Mikie

No you don’t. Nature is what is. We can call it anything we like, impose on it rules and symbols, think about it this way or that way. Language is a h...

I can't tell if this is serious or not, which isn't a great sign I guess. Assuming it's serious: the structure of DNA and the naming of nucleotides as...

An interesting passage: (p. 205) I think many on this forum are largely operating within this purview as well -- which is to say, one oriented towards...

Well then here we agree. Being (or existence, whatever we like) isn't a "state." It's not as if being emerges from a void of nothingness and "comes in...

No, I would say awareness— wouldn’t you? This is the question of the OP. But I don’t give any definition or interpretation myself. Again, it would be ...

These are open questions, but my opinion is that we can indeed think without language. You can visualize a scene without a verbal commentary, for exam...

I don’t think so. Remember that nouns and verbs, as the two main groups of words, has a history as well. It dates back to the Greeks, in fact. But the...

I think metaphysics/ontology has always been seen as the most general and the most basic. There are many important questions worth asking— but when we...

"Being and thinking." This is the dichotomy within which we're mostly stuck, in our western culture. "Thought," in this case, being viewed as logic an...

I agree science is an outgrowth of philosophy, but if philosophy is clarification to begin with, then should we conclude that everything is a science?...

Right, and that's mostly mathematics. Physics being the best example. In other sciences, there are explanatory theories and technical notions defined ...

I'm comfortable saying I don't know, which is why I give no answers. Looking at the word "being" itself -- its grammar and etymology -- is fine, but d...

No, in my view philosophy is a kind of thinking, which is a human activity. It does indeed consist of questions, but they are not limited to "clarifyi...

Yes, let's reduce philosophy to "clarifying" terms. Amazing how science and academia has influenced how philosophy is thought about these days. What a...

Says who? Pretty strange to reduce philosophy to this. Try thinking outside the analytic tradition.

The OP is about the question, "What is being?" When we say, in our modern world, that everything consists of forces acting on matter, as in the field ...

That’s fine, but it’s not that we can’t atomize it— we can and do. It’s that we don’t want to mistake this for “lived” or “felt” time.

Dasein is temporality. I can't be more concise than that. If that's a failure, then indeed his entire project is a failure. But explain to me where it...

Dasein is temporality. Being "here" (da-sein) is being the present moment, but only if we don't define the present exclusively as a present-at-hand no...

I have done so multiple times. I'm happy to do so again -- I'll even give references. I'm also interested in criticism -- because maybe there's someth...

An account of being doesn't depend on German either, it depends on the human being -- and Frege, Russell, and Quine were human beings.

Well said. :clap: I would invoke an analogy to perception at this point, but perhaps that’s not helpful in this context. What else would they be? Are ...

No, but I don’t see “it” as separate from change either. I don’t really see it as anything. Yet there are all kinds of things in the world— obviously....

I don't agree with this. Being isn't any-thing, including a "happening," including "becoming," including "change." It is very much like nothing. We in...

Beings have properties. Being is not a being.

From what I gather, phenomena appear in various ways, but all are "manifestations" (phusis), related to unconcealedness (aletheia). So that which mani...

Harry Potter is a thing. Harry Potter is a being. That's where we start. Whatever else we want to say about it is up to us. He's a fictional character...

:up: No it isn’t.

Imagine going on and on about an apple that “doesn’t exist.”

Ohh so he was an activist, didn't engage solely in direct action, but he's OK because he didn't "electioneer" and give "campaign contributions." Got i...

Oh ok, I get it now. Only direct action counts as "activism." Cool. :up: MLK was a real suck up to power, too.

Petitioning is another abstraction and one of many types of activism, yes.

Is an abstraction -- one of many types of activism.

Not reducing, no. But that’s exactly what they’re doing.

It's hard not to ask the question of being without getting into Heidegger, but let's see this question has any relevance to our lives, as individuals ...

My bad— just stupid activists then.

No— stupid activists. Probably voted against Trump to boot.

Stupid kid activists.

:rofl:

Thankfully most civilized places on earth disagree with you.

No.

Sure— just as he deserves to be roasted for asking OPEC to increase oil production, which I pointed out weeks ago.

I know. You're reserving "being" for human beings (or sentient beings). That's not the use in ontology or in this thread. Human beings are indeed diff...

:yawn:

Not unconditional.

Has nothing to do with support.

Yes. And they don't give a fuck about non-voters like you, who stay home because, you know, "both parties bad."

He has no advice. No alternatives, no solutions, no strategy. It's stupid to vote against the worst candidate, because both candidates are awful. Acti...

Imagine thinking that withholding a vote is the only way to hold someone to account. :rofl:

That wasn't the point, correct. The point is that, like the civil rights movement, the Sunrise Movement continues on, whether we take the five minutes...