Hey! My Neapolitan Cousin. I'm 80, and, rest assured, I am just as mystified as you are as to what the ultimate outcome will be; viz., "Nothing, or something." But, you and I both know that we will find out soon, won't we?

As I have written elsewhere, to me, it's as simple as this:

If something exists after we die, and we exist after we die, well then, we will know it: but, if nothing exists after we die, and we do not exist after we die, well then, we will not know it.

And that's IT baby!!!!!

I'm not doing anything, nature does it. I think it's pretty well empirically settled that we will all die at some point, isn't it?

First of all, I am not attempting to judge another's spirituality; that's their business. Technically, I am also not attempting to judge the "truth" or "falsehood" of certain sets of ideas; I'll leave that to the logicians. I am, instead, attempting to judge the value of certain sets of nihilistic ideas in terms of how beneficial, or harmful, I think they are to the continued health and well-being of humanity. If this constitutes a preference for certain of Nietzsche's ideas over those of Schopenhauer, then so be it! I proudly stand accused!

What does my complete statement have to do with conscience? Please explain.

In my opinion, Schopenhauer's denial of the Will-to-Live is an Affirmation of the Will-to-Extinction. It constitutes salvation for sick, weak, enfeebled individuals who turn away from life's challenges, hardships, and sufferings opting, instead, for NOTHING as a desirable alternative to life. Why should it not be preferable, instead, to vigorously affirm the Will-to-Live; but then the individual doing so, by definition, would represent a healthy, rather than a sickly, version of humanity. Which types are there more of today?

One could argue that there is nothing. That the question presupposes what is not the case, and that experiences which involve nothing (negatites) are quite common occurrences, as Sartre has shown. Along these lines, Sartre states: " … the total disappearance of being would not be the advent of the reign of non-being, but on the contrary the concomitant disappearance of nothingness."

On second thought, perhaps the more accurate question(s) ought to be:

Why is there, simultaneously, both something and nothing?

What kind of being grounds nothing and how does it do it?

Do we actually experience nothingness(es)? If so, what are they like?

Is there one kind of being that grounds something and another kind of being that grounds nothing?

Is the being that grounds nothing itself grounded in the being that grounds something?

These are just some of the kinds of questions Sartre asks and tries to answer in Being & Nothingness.

OK I'll accept your explanation. Thanks.
By the way, I agree with your comments regarding perspective.

Very "impressive"!

Excellent piece! Well thought out!

Unfortunately, rational explanation has never been an effective antidote for the majority of humanity. The majority of humanity always was, still is, and always will be horrified by the approach of death's nothingness. In my opinion, it seems that nothing in us has really changed.

Well before Heidegger, both Leibniz and Schopenhauer dealt with this question. It is not a peculiarly "Nazi" question.

If, as you state, " ... nothing, the idea, causes contradictions and so, is impossible," how, then, in the first place, can the idea of nothing be a "cause," since, by definition, it does not exist?

Also, might there not be a significant difference between nothingness as a logical, rather than as an existential, cause?

For a someone who is dying, nothing definitely "exists" as an existential, rather than as a merely logical, reality which will shortly be experienced, or encountered. Nothing is eminently real to the dying! Do we really want to insist that what they are dreading is impossible?

Be courteous! Arguments "ad hominem" are often the last resort of the ignorant!

The question: "Why is there something rather than nothing?" presupposes, uncritically, that the principle of sufficient reason, according to which my intellect operates, must also necessarily be applicable, without exception, to everything that exists, including, myself. In other words, my intellect is compelled to assume that there must be a reason that explains why anything, including myself, exists.

WHICH MAY NOT BE SO. THE WHY MAY SIMPLY BE AN EXPRESSION OF THE ULTIMATE IN ANTHROPOMORPHISM

I assure you, in the most personal way, ultimately, there will be nothing rather than something for each one of us.

Obviously, Descartes' "Cogito Sum" (the "reflection") can happen any time I wish to perform it (the "certain quality"). Non-positional self-consciousness does not depend on my performing it for it to exist. When and while I am having a positional consciousness of (intending) a transcendent object (which I am usually doing spontaneously), I am simultaneously having a spontaneous non-positional self-consciousness, but I am not "having" a "Cogito Sum." The latter is not a spontaneous activity, but a deliberate performance.

Thus, noticing the "certain quality" you refer to in no way automatically nullifies Sartre's unique insight that the Cogito Sum is an immediate, but second order, reflection (performance) the existence of which depends on a more primordial, first order, non-positional self-consciousness. THIS is the context in which Sartre places Descartes' Cogito Sum.

Sartre's central contention is that, from a phenomenological point-of-view, the transcendental "I" is not (to use Kantian terms) a necessary and strictly universal condition for the possibility of the existence of the unreflected consciousness.

