The Essence of the True Faith.

Another Facebook wall-post of mine which I think should be more at home here:

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“Even if, by tomorrow, there will no longer be churches in any city or village, and even if, by the day after tomorrow, the word ‘God’ will have disappeared from the memory of every person, even then one will be able to divide people into those who have the faith [lit. “belief”] and those who live without faith [lit. “in disbelief”]. For even then will there be people who believe that the whole is more than the sum of all parts, and people who believe nothing of all that.
Faith is at bottom nothing else than experiencing as a living connection this never and nowhere perceptible Surplus, and for that reason faith is, for those who have it, more than knowing, for more than the sum of all parts cannot be known.” (Adriaan Roland Holst, “Own Backgrounds”, my translation.)

Philo-sophia is not knowing, not scientia, but love of knowing, be-lief in knowing. (“Believe”, geloven in Dutch, is cognate with “love”, liefde in Dutch. Latin scientia literally means “dividing, discriminating”.)

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“The being¹ of beings² ‘is’ not itself a being².” (Heidegger, Being¹ and Time.)

¹ Gerund.
² Participle.

A gerund is the declined form of the infinitive (in this case, “to be”–and in this case, “being” is the nominative case). An infinitive is called an infinitive because it does not have person or number (e.g., first person plural) and is hence “undefined”.

A participle is called a participle because it partakes of the characteristics of both verbs and nouns (“nouns” in the sense of both substantive and adjective nouns/nominals). But in this context, it makes more sense to interpret it differently:

A being, in the sense of an entity, is something that participates in being, in the sense of essence. The whole that is more than the sum of its parts is the quintessence of all of its (four) parts. (A quaternity is an archetype of wholeness.)

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And yet another Facebook wall-post of mine!

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Druid = true-vid, a seer of the truth–that is, of the Tree (physis, bhusis, being, beam, Baum).

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I might agree with your point, but I’m not 100% sure what you are planning for this train of thought.

The crucial thing is the Roland Holst quote. I was reminded of that while studying Heidegger recently, and it really illuminated him for me. Heidegger often speaks of “being² as a whole or the being¹ of being²”. That “or” can be taken in two ways. I now think being as a whole is the being of being, though only if the whole is understood as more than the sum of its parts. It’s still true that the being of being “is” not itself a being, or even the sum of all beings. It’s infinite, in the Blakean sense–not (necessarily) infinite in extension, but at least in thought: “Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand”.

Hello. It may be the other way around, the whole of the whole may be the reductive sense of the definitive, rather then the infinitive, in the either this or that scenario.

At any case on that level,the difference may not approach
The sensible.

The supersensible and the undersensible mediate at a reasonable level. That makes sense as far as re affirming the idea of Michael Polanyi’s concept of embededness.

This last proposition is a quantum based jump from the Camus article posed by Fixed Cross in a tangent comment.

Either it is a gerund or particle, the point is you are reifying ‘something’ out of ‘nothing’.

This very compulsive reifying is driven [subliminal] by an existential psychological drive like Hume’s psychological constant conjunction, habits and custom that drove one to inductive certainty when there is no such thing, e.g. the Sun will 100% rise tomorrow!

In this case, you are postulating the certain existence of a 100% Being [gerund] where there is no basis of certainty nor possibility for the existence of such a Being [gerund]. Why you are taking this route is purely psychological just like Hume’s Problem of Induction.

Know Thyself! then you will likely understand psychologically why you are reifying a non-existence ‘Being’ out of real existing beings and the truth will make you freer.

You say all that and then talk of “real existing beings” with a straight face??

I’m as aware as anyone that reality/existence/being is a postulation. What’s more, I’m equally aware that postulating things that have reality/existence/being (those “real existing beings” of yours) need not entail postulating the reality/existence/being of reality/existence/being. The quotation marks in that Heidegger quote serve to indicate this awareness.

Yet I indeed go further than postulating things, like you do, or even the sum of all things. I contend that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Roland Holst immediately continues:

“The wave swells upwards, speeds forth and plunges apart, not because it is a part of the sum of all waves, but because it is of the sea, which is more than the sum of all waves. Thus it is with each thing that lives: it lives by that which is more than the sum of all things.
Even the unbeliever [or “doubting one”, as in “Doubting Thomas”]: he is only what he is because he does not experience it, does not become conscious of it. However conscious he may be in all his actions, he pretty well lives from the unconscious.”

I go beyond your autistic reduction of your whole experience (hallucination?) to parts and sums of parts. I do embrace Objective Idealism, by the way: the whole experience, including not just matter (“effete mind”) but also physical laws (“inveterate habits”) is just custom. However:

“That which gives the extraordinary firmness to our belief in causality is not the great habit of seeing one occurrence following another but our inability to interpret events otherwise than as events caused by intentions.” (Nietzsche, WP 550.)

Our postulating, our contending, is itself such an intending–real or imaginary!

What is wrong with that?
There are two views of “real existing beings” i.e. that of the ‘Philosophical Realist’ and the ‘Philosophical Anti-Realist’.

My view of “real existing beings” is that of the Philosophical Anti-Realist, i.e. of the Kantian’s view, i.e. no such thing as thing-in-itself nor Being-in-itself [Heidegger].

I suggest you cut off the ad hominem elements.
Where Nietzsche relates to “intentions” the underlying elements is psychology.

There is the concept of where a synergy total is greater than the sum of the individual parts within a process. Such a concept can be objectively verified in specific cases.

