(Keeping in mind that personally I think both are horrible authors as is.) — Terrapin Station

They're horrible writers like Bob Dylan is a horrible singer. He doesn't do many of the things we enjoy and maybe wish he could. But what he does do- he does better than anyone else. So he both sounds like a goat and possibly is the G.O.A.T. Isn't life funny like that?

. It's not possible to just have "motion of nothing," or "just potential motion of nothing" which is even more nonsensical. — Terrapin Station

Who said the word "nothing?" I know I didn't. This is a really difficult concept so I'm happy to talk about it even though I feel like you're not reading what I'm saying very carefully... Prove me wrong Mr. Jerry Garcia!

What does it mean to think that the reality of all is becoming or flux, and not being? Its not that nothing is in motion- its that the "motion" that you "add" to the "Thing"... is not separate at all. the motion is what makes the thing the thing. There is no thing without the motion.

What do I mean?

Take the entire world- and instantly freeze it. Would would happen? A great detonation than any nuclear weapon. Something akin to the violence of a black whole. The fact that an elecron orbits around a nucleus is not incidental to the nature of the atom. Its that tension that creates the atom. We may not see all the movement inside something because our eyes don't see it... but take water. Heat is really just movement. Water molecules at a certain rate of movement/ heat- are a gas. then they slow down and become liquid. Then they become ice. And theres states far different than these two. The movement is not incidental to identity.

This is what saying the world is "becoming" tries to get at. Its the constant change at the root of all things that makes them what they are. The change is not incidental or added on to it. Nor is it just temperature. From our view a chair is just a chair. easy enough. But zoom in further and you see atoms and molecules and organsims and ecosystems- Whole solar systems worth of activity within each chair. This is also the chair just as surely as our perspective is. Just as surely as this chair is just a spec to an eneromous giant- so too this chair is solar systems worth of independent atomic and subatomic activity to the tiniest creatures. So what is this chair? What can be said about it? The chair has no color because color science tells us is nothing but our eyes separating the wavelengths of light that hit the surface to draw clues about where that light has been. (We don't see the chair, we encountar light waves and draw inferences based on how its been changed and altered in its path to project an image in our experienced world). This is pretty agreed upon science. The chair has no hardness or softness to speak of since this is just relative to whatever's touching it- A diamond finds it soft- water would find it very hard! So what is this thing called "chair"? We can't even circumscribe where the chair ends and the air around it begins, because molecules are constantly entering and leaving it, and the chair itself is undergoing changes on a molecular level. If we see the chair over 100 years there might be a point when it is so rotted through we no longer call it a chair but a heap of organic waste. But if we were the size of a virus we would see how that process is taking place in every instant and parts of this chair world as big as our house is to us suddenly decompose into nothing. So to us what is very stable and constant- to different perspective is something completely different. And when we see it from the closest perspective- this self identical thing is revealed to be constant change.

So on the one hand- science teaches us that what we use to describe the world- basically, our senses- tell us more about how our body codes the world than about the world itself. The tree in the forest does not make a sound if it falls when no one's around. It simply vibrates the air. Neither does it have a color or a smell (Smell is created by a nose that enocunters molecules from the things around us and codes them into our different smell categories) or taste or texture in itself. And science further teaches us that the one thing we know truly about the world- is that it is always constantly changing. The supposed "thing" that is self identical and then can "change"- only gains its properties by the qualities of its foundational constant change.

Now on the other hand- we have to understand that language and senses- to talk about anything at all- can't simply report back the data of the vibrations of lightwaves crashing agianst the eye, the vibrating air pressure that hits the ear, the clusters of molecules passing into the nose, etc etc... No. All these constantly changing stimuli must be translated into a code that can be deliberated upon. So all these crashing waves of light against a pupil become- the color red. The million vibrations of the ear drum become the steady note- C. Our senses are that which say the "same" of the "different". Our senses create a steady world of "being" and the "self-identical" which can be deliberating upon- and filter out all the million differences in wave variation that strike our eyes and other senses based on what's relevant to us or not- based on our size and density etc. So even though our language needs the self-same and identical to speak at all- to compare a horse to a cow we need a fixed image of each- and so even though we must speak in terms of "things that change in time"... in reality- it seems like the change is inherent to the identity and not separate. The world is a world of "becoming" not "being" is an important attempt to consider how change is inherent to the very nature of our world- not incidental- and point out that everything we try to ascribe to the object itself that is "self same" or "Identical"- is actually our own senses- code. Just like a green sonar image upon a screen is not the submarine itself- so too the evidence of our eyes ears mouths and language do not tell us what the thing is itself.

This is of course important when we ask such difficult questions like... what is truth?

The fact that our language needs to speak of unchanging identities while reality seems to be constant change itself- this is what makes these thoughts difficult to think.



and again-

"To stamp Becoming with the character of Being - that is the supreme will to power."

Why is it the will to power? Because it replaces this world of constant change around us "becoming" with a world of static identities that allows us to alter ourselves in a way leads to our greatest thriving. This world of "being" animals create through their senses and language is I think what Nietzsche references again when he says-

“Truth is the kind of error without which a certain species of life could not live."

Without this world of being we create... we might encounter the world as if we were standing in the midst of a great waterfall. Not complete chaos as you'd like to say- but can you describe and make sense of what you experience while standing completely engulfed in the great waterfall of becoming?

So......

Even if you just disagree- do you see how this is a coherent argument?

Facing mortality can give you distance from what is petty in one's community. In that sense it is isolating, especially if most don't want to face embarrassingly deep issues while there are gadgets to collect and while there is respectable worldly position to enjoy. On the other hand, the terror of death forces us to flee from what is petty or less important in ourselves. Flee where? To universal virtue which is more like poetry or music than a fixed idea — macrosoft

These heidegger ideas- as well as the one you mention with how our time is lived historically- I just can't get inside these ideas to feel them. So I know I don't really understand them.

