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Consciousness and the Paranormal — Part 9

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Why The World Does Not Exist

"Reason is more unified than we might have thought before – even though it has manifold voices (as Habermas once put it). But that precisely does not mean that reason consists in trying to carve nature/the world at its joints and that there is a unified single reality, into which we happen to be thrown."
 
"In December 1817, the poet John Keats wrote a letter to his brothers in which he coined the phrase "negative capability." He defined it as the ability "of being in uncertainties, Mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason."
 
Why The World Does Not Exist

"Reason is more unified than we might have thought before – even though it has manifold voices (as Habermas once put it). But that precisely does not mean that reason consists in trying to carve nature/the world at its joints and that there is a unified single reality, into which we happen to be thrown."

Excellent thinker. And an interesting website. Thanks for both.

"We are not encompassed by one whole but are really part of indefinitely many fields. The desire for worldviews dissolves under reflective scrutiny (or so I hope) and it is important to start bringing this to the scientific community in general."

"MG: I draw a distinction here between three overall stances: old realism, constructivism and new realism. Old realism claims that realism is a commitment to ‘the world without spectators’. To be real is to be mind-independent, to be out there, ready to be discovered from the standpoint of uninterested science. Constructivism overreacts to this by arguing that there really only ever is ‘the world of the spectators’. The very idea of an unobserved world is indeed a construction hinging on a number of posits, telling you which elements from your actual experience can be mapped onto any alleged world without you. This is what constructivism gets right, but heavily overextends into a world-view. New Realism consists in the claim that there are objects and fields of sense, which have a full-blown realist shape and others, for which this does not hold without either of those enjoying any kind of metaphysical or overall explanatory primacy. Governments or mental illnesses are no less real or exist no less than bosons or the moon. Mind-independence is just not a necessary criterion for realism nor does mind-dependence undermine it."

"MG: Philosophy is not all dead, as has been claimed by a few ignorant physicists. One can ignore it (like Hawking), but this does not kill it. Of course, if ‘philosophy’ boils down to its most boring academic aspects, where nothing is at stake and people often even do not try to answer major philosophical questions, then it is dead, because its practitioners are walking dead trying to repress their real philosophical urges by telling themselves that their arguments are much more sophisticated than those of Plato, Hegel, Judith Butler or whatever. However, philosophy right now boosts with wonderful ideas and arguments coming from all sorts of academic directions. I believe many philosophers by now have realized that philosophical questions do not simply go away due to scientific progress and that the natural sciences are often profoundly confused about philosophical issues. Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream philosophy is still dedicated to creating the illusion that philosophy is exactly like what they think 'science' is like.

If I am pointing in the right direction with my theory, this means that we have a chance to completely redesign the way we think of philosophy and its integration into the public sphere, the university system, education in general and so on. For instance, there is no more reason to believe that ‘science’ could ever achieve an idealized state of close-too-omniscience. We can also learn anew that philosophically relevant insights can come from going to a museum, studying how people study proteins, watching the news, talking to someone with a completely different cultural background or answering interview questions like this one. Also, it is time for philosophy to really go global and to give up various distinctions that do not really work anymore (like Western vs. Eastern philosophy or analytical vs. continental philosophy). In a sense, my denial of unity on the metaphysical level is accompanied by a commitment to universalism in the realm of reason. Reason is more unified than we might have thought before – even though it has manifold voices (as Habermas once put it). But that precisely does not mean that reason consists in trying to carve nature/the world at its joints and that there is a unified single reality, into which we happen to be thrown."




 
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Excellent thinker. And an interesting website. Thanks for both.

"We are not encompassed by one whole but are really part of indefinitely many fields. The desire for worldviews dissolves under reflective scrutiny (or so I hope) and it is important to start bringing this to the scientific community in general."

