Reply to the response to Entry 64 .

"The bare existence of thought is a given. The assumption (taken from ordinary logic and natural science) is that if the negation of a proposition (such as "there is nothing, not even thought") is absurd and inconceivable, the positive assertion is also infected with the same absurdity. That is because at the level of ordinary empirical and mathematical claims, the converse of a claim has the SAME level of meaning as the claim.

For example, "1+1=2" is both necessarily true and meaningful. "1+1<>2" is necessarily false but has the same level of meaning as the true claim.

Important and true philosophical claims, from *cogito ergo sum* to Kant's ethical claim that the only thing we can know to be good is the purity of the will, are NOT, *pace* Russell, "true or false and meaningful, NOR are they, *pace* Carnap, "meaningless". They are instead, as texts, true or meaningless. The claim "nothing exists" is on this taxonomy not false but meaningless...enough to do a Logical Positivist's heart good. The claim of phenomenology that "the given may or may not exist but it is given" is not meaningless or false but true.

My claim, that your Premise (1) is without meaning, is itself meaningful and true. Indeed, its meaningful converse can be formed IF the converse mentions but does not use the meaningless text.

In addition to the limited relation between who we are and knowledge itself, we also know that there is a given distinction between our mental contents and reality precisely in the way reality confronts us with givens that we know contradict our mental contents. I may think I am hiking due south, this is a given, but the subsequent discovery that I am hiking in a circle has the SAME status. The two givens together form a higher but given phenomenological truth, to wit, that I am lost.

The true claim that we cannot know absolutely blinds us to the fact that within a framework there is always an absolute knowledge constituted by difference. The painter's white outside of the painting may be seen to be infected by a subtle yellow shade, but this does not mean that within the framework it is not an absolute white.

Philosophers forget a sort of pre-Socratic piety in which things were left well enough alone. The visual nature of the phrase empty form does encourage us to believe that we can detach the empty form.

But being systematically misled into so doing leads to an infinite regress of silly questions commencing with "what is the form of the form." The fact that sometimes questions which have this linguistic form are indeed meaningful (the form of the rectangle is shape) they stop being meaningful after one or two levels (shape has no visual form that it shares with objects without shape.)

This is a use-mention confusion imho. Knowledge necessarily involves language but is not coterminous with language. It's confusing, admittedly, because there is a two way necessary connection between knowledge and language (no language without knowledge at least of language itself: no knowledge without language.)

It is untrue that we would not be conscious of language or text, if it is devoid of knowledge. The text xxy2 has no meaning UNLESS it occurs in a computer program somewhere in the world and has a designated meaning, such as rate of speed. But we are here conscious of it as a sequence of letters."

Edward G. Nilges July 4 2000

Response:

There appears to be a misunderstanding. When we assert that thoughts themselves are empty forms, we are not saying that they are nothing. We are saying that they are intrinsically empty of who we are. In other words, the fundamental basis for their existence is different from our own. (We agree that thoughts cannot be nothing or non-existent, because even nothing has form. It appears that we have no way of truly conceptualizing nothing, because there would be nothing to conceptualize, and the term nothing would contradict whatever we think is nothing.)

Your claim that (1+1=2) is necessarily true can be refuted, and your claim (1+1<>2) can be proven, on grounds that two units in terms of space and time cannot be identical, so there is no such thing as 1+1 as we perceive, and the result would never be the same. For further explanation see (1+1=2)=false

We disagree that Descartes’ proposition, "I think, therefore I am" is either "true or meaningless", because being aware of our thinking does not necessarily mean that we really exist. The notion we, or "I", may be an illusion. Hence, Descartes’ proposition may be false. The same reasoning applies to Kant’s proposition that "the only thing we can know to be good is the purity of the will" because he is using know in absolute terms, and good and purity are ambiguous, and the notion of the will itself appears to be beyond our understanding since we apparently cannot know the source of the will, who we are.

Also, we disagree with your claim of phenomenology that the given may or may not exist but it is given, because something must exist, in one form or another, to be given.

Your claim about the meaningless of Premise (1) overlooks the meanings through the assumptions and conclusion behind the premise:

Assumption (1): we exist
Assumption (2): we perceive knowledge itself

Conclusion (a): there is intrinsic separation between knowledge itself and us ourselves

The circularity of knowledge, or its self-referential nature, does not rule out the existence of an empty form. If it does, it follows that all our knowledge would be ruled out on the same grounds.

How can knowledge necessarily involve language, but it is not coterminous with language? Further, how can you claim that knowledge is separate from language, and yet even in your explanation of knowledge’s separation from it, you cannot separate them?