Let me first voice my suspicions- and then maybe once i get that out of the way I can try to figure out what 's really being said.

I can see two things in this idea. 1- distancing yourself from what is petty in society. 2. Facing death.

A philosopher always has an ego and the grandiose abstract nature of philosophy can certainly play to this ego. So we don't know how to dance or dress fashionable or make social conversation but all this is "petty" and we are above and beyond these "petty things".... I can't help but see philosopher's like Heidegger in this manner. I understand that everything's not equal- that depth and authenticity are worth more than superficial talk and false appearances. But as Deleuze would probably say- the Skin and surface of a person is just as important as his bones and muscle. Beauty and materialism in their right place are fundamental parts of a good life- even though some are more sensuous when it comes to these things and some are more enamored with thought and other aspects of life. The Carpenter values working with your hands, the philosopher values work of the mind, and the concierge or fashion designer values the art of comfort and appearance. All are valuable and have their place.

My suspicion is that when Heidegger appeals to these fringe extreme concepts like the fact we all will die one day- its an attempt to render these parts of life worthless. Nietzsche criticized this a good deal when he was talking about those who raise a god only to cast a shadow upon life. Who are the lovers and who are the haters of life- Nietzshce who often asked. This is too simplistic because Nietzsche was of course full of hate and he admitted it himself- but the question has some validity. And where do we put Heidegger in terms of this question?

It reminds me a little bit of the Platonic forms and all the Christian concepts that came after- the Platonic argument that "Is something truly good if it is only temporary.... don't we want that which is Good Always?" And here is that supposedly beautiful god who's perfection only serves to reject everything in life by turning reality, by turning our beautiful mother nature herself into simply- "imperfection". Oh the arrogance! lol

So what of Heidegger's Being that is Revealed? Does this play some role like this- a sort of world despiser?

So there's my suspicions.

Now let me try to really be open to these concepts (that I don't understand lol)

What does it do to us to face our mortality- to face death? Again- recognizing I'm ignorant here- this calls to my mind Nietzshce's project with the Eternal Recurrence of the Same. To face death- or the idea that all must return inevitably- is to reject the teleological ideas of life- that we're trying to get somewhere. Where? We all wind up dead anyway. Or in Nietzsche's case- we all wind up repeating everymoment of life so why should the place we end our life matter any more than each moment of it?

To face death and our own mortality seems like it throws us more into the now- the present moment- and here is how I understand your talk of musicality and poetry. There's no point to it per se- its not to get somewhere. As a guru once said to me. "So you seek enlightenment. Where will you find it... over there?" Our life can not be justified by some imagined goal- it must be its self justification at each moment- like music or poetry.

Tell me if I'm on the right track with any of this. What I'm missing and not understanding. I've always felt like an outsider looking on Heidegger's thought.

I'll only add from my perspective- music or poetry also reach that dialectical ideal of becoming- where we are not trying to exploit or control but are equally putting ourselves in the mixture. The embodied cognition, as you called it, also means that our bodies and ourselves are at stake in our thought and actions. And isn't this what is truly Authentic?

These heidegger ideas- as well as the one you mention with how our time is lived historically- I just can't get inside these ideas to feel them. So I know I don't really understand them. — Jonah Tobias

Well they are strange indeed. In my view, Heidegger himself made it more difficult than it had to be as time went on. His early lectures are clear, but he didn't publish a book until he had years of radical content to present under economic pressure. What was popularized was a kind of 'ethical' philosophy, where 'authenticity' was understood as a virtue to strive for. On top of that, the capitalization of 'Being' suggests something mystical or quasi-religious. This too, just like authenticity, was perhaps a misleading device of translators. We are so used to philosophers telling us what to do....but Heidegger prefers questions to answers. Yeah, he shares some phenomenological insights, but these are intended to light up the question of what it means for something to exist, a question he never pretends to answer.

A philosopher always has an ego and the grandiose abstract nature of philosophy can certainly play to this ego. So we don't know how to dance or dress fashionable or make social conversation but all this is "petty" and we are above and beyond these "petty things".... I can't help but see philosopher's like Heidegger in this manner. — Jonah Tobias

I think you are right about that. On the other hand, he is perhaps as good as a critic of that (done the 'wrong' way) as Nietzsche. And of course Nietzsche understood himself to be a world-historical personality too. Both were probably right.

Beauty and materialism in their right place are fundamental parts of a good life- even though some are more sensuous when it comes to these things and some are more enamored with thought and other aspects of life. The Carpenter values working with your hands, the philosopher values work of the mind, and the concierge or fashion designer values the art of comfort and appearance. All are valuable and have their place. — Jonah Tobias

One thing you might be missing is the massive 'valorization' of practical life in Heidegger. One of his basic ideas is that our ordinary know-how (working with tools) is itself unrecognized by the compulsively theorizing mind that can't see around its own way of distorting the object. Heidegger was a supreme holist when it came to describing existence. Our primary way of addressing the world is messing with it, beating it into shape. This primary knowhow is the inconspicuous ground of theorizing that has fundamentally mis-grasped existence in pursuit of a certainty that forgets what it is certain about --ignoring the question of how things are for us in the obsession over whether they are. Existence also grasps itself as a present-to-hand object like a thing that we are staring at and thinking about. This misses the way that existence (and therefore meaning) is fundamentally and not accidentally caught up in time. (This means that all 'truth' is caught up in time.)