"MG: I draw a distinction here between three overall stances: old realism, constructivism and new realism. Old realism claims that realism is a commitment to ‘the world without spectators’. To be real is to be mind-independent, to be out there, ready to be discovered from the standpoint of uninterested science. Constructivism overreacts to this by arguing that there really only ever is ‘the world of the spectators’. The very idea of an unobserved world is indeed a construction hinging on a number of posits, telling you which elements from your actual experience can be mapped onto any alleged world without you. This is what constructivism gets right, but heavily overextends into a world-view. New Realism consists in the claim that there are objects and fields of sense, which have a full-blown realist shape and others, for which this does not hold without either of those enjoying any kind of metaphysical or overall explanatory primacy. Governments or mental illnesses are no less real or exist no less than bosons or the moon. Mind-independence is just not a necessary criterion for realism nor does mind-dependence undermine it."

"MG: Philosophy is not all dead, as has been claimed by a few ignorant physicists. One can ignore it (like Hawking), but this does not kill it. Of course, if ‘philosophy’ boils down to its most boring academic aspects, where nothing is at stake and people often even do not try to answer major philosophical questions, then it is dead, because its practitioners are walking dead trying to repress their real philosophical urges by telling themselves that their arguments are much more sophisticated than those of Plato, Hegel, Judith Butler or whatever. However, philosophy right now boosts with wonderful ideas and arguments coming from all sorts of academic directions. I believe many philosophers by now have realized that philosophical questions do not simply go away due to scientific progress and that the natural sciences are often profoundly confused about philosophical issues. Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream philosophy is still dedicated to creating the illusion that philosophy is exactly like what they think 'science' is like.

If I am pointing in the right direction with my theory, this means that we have a chance to completely redesign the way we think of philosophy and its integration into the public sphere, the university system, education in general and so on. For instance, there is no more reason to believe that ‘science’ could ever achieve an idealized state of close-too-omniscience. We can also learn anew that philosophically relevant insights can come from going to a museum, studying how people study proteins, watching the news, talking to someone with a completely different cultural background or answering interview questions like this one. Also, it is time for philosophy to really go global and to give up various distinctions that do not really work anymore (like Western vs. Eastern philosophy or analytical vs. continental philosophy). In a sense, my denial of unity on the metaphysical level is accompanied by a commitment to universalism in the realm of reason. Reason is more unified than we might have thought before – even though it has manifold voices (as Habermas once put it). But that precisely does not mean that reason consists in trying to carve nature/the world at its joints and that there is a unified single reality, into which we happen to be thrown."





"He speaks german, english, french, spanish, italian, portuguese, chinese, hindi and old language : latin, greek, biblical hebrew"
 
Excellent thinker. And an interesting website. Thanks for both.

"We are not encompassed by one whole but are really part of indefinitely many fields. The desire for worldviews dissolves under reflective scrutiny (or so I hope) and it is important to start bringing this to the scientific community in general."

"MG: I draw a distinction here between three overall stances: old realism, constructivism and new realism. Old realism claims that realism is a commitment to ‘the world without spectators’. To be real is to be mind-independent, to be out there, ready to be discovered from the standpoint of uninterested science. Constructivism overreacts to this by arguing that there really only ever is ‘the world of the spectators’. The very idea of an unobserved world is indeed a construction hinging on a number of posits, telling you which elements from your actual experience can be mapped onto any alleged world without you. This is what constructivism gets right, but heavily overextends into a world-view. New Realism consists in the claim that there are objects and fields of sense, which have a full-blown realist shape and others, for which this does not hold without either of those enjoying any kind of metaphysical or overall explanatory primacy. Governments or mental illnesses are no less real or exist no less than bosons or the moon. Mind-independence is just not a necessary criterion for realism nor does mind-dependence undermine it."

"MG: Philosophy is not all dead, as has been claimed by a few ignorant physicists. One can ignore it (like Hawking), but this does not kill it. Of course, if ‘philosophy’ boils down to its most boring academic aspects, where nothing is at stake and people often even do not try to answer major philosophical questions, then it is dead, because its practitioners are walking dead trying to repress their real philosophical urges by telling themselves that their arguments are much more sophisticated than those of Plato, Hegel, Judith Butler or whatever. However, philosophy right now boosts with wonderful ideas and arguments coming from all sorts of academic directions. I believe many philosophers by now have realized that philosophical questions do not simply go away due to scientific progress and that the natural sciences are often profoundly confused about philosophical issues. Unfortunately, a lot of mainstream philosophy is still dedicated to creating the illusion that philosophy is exactly like what they think 'science' is like.

