Deriving the is

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
1

Something is. This is perhaps the most basic statement we can ever make, acknowledging the basic existence of… something. This statement seems to ultimately ground every other possible statement. Taken at its widest possible meaning, ‘something is’ includes all of this is, is exhaustive, in other words. Or, it is NOT the case that ‘something is’ which is outside the purview of the exhaustive is itself.

So, why do we feel the need to derive the existence of this “exhaustive is”? We all seem to feel this need, it seems a very naturally human need to try and feel like we understand the why and how of the is. Understanding the is’s hows is certainly not a fruitless task since this immediately launches us from exhaustivity into particularity of the experiential. However once we try to understand the why of the is it becomes hopeless. If is is exhaustive, then deriving it can make no sense at all, can have no meaning. At first we see how rejecting all external derivations of is is necessary, and we are lead into a sort of “derivation of the necessity of the is”. The is is necessary, it is because it… is. But of course this definition tells us nothing we already didn’t know: the is is; there is an is; something is.

The claim that the is “could not have been otherwise” is perhaps the only way in which we can meaningfully address the question of the why of the is. This attempt seems insufficient, and it also seems unfounded, since the mere fact of a thing’s existence does not imply a “could not have been otherwise” unless we subscribe to an unwavering sort of “determinism”. Therefore we see that determinism (or its little sibling, empirical science) is implicitly the only way to cultivate a ground upon which addressing the question of the why of the is becomes even remotely possibly meaningful at all. This might go a long way to explaining the attraction to the empirical position: less thoughtful people utilize religious images to generate the ground from which the question of the why of the is may appear to be meaningfully posed; more thoughtful people (who question themselves and their premises with the intention of eradicating inconsistencies) move from religion into science as the means of generating this same ground.

But is anything even accomplished, does it even make sense to attempt to approach the question of the why of the is in the first place? All this postulating seems firstly in the service of psychological need for certainty, a need to enclose the sum of all experientiality. We experience the question of the why of the is in the mere formulation of this question, and this question is indeed very basic and occurs to most everyone at some point; this question itself is the historical basis for all philosophy.

So man feels a need to approach what appears before him. Does this need, which itself appears as psychological in nature, sufficiently justify man’s seemingly endless attempts to develop a ground from which approaching the question of the why of the is can (seem to) be meaningfully undertaken? Is there any continued utility to us to remain trapped within the gaze of this question, trapped under the weight of the history of philosophy itself? Perhaps understanding that we don’t have to understand the why of the is is the only way for philosophy to mature and grow beyond its self-imposed limitations and become… something else, something more? Something new, more useful, more potent, more responsible and far-reaching?

2

Alas, IS isn’t as fundamental as we instinctively would like it to be. Different people have their own versions of the “why of the is”, because different people subscribe to different notions of what is. The disputes (and the philosophy) start because people with different fundamental is-es each take their own to be self-evident, when they self-evidently are not (witness the disagreements about what is). Before we create, or seek out, a “why of the is” we would be well-advised to arrive at some consensus about what is in the first place. That’s were empiricism and religion come in, as methods for generating agreed-upon notions of what is.

Of course the psychological need justifies it - at least, in the same sense that hunger “justifies” eating, or needing to pee justifies going to the bathroom - but i’m not sure that justifying it is all that important a task, even for philosophers. It is, as you say, a need. And that sort of is is self-justifying. What really needs justification are the different methodologies by which we arrive at our notions of what is, and, only later, our notions of why “what is” is. That (ideally) would be where the question of what is useful arises.

EDIT (not sure what i originally wrote made sense): i don’t think we need to stay trapped in its gaze, but i think it’s useful to have some sort of provisional working answer to the question as one is navigating through certain areas of life - like dealing with loss and suffering, or trying to understand one’s place in the world.

Yes, at some point we need to move from the question of what is and why to the question of what to do, even despite our lack of certainty about the answer to the former questions. But as long as you are trying to understand things in philosophical terms i do think we need to have some semblance of an answer - and again, needs are needs; functional things. There is a time and a place for trying to understand, and there is a time and a place for trying to understand that we don’t always need to understand, and there is a time and a place for simply acting regardless of whether or not we have satisfactorily understood.

Addendum: The question of why is always a long chain that recedes forever into infinity, so you’re right at some point we need to stop asking and start doing in order to progress. But philosophy is all about asking, so if we take away the question of why, it’s not necessarily going to make philosophy any more useful or potent. Rather, it might eliminate one of its more useful applications.

3

According to Ebonics, you is what you is.

4

Is saying that a person is a person any different than saying that person is enlightened, when in the former you don’t know all that a person psychologically or physically is – or in the latter you don’t know what an enlightened person is?

If you want to know more about what something is, what takes you there and how do you get it, if you don’t have it now?

5

Is there an un-interpreted is-ness?

everything else would then be not what ‘it’ is.

6

All you can do is interpret. If you can’t get it that way, there is no other way.

There are 'knowns’ innately programmed into the intelligence of the organism’s handling of the life within it. Coordinating the basics of life’s sustenance and survival are primordial activities of the brain.

What we seem to be involved in is an attempt to ascertain if our natural course is to assume that interpreting is and always has been the way to discovering the meaning of life – or – if the meaning of life will be found if we do not deliberately try to interpret its is-ness.

