Define "being"

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

We have a lot of references to luck, fortune, grace and fate in our daily lives. What is scarry is when economist and presidents use the word, and you can sometimes hear it. It reminds me of that old joke where the Bishop, Monseignor, and Priest won first, second, and third prizes in the church raffle. And the Priest say's: Aint I lucky. If we are depending upon luck in this day and age it is because we are pushing things beyond the failure point. A bridge fell into the Mississipee. Was that luck? Were all the people who didn't die lucky? When the bridge didn't fall on any given day were the people lucky. We are all betting and all gambling because we are absolutely right that only luck can save us. It reminds me of the reference in Plato that we have foresight which we lose when we begin to hope against hope. Who has the courage to face life without hope. Only that one with every interest in survival who leaves as little of his life to fortune as only he must.

We werent talking about luck really... we were talking about being privileged. But nice post

@Binyamin Tsadik,

Binyamin Tsadik wrote:

We werent talking about luck really... we were talking about being privileged. But nice post

Privilage is a form of relationship. Luck is a form of demensia.

@Fido,

... I have no idea what to say to that...

@Binyamin Tsadik,

I do, the cost of privilege based upon the bailout of the Wall St meltdown to the average US taxpayer is $2000 each, as for the global ramifications check the price of petrol today, what this has to do with being escapes me, but it says a lot about the ethical culpability that is the sum total of the capitalist structure.
"Come home Karl Marx all is forgiven."

@Paracelsus,

Is there any logical order to the replies here?

@Binyamin Tsadik,

Binyamin Tsadik wrote:

Is there any logical order to the replies here?

Same as the first law of property...First come first serve.

@Binyamin Tsadik,

Binyamin Tsadik wrote:

Is there any logical order to the replies here?

Cause and effect.

@Fairbanks,

So the cause and affect that is speak of is a) random or b) intentional. Or is causality a chance factor without conscious direction?

Or if it is intentional then does not desire enter into this? And for that matter where does psychology and philosophy intersect when it comes to 'define being.'

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus wrote:

So the cause and affect that is speak of is a) random or b) intentional. Or is causality a chance factor without conscious direction?

Or if it is intentional then does not desire enter into this? And for that matter where does psychology and philosophy intersect when it comes to 'define being.'

Effect not affect. Chance or probability is not a cause since it has no force, which has nothing to do with fate. The jury is still out on fate, but that is always associated with intelligent cause. Information is also without pressure or force and cannot be a cause. Being is not to be defined since it is encountered, which presents a problem without solution for this thread. Being might be explained. Causality comes in two classes, one is mechanical, the other intelligent. If there is another class of causality this would be a good time to mention it.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks;25759 wrote:

Effect not affect. Chance or probability is not a cause since it has no force, which has nothing to do with fate. The jury is still out on fate, but that is always associated with intelligent cause. Information is also without pressure or force and cannot be a cause. Being is not to be defined since it is encountered, which presents a problem without solution for this thread. Being might be explained. Causality comes in two classes, one is mechanical, the other intelligent. If there is another class of causality this would be a good time to mention it.

An actor sets a series of events in motion, with a desired end result in mind that his actions will produce. Then some unforeseen element, not chance not probability, enters the equation and alters the outcome.

We live in chains of signification, each action produced another action, but at times the actions we produce slip out of our control and through their momentum produce effects which go beyond our original intent. ( Just think the current mess on Wall St)

Fate, sorry predestination does not enter the equation that is unless you happened to be a hard determinist and in which case their is no free will no room to move. (As for the Jury being still out well I don't think so that is unless you want to advocate that God has a very bad sense of humour, but then he is an intelligent designer, just look at the Middle East)

Information can set in motion events which have energy and produce causes. Knowledge is information. And focused thought is the product of the information. Thought has focus and direction to achieve a specific result.

Being can and is defined by the process of cognition, affection and action. Though produces word which have meaning and we engage in discourse with others to probe and find solutions to the challenges that life presents us. Ergo this forum.

Being because it is both state of existence in time and actions which occur space can be observed and commented upon. Life is a process of Becoming.

Throughout this thread sentient conscious beings, entities with perceptive affective qualities who are endowed with brains which house minds which enable them to think have offered opinions on what being is and or can be.If something is, in this case Being, it has properties which can be defined, analysed and categorised, then given attributes and those attributes have specifics and are commented upon.

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus wrote:

. . . We live in chains of signification, . . . upon.

Only in literary criticism.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks wrote:

Only in literary criticism.

I know you are perhaps making a little joke, but what a reasonable person might take for a significant pattern another might take for a portant. Since all people think, not by reality, but with forms which are symbolic of a certain reality, we can hardly escape them, nor should we try, and instead, use them to the best of our ability.

@Fido,

Fido wrote:

I know you are perhaps making a little joke, but what a reasonable person might take for a significant pattern another might take for a portant. Since all people think, not by reality, but with forms which are symbolic of a certain reality, we can hardly escape them, nor should we try, and instead, use them to the best of our ability.