If I am pointing in the right direction with my theory, this means that we have a chance to completely redesign the way we think of philosophy and its integration into the public sphere, the university system, education in general and so on. For instance, there is no more reason to believe that ‘science’ could ever achieve an idealized state of close-too-omniscience. We can also learn anew that philosophically relevant insights can come from going to a museum, studying how people study proteins, watching the news, talking to someone with a completely different cultural background or answering interview questions like this one. Also, it is time for philosophy to really go global and to give up various distinctions that do not really work anymore (like Western vs. Eastern philosophy or analytical vs. continental philosophy). In a sense, my denial of unity on the metaphysical level is accompanied by a commitment to universalism in the realm of reason. Reason is more unified than we might have thought before – even though it has manifold voices (as Habermas once put it). But that precisely does not mean that reason consists in trying to carve nature/the world at its joints and that there is a unified single reality, into which we happen to be thrown."





"New Realism consists in the claim that there are objects and fields of sense, which have a full-blown realist shape and others, for which this does not hold without either of those enjoying any kind of metaphysical or overall explanatory primacy. Governments or mental illnesses are no less real or exist no less than bosons or the moon. Mind-independence is just not a necessary criterion for realism nor does mind-dependence undermine it."

Not-so-naive Realism!
 
3 a.m. interview


"Markus broods on why the world doesn’t exist and never stops wondering about Kant, existence, pluralism, fields of sense, Huw Price, about why he isn’t po-mo, nor a Meinongian, about why unicorns exist, about why he’s a realist, about dissolving the hard problem, about why naturalism and physicalism are wrong, about Schelling and post-Kantian idealism, about Badiou and Meillassouz, Heidegger, about resisting skepticism, about negative philosophy, mythology, madness, laughter and the need for illusions in metaphysics, and about the insult that is the continental/analytic divide . Gird up for an amazing story…"
 
NIHILISM AS THE DEEPEST PROBLEM; ART AS THE BEST RESPONSE
Iain Thomson

"... It remains true and important, of course, that Heidegger is highly critical of modernity’s metaphysical foundations, including (1) its axiomatic positing of the Cartesian cogito as the epistemological foundation of intelligibility; (2) the ontological subject/object dualism generated by (1); (3) the fact/value dichotomy that follows from (1) & (2); and (4) the growing nihilism (or meaninglessness) that follows (in part) from (3), that is, from the belief that what matters most to us world-disclosing beings can be understood as “values” projected by human subjects onto an inherently-meaningless realm of objects. I shall come back to this, and continue to find myself provoked and inspired by Heidegger’s phenomenological ways of undermining modern Cartesian “subjectivism.” But my own work is even more concerned with Heidegger’s subsequent deconstruction of late-modern “enframing” (Gestell), that is, with his ontological critique of global technologization. Heidegger’s critique of the nihilism of late-modern enframing develops out of his earlier critique of modern subjectivism but goes well beyond it. As Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity shows, enframing is “subjectivism squared”: As modernity’s vaunted subject applies the technologies developed to control the objective realm back onto human subjects, this objectification of the subject is transforming us into just another intrinsically-meaningless resource to be optimized, ordered, and enhanced with maximal efficiency—whether cosmetically, psychopharmacologically, eugenically, aesthetically, educationally, or otherwise “technologically.” (I shall come back to this point too.). . . . ."

Nihilism as the Deepest Problem; Art as the Best Response
 
3 a.m. interview


"Markus broods on why the world doesn’t exist and never stops wondering about Kant, existence, pluralism, fields of sense, Huw Price, about why he isn’t po-mo, nor a Meinongian, about why unicorns exist, about why he’s a realist, about dissolving the hard problem, about why naturalism and physicalism are wrong, about Schelling and post-Kantian idealism, about Badiou and Meillassouz, Heidegger, about resisting skepticism, about negative philosophy, mythology, madness, laughter and the need for illusions in metaphysics, and about the insult that is the continental/analytic divide . Gird up for an amazing story…"
that's really weird. Two days ago, I was driving round, humming a Keith Jarrett tune that I heard in 1987 thinking, 'what ever happened to Keith Jarrett I wonder...'
 
