![]() BACK |
| 086 Heideggerian Hindsight |
So you say: 'If it has no '*Being*ness' and
no 'deadness,' what does it have — what is
its nature? "Beingness" and "Deadness"
do not exist — only that which is living
and that which is dead exists. The
answer is that it is an object, a swirling
mass of micro-material and energy, which
has or has not the status of 'being animate.'
As Parmenides says: There is no such thing
as 'nothing.' There is no such thing as '*Being*,'
it is just another imperfectly attributed
word that we use as far as entities/organisms
are concerned to describe the condition of being
'physically present.' Unfortunately, due
to problems of linguistic change which took
place in early medieval times, we use the
same IS-word to introduce some information
about or describe a stone or a lollipop,
for we say; "the stone 'is' on the table,"
using the third person singular present tense
of the verb to 'be.' Whilst the stone 'is'
it is not 'being' in the same sense as the
living human who is *being* in some state in
an entirely different way, i. e. he or she
*is alive. * 'Aliveness' and 'non-aliveness'
are simply words we use to describe
different temporary arrangements of the swirling
electrons and particles which perform their
ever-changing dance that takes place in the
ballroom of the cosmos that may or may not
recombine in the Nietzschean Terpsichore
of eternal recurrence, depending on how much
a gambler you are, and whether you are willing
to take on long odds and look to the long
term. Now to discuss and describe the relationship of the brain of the human holism in its interaction with other brains and the surrounding environment is another subject completely, for which other branches of science are undoubtedly better fitted for the investigative and descriptive process. This is not the province of the false and artificially created wraith of '*Being,*' or even worse the con-man substitute "Dasein," but human life-forms in their interaction with the natural world and other human life-forms, a dimension which metaphysical philosophers from within the perfumed kiosks of their notorious purdah from reality are ill equipped to handle. Far better for them to peep through the bars of the predominantly male harem of their intellectual incarceration and throw the occasional poetical lapidate into the ever widening circles and eddies of existentialist hot air. I say again Heidegger wrongfully conflates the function of the *is-word* in normal sentences. Yes, we can say: "The haystack is burning." But we cannot say: "the man is *Being*." Why not? Well, because the man already 'is' and the brain recognises this fact and will not allow the statement because it anticipates the tautologous nature of the assertion. The mind knows that a man, (a *Being*), can't "be" (exist,) twice in its earthly presence. If on the other hand you produce the sentence: "The man is **being** brave." Then the brain-logic accepts the sentence as valid, because now the subject has a proper predicate and the *BE-word* is acting in its true primordial function as a signifier of the present continuous form of the verb *BE*. In other words the human brain instinctively knows far more about **Being** than Heidegger could ever know. Put another way, there is no such thing as "A *being*'s mode of *Being*," for by its very nature a *Being* already * is. * Of course the brain accepts the sentence: It is impossible to discuss or describe "a *being*'s mode of **Being** in the same way that we can refer to a computer's mode of operation, or the modus operandi of a criminal. **Being** as far as the human brain is concerned is NOT a mode of **Being** but rather a multiplicity of ongoing modalities and activities of the animal physiology during its continuance as an alive conscious entity in that particular configuration. *Being* DESCRIBES the present continuous mode of something which exists within, the cosmos. The brain rejects any sense of dualism of existence in any given *thinking entity* such as man. It recognises it as an ontological falsity, and in the same way that it rejects the sentence illustrated above — here it is again for you to look at: We can say: "The haystack is burning." But we cannot say: "The man is being*." Why not? Well because the man already 'is' [otherwise we could not use the tern "the man...") the subject noun makes him an ontological fait accompli, sententially he is already: "old news," and once his presence has been extantally imbued he cannot be existentially reconstituted with an entitic duality, and the brain recognises this fact and will not allow the statement because it anticipates the tautologous nature of the assertion. The mind knows that a man, (a *human being*) can't "be" (exist,) twice in its earthly presence. Heidegger admitted his ignorance not understanding this basic semantic and grammatical actuality in black and white, and you can read his words in Basic Concepts
|