Is the nature of Being itself dual, or is duality a 'property' of human logos?

[Psyduck]

Is the nature of Being itself dual, or is only human thought dual?

sickness - health
good - evil
oneness - multitude
before - after
thin - thick
young - old
self - other
less - more
becoming - being
rest - movement
sameness - difference
...

Is the nature of Being itself dual or is human thought (logos) dual? Would it be possible for something to exist non-dually (even if there weren't conscious beings to perceive the duality). In other words: is duality perceived by humans or is it intrinsic to the nature of Being itself?

 

[n3wt]

In other words: is duality perceived by humans or is it intrinsic to the nature of Being itself?

Generally when people talk about dualism in the philosophical sense what they're referring to is some kind of mind/body dualism in the Cartesian tradition.

What you're talking about here is called apparent opposites or binary opposition and it's bunk philosophy based on faulty reasoning. Most of the 'dualisms' you mention don't actually exist, they're just antonyms we've devised to define a difference in something relative to another.

i.e. an object can be lighter than another but 'lightness' doesn't actually exist.

 

[Psyduck]

What you're talking about here is called apparent opposites or binary opposition and it's bunk philosophy based on faulty reasoning. Most of the 'dualisms' you mention don't actually exist, they're just antonyms we've devised to define a difference in something relative to another.

i.e. an object can be lighter than another but 'lightness' doesn't actually exist.

In a strict sense "redness, blueness, treeness,..." doesn't exist either, i.e. it's not an entity, yet it's intelligible. Being is not an entity (cf. Heideggers ontological difference: being/entity).

It's not because you can't point with your finger to "human-ness, house-ness, cat-ness,..." that there's no "human-ness, house-ness, cat-ness,..." You have already seen [not with your biological eye] human-ness, house-ness and cat-ness every time you see a human, house or cat. But this seeing mostly falls into oblivion. If I ask you to point to the wall with your finger, then you must first have "seen" wall-ness, in order to point with your finger to the wall. You would not be able to point to a wall (entity) if you have not seen wall-ness (Being). You don't just see a wall (entity), like non-rational animals would, but you see a wall (entity) in its wall-ness (being).

To anticipate other replies: if one prefers to take a atomistic look on the universe and wants to discards dualism because there are only basic atoms, one is mistaken too. For an atom must be able to move from place A to place B. Hence the movedness of the atom is grounded in opposition too.

 

[L2R]

intellectual simplification. do not mistake this abbreviation and convenience as reality. any of these terms are relative and are also composed of a spectrum of states.

 

[Changed]

Ideas like 'sickness' and 'health' are one thing-- you cannot have sickness without a varying degree of healthiness; just the same way you cannot have life without death, or death without life.

Taking this a step further: these lists of concepts (eg. Life/Death + Sickness/Health + Poor/Rich, etc...) are also one thing, and at the same time, everything.

 

[Nagelfar]

An a priori dialectic co-substantiates manifestation. Therefore, 'upward' would not exist without 'downward', and dimension is the tertium quid of their synthesis, again, a priori (not empirically, but absolutely) 'hot' would not exist without 'cold', and their binding constitution is temperature.

It's a silly question, because as Protagoras said "man is the measure of all things", existence itself is the human logos and nothing can exist beyond that. Anything we pose to possibly exist beyond that is a conditionate of the human logos itself.

Anyone who says its a bunk philosophy bases "reality" on an abstraction which negates itself due to the fact that it is itself their thought and therefore not the reality beyond thought they claim with their own thought, non plus ultra, to exist.

A question: If thinking is the active mental process by which its antithesis, the static product of knowing, is to be achieved; it must also be known we have only what is known to put thoughts toward. Whether we consider it from senses pre-established or not; it doesn't exist beyond the horizon of our own thinking. How is this unless we only know what we think?

All things that exist by their very nature are orderly; for one thing to be contingent and follow the rules of its contingencies are the only way it is grounded in fact for us. So everything needs an opposite to co-substantiate its existence as manifest; act & fact, subject & object.

For example, when dreaming, every dream we have is disordered in relative nature to our waking state; giving us the false sense that what we perceive in our mind while asleep is false but contained solely within ourselves; well this opposing & grounding idea of "relative" disorder is needed for our perception of an orderly universe while waking. Waking reality is no less contained solely in ourselves even while objects of consciousness seem to outrun our precepts; they are simply cognate to an organized rule of being more comprehensive and understandable.

Furthermore, identifying as this would being with the human logos; it ultimately sees neither as dual, or rather, it is the unity of unity & duality, rather than simply the duality of unity & duality (duality simply considered). For therefore, as logos, being is ultimately unity because we are the source wherein all multiplicity converges as an intelligible whole, and we are the sole constant of that whole which defines itself through the extension of duality and this makes it extant. It becomes reflexive to our ability to understand object, even ourselves as an objective empirical ego among others that we would again only know in relation to our own (Kantian) transcendental ego (which is subject, and not ourselves as object like the empirical ego: for an object is only object as thought, and subject is the act of thinking not yet objectified; creating as an object the horizon of time or delineation of events as objects & spacial realities).

