Date: Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:03:23 EST
Subject: On Essences and Properties.



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On Essences and Properties.

My take on it goes something like this: First of all a something doesn't NEED
any "properties" or "essences" in order to exist. When we say things like:

"That door needs another coat of paint." we are attributing the human
psychological feature that perceives the lack of some property in another
entity which arouses us to initiate action towards a desired goal; and in
doing so attribute behavioural purpose and the necessity or desire for change
to the door. The door doesn't give a hoot whether it gets painted or not. If
we say that a certain property is missing from a given object, and it is: "in
want of=E2=80=9D some "essential feature," then it is not the object itself=20which has
need of such a property - but us humans in order for it to satisfy and
fulfill the criteria and be included in one of our human categories. Again
the object doesn't give a hoot whether it is in possession of the "essential
feature" that we identify or not.

The lily-flower plant that we come across in the jungle was property-less
before we discovered it and classified it as a =E2=80=9Cliliaceous plant=E2=80=9D and a 
=E2=80=9Cmember=E2=80=9D of =E2=80=9CFamilia Liliaceae=E2=80=9D - it simply=20existed namelessly and
anonymously in the manner it existed before we began to attribute
non-existent categories to its nexual integrity.



If a something exists - it exists as that something. If a something exists
under the human description of: a metal ball with bright purple knobs
sticking out of its surface, each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in
day-glow colours, then it exists as a metal ball with bright purple knobs
sticking out of its surface each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in
day-glow colours. If it didn't exist as a metal ball with bright purple knobs
sticking out of its surface each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in
day-glow colours, then it wouldn't exist as a metal ball with bright purple
knobs sticking out of its surface each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted
in day-glow colours or anything else. It simply wouldn't exist as "something
else" either - it would simply not exist, and I wouldn't be referring to it.
Things can only exist in the way that they exist.  =E2=80=9CNothing=E2=80=9D and
=E2=80=9Csomething=E2=80=9D cannot not exist, for if =E2=80=9Cnothing=E2=80=9D existed it would be
=E2=80=9Csomething,=E2=80=9D and if =E2=80=9Csomething=E2=80=9D did not exist it would be =E2=80=9Cnothing=E2=80=9D -
which doesnt exist either.



 If no human beings existed in the universe, all things in the cosmos would
not be the same as each other, nor would they not be all different to each
other, for there would be no human inventory and no human stock-taker to lick
the stub of his puice pencil and mark down the non-existent =E2=80=9Cproperties=E2=80=9D and
imagined =E2=80=9Cessences.=E2=80=9D  Entities would simply exist as they have always
existed, and always exist, and will  continue to exist in the way that they
exist.  Entities don't:  =E2=80=9Chave an existence,=E2=80=9D for existence=20doesnt exist to
be a property that can be =E2=80=9Chad=E2=80=9D - entities simply exist  - but they cannot
=E2=80=9Cnot exist.=E2=80=9D



Of course a metal ball with bright purple knobs sticking out of its surface
each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in day-glow colours could be said
to exist sententially, as a figment of my imagination and the imagination of
anyone else who reads this email - but that would be as far as it goes. If
after reading this email you went to the trouble of constructing a metal ball
with bright purple knobs sticking out of its surface each with a picture of
Mickey Mouse painted in day-glow colours  - either for fun - or to prove me
wrong, then my assertion that: =E2=80=9C There exists a metal ball with bright purple
knobs sticking out of its surface each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted
in day-glow colours=E2=80=9D would be a true statement, even if I was unaware that
you had created such an object, and if I made the statement:
=E2=80=9CNo such object exists as a metal ball with bright purple knobs sticking out
of its surface each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in day-glow
colours,=E2=80=9D it would be a false statement.



In fact, to put the non-situation even more clearly, I couldnt say of the
most bizarre and patently unlikely object that it "wouldn't or couldn't
exist" because something that doesn't exist cannot =E2=80=9Cnot exist.=E2=80=9D And even if
it turned out that my imagined most bizarre and patently unlikely object DID
actually exist' (unknown to me,) it still couldnt not exist, for even things
that exist cannot =E2=80=9Cnot exist=E2=80=9D - for the instant an object doesn't exist it
cannot not exist - for it doesn't exist anymore, and a thing that does not
exist cannot not exist. Hamlet could never "not be."