Marcus's ideas concerning fields led me to think (to the extent that I can) about the ontological issues raised in quantum field theory (which has always appealed to me more than qm itself). So here is a link to a discussion of the philosophical issues involved in current QFT explorations, taken up at the conclusion of SEP's entry on QFT.

Quantum Field Theory (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

Extract:

". . . Probably the most immediate trait of particles is their discreteness. Particles are countable or ‘aggregable’ entities in contrast to a liquid or a mass. Obviously this characteristic alone cannot constitute a sufficient condition for being a particle since there are other things which are countable as well without being particles, e.g., money or maxima and minima of the standing wave of a vibrating string. It seems that one also needs individuality, i.e., it must be possible to say that it is this or that particle which has been counted in order to account for the fundamental difference between ups and downs in a wave pattern and particles. Teller (1995) discusses a specific conception of individuality, primitive thisness, as well as other possible features of the particle concept in comparison to classical concepts of fields and waves, as well as in comparison to the concept of field quanta, which is the basis for the interpretation that Teller advocates. A critical discussion of Teller's reasoning can be found in Seibt (2002). Moreover, there is an extensive debate on individuality of quantum objects in quantum mechanical systems of ‘identical particles’. Since this discussion concerns QM in the first place, and not QFT, any further details shall be omitted here. French and Krause (2006) offer a detailed analysis of the historical, philosophical and mathematical aspects of the connection between quantum statistics, identity and individuality. See Dieks and Lubberdink (2011) for a critical assessment of the debate. Also consult the entry on quantum theory: identity and individuality.

There is still another feature which is commonly taken to be pivotal for the particle concept, namely that particles are localizable in space. While it is clear from classical physics already that the requirement of localizability need not refer to point-like localization, we will see that even localizability in an arbitrarily large but still finite region can be a strong condition for quantum particles. Bain (2011) argues that the classical notions of localizability and countability are inappropriate requirements for particles if one is considering a relativistic theory such as QFT.

Eventually, there are some potential ingredients of the particle concept which are explicitly opposed to the corresponding (and therefore opposite) features of the field concept. Whereas it is a core characteristic of a field that it is a system with an infinitenumber of degrees of freedom, the very opposite holds for particles. A particle can for instance be referred to by the specification of the coordinates x(t) that pertain, e.g., to its center of mass—presupposing impenetrability. A further feature of the particle concept is connected to the last point and again explicitly in opposition to the field concept. In a pure particle ontology the interaction between remote particles can only be understood as an action at a distance. In contrast to that, in a field ontology, or a combined ontology of particles and fields, local action is implemented by mediating fields. Finally, classical particles are massive and impenetrable, again in contrast to (classical) fields.

5.1.1.2 Why QFT Seems to be About Particles . . . . ."


For me, the most interesting and significant concept in qm is entanglement resulting from interractions and interrelations whether between and among particles or between and among fields. I'm looking for further insight about the ontological consequences of entanglement in this paper at present:

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/10089/1/Entanglement_structure.pdf

Hope we can discuss this subject here.
 
Physicalism Versus Quantum Mechanics
Henry P. Stapp Extract: ". . .The physicalist assumption has apparently led, after 50 years of development, to conclusions that are far from ideal..."

I'm sure you realize that there is more than one interpretation of the word "Physicalism" and that it doesn't necessarily equate to materialism, "Some philosophers suggest that ‘physicalism’ is distinct from ‘materialism’ for a reason quite unrelated to the one emphasized by Neurath and Carnap." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

So there is no unified view. Rather, it's the physicalism of So and So or What's His ( or her ) Name. Therefore in no way does an incoherent physicalism of So and So mean that the idea of physicalism in general is deserving of the same criticism. I consider myself a physicalist in that I see the word "physical" as synonymous with anything that exists, and therefore it has structure of some kind, even if we don't know exactly what the nature of that structure is.

Once again, magnetic fields are a good illustration. They exist, have structure, and are associated with other phenomena like matter and electricity. There has also been a lot of progress understanding the relationships between these things. Similarly, consciousness exists, has a sort of structure, and is associated with material things ( like brains ),and there has also been a lot of progress identifying the relationships between these things.

