I do not redefine existence at all - I reject
the reified concept of existence totally
out of hand. I do not except the existence
of existence nor any modality of that which
exists as existing. In simple terms- I reject
the idea that ACTION of any kind whatsoever
exists anywhere in the cosmos.
For me only active matergy (matereo-energy
or energised material) exists. In other words
there is no duality of any sort, between
an object and the useful fictive tokens attributed
by humans
states, acts, properties, essences, behaviours,
processes, mechanisms, conduct, deportment,
doings, hopes, fears, animation or non-animation,
beliefs, emotions, mind, etc.
All the above abstractions are descriptive
tokens, though vitally useful in the field
of abstractive human communication for purposes
of distinguishing one from another by the
process of thingification they do NOT exist
in the world as transcendental dualities,
nor do they exist as permanent or temporary
features, dimensions or characteristics of
objects - such as: size, weight, texture,
colour, taste, etc.
Descriptions do not exist - size, weight,
texture, colour, taste, etc. cannot be found
in the world - only the objects featured
and described and their human descriptors
actually exist.
Every object exists as it is - as that object.
The actual denotata of such attributes as
assigned predicationally by humans does not
exist. Only the existing object exists and
the physics of that changing object include
the actual, real world physical version of
what the perceptively limited, attributive
human object tokenises as a property.
Thus (for example) madness, malignancy, excitement,
sadness, haste, movement, qualia, mind, emotion,
consciousness, does not exist, though for
those people such as phsychologists and pyschiatrists
for whom such tokens form a part of their
occupation or interest it is understandable
that they hotly maintain the contrary:
A typical internalised response to the claim
that many of the conditions believed to be
diseases, including what used to be called
madness, do not not exist would be:
Yes, of course - don't be silly - of course
there are such things as: madness, malignancy,
excitement, sadness, haste, speed, movement,
qualia, mind, emotion, irrationality, fear,
consciousness - I deal with them every day
in my mental clinic..
For most medical workers to deny mental problems
as being real would be to deny the linguistic
foundations of the rule-dependant ontological
committments of the formalised doctrine they
sweated and studied for years in their efforts
to pass the necessary exams. A rejection
of the idea that psychopathy really exists
in one of their exam papers would be considered
to be a rejection of the accepted symbols
of the serious, vitally useful compendium
of mutually accepted rule-tokens which doctors
employ for the benefit of their patients,
etc
A more comprehensive answer to the exam question
would include the information that whilst
the student rejected the existence of the
reification psychopathy, he or she did accept
that their are patients who present with
symtomatic behaviour typical of severe mental
disorder in which contact with reality is
lost or highly distorted, and that such people
exist as psychotic men or women .
They could add that such psychotic men or
women are NOT afflicted with psychosis -
because psychosis does not exist to afflict
anybody, and that if there are still doctors
who believe in the existence of psychosis
then their behaviour is typical of a severe
mental disorder in which contact with reality
is lost or is highly distorted and they are
not suitable to be engaged either in the
care of patients or in the marking of exam
papers.
Now to claim that madness (or any of its
current euphemisms) and malignancy does not
exist will make you reach for your pen and
paper or keyboard immediately, so let me
hasten to add that by saying malignancy does
not exist, I mean that malignancy in the
sense of the token (or abstraction) cannot
be found in the world. What we can find in
the world are humans and animals who exist
with certain types of cells that no longer
exist to the benefit of the extingencies
of the holism, and that being so are (naturally)
characterised as being malignant. But the
cells are NOT malignant in the sense of being
dangerous to health - for of course health
does not actually exist either- only the
healthy or unhealthy human or animal exists
in such a way that certain cells have changed
to the overall advantage or disadvantage
of the organism.
"You are just playing with words!"
What's that you say?
"Whatever you decide to call it - cancer
is cancer and it can be dangerous."
True, but the point I am making here is one
which concerns the actual existence or non-existence
of ideal objects or useful fictions - not
whether there is a condition called cancer,
for a condition is not something that exists
- only the conditioned human or animal exists
- there is no Cartesian dualistic style condition
that is present like a mind or a soul, whether
such a Seventeenth century fantasy object
exists in tandem with the human embrained
body and is located in the pineal gland,
is secreted in the rectum, or lurks beneath
the toenails of the left foot.
In other words some forms of reification
are extremely useful and some forms are extremely
dangerous to human kind. Part of my agenda
(with Dr. Antonio Rossin) is to differentiate
between what might be called (harmful) malo-reificative
hypostatisation, aka reifico-toxic thingification,
and (useful) reifico-utile, aka reifico-beneficent
hypostatisation.
Existential confusion can be further explained.
But first - I do not usually indulge in let's
pretend or counterfactual scenarios, but
as is the case with logic, the domains which
I am about to refer to are cognitive territories
which include lots of very useful let's pretend,
tokens, and there is no other way in which
I can provide a simple explanation of the
fact that whilst a mathematician can agree
that an even prime number does not actually
exist, he can also hotly insist that there
is an even prime number, and whilst a physicist
or cosmologist can agree that unoccupied
space and time do not actually exist, they
can also hotly insist that there are such
things as space and time.