My suspicion is that when Heidegger appeals to these fringe extreme concepts like the fact we all will die one day- its an attempt to render these parts of life worthless. Nietzsche criticized this a good deal when he was talking about those who raise a god only to cast a shadow upon life. Who are the lovers and who are the haters of life- Nietzshce who often asked. This is too simplistic because Nietzsche was of course full of hate and he admitted it himself- but the question has some validity. And where do we put Heidegger in terms of this question? — Jonah Tobias

While I grasp your point, I don't think it accurately gets at Heidegger's interest in death. He is largely interested in death as something that makes the historical-temporal nature of existence visible to those who endure it as possibility. He grasps the Hegelian point that a discourse about what is must account for its own possibility. Our immersion in the usual business and clock time 'covers over' a more primordial experience of time. Nietzsche himself wrote that he was born posthumously. This is what Heidegger was talking about. We can think ahead to the time that we are no more and understand ourselves in terms of a legacy. We can also reach back to Nietzsche for instance and interpret him in a way that helps us construct our own future. And we can only go back to Nietzsche from within our own thrownness -- we have to interpret him from our lives in 2018. And now I'm trying to do that with Heidegger, who wrote the work I especially like just about 100 years ago. I'm not saying that there aren't Nietzschean critiques to be made, and my intial complaints about Heidegger were from similar Nietzschean perspectives. Beyond all of this, I'd say just read The Concept of Time. You may or may not love it, but I think going back to Heidegger with fresh eyes and looking at a translation like that one where being is not capitalized will give you a fresh perspective. I can't speak for later Heidegger, but I vouch for the mid 1920s.

"Is something truly good if it is only temporary.... don't we want that which is Good Always?" — Jonah Tobias

I'd say that, as much as Nietzsche if not more (with Nietzsche as a master), Heidegger is a supreme destroyer of such static conceptions--at their root, extending the 'becoming' theme. Being is 'essentially' caught up in time or only appears against the background of time or within time. And the denial of death is related to a quest for timeless. On the other hand, and this is where Nietzsche and Heidegger might both ignore something, we do indeed believe in some kind of elusive virtue which is quasi-static. Our biology is more or less fixed. If our theory is radically entangled with time, still there are vague animal-emotional value-constants. Certainly great philosophers like Nietzsche and Heidegger felt tuned in to the 'eternal' at times. I personally think that the heights of human experience are fairly universal in emotional terms. So an anti-Platonic discourse might have to take this into account. The problem may be and have always been the tendency for talk about these high states to become too theoretical and dogmatic. The words lose their force. This, however, is a central theme for Heidegger. The way that words die into banality and systems--the chatter of Everyone who no longer understands their depths or sources. And this is where we start, born in the 'sin' of not having chosen that chatter that we start with in order to think (and feel?) ourselves out of it. (And really we have to sink back into all of the time in ordinary life.)

To face death and our own mortality seems like it throws us more into the now- the present moment- and here is how I understand your talk of musicality and poetry. There's no point to it per se- its not to get somewhere. As a guru once said to me. "So you seek enlightenment. Where will you find it... over there?" Our life can not be justified by some imagined goal- it must be its self justification at each moment- like music or poetry. — Jonah Tobias

Yes, I think we have the same general grasp. Life is justified by feeling, ultimately. And even if we think it is justified by something in the future, that project gives us a good feeling now, maybe a kind of sober joy. I would maybe stress that actually living does indeed require us to work at things patiently. In other words, having a project (as simple as doing the laundry) is pretty fundamental to life. Lots and lots of little projects organized into a larger project --which may be just becoming all that we can become in the face of mortality --including learning to love the little things and the mortal music of life.

Tell me if I'm on the right track with any of this. What I'm missing and not understanding. I've always felt like an outsider looking on Heidegger's thought.

I'll only add from my perspective- music or poetry also reach that dialectical ideal of becoming- where we are not trying to exploit or control but are equally putting ourselves in the mixture. The embodied cognition, as you called it, also means that our bodies and ourselves are at stake in our thought and actions. And isn't this what is truly Authentic? — Jonah Tobias

I've tried to add what you might overlooking above. I think your definition of authentic is closer to Heidegger's than you think. Existence is fundamentally care which is fundamentally caught up in time with a project and a past. When does the clock time become my time? When do I face my past as the only thing I have to work with? When do I decide that I can only play the cards that were dealt with me? When do I choose a project in terms of what is possible given those cards and not imaginary cards that let me do anything? What is it to get serious with a kind of sober joy that embraces the world I was thrown into? Arguably this adds more to the text than the text gives. It is presented not as an ethics but as a 'cold' description of the structure of existence made possible by such authenticity.

What allows the way we are caught up in time to become visible? In stronger terms, what allows us to see that existence 'is' time?

When do I decide that I can only play the cards that were dealt with me? When do I choose a project in terms of what is possible given those cards and not imaginary cards that let me do anything? What is it to get serious with a kind of sober joy that embraces the world I was thrown into? Arguably this adds more to the text than the text gives. — macrosoft

I'm hearing Sartre's decision here in a way. Maybe Sartre presented his decision more as a radical break than this- there seemed to be a kind of unnatural randommness required for him- you don't decide for reasons but simply because to decide is to be free... I'm less impressed with Sartre in general lol. But it was fundamental that one choose one's decision- and here I see a choosing- a choosing of one's thrownness. Would you say the two are similar or different? Am I putting it correctly.

What does this really mean- this choosing of our thrownness? Do you think that we often live our lives with imaginary cards?

In my mind it seems the great decision to be authentic is between truth and distraction. People live a noisy life of distraction and then their truth is seen as something unwelcome because it disrupts their distractions. Would you say distractions are imaginary cards? Distractions certainly dont embrace the world we're thrown into- they seek to create a pleasant shallow and above all busy noise to drown it out.