Yet, like magnetism, whatever consciousness is made of has remained elusive, and may never be discovered. What is more important I think than getting to whatever the structure is composed of, is understanding the relationships between consciousness and what it's associated with. This will allow us to make practical and meaningful use of it.
 
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I'm sure you realize that there is more than one interpretation of the word "Physicalism" and that it doesn't necessarily equate to materialism, "Some philosophers suggest that ‘physicalism’ is distinct from ‘materialism’ for a reason quite unrelated to the one emphasized by Neurath and Carnap." Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy.

So there is no unified view. Rather, it's the physicalism of So and So or What's His ( or her ) Name. Therefore in no way does an incoherent physicalism of So and So mean that the idea of physicalism in general is deserving of the same criticism. I consider myself a physicalist in that I see the word "physical" as synonymous with anything that exists, and therefore it has structure of some kind, even if we don't know exactly what the nature of that structure is.

Once again, magnetic fields are a good illustration. They exist, have structure, and are associated with other phenomena like matter and electricity. There has also been a lot of progress understanding the relationships between these things. Similarly, consciousness exists, has a sort of structure, and is associated with material things ( like brains ),and there has also been a lot of progress identifying the relationships between these things.

Yet, like magnetism, whatever consciousness is made of has remained elusive, and may never be discovered. What is more important I think than getting to whatever the structure is composed of, is understanding the relationships between consciousness and what it's associated with. This will allow us to make practical and meaningful use of it.

"Practical and meaningful use of it."

Such as?

Any thoughts @Constance @Soupie @Michael Allen @Pharoah?
 
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NIHILISM AS THE DEEPEST PROBLEM; ART AS THE BEST RESPONSE
Iain Thomson

"... It remains true and important, of course, that Heidegger is highly critical of modernity’s metaphysical foundations, including (1) its axiomatic positing of the Cartesian cogito as the epistemological foundation of intelligibility; (2) the ontological subject/object dualism generated by (1); (3) the fact/value dichotomy that follows from (1) & (2); and (4) the growing nihilism (or meaninglessness) that follows (in part) from (3), that is, from the belief that what matters most to us world-disclosing beings can be understood as “values” projected by human subjects onto an inherently-meaningless realm of objects. I shall come back to this, and continue to find myself provoked and inspired by Heidegger’s phenomenological ways of undermining modern Cartesian “subjectivism.” But my own work is even more concerned with Heidegger’s subsequent deconstruction of late-modern “enframing” (Gestell), that is, with his ontological critique of global technologization. Heidegger’s critique of the nihilism of late-modern enframing develops out of his earlier critique of modern subjectivism but goes well beyond it. As Heidegger, Art, and Postmodernity shows, enframing is “subjectivism squared”: As modernity’s vaunted subject applies the technologies developed to control the objective realm back onto human subjects, this objectification of the subject is transforming us into just another intrinsically-meaningless resource to be optimized, ordered, and enhanced with maximal efficiency—whether cosmetically, psychopharmacologically, eugenically, aesthetically, educationally, or otherwise “technologically.” (I shall come back to this point too.). . . . ."

Nihilism as the Deepest Problem; Art as the Best Response



"As modernity’s vaunted subject applies the technologies developed to control the objective realm back onto human subjects, ...

Yet, like magnetism, whatever consciousness is made of has remained elusive, and may never be discovered.

... this objectification of the subject is transforming us into just another intrinsically-meaningless resource to be optimized, ordered, and enhanced with maximal efficiency—whether cosmetically, psychopharmacologically, eugenically, aesthetically, educationally, or otherwise “technologically.”

What is more important I think than getting to whatever the structure is composed of, is understanding the relationships between consciousness and what it's associated with. This will allow us to make practical and meaningful use of it.

I found Usual's words echoing as I read this.
 
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"Practical and meaningful use of it."

Such as?

Any thoughts @Constance @Soupie @Michael Allen @Pharoah?