This is where I, an amateur, am right now:
Significant as a term I would take to mean pointing to something. Pattern as a term, as with form, I would take to mean something we make out of a perception, that is, a concept. If we use patterns as perceptions in themselves we are misusing them. What a reasonable man might do is a legal concept, not in a philosophical sense but in civil law. Chains I am using to mean clusters of infrastructures in a space that is not related at all to the space-time of our real universe.
I don't know if all this has passed by the board with the passing of Derrida, but it likely has, and if it has we are stuck with Hegel and are done.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks;25836 wrote:

Only in literary criticism.

No not only in literary criticism, thank you but the in the actuality of our existence. Speech and action combine to form the process whereby we signify our lives though language and the attendant actions of our being.
Signification is not just reduced to the structure and process of language formulation. This forum is a language based entity, that exists for the user in specific zones of Duration, see Bergson for this and it is contributed to by sentient beings through the discursive process.

So each strike of the keys from words which are constructed both by affection and intellect thereby signifying the intent of the author to continue the chains which interlock by continual engagement, thus adding to the discursive field.

To me it has nothing to do with Derrida, it goes further back to Saussure and thence Bergson and Deleuze and then beyond as it is fashioned and expressed by the individual. Being is both an expression of intent in terms of its actions and as a process of signification through discourse.

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus wrote:

. . . specific zones of Duration, see Bergson . . .
To me it has nothing to do with Derrida, it goes further back to Saussure and thence Bergson and Deleuze . . . .

We have been reading some of the same. Specific zones of Bergson were quite hot at first. Peirce and Saussure as well. But we're still on the trail of time and it leads to Derrida. Unfortunately it also leads to Whitehead, who wrote in no known language. I would be looking for a whole system now, still, as the fragmentary approach of Nietzsche and Benjamin, while interesting, created more gaps every time they dug up a fossil. The play's the thing, said Shakespeare, and Derrida.

@Fairbanks,

I don't see how you keep coming back to Derrida and in particular with time.If your following Bergson then the next step would be Bergsonism by Deleuze. Bergson speaks of duration, and if you consider the statement I made about chains of signification that is the link via duration.

Time flows, for capitalism to exist time has to be reduced to units and hence commodified. But the duration as perceived and lived is beyond this system of thinking.

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus wrote:

I don't see how you keep coming back to Derrida and in particular with time.If your following Bergson then the next step would be Bergsonism by Deleuze. Bergson speaks of duration, and if you consider the statement I made about chains of signification that is the link via duration.

Time flows, for capitalism to exist time has to be reduced to units and hence commodified. But the duration as perceived and lived is beyond this system of thinking.

Duration was first observed in the lab by William James. Bergson mentions duration. Libet didn't mention it but worked with it. Infrastructures form chains, that is the link to Derrida. Economic time is not related in any way to inner time.

@Fairbanks,

Time has been commodified to suit the workings of the capitalist system which trades 24/7. Our lives are ruled by time and how we perceive time. Either we find ourselves commodified as part of a system or our perceptive awareness allows us to position ourselves at a point where, while we partake in the the structure we are not ensnared in its fabric for this I would recommend , A Thousand Plateaus.

As for James and duration thats news. Duration is how we experience time as lived process of perception as both interiority and exteriority. Bergson's notion of Duration is linked to the process of memory and matter and the manner in which we perceive and experience the world and as such is not a process which can be analysed in an experimental environment.

Signification forms chains of speech acts, the speech act is the annunciated articulated process of cognitive deliberation and as such the process of signification is not just a literary device. Signification is part of how we live and articulates the interiority of our Being. Signification is process whereby the manifest substance of Being is made visible to the world.

Each act lead to another act which is informed both by perception, cognition and affection, as a result the actor signifies his participation in the social sphere through acts of signification and those signifying acts are recognised by other social actors who in turn either respond or ignore. The act to acknowledge or reject articulates the process of signification.

Action equals signification so therefore signification is not a literary device.

@Paracelsus,

Paracelsus wrote:

Action equals signification so therefore signification is not a literary device.

Same words a first glance, but a different language using words that look the same and probably sound the same but are completely different. Read the same books but the language is completely different and the intent of the writer can never be known. Everything is literary criticism since 1927. Wouldn't dream of foistering a system on anybody without first understanding and explaining as best as possible his proposed system.

@Fairbanks,

Fairbanks;26156 wrote:

Same words a first glance, but a different language using words that look the same and probably sound the same but are completely different. Read the same books but the language is completely different and the intent of the writer can never be known.

Sorry this just doesn't make sense if its a logic or word game you have me baffled. Zen koan? Sound of one hand clapping.

I thought that the intent of a philosophy text and its author was to educate liberate and set new paradigms of though in train. Even with a deconstructionist reading, must have gotten it wrong.

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