What allows the way we are caught up in time to become visible? In stronger terms, what allows us to see that existence 'is' time? — macrosoft

I'm not sure that I understand this importance of time as you and Heidegger are using it. IN my own reasoning when I speak of time- its always a sort of foundational abstract discussion that then, through many degrees- leads to some way of looking at the world that resonates with us. I don't think my arguments that time be seen through the lens of becoming not being in itself really are useful to somebody's life. But this building block ends up leading to many applicable perspectives- for example- by many links further in the chain of reasoning we begin to see each of our truths as different ways of being in the world- like different animals- or different art forms- and therefore each has its place. discussing time got us there- but discussing time itself seems to abstract in itself to alter how we see the world.

When you use heidegger's concept of time i think you mean this concept itself should alter how we approach the world. But that hasn't hit me yet. I can't feel it or understand it. Can I ask you to try to explain it in a way that feels less abstract? How does it change one's life?

I'm hearing Sartre's decision here in a way. Maybe Sartre presented his decision more as a radical break than this- there seemed to be a kind of unnatural randommness required for him- you don't decide for reasons but simply because to decide is to be free... I'm less impressed with Sartre in general lol. But it was fundamental that one choose one's decision- and here I see a choosing- a choosing of one's thrownness. Would you say the two are similar or different? Am I putting it correctly. — Jonah Tobias

Sartre is an absolute genius at times, but in some ways he missed one point of Heidegger entirely, which is an escape from the dominance of the theoretical mind. With Sartre you get existence as a thrown project caught up in time. You get authenticity versus bad faith as an explicit (theoretical) ethic. (You get some fascinating things that I don't think are in Heidegger too, some of my favorite passages of philosophy-literature.) But I grok the 'unnatural randomness,' It's kind of like free will in an atheistic context. And then Sartre though man was a futile passion to be God. Which maybe does capture some essential structure. But Sartre also liked to hang out in cafes, while Heidegger liked his rural hut and disliked the empty business of cities. Both seem to have been womanizers.

What does this really mean- this choosing of our thrownness? Do you think that we often live our lives with imaginary cards? — Jonah Tobias

I guess that depends if one believes in an afterlife or counts fantasies of starting from zero. My old man didn't like me reading philosophy. He told me that he had his own philosophy. Well, when he did talk about it, it was just a mishmash of pop-culture. It had emotional depth, but it wasn't his anymore than what I was piecing together from more serious sources was really mine. But I knew that mine wasn't mine. He didn't know or bother to know that his wasn't his. You see the consciousness of time as inheritance here? Maybe the better contrast, however, is between 'our' cards (the tribes cards) and 'my' cards. Because authentic means 'own,' just as one's death is one's 'own' more than just about anything else can be. It is literally the end of the world, a personal apocalypse. It exists now in the form of possibility. What does it mean to look at it and take it into account, as a constant possibility and not as distant event that one buys insurance for?

*Authenticity is one of the more elusive concepts. So I can't be sure I am getting it just right.

I'm not sure that I understand this importance of time as you and Heidegger are using it. — Jonah Tobias

If it was easy to grasp, Heidegger might be forgotten by now. It is really a phenomenological point. In short, the time of common sense is more or less physics time these days. I think most people would just say: yeah, that's just plain old time. So the future passes through the present into the past, right? Ah, but that is what Heidegger challenges as a theoretical construction that covers over a more original time (that we must be experiencing right not by definition and the foundational or primordial time of the lifeworld --or the world as it is known when we aren't being philosophers and pretending that meaning is pasted on to atoms-and-void.) Does this help?

The way I 'got' it was to consider the flow of meaning as I read sentences. How does time work there? Is the past in the past, or is it in the future? And the reverse? Is meaning instantaneous? Or as you read every word do you both expect and remember?

Would clock time as we understand it be accessible to us without this primary 'meaning time'?

Heidegger saw something that Nietzsche did not see --or that was maybe only vaguely implicit in Nietzsche. For Nietzsche perhaps becoming was still a theoretical becoming and not the immediate grasp of a phenomenon.

And then Sartre though man was a futile passion to be God. — macrosoft

This reminds me of Sartre's take on love- the impossibility of trying to dominate the subject, etc etc. Its not that relevant to what we're talking about except to say- how foolish is it that we try to elevate our own experience to the universal? A lot of times our philosophies describe us better than they do the world.

I guess that depends if one believes in an afterlife or counts fantasies of starting from zero. — macrosoft

Hmmm. So there's two contexts of not accepting our thrownness. Thinking that we are an original causa sui- or believing a metaphysical story. These days it seems this is less common. Now people just don't believe in anything lol. Distraction has replaced faith.

This reminds me of Sartre's take on love- the impossibility of trying to dominate the subject, etc etc. Its not that relevant to what we're talking about except to say- how foolish is it that we try to elevate our own experience to the universal? A lot of times our philosophies describe us better than they do the world. — Jonah Tobias

How true. And yet on the other side there really is something we call love that is good, and this seems to motivate the great philosophers--even in their honesty about the dark side of love or of obsessive lust. And this love involves a shared meaning space. Heidegger wrote somewhere that man 'was' metaphysics. Even though we 'know' that we can't 'know,' we are constantly striving to say what is true-for-us.

My sense of time is a flux without remainder. Julius Caesar never stepped out of time. He died. His bones transformed. They remained in the flux of the now because the flux is all there ever is. I don't believe in time, just constant change. There is nothing back there- There is nothing up there. Memories are present creations, recreated time and again and exist only so long as they exist in our synapses. The future is a similar story. Consciousness created "the Thing that Persists in Time" so that it could compare different impressions and draw conclusions. But my belief is that past and future only live in one's consciousness.

So if this is what Heidegger means to say by time- then yes I agree.