We disagree that we can be conscious of language or text without knowledge or conscious meaning. Your example of the text "xxy2" has the meaning of the letters and number which allows us to be conscious of the sequence of letters and number, and them themselves. Moreover, though we may not be aware of the meaning of the text as a whole, does not mean that the text is devoid of knowledge or meaning. By the mere fact that the text exists, we claim that it must have knowledge or meaning, otherwise it would not exist. In other words, by being aware of a text, or it even existing, it must have, known or unknown, conscious meaning behind it. How can a language or text be devoid of any meaning itself, and still be a language or text? We assert that it is impossible.

67. Entry:

"Seeing as you state that "our assumed fundamental basis can be refuted within the limits of what we know, by reasonably showing that we do not have a fundamental basis" I therefore claim that I have overcome your proposition by reasonably showing by my following argument that we do not have a "fundamental basis", as you define it, to begin with. In my view we are "incomplete", which is not the same thing as a "fundamental/whole basis". We are not "everything" or "nothing" as you claim. Your arguments of course only make sense if your assumptions are correct to begin with eg. "whole basis", "intrinsic separation" etc. etc. I assume, rather, that our being is in a state of flux, is incomplete (which is not a "fundamental" or "whole basis"), and that "to know", by this incompleteness, is therefore only a partial separation. These assumptions seem to me to make more reasonable sense than your premises.

You agree that our knowledge defines ourselves (response to Entry 37). You also agree that our "fundamental level of our being" appears to be in a state of flux (response to Entry 63), or change. Seeing as we agree that knowledge at least in part defines us, and we further agree that our "fundamental level of our being" appears to be in a state of flux, it follows therefore that our being is always "incomplete" also, because it is at least partly dependent on our changing thoughts. It is this very incompleteness of our being whereby we can partly know ourselves because this incompleteness is defined and dependent on our knowing. Rather than an "intrinsic separation from our being", "to know" is only a partial separation from our being. Both "knowing" and our "being" are incomplete, and both partly define each other.

In my view part of our being exists/is defined and modified by our knowing. There is a feedback mechanism/infinite loop to our existence. "To know" is not so much an "intrinsic separation from our being", so much as an infinite loop, which is not an "intrinsic separation". Our being partly defines our knowledge, which partly defines our being. Because knowledge, which includes reason, in part defines ourselves, we can "know" ourselves in part, because knowledge/reason is intrinsically connected to and defines our being.

The way I understand your argument is that you make assumptions concerning complete "Being" and "Knowledge", what you refer to as "the whole basis", rather than an incomplete "being" and "knowledge". The very reason that nothing is Provable or Absolute may be because our being is in a constant state of flux or change, and is incomplete, so to speak. Knowledge is not Absolute, but neither can it be, because there is no Absolute, at least not in our being. (I know you are going to say how do you know there is no Absolute in our being, isn’t this an Absolute?). You seem to assume that our being is Absolute, I assume rather, that it is incomplete, that there is no "whole basis" in our being to begin with. Therefore also, part/incomplete knowledge is knowledge, (not Knowledge with a capital K) because it is an expression of the constant change/incompleteness in our being.

I think therefore I am, I am therefore I think. My am affects my think, my think affects my am. My part am affects my part think, my part think affects my part am. My think is a part expression of my am, my am is a part expression of my think. My think is a part separation from my am, my am is a part separation from my think. My am and my think are both one and separate, they do not "Intrinsically Separate".
To part know, which is a part of my part think, is a part of who I part am. It is not "Intrinsically Separate" from who I am.

I have no problem with any of these statements.

I therefore disagree with you that "to know" wholly diminutes ourselves, because I disagree that it is an "intrinsic" or "complete" separation from our being in the first place. It is only a part separation, it is also partly intrinsically connected, because, I reason, that "who we are" is not "fundamentally whole", but incomplete, and constantly defined by this separation/connection duality. "Thinking (which includes knowing) and being are interconnected (Descartes’ cogito). To reject knowing is therefore to partly reject "who we are"."

Roger McEvilly July 5 2000

Response:

How can our basis be in a state of flux, and still be a basis? It appears that for our basis to be in state of flux, there must be something else behind it (ie. something cannot change solely from external influence), and therefore our basis is not really our basis, or we do not have one. If we do not have one, it does not follow how we could exist (ie. we cannot be nothing); and if our basis as we perceive it is not our basis, we are not able to consciously identity our true basis.

Also, even if our basis is incomplete due to a state of flux, it does not follow how we could know who we were, since who we were is an extension of who we are (ie. the source of who we were is who we are if we consider the starting point of our existence. It is like a boy who grows into a man; the basis for the boy is the same as the basis for the man).

Further, if we are constantly changing, we cannot define "who we are" as "who we were" + the knowledge of who we were, because we would always be a step behind knowing who we are. For more explanation see Dispute 9 Reply and Response 6) .

