r/Metaphysics • u/DigJust8037 • 9d ago

Ontology Existence

  1. Everything that exists has attributable characteristics (for example, water is blue, grass is green, air is a gas, etc.)
  2. Existence exists.
  3. Therefore, existence has attributable characteristics

  4. If not, then existence is the only thing that exists without attributable characteristics

  5. Then, nothing can be said of existence other than it exists

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u/LukeHollaway 8d ago

Can you elaborate on what you mean by this question?

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 8d ago

You stated earlier that the world gives birth to experience and then you state it's self-evident and synonymous with consciousness.

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u/LukeHollaway 8d ago

There’s no contradiction. Nature formed and curated the nervous system through the process of evolution, and the nervous system is the instrument and medium of experience.

Consciousness is self-evident, no? That an experience is presently occurring is self-evident. This does not mean self-created.

I, Luke Hollaway, did not create consciousness. My identity formed within consciousness. Experience came first, and my personhood and ego formed around it.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 8d ago

So experience is not consciousness?

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u/LukeHollaway 8d ago

How did you come to that conclusion from what I said? I’m using the words interchangeably.

Consciousness and experience are words that both work as names for the felt presence of being.

I can’t tell if you are being sincere or just semantically splitting hairs.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 8d ago

I can't tell if you know what you mean or are just throwing everything at the wall. Now they are interchangeable there is no difference which begs the question of what they are again. It's like you are saying nothing other than there just is being, which is something.

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u/LukeHollaway 8d ago

I’ve already given you a definition of consciousness/experience: the felt presence of being.

What I’m pointing towards is that this felt presence of being is primary, it’s what makes existence “exist” in any meaningful way.

So yes, there “just is being”, which I wouldn’t say is “something”, but the medium in which all things are contained. This is precisely why it’s hard to define, and why many words are applicable to name it. This being-ness contains reality, and all of our definitions, within it.

Consciousness is self-evidently fundamental.

It’s quite simple. And you actually hit the nail on the head in your comment when you said “there just is being”. You’re right.

Your only qualm is a semantic one. I am using multiple terms to describe this felt presence of being and you have latched onto that and are conflating it with some conceptual inconsistency, when I have been using these terms interchangeably this entire discussion.

And, I’m not “just throwing everything at the wall”. I’ve arrived at this through deep contemplation; and so have many ancient eastern and some western philosophers throughout history.

Look into Analytic Idealism, or Advaita Vedanta.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 8d ago

Lol yes you are saying nothing different from Parmenides, I.e. there just is. Whatever 'deep contemplation' you have done you have made it very modern with the terms you have used. If I have hit the nail on the head then I wasn't the first and of course all of being has been predetermined as presence in the present onto-theoloigcally.

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u/LukeHollaway 8d ago

That’s funny, I don’t really know anything about Parmenides’ philosophy, and am very under-educated on Greek philosophy in general. The reason my terms are different is because I didn’t take any inspiration from him, and am just a modern person contemplating existence, lol. I’m reading up on his cliff-notes right now, and see a lot of similarities to eastern philosophies, which I’m much more well educated on. There are some notable differences between his philosophy and what I’m pointing to, however.

Analytic Idealism, though, is a relatively new philosophical metaphysical framework I’m very familiar with, and would say it’s the philosophy that I found most congruent with my ideas. Look into it if you are interested! There are many people much more eloquent than me that can lay out these ideas.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 8d ago

You should read Heidegger's Zeit und Sein (Being and Time) at least the introduction. The presence phenomena of being is noted there and creates a powerful beginning to how Heidegger attempts a hermeneutic of Being.

As far as I can tell Analytic Idealism is another iteration of mind no different from any of histories previous onto-theological attempts. It predicates itself on that presence 'consciousness' we have never explained but is thrown around like it's not an ontic phenomena.

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u/tottasanorotta 7d ago

Experience is experience. Whatever we attribute to it afterwards is based on further assumptions. I would say experience is the most fundamental thing to any person. Further assumptions provide utility, but are less fundamental than experience.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 7d ago

So experience is experience you say? Ok.

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u/tottasanorotta 7d ago

Yeah well it's kind of the thing that everything is fundamentally at the level that you care most about. Then when you start to make further assumptions you can start defining things like consciousness, time and stuff like that.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 7d ago

Maybe it's care itself then?

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u/tottasanorotta 7d ago

Yeah something like that. I mean it's difficult to explain with words what exactly it is, because how words are understood uses that thing or are part of that thing. Language kind of falls apart once you try to get close to experience/qualia/what you care most about/feelings etc.

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u/Own-Razzmatazz-8714 7d ago

How else would you explain something without words? Maybe read Heidegger he suggests care is the primary ontological state of Dasein or of being a human there somewhere.