[Xmca-l] Re: Political constructions of self vs politicalconstructions of identity

[Greg Thompson]

It seems, though that a very interesting question to encounter is: how is
permanence (whether as "appearance" or as a "reality" - I don't really
care) constituted in everyday life?

Or perhaps, what are the processes by which ity's are held in place?

-greg

On Tue, Aug 2, 2016 at 8:50 AM, HENRY SHONERD <hshonerd@gmail.com> wrote:

> Rein,
> Thank you for the correction. I am wondering if the sentence you corrected
> and what follows it is related to the definition of continuity in the
> calculus. The logic is not from finite math. The continuity may be an
> illusion, but real, in the same way that Santa Claus may be?
> Henry
>
>
> > On Aug 2, 2016, at 12:20 AM, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >
> > Correction to the last paragraph: "The philosophically more thoroughly
> digested definition would state that nothing we can point to is in exactly
> the same state at any two moments.” Best, RR
> >
> >> On 02 Aug 2016, at 06:52, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >>
> >> Chris - spot on. Remember where this thread started: both essential
> unity and essential categoriality are infringements on the ity of the
> individual, who cannot be wholly identified with either. But either is a
> perspective from which candidates can make their calculations seem less
> complicated. I’d say we need not address the ity’s of the candidates rather
> than how their politics are likely to affect our our own.
> >>
> >> Annalisa - replace “stable” and “stationary” in my posts with the
> bulkier “what doesn’t change” and I’ll still sign them. So you are defining
> “change” as opposed to stability. Morevoer, most of what you describe as
> fundamental only exists in the human mind. Western languages indeed are
> conducive to an understanding of the world you have described, but it is
> not the only possible one. You say “things exist before they are named” and
> "we can remove all things in [space and time], and existence remains”. So
> existence is also a thing? Western languages consider sentences as “the
> rose is red” and “the sky is blue” to be equivalent, but if you look a
> little more closely, “rose” and “sky” are ontologically quite different.
> There is no such thing as the sky. And existence is more like the sky than
> the rose. Just like the referents of negative sentences, it is something
> produced by the mind. “There are no rusty nails in this soup” may be true,
> but if it is, then only in our reflection, because there is no thing there
> (“absence-of-rusty-nails”) that is described by this observation. So we
> meaningfully say “Uncle Harry exists” to point out the difference of said
> uncle with Santa Claus, who doesn’t. (Or doesn’t he? A matter of how we
> define existence. For example, if we grant existence to immaterial entities
> that can be the causes of real processes, and a child does her homework
> diligently because of Santa Claus, while otherwise she wouldn’t, then it
> would be legitiamate to say that Santa Claus exists.) In this particular
> sense, the word “existence” performs the work of a double negative: “it is
> not the case that uncle Harry is nothing but a construction of our mind”.
> >>
> >> Saying that constituents exist before their combination, therefore the
> combination exists before it actually comes into being is not very
> productive. There are multitudes of ways how to combine the currently
> avaialble physical objects and only a minuscule part of these will actually
> be realized. This is what is called “Occam’s razor” according to William
> Occam (14th century): we should not posit existences that are not logically
> necessary.
> >>
> >> Impermanence can be defined at least on two levels: the popular one
> (call it “impermanence light”) insists that nothing is forever, everything
> changes, everything that exists turns into something else. The
> philosophically more thoroughly digested definition would state that
> anything we can point to is in exactly the same state at any two moments.
> That is, even the briefest duration separates two exhaustive sets of
> qualities that characterize this thing. As no qualities are essential by
> themselves, and no differences in degree are essential by themselves, any
> thing is not self-identical at two given moments.
> >>
> >> With best wishes,
> >>
> >> Rein
> >>
> >>> On 01 Aug 2016, at 22:10, Christopher Schuck <
> schuckthemonkey@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>>
> >>> All these explanations are very helpful - thank you. So then when Rein
> >>> writes, "some calculations are less complicated," is this not speaking
> to
> >>> the specifically epistemological priority of our efforts to pin down
> the
> >>> candidates' essences? On what basis do we decide what is less
> complicated
> >>> in a good way (that allows us to evaluate the candidates in tune with
> how
> >>> they are as people and future presidents) as opposed to a bad way
> (being so
> >>> uncomplicated that you end up missing the truth entirely and/or being
> >>> manipulated), and what are the implications of appealing to either
> >>> Trump-ity or Trump-ness, respectively? I am trying to parse out the
> "cash
> >>> value" of understanding these candidates in terms of their -ity's
> rather
> >>> than their -ness's.
> >>>
> >>> Sorry if some of this may be redundant.    Chris
> >>>
> >>> On Monday, August 1, 2016, Rein Raud <rein.raud@tlu.ee> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> Annalisa, I’m afraid we stray too far from the original topic of this
> >>>> thread if we get much deeper into ontology, and I would end up
> copy-pasting
> >>>> a lot from a book I am currently writing. Briefly, I don’t think we
> can
> >>>> define “change” as opposed to “stability” at all, and I’d suggest we
> speak
> >>>> about impermanence instead. You are quite correct saying that