Hmmm. So there's two contexts of not accepting our thrownness. Thinking that we are an original causa sui- or believing a metaphysical story. These days it seems this is less common. Now people just don't believe in anything lol. Distraction has replaced faith. — Jonah Tobias

Well I think there is a complex of meanings that are hard to sort out. Even in The Concept of Time that chapter is considered the sketchiest. Of course I am still very much figuring this Heidegger fellow out. Having grasped some of it, I am convinced there is more worth decoding.

Memories are present creations, recreated time and again and exist only so long as they exist in our synapses. The future is a similar story. Consciousness created "the Thing that Persists in Time" so that it could compare different impressions and draw conclusions. But my belief is that past and future only live in one's consciousness.

So if this is what Heidegger means to say by time- then yes I agree. — Jonah Tobias

Hmm. While there is a case to be made for your view, I think that is basically a sophisticated version of (meta-)physics time that prioritizes the present. Heidegger is trying to show us that our notion of the present is mostly inherited baggage that doesn't do our first-person experience of meaning justice.

You say 'memories are present.' What's really being pointed at by Heidegger is the 'impossibility' of this pure present, one might say. It is understood as a point of instantaneous meaning. It's a fiction that covers over the same care-structured meaning-flow that it exists within. Something along those lines. It is 'common sense' that there is an exact now. But what if common sense is missing something? What if this exact now is a useful fiction? A radicalization of the anyone's clock, created to manage our teamwork, extended to understand nature as a system of dead objects for staring at as opposed to grabbing and using.

Crazy, right?T he book I love is indeed called The Concept of Time, not anything with ethical charge, let's say. You might say that he was trying to describe the connectedness of mental life in a more accurate way via his phenomenological training with Husserl. But this 'lack of the present' idea also extends more generally over generations.

Maybe the better contrast, however, is between 'our' cards (the tribes cards) and 'my' cards. Because authentic means 'own,' just as one's death is one's 'own' more than just about anything else can be. It is literally the end of the world, a personal apocalypse. It exists now in the form of possibility. What does it mean to look at it and take it into account, as a constant possibility and not as distant event that one buys insurance for? — macrosoft

My short answer is... I don't know. lol I don't have this experience. I've been talking a lot about how different ways of seeing the world create ourselves in different ways. This way of seeing the world- of one's own death as a possibility- I'm not sure I'm familiar with it.

I can sit here right now and think about if everything just ended. If my own personal experience was gone. And what do I get from that thought? Personally I get a kind of peace. There's some famous christian who said to an atheist- "come here and see me upon my death bed. I want you to see with what peace a christian dies." I'm not christian but I'm spiritual. I see my life as a sort of mission in some ways. I'm doing my best. If I'm gone... well shit I sure tried. but since I don't feel like I have to control everything- the sense of me vanishing doesn't leave me with some great anxiety about what I leave behind. That was never up to me to begin with. I was just doing my best and proceding with trust.

This is what trying to feel the possiblity of my own death brings up in me. I'm not sure if this experience coincides with what you speak of. Neither does it make me feel necessarily more like this life is my own rather than shared with others. My spirituality still makes me feel like I am part of something shared....

Speak on this- what am I not understanding that makes Heidegger so hard for me to grasp :)

Heidegger is trying to show us that our notion of the present is mostly inherited baggage that doesn't do our first-person experience of meaning justice. — macrosoft

Of course when I say that everything exists in the present- my word "present" cant be the same as common sense present- because there's no past or future I believe in to place my present in between. In a sense I don't believe in time at all. Just constant change. There is constant change- let us give up on the idea of trying to seize everything all at once and then passing it through some medium called time. etc.

That being said- forget whatever it is I believe lol. What does Heidegger believe and why is it important?

It sounds to me a good deal like what I am describing- even if i'm not being precise with my words. But what to me is a kind of demystifying (no you can't travel back in time- our understanding is creating a past and future- not discovering it)... For Heidegger and you it seems like there is something more profound supposedly there. Does this view of time impact your life in some kind of way? can you describe how?

This way of seeing the world- of one's own death as a possibility- I'm not sure I'm familiar with it. — Jonah Tobias

I think it just means that knowing one will die. His idea of death is this version of death as a possibility.

I can sit here right now and think about if everything just ended. If my own personal experience was gone. And what do I get from that thought? Personally I get a kind of peace. There's some famous christian who said to an atheist- "come here and see me upon my death bed. I want you to see with what peace a christian dies." I'm not christian but I'm spiritual. I see my life as a sort of mission in some ways. I'm doing my best. If I'm gone... well shit I sure tried. but since I don't feel like I have to control everything- the sense of me vanishing doesn't leave me with some great anxiety about what I leave behind. That was never up to me to begin with. I was just doing my best and proceding with trust. — Jonah Tobias

I think this is beautiful way to view things. I pretty much see things that way. I'm not ready yet, but I am not essentially afraid. I am however still immersed in projects. I want to bring those little babies to term.
As far as I can tell, the point of death in Heidegger is actually the opposite of 'morbid.' It really seems to be about an approach to the historical nature of existence.

This is what trying to feel the possiblity of my own death brings up in me. I'm not sure if this experience coincides with what you speak of. Neither does it make me feel necessarily more like this life is my own rather than shared with others. My spirituality still makes me feel like I am part of something shared....