If someone decides to go into the business
of computer game design they create a series
of tokens (icons) marked in various ways
and used for playing games. They need to
decide on a set of rules as to the value
of these iconic symbols and include a copy
of the rules in the box when the game is
retailed. If no rules are supplied the game
would be unplayable, unless that is, the
purchasers, in the absence of any rules or
meanings for the symbols being provided ,
decide to make up their own mutually agreed
rules in order to play.
A similar situation has arisen in the past
when archeologists have come across aan ancient
game-board and pieces during an excavation
of some ancient civilisation. They puzzle
over the significance of the pieces and the
strange markings on the board in a similar
way to the way they attempt to decypher the
marks incised upon the exposed surface of
some half-buried stone if some strange hieroglyphs
are suddenly discovered. If our game was
such that it appeared to lack a trump card
or a joker, we can imagine a purchaser complaining
about this perceived omission and one of
us replying: but yes, there is - the green
wizard and the white knight both act as trump
cards. The green wizard has the power to
change all the serfs into fully accoutred
armed footsoldiers and the white night can
freeze an enemy cavalry whilst they are in
full charge and turn them around to gallop
right over a cliff or into a swamp.
Now I am sure that on the basis of these
rules and the mutual agreement of the players
as to the value of the tokens, neither you
nor I would believe that there actually exist
any real-world denotata (actual objects referred
to by the pictorial expressions) with these
occult powers as referred to by the pictures
of the green wizard and the white knight
and that they actually exist in the material
sense. We would both agree I am sure that
they are but examples of tokens which are
necessary IN ORDER TO PLAY THE GAME and that
for the purposes of the intensional context
of game-playing disbelief must be temporally
suspended for the duration of the game.
This instrumental or utile acceptance of
tokens which I describe above is illustrative
of ALL human communication, including language
itself, and with the exception of deictic
finger-pointing at actual objects, its variations
only occur in as much as they accord with
the actual domain in which the communication
takes place and nature of that connection
which facilitates such access between the
communicants.
Serious Games. In the above game scenario,
the temporary suspension of disbelief and
acceptance of quasi-objective tokens is made
for purposes of pleasure and entertainment.
In predicational logic the acceptance of
the truth values of arbitrary created tokens
is made for serious exercises of the mind
aimed at teaching us to access real-world
problems with greater clarity. In mathematics
the numerical tokens are accepted as forming
elements of an abstractive representational
system used in the study of numbers, shapes,
structure and change and the relationships
between these concepts. In physics and cosmology,
broadly speaking, it is using tokens for
the general analysis of nature, conducted
in order to understand how the world and
universe behave.
Thus it is understandable that the participants
in such pursuits - whether they be games
for children or adults, or serious occupations
involving scientific investigations and research
which have provided humanity with a benison
of improvements in the spheres of medicine,
architecture, industry, education, science,
travel, etc. hotly insist that THERE ARE
such things as the tokens or abstract tools
of the trade, many of which are no more than
fictive bookmarks for as yet unknown real
objects. The majority of the scientifically
minded users of such useful fiction do not
seriously mean that THERE ARE actual matergic
objects corresponding to those convenient
working tokens.
The sickness in modern society follows from
the intensity and reifying socialising ubiquity
by which the perverted transcendentalist
version of reality insinuates itself into
the brainwashed members of the community.
The origin of reifico-toxicant thingification
can be found in the predictable effects of
a family hierarchy dominated by a antecedally
infected father and mediated by a similarly
contaminated mother, both whom who unknowingly
pass on the toxic transcendentalist tokens
during the first two or three years of the
child's life. Added corruptive conditioning
is supplied by peer groups pressures and
s/he is further indoctrinated with reified
language and internalises the basic structure
in to what will become a permanent reality-disconnect.
The internalisation is further reinforced
and receives added strength via the child's
exposure to corrupt educational ontological
conditioning, a degenerate media and the
dissolute religious structures of the organised
churches. Maturity brings further brainwashing
at the hands of pseudo-psychologists, radio-
evangelic con-men and moralising money-grabbers
and political carpet baggers.
Most of these craven creatures are just plain
ignorant, but alas, there is also a large
contingent of crazed object-action dualists
who DO BELIEVE that there exist actual matergic
objects corresponding to the tokens of the
reifico-toxicant type . They are the cultists,
the occultists, the transcendentalists, the
Japanese harakiri fanatics, the fundamentalists,
the intelligent design freaks, the destroyers
of the Twin Towers, the religious fanatics
who convince their community of naive, brainless
followers to drink parquat, and others who
strap explosives to their chests and blow
themselves and others into scattered gobbets
of steaming human meat.
My prime focus is on the actual nature of
the physicality of material or matergic objects
or force-fields (call them what you will)
and the way we humans think and talk about
such entities, and not such much with a review
of the historical compendium of the tokenhood
of the various abstractives employed in the
pursuit of various occupations.
Of course like anybody else, I cannot escape
from the paradigmatic linguistic tokens of
my own inherited language by which I am trapped
into using for the task of my own research
into the primitive human habits of object-action
discrimination and the threat to modern society
manifested by reifico-toxic hypostatisation
and ontology manque.
Fortunately English is a language I love
and an analysis of its etymologies, its syntax
and semantics helps clear away the damage
it has undergone and continues to suffer
at the hands of transcendentalists.