> “change” can
> >>>> only be detected and described in regard of something else. The point
> is,
> >>>> this something else is itself always undergoing some other kind of
> change
> >>>> from a third point of view, and so on. The stationary point is quite
> >>>> arbitrary. Most people currently believe that the Earth is rotating
> around
> >>>> the Sun. However, the Sun is not stationary, but also in movement. We
> can
> >>>> imagine a hypothetical celestial body which moves around in space so
> that
> >>>> it is exactly at the same distance from the Earth at all times and
> does not
> >>>> move around its own axis so that the Earth is always also at the same
> angle
> >>>> seen from it. For someone on this celestial body, the Earth moves
> around
> >>>> its axis, but is otherwise stationary, while the Sun moves around it.
> It is
> >>>> just that certain calculations are less complicated when we assume the
> >>>> primacy of the Sun as the center of the solar system in this scheme.
> And
> >>>> that’s how we end up with notions such as change vs stability - some
> >>>> calculations are less complicated. With best wishes, Rein
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>> On 01 Aug 2016, at 20:11, Annalisa Aguilar <annalisa@unm.edu
> >>>> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Hello,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Larry, my questions are straightforward, as I stated them, but I'll
> just
> >>>> reiterate that I was asking is what is Rein's definition of change?
> How is
> >>>> changed detected? And from who's point of view?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> In the end, there must be something stationary in order to gauge
> change.
> >>>> Whether in time or in space. Otherwise no change can be detected.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Now Chris brings up an interesting extra to this that there is the
> >>>> reality "out there" changing, and then our perception of it (which
> can also
> >>>> change). But I think the definition still holds that even if the
> world is
> >>>> illusory, and our perception changes too, there are laws still in
> play,
> >>>> whether we understand those laws or not.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> For a law to adhere it must hold for all cases, or, in homage to
> >>>> Einstein, in those cases relative to it (which would be marked
> exceptions).
> >>>> I consider a law as a stationary point.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> It's not pure chaos out there. When I wake up I wake up in the same
> >>>> body, even though there is a cellular distinction from my body of 7
> years
> >>>> ago. I don't wake up as someone else or with an extra limb I didn't
> have
> >>>> yesterday. Now someone could ask, "Well how do you really know that?"
> And I
> >>>> would say, "Well, how can you ask the question?"
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Something has to be stationary for change to happen. Even if change
> >>>> happens faster or slower, the point I'm attempting to make is that
> there
> >>>> must be a stationary point regardless.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Something must be (stationary), before it can change or before change
> >>>> can be detected.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> I would say existence is the "center." I think Buddhists contest
> that,
> >>>> which is fine. I know that that is how they see it, that nothing
> exists. As
> >>>> in no thing.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> And in some ways they are right if you are talking about the apparent
> >>>> world and the thingness that makes a thing a thing. But everything
> that is
> >>>> here has is-ness, not thing-ness. Otherwise it is not. Which means the
> >>>> thing-ness that isn't thing-ness isn't present in time and space. It
> >>>> doesn't present itself, whatever it is.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> How does one detect change of something (anything) that is not in
> time
> >>>> and space?
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> First, I'd say whatever this non-thing is, can't change, because only
> >>>> things in time and in space change. On earth as we humans perceive it,
> >>>> change appears to be dependent upon time and space. But then thanks to
> >>>> Einstein, now we know that even time and space change. Which means
> that the
> >>>> change of time and space must be dependent upon some other stationary
> >>>> "point" as-if outside of time and space. I say as-if because we are
> dealing
> >>>> with a container metaphor, but this metaphor doesn't work when trying
> to
> >>>> conceive something outside of time and space. Be we can use it
> because we
> >>>> are human and this is how we reason about things, using time and
> space as
> >>>> reference points.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Anyway, whatever that "point" is, it would have to be pretty
> expansive
> >>>> and eternal in all directions, in all time. It would have to be big to
> >>>> cover all of space and time. But because it would be outside of space
> and
> >>>> time, it would also have to be formless and changeless.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Take away form (space) and change (time) and all that is left is
> >>>> existence. Which is.
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Right here right now. :)
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Kind regards,
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> Annalisa
> >>>>>
> >>>>>
> >>>>> P.S. I see that Rein post just now, so this is not in reply to that
> post
> >>>> of his.
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>>>
> >>
> >
> >
>
>
>


-- 
Gregory A. Thompson, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Anthropology
880 Spencer W. Kimball Tower
Brigham Young University
Provo, UT 84602
http://byu.academia.edu/GregoryThompson