A spectrum wherein mind creates the brain as an analogy to its every function; but a seamless syllogism; every faculty of thinking subjectivity has its dialectical objective instance; it is our mind that creates our brain and not the other way around; we are always inside our mind, no matter how perfectly analogous ones effect on the other seems, it starts in mind, even past events are contemporaneous in the present to our mind. Because it is part of the waking reality, it is perfectly bound to laws & structure by which we define all things as meaningful: and therefore the brain contains to us the objective value of the mind, which is the brain's subject, being as it is necessary for the other's existence in the same way that motion is inconceivable without matter.

Motion comes first, for otherwise matter cannot be differentiated and is quite simply nothing. In fact matter is literally nothingness until it is differentiated by motion; but matter is the post-differentiated temporal object also. The ideation of dialectic which is outside of time is the nonrelative subject, the 'pure act' of the scholastics, and the motion never in potency to any object.

 

[Quantum Perception]

Reality is a Neutral Monism- we as humans impose onto reality order and disorder (i.e. those opposites) however the "essence" of reality outside of the mind is oneness or monism that is neutral as it lets order and disorder be imposed on to it.
Therefore true nature of being is a passive monism that lets itself become split according to the mind's interactions with the world.

 

[Nagelfar]

The statement I'd retort to about neutral monism is that it's 'reality' is only a mental one. "The mind's interactions with the world" are 'the world' in the mind, and naught more. The mind can't ever outrun itself; therefore a substance beyond mind is an absurdity; every divorced substance from mind is a creation of the mind itself, posed by the mind to be without itself but never actually being without itself. The 'neutral monism' is always an 'actual idealism.'

 

[qwe]

Reality is a Neutral Monism- we as humans impose onto reality order and disorder (i.e. those opposites) however the "essence" of reality outside of the mind is oneness or monism that is neutral as it lets order and disorder be imposed on to it.
Therefore true nature of being is a passive monism that lets itself become split according to the mind's interactions with the world.

without positing dueling forces, what possible physical mechanism is there to "start the fire" (cause the big bang, big cycle, or however matter in this spacetime came to be)?

 

[Nagelfar]

The answer could only be reasoned peripherally (in accord to ideation), but that's only what I would say: I too am interested in QP's response. (I suspect a denial of event delineation, and an affirmation against temporal procession: "existence always was and always will be, without beginning or end", which to me is only the eternal present of the mind as non-spacial but at the same instant spacializing)

I'd argue that "the unity" is in mind, not out of it, mind posits the 'beyond mind' (within mind) for the duality needed to conceive itself; because not existing is a contradiction (to 'not be' is to 'be' in some fashion; because "not being" is 'being' which would 'restrict all being'; (and that is) a principle of no principle but itself a principle; thus denying the postulate of no principle in its self-realization. 'No principle' is a principle of lack or limit to what otherwise would be absolute nonexistence. As Hegel observed, pure being is identical to pure non-being, and must 'exist' as "becoming" from that innate contradiction.

If Neutral monism is oneness, it is so because it is ideal; otherwise it posits a physical beyond mind which must be multiple (relative to the mind), and becomes something which transcends mind; and therefore is a position of realism favored to idealism (an existence transcending mind is always of a philosophically 'realistic/materialistic' residua) and not therefore neutral. The neutrality, to exist, must be grounded in the ideal that needs the real to form its infrastructure. The synthesis of neutral monism is a false reduction, since it is already reducible to mind, (reducing it to outside of mind, even in part or aspect, is realism) and so takes the same standpoint as mind/body dualism (of their both not being reducible to either of the other; and are therefore pluralistic philosophies; but pure plurality is inconceivable, for everything is ultimately found as unity in self-ideation. Where it is not so reducible, it is inconceivable)

 

[Quantum Perception]

without positing dueling forces, what possible physical mechanism is there to "start the fire" (cause the big bang, big cycle, or however matter in this spacetime came to be)?

maybe there never was a big bang but only contraction and expansion. What makes one so sure there was a beginning to the universe?

i think end/start points are fallacies when talking in terms of experience/existence because it fails to get "the whole picture" i.e. what happened before the big bang.

 

[Nagelfar]

The "big bang" or the naked singularity in time, is just an abstract externalized way of mathematically (that is; empirically) reducing, through science, all things back to a point as they present themselves to us now: to a unity/oneness. I agree it is an abstraction and only meaningful from a methodological perspective application and articulation of our surroundings.

However you stated Neutral monism to be oneness apart from our mind, how so is that? Is not 'contraction' and 'expansion' a relative duality? (either one alone being dual in nature by the concept of process/progress of either.) Contracting or expanding must be a contrast of one state melding to/from another; however vaguely or pervasive-to-the-whole in which that change may flux/flow. The points in particular of where exactly the duality is considered to rest may be interchangeable & displaceable to an infinity of different tenses or strata of possibilities, based upon the abstract objectifying of human consideration which is unrelated to the fact of it. Though a dialectic to human realization of it in essence is itself a dialectic that allows for such categorization of different orientations for dialectic.)