The unreflected consciousness, or consciousness in the first degree, is essentially a non-positional self-consciousness; i.e., a consciousness of the subject as a subject.

There are no Kantian transcendental conditions required for the unreflected consciousness to exist
phenomenologically.

The reflected consciousness, or consciousness in the second degree, is essentially a positional consciousness of self; a consciousness of the subject as object (the I of psychology).

David, with respect to the question of the dependency relationship between non-reflective and reflective consciousness, I find the following comments by Sartre in "Being and Nothingness" quite illuminating; especially the last three sentences.

" … at the moment when these cigarettes are revealed to me as a dozen, I have a non-thetic consciousness of my adding activity. If anyone questions me, indeed, if anyone should ask, "What are you doing there?" I should reply at once, "I am counting." This reply aims not only at the instantaneous consciousness which I can achieve by reflection but at those fleeting consciousnesses which have passed without being reflected on, those which are forever not reflected on in my immediate past. Thus reflection has no kind of primacy over the consciousness reflected on. It is not reflection which reveals the consciousness reflected on to itself. Quite the contrary, it is the non-reflective consciousness which renders the reflection possible; there is a pre-reflective cogito which is the condition of the Cartesian cogito."

But the following questions then arise:

With respect to human beings, does a non-reflective consciousness always require that a reflective consciousness accompany it?

How about with respect to non-human beings? Do they also have both kinds of consciousness, or just one? If only one, which one?

Gregory, thanks for your positive comment!

Unfortunately, I do not fully understand your thoughts.

However, I will make the following observations.

Sartre, unlike Kant, is not concerned with determining the epistemological conditions that make experience possible. He is concerned, instead, with describing accurately human experience as it actually appears to us.

Kant, like Descartes, assumed that the "I think" must accompany all conscious experience as a pre-condition; but, as with Descartes', this was an erroneous position.

Sartre described something called pre-reflective consciousness which, instead, was a non-positional self-consciousness unaccompanied by the "I, the Ego, or the "I Think."

David, nice to read someone's opinions that have substance to them! What do you think of the following?

A person’s pre-reflective consciousness, when and while it is totally absorbed in what it is intending, completely negates/nihilates (a) that person’s awareness of self and (b) that person’s awareness of the passage of time. There is a non-positional (nihilating) awareness of self, accompanied by a non-positional (nihilating) awareness of time.

However, it is always only one’s reflective, not pre-reflective, consciousness that is retroactively aware of this situation.

So, then, is a person’s awareness of self, the “I,” the Ego, and the person’s awareness of the passage of time (temporality) grounded in the pre-reflective or the reflected consciousness?

Is it Sartre’s position that a person’s consciousness in the first degree (pre-reflective consciousness) is essentially ego-less and timeless?

Is it also Sartre’s position that a person’s consciousness in the second degree (reflective, or reflected consciousness) is essentially and retroactively productive of the awareness of the ego and of time?

And, agreeing with, but restating what you wrote from my frame-of-reference, isn’t it Sartre’s contention that Descartes’ COGITO SUM is basically operating on the reflected level, rather than on the more primordial, pre-reflected level?

And, is it for this reason that what Descartes’ COGITO SUM asserts is always “after-the-fact” and confusing the results applicable to one level of consciousness with those applicable to another?

David thanks for your comments.

I have no objections to what you are saying. In fact, I agree with you (and Sartre) completely that self-consciousness, or consciousness in the first degree, is always non-positional and irreflexive. It comprises the starting point of all explanation.

But, what then is consciousness in the second degree, or reflected consciousness? How is consciousness in the second degree even possible, how does it come about in the first place, since, it seems to me, the primordial starting point of any explanation must be consciousness in the first degree?

Doesn't any explanation for the existence of reflected consciousness, which Sartre claims does exist, presuppose irreflexive, non-positional consciousness somehow objectifying itself?

Whatever human consciousness can intend, be it in a pre-reflective or reflective way, is an entity.

Daniel, thanks for your comments.

In line with your concluding paragraph, how can being-for-Itself (you and I) be so certain that being-in-itself (the noumenon) lacks consciousness?

Doesn't Sartre claim that being-for-itself (consciousness) originates through, what he characterizes as, a "decompression" of being-in-itself?

How can a being that is defined as "infinitely dense" undergo a perpetual spontaneous self-decompression? Are we to assume that it "decides" to decompress itself, or, instead, does it undergo decompression because it is perpetually nihilated by a simultaneous being-for-itself?

But I thought that a nihilating being-for-itself (consciousness) could only originate from being-in-itself?

Very confusing!!!!!!!