How could there be partial separation between our thoughts themselves and us ourselves, since according to your reasoning there is no such thing as us ourselves, because it is in a state of flux?

You claim that our knowledge defines our being and our being defines our knowledge in an "infinite loop", and yet if our being is the basis for our knowledge, so that our knowledge is an extension, limited or unlimited, of our being, how can our being define our being? In other words, how can our knowledge define our being, when the basis for our knowledge is our being?

In our view, knowledge is incomplete not because it is in a state of flux (ie. state of flux does not stop us from knowing. Moreover, we assert that our knowledge is not in a state of flux, because we can stop our thinking, and freeze our thoughts in moments of concentration without changing our thoughts).

Knowledge is incomplete, from our perspective, because we do not have the capacity to really know: we cannot get outside of ourselves and still be ourselves to really know something.

How can our being and our knowledge be one and separate at the same time?
If you are implying that our being is the basis for our knowledge, it does not follow that they have to be intrinsically one.
If you are implying that a part of our being is in our knowledge itself, this claim does not make sense because we know through what we know, and since (1) we cannot get outside of our minds, and (2) we cannot know knowledge solely through itself, it follows that what we know itself is an empty form devoid of our being.
If you are implying that our knowledge defines our being and our being defines our knowledge, how could our knowledge define our being if our being is the basis for our knowledge? If our being is not, where does our knowledge come from?

We agree that thinking and being are interconnected in that in order to exist in our current evolved state, we need to think, just as for thinking to exist, we ourselves need to exist. However, it does not follow that we ourselves have always been dependent on thinking for existence. The same cannot be said for thinking.

In our view, to reject knowing would simply be an expression of who we are rather than a rejection of who we are. Surely, we ourselves are behind the rejection!

If our being is in a state of flux as you claim, it follows that we have no way of knowing it, so the challenge proposition remains unrefuted. Further, if there is no who we are, because all there is a state of flux, how can we exist? It appears that if we follow your reasoning, there is no we or I. We do not exist.

How can you apply a state of flux to something that does not exist? We cannot know our being is in a state of flux and there be a being to know, without contradicting ourselves.

In short, your challenge is unreasonable because your claim that our being is in a state of flux does not stand. And even if it did, you would prove that we cannot know who we are, because there would be no who we are that we could know.

Note for clarification: The only assumptions that we make to assert the challenge proposition are:

1. we exist
2. there is a fundamental level of being (ie. basis) behind our existence

We do not assume or conclude that our being is in a state of flux. In fact, we believe that it is impossible for our being to be in a state of flux, because there would be no being we could know, and therefore no being in a state of flux.

Moreover, we do not assume that our being is complete or whole. We reason that in order for our being to be our fundamental basis, it must be complete or whole (ie. we cannot know part of our basis because there would be nothing behind the part, and if there is nothing behind the part, the part cannot be part of our basis; or from the axioms:

1. we cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are
2. we cannot know knowledge solely through itself

what we know itself is devoid of any part of who we are (ie. our (b)eing cannot be in (k)nowledge in part or whole)).

Finally, we do not assume there is intrinsic separation between who we are and thoughts themselves. We reason the intrinsic separation from a series of premises and conclusions, some of which are listed in the Basic Proof.

68. Entry:

Reply to the response to Entry 67.

"Now that I understand your argument better, I agree with you that if we have a fundamental basis, then it logically follows that knowledge is empty and not a good thing. I came to this conclusion many years ago, and I used to believe it myself. However, I changed my views on these matters. Spiritual, instinctive, rational and empirical (scientific) journeys seemed to suggest to me that, in essence, we do not have a fundamental basis.

I also realize now that I have come across variations of your arguments a number of times before. Many religions for example, follow a similar argument, namely, that if we have a kind of fundamental level of being, then it logically follows that knowledge and learning is not of the soul/being, is therefore entirely without meaning, and thus not a good idea.

But having once adhered to such an argument, I am now of the alternate view, namely, that we do not have a soul/being in the first place. We are a collection of interacting chemicals in the cosmos. Any attempt to grossly elevate oneself beyond this is an illusion, and only leads to inhuman derivations. Many religions say much the same sorts of things as you say. In my view, they fail to understand that "we" is an illusion, "we" are a biological entity interacting in the cosmos. There is no we. "We exist"- biologically, yes, (your assumption 1 in response to entry 67), but there is no "fundamental level of "being"" (your assumption 2 in response to entry 67).

If we disagree with this fundamental starting point (your assumption 2 above), there is no further room for discussion. From this point of departure our ensuing deductions will forever diverge.

On a personal note, after 6 entries, I feel uplifted and glad that I have partaken in these discussions with the inexpressible committee, for it clarified my own positions more clearly. I enjoy such discussions. "Philosophy" is an under-rated endeavour. Thank you for your clarity, and boldness.