7

And if the sun goes supernova tomorrow there will be no is-ness?

Indeed, to the latter I wonder if the meaning is already there, but like the inner informations in our minds, it is so subtle that the very attempt of interpretation and realisation of it, falls short of what it is.

8

right. is there an is that is not also an is-to? things are to us - the conscious examiners. interpretations abound, and refined guesswork is the best we can do.

everything is what it is, it’s just simpler that way. let x = x.

9

Not to me for I wouldn’t be there. Is-ness would have to fall on another medium of detection through which its is-ness could be transmitted.

There is, indeed, something that functions, that is operating there autonomously, providing the support necessary to keep life going physically and biologically … not to say that the knowledge utilized to support interpretive thinking is insignificant. It has significance in that we live in a world where we engage in the constant interpreting of knowledge and ideas – a way of comprehending things that, at the very least, maintains a pattern of a conditioned inter – commonality.

10

Each individual is his own savior. Honesty is the key: to acknowledge that there is no problem with my present life at a time when, in reality, there is no problem. The ostensibly apparent problem exists in what I think about. It’s psychological. Thought pulls out past inadequacies, disappointments, as well as satisfactions, compares it to what is there currently, makes a decision from the results of that, avoids the present by concocting a future and pursuing it. But for the comparisons that thought makes there is no problem with my life as it is; and there is no other life.

11

Wow… I feel like I’ve been gang raped…

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“Is” is a part of the verb “to be.” It’s an unequivocal statement. “I am!” which implies the existence of everything, and which has been questioned by philosophers for centuries in their effort to define reality. Even those philosophers acknowledge existence ‘is’ or they wouldn’t try to define it, would they? :slight_smile:

13

yes, you’re clearly a victim here :unamused:

14

True but I was referring to the idea that our interpretations would never be what ‘is’ except of course where they themselves are an is-ness.

But does it need that? If nobody detects it then it remains.

Here’s an idea; an is-ness when it is information [if it can be nought else?] is that thing you are thinking!! There is never ever any such thing as interpretation, we are always reading informations, interpretation then is more to do with direction/perception of where it came from.
:slight_smile:

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Hopefully it will repeat itself in a somewhat similar fashion for purposes of further scrutiny. It seems we have a tendency to want to link up events in a certain way to create narrative. Problem is, things don’t always take place in an exactly predictable sequence (let alone each event) making our accounting difficult to derive. But predictability is an important factor in keeping things orderly in our minds requiring the act of deriving from a common fund of knowledge that is pretty much if not perfectly workable as info used for common inter-relations between you and me. Then you and I can share our modifications on the basic agreed upon info/knowledge, check each one’s findings, make comparisons and, if adventurous and pioneering, pursue new avenues of thought. … and so on.

Here I think we differ in opinion, unless we were somehow bestowed with information at birth. That would mean we didn’t have to go through a process of acquiring it, or having it put into us from an outside agency. Is the hardware enough without software, devoid of programs and applications that form our systems of thought processes? Am I interpreting you right here?

How did this ‘reader’ come into existence?

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here i’m mainly exploring different ways of thinking about our old problem [interpretation, subjectivity] :slight_smile:

The act of acquiring is ‘to bring something into’ what is already there, the reader is already there as it is the perception and understanding nature of mind.
I was thinking that information is ‘there‘, because as I see it you need info prior to its expression as object or informational thought. [in fundamental and universal terms].

Here I am not thinking about holistic interpretations of objects. Even then I struggle to find a way in which we could do even that without some composite info already being there.

17

I do get the drift of what you’re saying, but is ‘mind’ – in the way you describe its characteristics – in the way you say it has, within its capacity, the ability to read, perceive, and understand – is all of that a natural physical functioning of the brain in that when the senses are stimulated, thought, or ‘mind’ (or whatever it is), comes in and tells you precisely that such and such is the stimulation and the response to that is another activation of brain neurons telling you everything there is to know about what that is?

In other words, I depict ‘mind’ as something that is inculcated into the brain’s memory, with the brain being a container as well as a converter of stimulated neuronal signals. But there has to be something inputted into the memory so that memory cells may be activated when, i.e, light falls on the retina and signals are sent through the optic nerve for translation.

Likewise, in order for there to be the mental activity of reading, perceiving and understanding raw data input, there must first be past experiences to guide you. Such experiences, it has been argued, are subjective and when these experiences are repeated over and over again, the knowledge that supports them is strengthened. How that knowledge got in there is more less what we’re talking about here.

18

I think that’s all more or less what I think, except the primary factor of ‘mind’ is the thing being taught, and to me that’s the user.

For me as a kid I played with a chicken leg with a bit of string attached to the tendons, to move them you need a hand to pull the string. With the mind and body you have both, so when science looks at the brain it thinks this part is pulling the string and that part is being operated upon by it. For me we will never find the user in all of that, simply because the method is to find out what operates the chicken leg.

This is why I have to look at things like info and qualia, and ask if they are purely neuronal or if there is a user there, or something that can understand such things. I just cant see how neurons can ‘understand’ info, though I can understand that objects contain information and hence info can be exchanged by them in a kind of second hand manner.
There once more we see how something like info exchange can be explained within the context of the mechanistic side of the equation, and yet some level of that is occurring in the user and indeed being changed by it e.g. when we make a decision, think etc.