Just to ask @Usual Suspect what he means by "practical and meaningful use of it." Living beings have always made practical and I would also say esthetic/aesthetic uses of whatever degrees of affectivity, protoconsciousness, and consciousness they have possessed. They have have thereby gained in understanding of their environnments, becoming able to navigate in their own embodied existences and 'worlds'. They have 'known' being to the extents of their capabilities within it, and have over the scales of evolution found meaning in their lives. We add to that experience attentive reflection and the growth of mind {first expressed in art and then in language, philosophy, and science} in our increasing, but always still situated and limited, experience of being. What further uses of consciousness do you contemplate Randall?
 
Just to ask @Usual Suspect what he means by "practical and meaningful use of it." Living beings have always made practical and I would also say esthetic/aesthetic uses of whatever degrees of affectivity, protoconsciousness, and consciousness they have possessed.
Yes of course. But to further elucdate: By "making use of it" I meant making use of consciousness in the context of a systematic study of the relationships between consciousness and those things it is associated with. Using the magnetism analogy, it has also served us naturally in ways that had been taken largely for granted, but through a systematic study of how magnetism relates to the things it is associated with, working principles were developed that led to practical applications that society today would not exist without.
They have have thereby gained in understanding of their environnments, becoming able to navigate in their own embodied existences and 'worlds'. They have 'known' being to the extents of their capabilities within it, and have over the scales of evolution found meaning in their lives. We add to that experience attentive reflection and the growth of mind {first expressed in art and then in language, philosophy, and science} in our increasing, but always still situated and limited, experience of being. What further uses of consciousness do you contemplate Randall?
Sure. That makes perfect sense, but I was referring to possibilities that go beyond what we've been naturally endowed with. Again, using the magnetism analogy, one of the early things we were able to do is construct an electric motor. Imagine if we were able to construct a "consciousness motor". Such a thing wouldn't be hooked-up to gears and drive shafts, but things like perceptual and memory input/output systems. This has immediate ramifications for the development of AI as well as medical applications where people's thalamocortical systems have been damaged, preventing them from regaining waking consciousness.
 
Yes of course. But to further elucdate: By "making use of it" I meant making use of consciousness in the context of a systematic study of the relationships between consciousness and those things it is associated with. Using the magnetism analogy, it has also served us naturally in ways that had been taken largely for granted, but through a systematic study of how magnetism relates to the things it is associated with, working principles were developed that led to practical applications that society today would not exist without.

Sure. That makes perfect sense, but I was referring to possibilities that go beyond what we've been naturally endowed with. Again, using the magnetism analogy, one of the early things we were able to do is construct an electric motor. Imagine if we were able to construct a "consciousness motor". Such a thing wouldn't be hooked-up to gears and drive shafts, but things like perceptual and memory input/output systems. This has immediate ramifications for the development of AI as well as medical applications where people's thalamocortical systems have been damaged, preventing them from regaining waking consciousness.

Bingo ... That's exactly what I thought he meant! ... even the "consciousness motor" (b/c of the magnetism analogy)

@Soupie remember when I said what some want is a "physics of consciousness" so that we can have a "technology of consciousness"?

Responses?
 
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From the paper on Heidegger I linked above:

". . . Taken as a whole, one thing all of these major thinkers help confirm is that we think best with a hermeneutic phenomenologist like Heidegger only when we learn to read him “reticently”—that is, slowly, critically, carefully, thoughtfully, with reservations and alternatives left open rather than too quickly foreclosed. If we can adopt a critical yet charitable approach to Heidegger’s views on the matters of deep concern that we continue to share with him, then we can find our own ways into “die Sache selbst,” the matters themselves at stake in the discussion. Focusing on the issues that matter in this way can also help us avoid getting too bogged down in the interminable terminological disputes that too often turn out to be merely “semantic” misunderstandings or confusions of translation, noisy distortions in which those trained in different traditions and languages continue to unknowingly talk past one another.[7] Our hermeneutic goal should instead be genuine understanding and so the possibility of positive disagreement, that is, disagreements that generate real alternatives and so do not remain merely criticisms (let alone pseudo-criticisms, confused epiphenomena of unrecognized misunderstandings, distortions passed down through generations or sent out across other networks). The modestly immodest goal of post-Heideggerian thinking, in sum, is to think the most important issues at issue in Heidegger’s thinking further than he himself ever did. At the very least, such attempts can succeed in developing these enduringly-important issues somewhat differently, in our own directions and inflections, in light of our own contemporary concerns and particular ways of understanding what matters most to our time and generations.

