concepts to literally everything in the complete manner. Even though there may be inconsistencies, we are evolving towards perfection of knowledge and will resolve them scientifically. It should then be obvious to you that this method is better than just taking on faith any concepts you determined and lack in complete understanding due to not questioning them.

 

Which is precisely what's pissing everyone off.

 

Please explain once again, in the simplest and clearest terms you can, what you mean by the proposition "Existence is identity only if nonexistence is existence".

 

---Edit:

 

This is primarily a rhetorical question, but I am curious to see how you would answer it.

Since we already agree on what EXISTENCE is IDENTITY means, I will elaborate on my axiom: NONEXISTENCE is EXISTENCE. It is a self-evident axiom as well, especially when you are able to think this way. Criticizing unconditional love, Ms. Rand said in one of her interviews something to the extent that if you love everyone, you love no one. In other words, if you take everything absolutely, you necessarily take nothing absolutely at the same time and in the same respect. This thinking also extends to non-Objectivists. For example, here is what Scott Ryan, a big critic of Objectivism, has said: "the premise that 'existence exists' tells us nothing whatsoever about what exists" (258). In other words, if you take everything (or anything) absolutely, you necessarily take its opposite. Here is a more succinct quote from another critic of Objectivism, William F. O'Neill: "The term 'existence' refers to everything and therefore to nothing" (132, original emphasis). By "existence," O'Neill means the same thing I imply in my axiom, namely, "the term 'existence' is intended to mean the sum total of that which is" (ibid., original emphasis).

 

The issue with your "rhetorical question," as you termed it, is your inability to accept any point of view outside of Objectivism. This is due to your religiously zealous devotion and blind faith in the axiomatic nature of Objectivism. However, I am glad to see your curiosity. Although to you it may seem to contradict your "rhetorical" and thus meaningless questions, to me it gives hope that you may finally see that I do not contradict Objectivism but wholeheartedly accept it into my mental framework. My love of the enemy may have finally led me to defeat his hate. And there are no wrong questions in my framework as long as we can find answers to them.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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Ilya, basing your philosophy an a solid contradiction, it is possible to "integrate" anything into it. However, this is useless. Good philosophy makes solid distinctions. Your philosophy cannot lead to good living or happiness because it is contradictory. It cannot lead to rational morality. Prehaps you should try to integrate the philosophy of the Islamic State into your view. For them, non-life is life. How is this different from nonexistence is existence?

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Ilya, basing your philosophy an a solid contradiction, it is possible to "integrate" anything into it. . . . Your philosophy cannot lead to good living or happiness because it is contradictory.

By the square of opposition, NONEXISTENCE and EXISTENCE are contrary, not contradictory. Both of them can be false at the same time.

 

Good philosophy makes solid distinctions.

You mean distinctions between good and evil? I don't analyze good and evil; I analyze what exists. For distinctions of everything, please see my Model.

 

Prehaps you should try to integrate the philosophy of the Islamic State into your view. For them, non-life is life. How is this different from nonexistence is existence?

Ilya, I assert that a corollary of your philosophy is NONLIFE is LIFE. Your soulmates are in Syria and Iraq.

I am not a Muslum; my culture is different. The Muslum life and culture is true for Muslums (not necessary for anyone else, and, as you say, not for you or Objectivists in general). However, their culture depends on a concept of God, just as Christian, Buddhist, and other religious cultures. For Objectivists (or evangelical conservatives), God is similar to EXISTENCE. For me, God is the Source of the Universe. My Model includes all concepts of God under the concept of Source (lev.14). All concepts of culture qua culture are included under the concept of Race (lev.10). I do not have any Arab genes in me; I am 64% Slavic-Aryan and choose the culture of my birthplace. However, I have no conflict with Muslums. Whatever they think is right for them is right for them as long as it makes them happy. You see, my philosophy is about happiness of each individual person as what that individual likes based on his individual reality, which is the product of his spatiotemporal relations to his environment--all retained by him in his experience or memory.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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Both "Nothing is Everything" and "Non-existence is Existence" boil down to "Non-A is A".

 

From the middle of page 60 in ITOE, Ayn Rand captures this brilliantly in her concise identification as follows:

Observe the fact that in the writings of every school of mysticism and irrationalism, amidst all the ponderously unintelligible verbiage of obfuscations, rationalizations and equivocations (which include protestations of fidelity to reason, and claims to some "higher" form of rationality), one finds, sooner or later, a clear, simple, explicit denial of the validity (of the metaphysical or ontological status) of axiomatic concepts, most frequently of "identity."  (For example, see the works of Kant and Hegel.) You do not have to guess, infer or interpret: they tell you. But what you do have to know is the full meaning, implications and consequences of such denials—which, in the history of philosophy, seem to be better understood by the enemies of reason than by its defenders.

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Nonetheless, a corollary of your system is NONLIFE is LIFE.

