My essence is what is essential to my being.

Isn't it normally frowned upon to use the word in its definition...

In other words, you're still not making enough sense, or not being specific enough...

If what is essential to your being is finite, then you have no reason to connect essence and eternal.

I wish I could describe or pinpoint essence, but it's not a thing. It is merely what it is.

My existence is contingent upon what is essential to me, it's the very definition of the word. On the other hand, without my existence, these essentials/my essence, would also not exist. Because if they did then so would I.

I think you're just trying to hard. Ones essence, is what is essential. What is essential depends on too many factors to define, so it is merely what is essential.

I could say my essence is: my history, my biology, my current situation, my family, my friends. etc. These are all essential to who I am.

Well yes, I am trying too hard, that's the point of philosophy I thought! lol

But the essence of existence could be very narrow compared to the essence of you. So that, for me, the bare minimums of existence, the essence, would be a functioning brain. Simply because there is nothing else I could point to and say, "when I shut this off instead of his brain, he dies". So to die or cease to exist would be to have one's brain cease to be able to function.

There are a lot of interesting ideas wrapped around this, because you could say that someone who lay dead for several minutes and was then revived actually stopped existing for several minutes...

If you confine existence to things which have consciousness, then he did cease to exist. I don't know if thats the case however.

I would say he was still existing; however, existing in a different state. Essence is constantly changing.

If thats what you meant to be eternal, than maybe thats where we are getting tripped up. If thats the case I apologize. I was referring to ones essence having lasting implications into the future.

Essences are not necessarily immutable, as what is essential to my being is constantly changing.

Essential is contrasted with accidental. I do not exist because of accidents, I exist because of my essence. There are factors that are essential to my exact existence. All of these things make up my essence.

I am going to clear this up right now. It is obvious that essence and existence play leapfrog with one another. Sometime one is ahead, and sometimes the other is ahead.

O.K.?

My essence is what is essential to my being.

deepthot;119314 wrote:

What evidence do you have that a cow cannot do this? Or an elephant?

We know they have certain human capacities such as to be able to suffer, and to mourn a loss. We see an elephant - and even a squirrel - plan for the future. Are you not being a bit arrogant in holding that only the human animal is unique in its being able to have a wider perspective?


bsfree writes: Only humans have the capacity to be aware of this greater view,....

Hi, bsfree


...If you say so...

Once again, I must inquire, What is your evidence? How would you go about supporting that statement? How would you back it up?

Essential is contrasted with accidental. I do not exist because of accidents, I exist because of my essence. There are factors that are essential to my exact existence. All of these things make up my essence.

How can you confidently state that what is essential to your existence is not accidental? What if what is essential to your essence is a result of randomness? Then what? Then there is no contrast between essential and accidental because they can both be adjectives for the other. An essential accident, or an accidental essence... it is a useless contrast because it is not true that essential constrasts with accidental!

To say something is accidentally essential is like saying something is necessary, but it came to be necessary because of accidents leading up to it, which is inherently irrational because it can't be necessary if it came to be from accidental happenings.

If the "essence" of human existence is a result of randomness, then you are wrong, and that is that.

I saw accidental nowhere in that antonym list...

If you believe human existence is the result of randomness then you are saying that given the same set of events leading up to humanity, it wouldn't occur every time. But the very nature of our universe is, given the EXACT circumstances the result will always be the same. Sure if you change just one of those circumstances then humanity wouldn't exist, but that would give the entire universe a different essence, and it wouldn't be our universe, it would be a different one.

How in the world does changing one little thing in the universe change the essence of the universe?!? Sure it wouldn't be exactly the same, but how does that mean the essence has changed? Does my essence change everytime I flake off skin cells?

You are looking at everything from just the present perspective. If you look at everything in it's entirety, then everything necessarily happens the way it does based on events leading up to it. I'm sure you've heard of the butterfly effect. If one butterfly didn't exist as it did, then that would change the entire essence of our universe.

Nothing couldn't have happened differently in the past, or else the present and future would be different.

No I understand, but what this has to do with essence is the part that I don't understand.

Surely you see a difference between one branch on a tree and only one possible branch on a tree? Changing something in the universe might change the branch you are on, but it is still the same tree.

Thats where we disagree i guess.

I see what is possible as necessary to the things itself. A tree can't exist without the possibility of the tree first existing. The possibility of the tree, or the seed, must have come before the tree could exist. The branch being cut of the tree was necessary for the tree to exist the way it does, but before that it had the possibility of a branch being cut off to allow for the branch to be cut off.

Aristotle saw a thing's essence as: what was possible, what has happened, and what will happen in the future. He called it the efficient case, its formal and material causes, and its final cause.

Today we tend to only look at the efficient cause and ignore the other three; because we look at everything through a present perspective, we don't get a clear picture of the actual essence of a thing.

Yeah, I see your side of it in full now with that last post, but we still disagree lol.

Now that I have finally made sense of my definition of essence, what do you consider to be one's essence?