Yes, it certainly does mean that, but I think it also means much more than that. It is the "metaphysical dreaming" which makes all the difference, because it provides a dramatic portrayal of the difference between contingent existence and necessary existence; which is the whole point.

paralogism

With respect to your question, especially as it relates to Descartes, please take a look at what I believe to be two relevant topics I posted on TPF entitled "The Nature of Descartes' Proposition" and "Scope and Limits of the Invalidation Effects of a Defective Cognitive Nature on the Cogito Sum."

paralogism

The fact that there can be so many varied and equally interesting opinions regarding the nature of time and the nature of the dimensions of time indicates to me that time will always remain an unresolved yet, somehow, familiar mystery. Perhaps we are best advised to simply accept Plato's opinion that "Time is the moving image of eternity," and leave it at that.

Human consciousness, when it pays attention, experiences that its present is always transitioning into its past at exactly the same rate as its future is always transitioning into its present. All is movement, nothing lasts!

The distinction between past and future does not appear to be the present. Instead, human consciousness, when it pays attention, appears to be that which constantly distinguishes between the three (past, present, and future) phenomenologically, as described.

It is also interesting to note that when one's consciousness is totally absorbed in certain activities, like reading a book, his/her consciousness becomes timeless, so to speak. The consciousness, as we say, loses track of time, is not paying attention to the past, present, or future. It, in a sense, has transcended time while absorbed in the activity.

But, how is this possible? How can it happen? Are we not all prisoners of time?

Do degrees of reality attach to the modes of time?
From one perspective I can argue that time-past events and time-future events are less real than time-present events because (excuse the pun!) I cannot experience the former in real time.
But from another perspective I can argue that even though I experience time-present events in real time they are in a state of constant flux and, thus, equally as unreal as the time-past and time-future events. In other words, can one question whether any temporal events are real?

Can it be argued that the past and future modes of time can only be experienced by the person's imagination in the perpetually vanishing present mode of time; thereby seeming to indicate some sort of ontological priority of the present mode over the others?

Creative Soul: What the hell are you talking about?

What are the basic hypotheses that comprise your so called OWN theory of mind that are subject to empirical test? What specific "If, then" statements does your own theory of mind generate, the validity of which, as you claim, can be put to objective empirical experimental test?

By the way, Einstein was noted for the many thought experiments he did conduct such as, for example, trying to imagine what it would be like (what his subjective experience would be like) to ride on a beam of light? However, this didn't mean that the validity of what he imagined to be the case subjectively didn't need to be put to objective empirical verification.

Also, Schopenhauer didn't smoke cigars so he really wasn't trying to land one; and only dogmatic brains are dead, not just those in vats.

The fact of the matter is that no one (neither you, nor I) will ever have airtight empirical verification about whether, or not, Schopenhauer's or Sartre's epistemological theory is empirically valid. Why? Because, unfortunately, neither theory, no matter how beautiful and complex its insights, generates empirically testable hypotheses.

For example, try to provide an empirical, experimental test for the following hypotheses:

Schopenhauer: If the human will is absolutely free, then guilt attaches to the "esse" rather than to the "operari."

Sartre: If human Being-for-Itself is defined primarily by a Pre-Reflective Consciousness, then such a consciousness will always be devoid of an Ego.

With respect to your "rubbish" comment.

Descartes' "When and while I think, I must exist" is a thought-act, an intellectual performance, that is existentially consistent and existentially self-verifying only when it is performed by the meditator (you and I) in the first person, present tense mode. In this sense, it is unique. One must execute it in order to "see" its truth. There is nothing incoherent about this!

"When and while I think in the first person, present tense mode, I must necessarily exist."

Question: Can this famous Cartesian epistemological hypothesis be empirically verified?

The answer, I submit, is yes. However, with the peculiar proviso that the empirical verification (thought experiment/thought act) that occurs must always remain subjective and personal, rather than objective and public.

This is the inherent weakness that attaches to all philosophical theories, no matter how marvelously they may have been constructed. Beautiful theories all destined to go nowhere. Dead ending because the truth of their hypotheses is not subject to the possibility of any empirical verification.

Also, isn't it interesting how we have to resort to BELIEVING, or NOT BELIEVING, in the truth of epistemologies, rather than relying, instead, on the possibility of empirically verifying them, or not? We know the empirical reasons why we believe that Einstein's theories are "truer" than Newton's.

Or, phrasing it somewhat differently, what are the reasons why we'd believe the epistemology of Schopenhauer over the epistemology of Sartre?

I prefer that the history of false ideas (Plato/Aristotle) shouldn't be confused with the history of true ideas (Darwin). But, don't let me interfere with your thread discussion.

It appears that no one is really attempting to answer my question. Oh, well!!!!

Let me repeat! Who needs a "divine intellect" if the evolution of natural biological forms is due to the combined operation of spontaneous genetic mutations and the process of natural selection?

I thought the evolution of natural biological forms was due to the combined operation of spontaneous genetic mutations and the process of natural selection.

Hume thought it meant our inability to experience any necessary connections between or among empirical entities or events. Are you saying he was wrong?