Speak on this- what am I not understanding that makes Heidegger so hard for me to grasp :) — Jonah Tobias

On this subject, we might wander away from Heidegger a bit. IMV, the fact that we die pokes a hole in the respectable world. It lets it breath. Otherwise we would just be trapped in our tribe's way of thinking and talking absolutely. But since we are already mortal, we might decide to fight for our freedom, for example, since we'd only be dying earlier. Or maybe we try hard drugs or jumping out of airplanes. In any case, we are maybe already looking back on our life as a whole and summing it up. 'If I die from an overdoes, well I was an explorer. I can live with my death now in the present in terms of that way of seeing my existence as a whole.' Yes, I think this seeing one's otherwise unfinished existence as a whole is a big part of it. Death allows us to see our entire existence from the outside, from nothingness. Nothingness lets beings be against a background of their possible not-being. We can see the entire world (the meaningful world with others) from the outside, imaging ourselves gone.

*Meaning-time, as I call it, can definitely be grasped without all the death stuff. As far as I can tell. Wider forms of historical time seem more dependent on the mortality angle. And it may be as simple as looking back on one's life from the perspective of already being gone.

In a sense I don't believe in time at all. Just constant change. — Jonah Tobias

I think what maybe that statement neglects is the connectedness of mental life. It's not pure noise, for instance. The past is reinterpreted in terms of a future project. The future is projected in terms of what has already been. What is the dynamic here? Is it a simple forward flow?

There is constant change- let us give up on the idea of trying to seize everything all at once and then passing it through some medium called time. etc. — Jonah Tobias

I think your ethical point is beautiful. I agree. I'd just say that Heidegger's time (as I understand it) is a morally neutral pointing-out of something about language and meaning. It's connected to the later WIttgenstein's work. I have a book by Lee Braver called Groundless Grounds. We can say that WItgtenstein and Heidegger were similar anti-foundationalists in important ways. Our practices have no deeper ground than those very practices. 'This is just how we do things (mostly automatically.)' Philosophers try to build an 'official ground,' but they do so on this vanishing ground or abyss of semi-conscious, embodied knowhow. [This is why most people think philosophers are boring, because most of them are boringly trying to lay down a floor that no one is asking for or missing.]

Meaning-time is a slice of this with respect to language.

Death allows us to see our entire existence from the outside, from nothingness. Nothingness lets beings be against a background of their possible not-being. We can see the entire world (the meaningful world with others) from the outside, imaging ourselves gone. — macrosoft

What you're describing here- isn't the feeling of it a kind of lessening of seriousness? A kind of- Shit since we're all gonna die anyway- I'm not as caught up in the gravity of it all?

In my life- when I was about 20- I decided the future that I was taught to hold sacred and fear missing out on- getting a good job- the american dream etc- was a crock of lies. So I felt a kind of lessening of the seriousness of these shared perspectives and was freed to embrace my own. Is this talk of death having a similar effect?

For Heidegger and you it seems like there is something more profound supposedly there. Does this view of time impact your life in some kind of way? can you describe how? — Jonah Tobias

For me the point about time is a point about language. I'd say that it leads to a continuous view of meaning. Here's a quote from Nietzsche (about Christ) that gets at the behindness-of-language that I get my kicks from with respect to all this 'continuity.'

This faith does not formulate itself—it simply lives, and so guards itself against formulae. To be sure, the accident of environment, of educational background gives prominence to concepts of a certain sort: in primitive Christianity one finds only concepts of a Judaeo-Semitic character (—that of eating and drinking at the last supper belongs to this category—an idea which, like everything else Jewish, has been badly mauled by the church). But let us be careful not to see in all this anything more than symbolical language, semantics[6] an opportunity to speak in parables. It is only on the theory that no word is to be taken literally that this anti-realist is able to speak at all. Set down among Hindus he would have made use of the concepts of Sankhya,[7] and among Chinese he would have employed those of Lao-tse[8]—and in neither case would it have made any difference to him.—With a little freedom in the use of words, one might actually call Jesus a “free spirit”[9]—he cares nothing for what is established: the word killeth,[10] whatever is established killeth. The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. He speaks only of inner things: “life” or “truth” or “light” is his word for the innermost—in his sight everything else, the whole of reality, all nature, even language, has significance only as sign, as allegory.—Here it is of paramount importance to be led into no error by the temptations lying in Christian, or rather ecclesiastical prejudices: such a symbolism par excellence stands outside all religion, all notions of worship, all history, all natural science, all worldly experience, all knowledge, all politics, all psychology, all books, all art—his “wisdom” is precisely a pure ignorance[11] of all such things. — N

The idea of “life” as an experience, as he alone conceives it, stands opposed to his mind to every sort of word, formula, law, belief and dogma. People who get caught up in 'essences' are trapped in words in some sense. And maybe we all are to some degree. But I think we can become significantly freer of the certain rigid and life-choking conceptions of meaning.

*In a letter Heidegger told a friend that he was 'really' a Christian theologian. IMO, in some ways, this is also true of Nietzsche. Is not that portrait above reminiscent of Nietzsche's own ability to 'see' becoming?

Of course words like 'Christian' and 'theologian' are caught up in the flux. The words can only hint at a freedom that surpasses them --that picks them up as the wind picks up the dead leaves. And puts them down again somewhere else.

What you're describing here- isn't the feeling of it a kind of lessening of seriousness? A kind of- Shit since we're all gonna die anyway- I'm not as caught up in the gravity of it all?

In my life- when I was about 20- I decided the future that I was taught to hold sacred and fear missing out on- getting a good job- the american dream etc- was a crock of lies. So I felt a kind of lessening of the seriousness of these shared perspectives and was freed to embrace my own. Is this talk of death having a similar effect? — Jonah Tobias

Bingo! Because all of those A-holes were just mortals like you. And you were going to live your life and die your death your own way. 'Everyone' (AKA 'Anyone') has only limited authority over any mortal who lives this mortality by embracing what it offers --freely chosen project, etc. That space allows us to go back perhaps to a past our generation neglects and repeat it in today's or rather tomorrow's terms.