 

[Quantum Perception]

Its a neutral monism because although the "substance" (for lack of a better word) is whole, yet it can perceive itself as dual or fragmented.

I agree these start/end points are for instrumental purposes only.
And to be honest I am not a fan of the expansion theory because i don't think seeing the stars move away from us constitutes expansion. it could be that our solar system is in flight itself. the expansion theory has to assume earth is in the center of the universe.

 

[YellowNikes]

edited my previous post btw
nvrmind should have read first you all know alot more about philosophy than me, my only question is how????? fuck trying to read Nietzsche atm and its slowgoing.

 

[Nagelfar]

And to be honest I am not a fan of the expansion theory because i don't think seeing the stars move away from us constitutes expansion. it could be that our solar system is in flight itself. the expansion theory has to assume earth is in the center of the universe.

From what I understand it needn't assume that the earth is the center of the universe (though according to relativity it is as much as anywhere); space fluxes between itself so it's been made analogous to inflating a balloon; with everything going outward from every point.

Maybe every atom/molecule is simultaneously shrinking everywhere across the universe at once; and that is the explanation of gravity as well as the 'retreat' of all other distant objects.

But this is not philosophy, it is theoretical science.

 

[qwe]

What makes one so sure there was a beginning to the universe?

i included "big cycle" and "however matter came into being" for that reason.

i think end/start points are fallacies when talking in terms of experience/existence because it fails to get "the whole picture" i.e. what happened before the big bang.

Maybe every atom/molecule is simultaneously shrinking everywhere across the universe at once; and that is the explanation of gravity as well as the 'retreat' of all other distant objects.

that's not the case. we'd be able to measure this.

i think end/start points are fallacies when talking in terms of experience/existence because it fails to get "the whole picture" i.e. what happened before the big bang.

that's what i'm trying to ask, too... with either a dualistic or monistic universe, it's going to just sit still unless something causes a disturbance... the dualistic lens is useful when viewing the interplay of these forces, but the monistic lens may be more useful as a whole.

 

[Quantum Perception]

^that's why i like the term neutral monism because it not only implies wholeness but pieces as well.

so is the nature of being malleable according too.... consciousness?? going from whole to piece and back, maybe the ground of being is nothingness??

the lens itself which perceives either wholeness or dualities, could be the ground of being. Like the empty/clear lenses of the eye, the ground of being is nothingness. the lens or consciousness reflects whatever yet itself is invisible, yet in itself is where all happens.

 

[Nagelfar]

that's not the case. we'd be able to measure this.

Not if every tool used to measure was shrinking too; and so stayed analogous to whatever it was used to measure and so showed no difference. (Space itself were shrinking; which would of course then not show the greatening of distance, but my original statement was just for the sake of argument of possibly unthought possibilities.)

^that's why i like the term neutral monism because it not only implies wholeness but pieces as well.

What you're describing is not neutral monism (a monism between materialistic monism and idealistic monism) but dialectical monism. Which is a stand I take myself.

 

[qwe]

the lens itself which perceives either wholeness or dualities, could be the ground of being

i wasn't using the word lens in this way. a lens, eg a duelistic lens, or a monistic lens, is a tool our brains use. it's entirely physical, and computers can use lenses without any "true feeling" (qualia, consciousness, whatever word you like best).

so i think that our apparatus that allows us to understand the world is computational and physical in nature. something else must provide that "being" you speak of. i don't think it's "nothingness," because we're here, and we can't discount the infinite possibilities that lie beyond our current ability to measure and theorize, that could potentially contribute to producing consciousness.

Not if every tool used to measure was shrinking too; and so stayed analogous to whatever it was used to measure and so showed no difference.

that just doesn't work, physically... can you expound? i'm not sure i understand what you're trying to say.

 

[Nagelfar]

a lens, eg a duelistic lens, or a monistic lens, is a tool our brains use. it's entirely physical,

That's a transcendental opinion and therefore a presupposition. (to transpose the argument to entire lone physicality, without basis for that) An opinion without the logical fallacy of an ungrounded presupposition would say that a monistic or dualistic 'lens' is a tool of our mind, and is therefore not physical whatsoever but ideal; an argument would be needed for a transcendental (from ourselves) material or positivism. The brain which is a concept of your mind doesn't exist outside your mind to be able to be achieved as a truly reached physicality beyond concept ever.

and we can't discount the infinite possibilities that lie beyond our current ability to measure and theorize, that could potentially contribute to producing consciousness.

To then so "not discount" the 'possibilities that lie beyond' our ability, contradicts your very positing of that fact with which they 'lie beyond' our ability to apprehend them.

i don't think it's "nothingness," because we're here,

Nothingness when not self-identically defined as a term, is identical by lack of distinction and actual quality to pure beingness; we being here could have progressed, as it were, from nothingness due to the dialectical contradictions of its inherent natural laws.

that just doesn't work, physically... can you expound? i'm not sure i understand what you're trying to say.

In what way does it not work physically? Conceptually it is a permeating, self-similar and purely identical condition everywhere in every manner, so it makes no distinctions, was my clarification of the matter of it not being able to be shewn that way, in any way, but was there for sake of novel argument.