Wittgenstein's Eternity

Philosophy Forums Philosophy
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Wittgenstein’s eternity of the present:

“Death is not an event of life. Death is not lived through.
If by eternity is understood not endless temporal duration but timelessness, then he lives eternally who lives in the present.
Our life is endless in the way that our visual field is without limit.” – 6.4311, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

The final metaphor here is intriguing. He compares the temporal endlessness of the moment (presumably) to the spatial endlessness of vision. Vision is endless in the sense that an object large enough could be visible from whatever distance. If our life is temporally endless in this fashion, the telescoping of temporality is the ability to “see” the largest temporal objects - what would that mean? It would seem to me the implication of seeing the very form, the very frame of sight, for isn’t it the form-frame that constitutes the infinity of spatial “vision”? Is Wittgenstein saying anything more than the sheer size of eternity makes its perceptible in the moment? While this can be taken as some psuedo-Spiritual dissolution of the logical, could one not make of this a more interesting bodily experience of infinity in perception? Is not Spinoza invoked here in that the Idea is always present in the Extension?

Dunamis

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Hmm… seems as if you ended with, to put it crudely; ‘infinity is in perception’; whereas you began with; ‘infinity is like the borderlessness of perception’. Wittgenstein makes a comparison, I think, and in some sense you have literalized it, with your ‘Spinozist’ inflection. This is intriguing though. I can’t claim to understand it completely. Perhaps you could elaborate?

Regards,

James

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The ‘visual field’ may be the visualization of a single point or vertex from which emanates a conic field of vision with a constantly receding base. The "visual field’ is thus stamped with infinity [without limit].

By inference or metaphor each moment of Being [time] has the same potential, the same 'mathematik" to extend itself dynamically into ‘timelessnes’. ‘Death is not lived through’ because it is the receding base of that visualization and perception.

It’s reverse would be an infinite sequence of points or moments which amount to nothing more than a barbed-wired sense of perception at it’s most literal. The ‘idea’ is precisely that which expands the moment into extension and all the human ways by which this might happen is perhaps one reason why Wittgenstein decided to escape from the literalism of the Tractatus.

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James,

Wittgenstein makes a comparison, I think, and in some sense you have literalized it, with your ‘Spinozist’ inflection.

I’m not sure that that I have altered Wittgenstein’s point because in the Tractatus Wittgenstein - if understand him correctly - is saying that the logical form of propositions shows, rather than says, the world. He I believe is working off of a distinction between exemplification and signification, the difference between a swatch of red cloth and the word “red”, each of which indicates the color differently. The suggestion that “infinity is in perception” would seem to be rather close to Wittgenstein’s point that propositions show the logical form of the world. The form is in the proposition. It is Wittgenstein who is literalizing his own metaphor, I think.

Dunamis

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Keep in mind that Wittgenstein is talking about timelessness. He is breaking out of the common quantifiable conception of time as a series of moments defined by measurements. Talking about telescoping and the size of objects doesn’t come into play here. Whether or not we are looking through a telescope, our visual range is still limited. Quantifiably we may be able to see farther, but we’re still confronted by the nature of limit:

Our visual field ‘consists of’ the things that we see, those things that are in it. Whether or not it is obstructed, it only reaches so far. There is nothing beyond the limits of our visual field that suggests to our eyes that there is something more. Thus the limit of our visual field is not something in our visual field, nor is it something outside of our visual field. It is something that doesn’t make sense in terms of our visual field. The same goes for Death as the limiting factor that surrounds our life.

If our vision is blocked by a wall that we’ve been on the other side of, we can have a good idea of what’s on the other side. The same goes for, say, looking west having seen a map. We can imagine these things. We haven’t seen the other side of Death our imagination is not based on empirical experience. No worries, though, being the industrious race we are, we’ve come with a whole bunch of ways of picturing the afterlife. The important distinction here is that in the case of imagining what is beyond the limit of our vision, we appeal to memories/descriptions of the same kind as what is in our field of vision. Such memories/descriptions can make sense when held up against what we see. When it comes that what’s beyond death, what we imagine cannot make sense, there cannot be any direct correlations or relationships, to us as we exist in life.