Put another way - first of all a something doesn't NEED anything to be a
something - for inanimate objects are incapable of needing a property or not
needing a property. One may say: "This car needs an engine," but the car
doesn't need an engine - it exists in a certain spatio-temporal location, and
it is the utterer of the statement who thinks the engineless car needs an
engine, in order to satisfy his or her opinion that the additional property
of an engine is necessary or NEEDED, in order that the engineless car may be
accepted into his version of the car category, the membership criteria for
which he seems to share with other people. Meanwhile, the lumps of metal and
plastic which he calls a car, and I refer to as an engineless car, simply
exist as a bundle of lumps of metal and plastic that we refer to as: "lumps
of metal and plastic," in a certain spatio-temporal location that we identify
as: "a certain spatio-temporal location." I realise that like linguistic Davy
Crocketts we are skirmishing around the outer limits of language application,
and hovering in and out of the unexplored no-mans land of the Kantian
language-less otherworld where city-slicker linguists in their spotless spats
fear to tread.

Although I employ the abstractions "ontological" and "ontic" continually in
my cyber-conversations, it is always with my tongue jammed firmly in my
cheek, for I know that it is all complete rubbish, and there can be no
metaphysical "study" of the nature of "being" and "existence," for "being"
and "existence" indicates states without a referent, and therefore they don't
exist to be "studied," for only entities exist as this entity or that entity,
and are being this entity or that entity. Heidegger's "Ontological
Difference" - his  imaginings of a "realm" of the "ontic" and the
"ontological" is all transcendentalist moonshine. =E2=80=9COntologically=E2=80=9D the
light-switch of extantness is either on or off, and apart from that there is
nothing left  to =E2=80=9Cstudy.=E2=80=9D



I prefer the chevron sign as the natural language icon of existential
modality  "Snow >white" or "Snow > blue" for we have been brainwashed into
believing that the "=" sign, (in its mathematical version) implies absolute
equivalence rather than "alternative modality." (I hold that "2" is another
existential identificatory modality of "1+1" or "1 X 1," or the arithmetical
version of: "the morning star is the evening star." The irony is that for the
purposes of mathematics the number "2" IS the equivalent of "1+1," but only
in the same sense as the morning star is the evening star, and not because
"1+ 1" and "2" are two separate entities which equal each other. I am aware
that this concept is very difficult to explain, and I do hope you will be
patient with me. What I am trying to say is that numbers have interchangeable
modalities, and morph into different symbols as we rearrange them - thus"6"
can be "3+3 or 2+4 or 5+1 or 2+4" or whatever you wish, but at base it is
simply the unique "mathematical morning star" concept of "1" manifesting
itself in a myriad of mathematical modalic guises. In other words it suffices
for me to think of 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9 as numeric modalities of 1 with the clever
eastern zero acting as a decimal integer or =E2=80=9C1=E2=80=9D in its modality of ten times.





I hold that when we are making statements about an entity we single out
something specific that we want to say concerning that subject from the mass
of available modalities of which we could speak about in relation to that
subject. I may choose, as I did at the outset, to pick out certain features
of an entity that I wish [for one reason or another] to bring to your
attention, for example: "The metal ball with bright purple knobs sticking out
of its surface, each with a picture of Mickey Mouse painted in day-glow
colours," but neglect to mention the fact that the metal is pure gold, that
the bright purple knobs are made of coral from the Great Barrier Reef, and in
the picture of Mickey Mouse he is wearing sunglasses. For me the metal ball
object complete with all those features which we call "properties," to which
I have just referred to as: "features," can be represented as a conglomerate
of existential modalities too numerous to mention, (trillions and trillions
of them.) We humans with our temporal limitations can only mention those
modalities which we have time to mention, or which we consider important
enough to acknowledge, for there are millions of other entities which may
have a more immediate importance in our life and which await comment. This
Nexus of existential modalities I sometimes refer to as the Gesamptsumme,
[German for 'total sum,') and it is from this epistemic modalic repository or
pawn-shop of existential concatenation that we withdraw the linguistic links
or tokens of individual predicates for use as  descriptional statements and
observations or assertions about the totality of the Nexus itself.
Philosophers and non-philosophical ordinary members of the public grasp that
the "is" sign, or the "chevron" sign or the "equals" sign" all signify the
same message - that a state or modality of the subject is described in the
words that follow in the predicate, and nobody (other than Heidegger)  would
have any difficulty in perceiving that the sentences:

The snow is white.
The snow > white
The snow = white

Mean exactly the same thing.



Cheers,

Jud.

<A HREF="http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/ ">http://evans-experientialism.freewebspace.com/</A>
Jud Evans - ANALYTICAL INDICANT THEORY.
<A HREF="http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com">http://uncouplingthecopula.freewebspace.com
</A>

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