Heidegger’s provocative later suggestion about how best to develop the deepest matters at stake in the thinking of another can be helpful here: We need to learn “to think the unthought.” Thinking the unthought of another thinker means creatively disclosing the deepest insights on the basis of which that thinker thought. When we think their unthought, we uncover some of the ontological “background” which rarely finds its way into the forefront of a thinker’s thinking (as Dreyfus nicely put it, drawing on the Gestalt psychology Heidegger drew on himself). Thinking the unthought does mean seeing something otherwise unseen or hearing something otherwise unheard, but such hermeneutic “clairvoyance” (as Derrida provocatively dubbed it) should not presume that it has successfully isolated the one true core of another’s thinking (a mistake Heidegger himself too often committed).[8] But nor should we concede that “death of the author” thesis which presumes that there is no deep background even in the work of our greatest thinkers. We post-Heideggerian postmodernists should just presume, instead, that any such deep background will be plural rather than singular, and so irreducible to any one over-arching interpretive framework. In that humbler hermeneutic spirit of ontological pluralism, we can then set out to develop at least some of a thinker’s best insights and deepest philosophical motivations beyond whatever points that thinker was able to take them.[9]

In such a spirit, my own work focuses primarily on some of the interconnected issues of enduring concern that I think we continue to share with Heidegger, including (1) his deconstructive critique of Western metaphysics as ontotheology; (2) the ways in which the ontotheology underlying our own late-modern age generates troublingly nihilistic effects in our ongoing technologization of our worlds and ourselves; (3) Heidegger’s alternative vision of learning to transcend such technological nihilism through ontological education, that is, an education centered on the “perfectionist” task of “becoming what we are” in order to come into our own as human beings leading meaningful lives. My interest in those interconnected issues (of ontotheology, technology, and education) led me to try to explicate (4) the most compelling phenomenological and hermeneutic reasons behind the enduring appeal of Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian visions of postmodernity; and so also (5) the continuing relevance of art and poetry in helping us learn to understand being in some enduringly meaningful, postmodern ways. The point of this postmodernism, to put it simply, is to help us improve crucial aspects of our understanding of the being of our worlds, ourselves, and each other, as well as of the myriad other entities who populate and shape our interconnected worlds. (It is, in other words, a continuation of the struggle against nihilism, to which we will turn next.)

Beneath or behind it all, I have also dedicated much of the last decade to working through some of the philosophical issues that arise, directly and indirectly, from the dramatic collision between Heidegger’s life and thinking (as I have been working on a philosophical biography of Heidegger). I have thus taken up, for example, Heidegger’s views on the nature and meaning of love (which prove surprisingly insightful, once again, when approached with critical charity), while also continuing to participate in that ongoing re-examination of the significance of Heidegger’s early commitment to and subsequent break with Nazism, as well as the more recently revealed extent of his ignorant anti-Semitism (fraught and difficult topics).

In what follows I want to focus on the role that art—understood as poiêsis or ontological disclosure—can play in helping us learn to live meaningful lives. So I shall try briefly to explain some of my thoughts on nihilism as our deepest historical problem and art as our best response. How can art and poetry encourage existential trajectories that move beyond the nihilism of late-modernity? Let me take up this question while acknowledging the apparent irony of doing so in this technological medium. In fact, this need not be ironic at all, given my view that we have to find ways to use technologies against technologization—learning to use technologies without being used by them, as it were—by employing particular technologies in ways that help us uncover and transcend (rather than thoughtlessly reinforce) the nihilistic technologization at work within our late-modern age. What Heidegger helps us learn to undermine and transcend, in other words, is not technology but rather nihilistic technologization. By “nihilistic technologization,” I mean the self-fulfilling ontological pre-understanding of being that reduces all things, ourselves included, to the status of intrinsically-meaningless stuff standing by to be optimized as efficiently and flexibly as possible. (That, of course, will take some explaining.) . . . . ."