I mention that past because presumably you had influences, images of another way. I know I did. And I spent my 20s poor but adventurous. I 'repeated' the past of Henry Miller, Jack Kerouac, Charles Bukowski, and many many more. And before novels it was especially poetry in my teens. Auden, Eliot, Yeats. And through everything....rock'n'roll. These days lots of classical. when I do math at my desk --and write philosophy like now. And some mean Coltrane when I'm in the mood.

I think what maybe that statement neglects is the connectedness of mental life. It's not pure noise, for instance. The past is reinterpreted in terms of a future project. The future is projected in terms of what has already been. What is the dynamic here? Is it a simple forward flow? — macrosoft

And here we go again trying to think the impossible lol The eye tries to turn in and see itself seeing! I want to take up this question because I'm curious what I can say.

First off- when ever I talk about becoming I'm always conflicted because it does seem like there is something that persists. Consciousness. Maybe this talk of becoming is really just trying to understand how change is constitutive of identity. I don't really know if I fully gras what I'm speaking in these conversations. So lets proceed in good faith :)

I don't believe in a fourth dimension called time. I don't believe there's a space (Everything that exists all at once)- that moves through this fourth dimension called time. I don't believe that we experienced at another time exists anywhere back there. I don't believe that what we haven't experienced yet exists anywhere up there.

"What's the dynamic here? Is it a simple forward flow?"

No there's no dynamic. We're all changing. Nothing has to flow anywhere- There's no where to go.

Its impossible to really think this thought because to think we need to compare things. Its like- imagine if everything was just a rock. There'd be no past. Nones' thinking about it. It just doesn't arise. This rock is going through changes. That rock is going through changes. They're not even in the same "world" because what's a world but a perspective? Instead I think of it like Leibniz's monads- Each thing is experiencing its own unique version. when people talk about "space" it's like "god's perspective"... "Everything that exists all at once at the same moment!" But there is no god's perspective. Just each individual perspective. And "Time" is like God's memory. But a memory must exist right now and it is not what was anymore than a photograph is what was. A photograph is ink upon a paper. It just looks like something that was real. but that photograph is right here right now. The way we interact with the past and future to me is just the way we interact with our imagination. It doesn't strike me with awe. A "future" is always imagined- A "past" is always imagined. The present is always real. So the three are not equal- Past and future all exist in the present- and the present is just flux. Reality.

"But things will change!"
Yes Change happens all the time.
"But they will change in the future!"
No they won't. The future's always imagined. They will change right in the present.
"but things were different before."
Yes they were.
"So this was the past!"
No this was a different present. It doesn't exist at all to be compared- except the picture of it that we've created and call our past. But this picture is a picture. It is not the reality. The past that we encounter is always a picture/ a memory/ a bit of our imagination. It is never real. Things change and they leave nothing behind.

A "future" is always imagined- A "past" is always imagined. The present is always real. So the three are not equal- Past and future all exist in the present- and the present is just flux. Reality. — Jonah Tobias

Respectfully, and only to continue to try to share why I think Heidegger is so fascinating, I think you are still taking for granted the time of physics. The idea that there is a present instant and that what is real exists in this present might be THE bubble that early Hiedegger is trying to pop as an unquestioned and inaccurate inheritance which now seems so natural as to be common sense. I think he has a point, and this is why some people rank him with Hegel and Plato, etc. If he is right (and you will have to decide for yourself), then we've been locked in a 'presentist' illusion (useful fiction) for centuries, beguiled by one of our own inventions, asleep to its apparently necessary but actually merely contingent dominance.

IMV, the authenticity stuff is fascinating, but what is maybe more purely [anti-]'metaphysically' amazing in Heidegger's this phenomenological deconstruction of a fixed idea. In some ways this is the fixed idea. And critics of being in the name of becoming have still tended to be caught in this idea, maybe even Nietzsche.

I offer this politely as food for thought. I know it's weird. If he is right, then this has to be true-for-us in an important way, and that where phenomenology comes in. We need to look at the flow of meaning with fresh eyes, without taking the presentist notion for granted.

The past that we encounter is always a picture/ a memory/ a bit of our imagination. It is never real. Things change and they leave nothing behind. — Jonah Tobias

I do generally agree. So what is really at issue is perhaps in what way the past does live on. When you write messages to me or I to you we can understand one another in terms of a living language. So the past is 'still here' in that sense (in terms of what we know of one another, which gathers.). And the future is already here too as the words pour out toward the end of the sentence.

If he is right (and you will have to decide for yourself), then we've been locked in a 'presentist' illusion (useful fiction) for centuries, beguiled by one of our own inventions, asleep to its apparently necessary but actually merely contingent dominance. — macrosoft

Lets not talk about the present or the flux because this is too hard I think. Let's talk about the past and futre.

Don't we always experience the past and future as concepts- as things that are imagined? We do something with some idea that it'll lead to some future but of course that future is never reached because future is always imagined. The reality of what comes next is always different because its always real?

Instaed of present- lets just say reality. When we consider our reality- our experience- in terms of something in the "past"... isn't this past constructed just like a movie by our minds? We try to be faithful to what we were recording but its still a movie.

Speaking phenomenally- it seems we are always in a reality that can't be pinned down (flux) and we strategize and contemplate based on constructed memories and projected imaginations which are also part of this unpinnable reality.

Can you explain to me how it is otherwise?