Both "Nothing is Everything" and "Non-existence is Existence" boil down to "Non-A is A".

 

From the middle of page 60 in ITOE, Ayn Rand captures this brilliantly in her concise identification as follows:

Observe the fact that in the writings of every school of mysticism and irrationalism, amidst all the ponderously unintelligible verbiage of obfuscations, rationalizations and equivocations (which include protestations of fidelity to reason, and claims to some "higher" form of rationality), one finds, sooner or later, a clear, simple, explicit denial of the validity (of the metaphysical or ontological status) of axiomatic concepts, most frequently of "identity."  (For example, see the works of Kant and Hegel.) You do not have to guess, infer or interpret: they tell you. But what you do have to know is the full meaning, implications and consequences of such denials—which, in the history of philosophy, seem to be better understood by the enemies of reason than by its defenders.

Yes, non-A is A, but in the absolute, axiomatic sense only. I have always wondered how your first premise was existence and the second consciousness. By existence you mean the Universe, and by consciousness - human faculty of awareness. The Universe, you claim, is not conscious. You skip a very important element in your premises - that of life. How did life form? How was consciousness caused by the Universe? You see, you are so infatuated with your premises that you are blind to anything else. Fidelity to your premises is more important to you than reason or facts of reality. Besides, you do not believe in faith in reason, since only existence can be a priori, not a human body or identity per se. Notice, in the square of opposition, that (existence is identity) is an A-I implication/subaltern (if-then), which means that you cannot logically claim that identity is existence. (Identity is existence) is invalid.

 

Here is a simple way to comprehend your situation. You start with existence and take it to be true. The rest that follows is the fragmentation of existence into unknown specifics in your minds. It's not contradictory, since it's only in your minds. When the evidence is clear that before existence there was nonexistence, you say that it is the reification of the zero. But because you start with the truth, you cannot see what's before it. We talk of absolute everything, so we say, for example, all non-life is all life. In other words, the Universe causes life. But you cannot say this, since these are contraries and you start with the true value! You see, when you start with the true value of life (or existence), you automatically make the other value false. For this reason, you cannot explain neither how the Universe formed, nor how life appeared (evolution is an alien concept to Objectivism). I, on the other hand, know that there was NONEXISTENCE before EXISTENCE and NONLIFE before LIFE, and that was all in the beginning that caused and thus became EXISTENCE and LIFE. I have already shown you my reasoning in the "spoiler," where I followed Peikoff's logic from his presentation, so I dare you find any logical errors there. Nontheless, I will reiterate shortly.

 

I take (1) NONEXISTENCE to be FALSE, and therefore (2) EXISTENCE is UNDETERMINATE (TRUE OR FALSE). From this on, we have (3) EXISTENCE (TRUE) is (4) IDENTITY (TRUE). (1) is absolute nothing, (2) is absolute everything (or the sum of everything), (3) is absolute everything AND something specific, and (4) is something specific. Notice how (2) and (3) share the same definition and the same value. However, (2) is pure everything and (3) can be every thing (in other words, fragmented). The false value of (2) makes it absolutely whole, whereas (3) can descend into (4). Thus, (1) does not mix (and is not the same) with either (3) or (4), and the proposition is logical and clear.

Edited by Ilya Startsev
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Ilya,

 

Using a logical fallacy (argumentum ad ignorantiam) to try to cast doubt what is self-evident is futile.

The fact that science has not yet identified how the inanimate gives rise to the animate and how the animate evolved into conscious beings will ultimately rely on the knowledge built on the self-evident to discover.

 

Secondly, the onus of proof principle (which relies on the very axiom, identity, that you are trying to subvert and/or destroy) would obligate you to demonstrate that there was some inexplicable event that supposedly brought forth existence into being. It appears you have deprived yourself of the very tool you would require in order to accomplish that goal here in this forum.

 

If you expect to be reasoned with here, you need to demonstrate a fidelity to reasoning, something you appear to only give lip-service to on occasion while insisting over and over that you are right in the absence of having any means of doing otherwise, and Objectivism, or advocates of Objectivism are either misapplying or just outright wrong on its foundational or key self-evident tenants.

 

While I sympathize with what appears to be a struggle to comprehend the very existence within which you find yourself, you have yet to discover that "reason" is not axiomatic, but a complex, derivative concept. (italics from the first sentence of the last paragraph of chapter 6 of ITOE.)

 

Before you can accept any logical errors that are pointed out to you, you would have to accept the foundation of logic, the law of identity, the fact that A is A. By your own assertion that non-A is A, and the ample evidence you provide that you reject this and intend to adhere to that decision come hell or high water,

 

Instead of "From the middle of page 60 in ITOE, Ayn Rand captures this brilliantly in her concise identification as follows:" it should have read:

"From the middle of page 60 in ITOE, Ayn Rand captures this entire thread brilliantly in her concise identification as follows:"

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