Keep in mind, though, that Wittgenstein gives us all these aphorisms as a ladder that we climb up but then throw away beneath us. These three statement, as with all the statements in the Tractatus (except for the introduction) work together to create a logical stucture that betrays its own limitations. He was trying to define the limits of language in the same way as the visual field, but showing that every structure it could contain was a mere extrapolation on a tautology (a = a). Thus, without connection with the world, making sense, we could do anything along the lines of this as that and drawing more conclusions. These are all things that we’re supposed to realize we cannot speak about so we must pass over in silence. This is why Wittgenstein quit philosophy for 30 years after publishing The Tractatus.

Dave

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Dave,

Whether or not it is obstructed, it only reaches so far.

I don’t think this is what he is saying, but we each can have our opinions. :slight_smile:

Keep in mind, though, that Wittgenstein gives us all these aphorisms as a ladder that we climb up but then throw away beneath us.

Of course you are supposed to kick the ladder away after you have climbed it, not before. :slight_smile:

Dunamis

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Okay, this is essentially what my essay, First Metaphysics: Finishing the Heideggerean Project is all about. We are now getting into the fundamental philosophical failure of the West, which is the visual bias. There is precisely nothing “a priorally” spatial about the plane of sight, or, the field of vision. When we say we can “intuit” spatiality from this plane, we are wholly relying upon our a posteriori experiences related to animal survival, in terms of actively experimenting – playing – with our environment. It is only when we ask of spatiality with our eyes closed are we asking a question of any philosophical value.

The West goes horribly wrong when it claims things like, “I have in mind the idea of a perfect circle.” In other words, it never claims things like, “I have in mind the idea of a perfect G-sharp note,” or “I have in mind the idea of a perfectly sweet taste.” The whole point here is that philosophy, in order to be truly philosophical, must rid itself of this single minded reliance upon the visual field in the explication of its concepts.

The visual field itself contains no clues whatsoever regarding this thing called spatiality-as-such (aka Derrida’s différance). Rather, it is only by questioning existentially that we can come to any kind of understanding of the a priori “wherefrom” of spatiality-as-such. This, in fact, is the entire purpose of said essay.

An interesting little tidbit I recently came across is Merriam-Webster’s (from m-w.com) first entry for the word space:

This leads us to think that spatiality-as-such is actually a degenerative “form” of temporality. This kind of thinking is shown to be true when we come to understand the two ways in which time can be understood:

  1. A purely undifferentiable duration: being-in-the-moment
  2. An infinite series of “nows” that “hop along” from moment to moment: Heidegger’s conception of “vulgar time” as explicated in Being and Time (tr. Stambaugh)

We can think, then, of this second “form” of temporality as being the annihilation of the first. In other words, when we busy ourselves with “counting time,” we are truly “turning away” from the essence of temporality-as-such, as a pure being-in-the-moment.

If one questions of spatiality in this way – rather than attempting a silly field of vision metaphor – then one is truly questioning in the way of the authentic philosophical project.

p.s. To fully understand what I am trying to relate here, you really do have to read my entire essay!

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dk,

Okay, this is essentially what my essay, First Metaphysics: Finishing the Heideggerean Project is all about.

I received the very fine promise from you that you were never going to address my posts again. I would appreciate it if you kept your word.

Dunamis

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aww but he put such effort into his post… :cry:

Sing along now…;

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Start a thread.

Dunamis

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You mean start a ‘Why can’t we be friends?’ thread?

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Maybe you two can email each other and he can tutor you on Heidegger. :slight_smile: :astonished:

Dunamis

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I thought man on man ‘learning’ was the prequisite for inclusion in Wittgenstein’s magical Tractatus discussion group. Hmm… :wink:

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James,

I thought man on man ‘learning’ was the prequisite for inclusion in Wittgenstein’s magical Tractatus discussion group.

All I know is that I am tired of these big-mouth pussies that promise and declare as if blowing trumpets and have the backbone of a Protistan. Stick to your word.

But a nice response from you to my answer to above, above, would be most welcome. :slight_smile:

Dunamis

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It’s too dense and I don’t really see a way out.

I am not sure if I like the understanding of temporality at play here, in any case.

I am not particularly enthused with going back and forth on this. You show the tips of your icebergs - there is obviously an ocean of significance beneath. But the water’s a little chilly today and sleep beckons. I have been expending my superhero powers all night, and now need to recuperate.

Regards,

James

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James,

It’s too dense and I don’t really see a way out.

Immanence.

Dunamis

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Hmm… ah yes. Spinoza. Got him penciled in for 2007. Till then I’ll stick with Beyng. Just kidding.

But seriously.

Ok not really.

Regards,

James