When we consider our reality- our experience- in terms of something in the "past"... isn't this past constructed just like a movie by our minds? We try to be faithful to what we were recording but its still a movie. — Jonah Tobias

I very much understand what you are saying, and I do not deny any of that. But perhaps the most important part of the past is the way we interpret the 'present' and the 'future.' The 'living' past is how we do 'now'. Our fundamental approach evolves, so that what we experience informs what we project onto the future and how we interpret what is conventionally present. I'd say (just to grasp what I'm saying) let go of the physics notion of the world, the perspective from atoms-and-the-void, and focus on the 'life world,' the meaningful world shared with others doing ordinary things. It's not really about something strange or mystical or supernatural at all. (That stuff can be added on, of course.) It is about the structure of meaning as we experience it. It's not whether the past exists. It's about how the past exists, perhaps most importantly in an embodied or semi-conscious sense. You have of course various memories of the past. But you 'are' or 'live' a deeper kind of past, that past which shapes your seeing of the 'present' and grasping of meaning.

Think about driving a car. How does time work there? You anticipate, remember, and act in a kind of unity.

Speaking phenomenally- it seems we are always in a reality that can't be pinned down (flux) and we strategize and contemplate based on constructed memories and projected imaginations which are also part of this unpinnable reality.

Can you explain to me how it is otherwise? — Jonah Tobias

I think our views are very close. There is maybe only the specific issue of that flux. How is it pinned down? Is it pinned down? I want to say something like: meaning never existed in an instant to begin with, but we learned to think that it did. We thought the instantaneously present, which was a mathematical notion 'pasted' on to a more primordial or original flow of meaning which is never really present. Or never without past and future, in other words.

I'm not saying it's terribly important. But I connect it to some cool things. Do you ever experience a sense of being behind language? Like you could always choose other words? That the words aren't important, but only a more general message behind them that grabs which ones seem right at the moment for that person you are talking to?

So the past is 'still here' in that sense. And the future is already here to as the words pour out toward the end of the sentence. — macrosoft

Lets try the pheonomenal approach.

Look around you right now. Nothings going anywhere. Its just our mind struggling to preserve impressions for comparisons. The world does not need everything that ever was preserved and laid out in sequential order of time. We're the ones who need this.

Ok- Its definitely time for sleep lol But this is a sticking point and the following-

t. But perhaps the most important part of the past is the way we interpret the 'present' and the 'future.' The 'living' past is how we do 'now'. — macrosoft

I just don't know how I can use these thoughts. I mean yes- our present is created by our past and future (whichever way we mean this) in various ways- There are eloquent and complicated ways to describe the way this happens- how all are intertwined. But is this anything more than an impressive trick? Does it change us?

I know its unfair to pull it out of the system- the book- the long discussion- and ask for it to speak in seclusion for its effects.

I still retain the impression that what Heidegger is concerned with more than anything else- is just turning everything into philosophy! lol These sophisticated descriptions... is this really embodied and lived philosophy?

When you talk about how the the living past is how we do the now- are you saying for example- like the way foucault reinterprets the past how that changes our present? Are you saying-

"He who controls the present now- controls the past.
He who controls the past now- controls the future!"
-Rage against the machine :)

If this is the case- maybe I'm not effected by this thought because I could say- right- reality is a narrative. Why describe it in such a complicated manner.

The world does not need everything that ever was preserved and laid out in sequential order of time. We're the ones who need this. — Jonah Tobias

Hmm. Heidegger is trying to shatter the sequential order of time as a fiction. --or as a discourse appropriate for natural science but not for existence and meaning. As far as us needing something, that is on track. What is the time-structure of care or need? What is the time structure of the care that needs time? Does it try to bring its fantasy of time into its present? Care and time and meaning are one, let's say.

But is this anything more than an impressive trick? Does it change us? — Jonah Tobias

That's tricky. Does Nietzsche change us? IMV, Heidegger is the same kind of 'raw' philosopher who is not just concept tricks. He is a master of being against shallow concept tricks. At least at his best. But pointing out those deeply ingrained fixed ideas is hard work. Exactly because he tries to go back or go deep, he seems to be saying nothing or saying something absurd. IMV, as long as you think he's boring you probably haven't got what I like about him at least. Just an opinion. I love Nietzsche
and Hegel the same way. Heidegger is just the newest thinker that I'm really starting to get --and he fits right in with those other two.

I still retain the impression that what Heidegger is concerned with more than anything else- is just turning everything into philosophy! lol These sophisticated descriptions... is this really embodied and lived philosophy? — Jonah Tobias

Well philosophy is ultimately philosophy. I'd say that clarifying our own existence is a big but not the only part of life. I love riding my bike down by the river and playing with my cat, too. But there is something very deep about language/meaning that might be the highest for me. At least as 'me' ( a self and not just an animal.)

When you talk about how the the living past is how we do the now- are you saying for example- like the way foucault reinterprets the past how that changes our present? Are you saying-

"He who controls the present now- controls the past.
He who controls the past now- controls the future!"
-Rage against the machine :)

If this is the case- maybe I'm not effected by this thought because I could say- right- reality is a narrative. Why describe it in such a complicated manner. — Jonah Tobias

No, I'm not saying that. It's like my 14 year old nihilist example. Anything explicitly conscious is still on the level of theory. It's the stuff that dominates in the background that matters. It's the water we swim in that we can't see. This water-we-can't-see is the 'living' past (one aspect of it.) It is the way you reach for your instrument, your way and not someone else's, informed by years of experience. It's the way you read these words right now, the way you unconsciously interpret them, the way that you (like all of us) are trapped in certain habits of interpretation, ultimately learned not only from your personal past but that which you inherited as a child and even further back in the creation of the English language. It's all of this stuff functioning invisibly as you dream up a future and act toward it in the 'present;. [The thrown-ness that you know about consciously is the least important kind, let's say.]

Heidegger is a 'depth' meta-physician. He is trying to get 'under' things that can be argued about to see what makes them visible or invisible as things to argue about. For instance, to the degree that this is making sense to you I am 'opening' new things for us to talk about --hopefully pointing to things already in the background of your consciousness, covered over by louder explicit theory that gets in the way.