For the record, you are right about the implications of my views: in my view, "we" do not exist."

Roger McEvilly July 8 2000

Response:

If there is no we because all we are is a "collection of interacting chemicals in the cosmos", it follows that our knowledge is an illusion, because it is contingent on identity for it to have meaning. In other words, if our identity (ie. we ) is an illusion, it follows that all our knowledge is as well, because there is no knowledge without identity of ourselves.

Further, if all we are is a collection of chemicals, what is behind the chemicals (ie. surely, the chemicals are not ends, because ends are neither in a state of flux nor do they interact). Where do the chemicals come from?

How does our knowledge come into existence through chemicals? How do chemicals come up with new ideas? Are you asserting that collections of chemicals actually have consciousness? Again, what is behind the consciousness; what is behind the chemicals?

It appears that your argument that we are interacting chemicals, and anything else that we are is illusory, is guilty of the religious extremism you accused us of, because it may well be that all our knowledge is illusory (ie. 1. we cannot get outside of ourselves and know that we are. 2. we cannot know knowledge solely through itself. 3. knowledge must be an empty form devoid of any meaning except for the imaginary meaning we, or in your case the chemicals, attach to it).

If the chemicals which comprise us are in a state of flux, it does not follow how we can know we are made up of chemicals, without contradicting ourselves. (Also, how can a chemical know itself and be itself at the same time?)

You referred to many religions taking the position that knowledge and learning are not of the soul or being, and therefore they are entirely without any meaning. We do not agree with this religious position. In our view, knowledge and learning cannot help from having meaning in relation to our existence, and from the mere fact that knowledge exists. However, because knowledge appears intrinsically separate from who we are, and that we exist through knowledge and its material extensions, we think that we are gradually diminuting ourselves and the rest of nature, through knowledge and its material extensions. Hence, if we are correct, it appears that in the long-term, knowledge is not good for us, and that learning if we are true to it, may be a way for us to realize our diminution.

69. Entry:

"The concise version of your proposition is valid, though incomplete: we each have within us what I call a False Mind (the result of dis-education by the enormous Culture Structure that usurps power over each society) and some version of a Working Mind, which is the True Self: that which can be trusted, such as Zen Mind, or your 'Who We Are' concept. Left alone, this Who We Are slash Working Mind generates Empowerment and thus personal, individual Power. Both exist within us at all times, whether active or dormant; one possible practical response to this notion is to learn to slip back and forth at will...

I say that it is possible, by hyper-awareness [a learnable skill], to Know that we are Being, which is not the same thing as the solid mass of Identity ['I am what I know' or 'I am who I consider myself to be'] that operates within most of the mass of Homo Sapiens."

G.E. Nordell July 19 2000

Response:

We assert that the "Working Mind" is only the "True[r] Self" in relation to the "False Mind", and that the "Working Mind" and "False Mind" are "Empty Selves" in relation to who we are. Why? Through the propositions:

1. being, or who we are, is a necessity of reason (Kant, The Critique of Pure Reason)
2. we cannot get outside of our minds and know that we are (ie. all we can know is our thoughts)
3. we cannot know something (ie. thought) solely through itself
4. what we know must be an empty form

it appears that thoughts themselves, including notions of self, are empty of who we are.

How does "hyper-awareness" allow us to know we are being while at the same we are being? In other words, how can we know our being through our being?

We agree that we can be aware of our existence, within limits, by reflecting upon our past actions, but this awareness is different from being aware of our existence at the precise moment it unfolds, whereby the content of our awareness is in sync with the unfolding of our existence. We argue that this synchronistic awareness is unreasonable because our awareness would always be a step behind. Though we concede that "hyper-awareness" would likely reduce this step without eliminating it.

70. Entry:

"The key question, if meaningful at all, is a reiteration of the age-old question of the ultimate meaning of life and the world. The way (this key question) is phrased, it is easy to answer: We are what we are, whether we know what we are or not: this is a tautology. Accordingly, the proposition is false. For an in-depth answer (concerning the meaning of truth) I would refer you to Spinoza: "Sane, sicut lux seipsem et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est" (Ethica, II, Prop. 43). (Just as light shows itself and darkness, similarly truth a measure of itself and of falsehood)."

Emmanuel T. Rakitzis July 22 2000

Response:

Just because we cannot help from being who we are, it does not follow that we can know who we are.

In terms of Spinoza’s proposition, we argue that "truth", and all thought, is limited by the apparent circularity of reason, and therefore his proposition is limited as well. Though we agree that knowledge is relative (ie. we can only know the conscious meaning of a thing in relation to the conscious meanings of other things).

Entries 63-65 Entries 71-74