But for the sum of ALL things what processes and measurements are you talking about? Are you saying ALL things within the universe are working within an agency to produce something greater [whatever that is]. This is at best wishful thinking.

Oh, so you meant “anti-real anti-existing anti-beings”. My bad.

The Kantian view is that there are things-in-themselves. And I’m not a Kantian.

Heidegger is not a Kantian, nor does he argue that there is a “Being-in-itself”.

Show me that you understand the ontological difference, please.

You started the ad-hominem elements, since you made this about me. Not saying you’re wrong in that, by the way. However, I then did the logical thing, which is making it about you as well as me. But apparently you want to flee back into “objectivity”.

Philosophy is not about measurements–that’s science.

You really have no idea of what I represent. You’re still back at yonder side of our Kant vs. Nietzsche debate of a few years ago. I suggest you reread that, try to understand what I was getting at there and ask me anything you don’t understand. In the meantime, I’ll continue from where I’m now.

I have not kept in touch on Heidegger and Nietzsche since I shifted my attention to Islam 3 years ago. I will avoid going into details on them at present.

However I am still have a good grasp of Kant’s philosophy.
Whilst things-in-themselves can be thought of, Kant never asserted there are thing-in-themselves in the positive sense, as a real thing per se.
The noumenon aka thing-in-itself is always a used a limit in the negative sense, no reification of the thing-in-itself which is a transcendental illusion.

In addition, here is what Kant state of things-in-themselves arising from pure reason, i.e. transcendental ideas;

Indeed the conclusion of Heideggers argument is that the being of being is not itself a being.
On the other hand one might argue that it is The Being, or the primordial one -
but rather Id see it as the primordial many, as being is princely marked by difference (one of the many forms of which is duality).

Kant is a caterpillar in a cocoon, wrapped in presumptions. Philosophy turned free from convoluted self-hiding only with Schopenheauer and his vision of will and representation, which is the de-ontoligizig of the phenomenal world and the de-absolutization of the noumenal, which, still passive, would lead to Nietzsches active affirmation of the two as grounded in one, which it became will to power.

Our philosophy now follows through, by showing that Res only exist through Reification, and that only that can be Reified which is at the heart of the Reifier.
Successful Reification is the only Res.

Res Omnipotens.

I know Kant did not say there definitely are things-in-themselves, but he did say that there might be and that we should act as if there were (e.g., God and immortal souls). Also, he does at least imply that we know reason-in-itself from the inside: namely, that we know the eternal categories of reason.

The whole point of the Primordial One, though, is that the One is the Many, and vice versa. I think now that perhaps it’s precisely Its being more than the sum of Its parts that makes It overfull.

I agree more and more about the Reification thing. As for difference, I guess duality is only the most conspicuous kind. Heraclitus fr. 51 might also be translated as follows:

“They do not comprehend how what differs confers¹: a high-strung² harmony, thoroughly like that of bow and lyre.”

¹ The two versions that have come down to us, συμφέρεται and ὁμολογέει, are actually both translated somewhat well this way.
² παλίντονος, “re-flex”, as in a reflex bow. Another version has come down to us, which has παλίντροπος, “re-curve”, as in a recurve bow.

The mind of man breaks down, in order to consume and acquire.

This is why the world appears this way, because it is being changed and processed before it becomes humanly comprehensible.

The body is the whole, and also the mind is the whole, but the whole is simply smaller parts fitting into larger parts, and vice-versa.

This is that, i am you, real is real, etc.
These things are hard for humans to think, because of the way thought works.

Yes, ‘as if’ and only ‘as if.’
Kant never said, “there might be”.

Kant is so sure [as argued] the ‘thing-in-itself’ is a transcendental illusion (even the wise will be deceived) related to the faculty of reason just like visual illusions are related to the faculty of the senses.

Nevertheless Kant agreed one can use the thing-in-itself as if it exists for one purpose only, i.e. morality.
As noumenon, the thing-in-itself is not about existence in the positive sense but merely as a limit in the negative sense [B311].

I agree as far as this goes. However, man can do more than consume and acquire. In fact, man is degenerate if his consumption and acquisition is not in the service of producing and bestowing. Likewise the down-breaking (analytic) mind, if it’s not in the service of the up-building (synthetic) mind. What I translated as “comprehend” in that Heraclitus quote is the latter–divine comprehension:

“Is there guilt, injustice, contradiction, suffering in this world?
Yes, exclaims Heraclitus, but only for the limited human being that beholds apart and not together, not for the contuitive god; for him, all that counterstrives runs together into a harmony, invisible, to be sure, for the usual human eye, but understandable for him who, like Heraclitus, is alike to the contemplative god. Before his fire-gaze, not a drop of injustice remains behind in the world poured out around him[.]” (Nietzsche, Philosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, chapter 7, my translation.)

If you think this, you don’t have the faith.

No, this is not that, I am not you, etc. Thus Heidegger points out that Parmenides does not say “thinking and being are the same”, but “the same is thinking and also being”. That is, the same is both thinking and being. Likewise, we can say the same is that as well as this, you as well as I, etc. We are both parts of the same, but we’re different parts.

Maybe Kant never said “there might be”, but that’s precisely what he’s saying. He doesn’t know it doesn’t exist. The transcendental illusion may correspond to reality–i.e., it may be true belief–, even if it’s not justified true belief.

And how can we act as if it’s true when not believing it’s true? How can we know how we’d act if we believed in it if we don’t believe in it?..