Nihilism as the Deepest Problem; Art as the Best Response
 
Christine Jakobson, Presence of Absence

". . . I would like to address the following pair of questions:
‘What is the world of a film made of?’ and ‘What is the world of a film for?, in order to inquire into the conceptual components, as well as the purpose of the world. I will employ ontological and phenomenological theories by Stanley Cavell, Martin Heidegger and Mikel Dufrenne, in order to look at the inherent interrelation of absence and presence of ‘the world’ & ‘the earth’, as well as of subjectivity and objectivity, proposing a composition of dialectical unity in the world of an aesthetic object. . . . ."

Presence of Absence

Jakobson's paper is suggestive but far from clear and calls for a reading of Heidegger's "The Origin of the Work of Art." Here is a new translation of that essay at academia.edu:

The Origin of the Work of Art, by Martin Heidegger
 
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The entanglement structure of quantum field systems
Vincent Lam∗†

Abstract: This essay considers the question of the ontology of relativistic quantum field theory (RQFT). It aims to discuss possible implications of the peculiarities of quantum entanglement and quantum non-locality within the algebraic approach to RQFT. Fundamental results such as the Reeh-Schlieder theorem do not only show that quantum entanglement is a truly central feature of RQFT, but also that quantum entanglement displays specific features that are absent at the level of quantum mechanics (QM). Although these technical results are well-known, their possible implications for the ontology of the theory have been surprisingly little discussed. In particular, I will consider how the board ontic structural realist understanding of quantum entanglement and quantum non-locality within QM naturally applies to RQFT and can contribute to the debate on the ontology of the theory. More generally, this essay aims to illustrate the relevance of the peculiar status of quantum entanglement and quantum non-locality within RQFT for the ontological debate.

Keywords: relativistic quantum field theory, algebraic approach, ontology, quantum fields, quantum entanglement, Reeh-Schlieder theorem, non-separability, ontic structural realism

http://philsci-archive.pitt.edu/10089/1/Entanglement_structure.pdf
 
From the paper on Heidegger I linked above:

". . . Taken as a whole, one thing all of these major thinkers help confirm is that we think best with a hermeneutic phenomenologist like Heidegger only when we learn to read him “reticently”—that is, slowly, critically, carefully, thoughtfully, with reservations and alternatives left open rather than too quickly foreclosed. If we can adopt a critical yet charitable approach to Heidegger’s views on the matters of deep concern that we continue to share with him, then we can find our own ways into “die Sache selbst,” the matters themselves at stake in the discussion. Focusing on the issues that matter in this way can also help us avoid getting too bogged down in the interminable terminological disputes that too often turn out to be merely “semantic” misunderstandings or confusions of translation, noisy distortions in which those trained in different traditions and languages continue to unknowingly talk past one another.[7] Our hermeneutic goal should instead be genuine understanding and so the possibility of positive disagreement, that is, disagreements that generate real alternatives and so do not remain merely criticisms (let alone pseudo-criticisms, confused epiphenomena of unrecognized misunderstandings, distortions passed down through generations or sent out across other networks). The modestly immodest goal of post-Heideggerian thinking, in sum, is to think the most important issues at issue in Heidegger’s thinking further than he himself ever did. At the very least, such attempts can succeed in developing these enduringly-important issues somewhat differently, in our own directions and inflections, in light of our own contemporary concerns and particular ways of understanding what matters most to our time and generations.

Heidegger’s provocative later suggestion about how best to develop the deepest matters at stake in the thinking of another can be helpful here: We need to learn “to think the unthought.” Thinking the unthought of another thinker means creatively disclosing the deepest insights on the basis of which that thinker thought. When we think their unthought, we uncover some of the ontological “background” which rarely finds its way into the forefront of a thinker’s thinking (as Dreyfus nicely put it, drawing on the Gestalt psychology Heidegger drew on himself). Thinking the unthought does mean seeing something otherwise unseen or hearing something otherwise unheard, but such hermeneutic “clairvoyance” (as Derrida provocatively dubbed it) should not presume that it has successfully isolated the one true core of another’s thinking (a mistake Heidegger himself too often committed).[8] But nor should we concede that “death of the author” thesis which presumes that there is no deep background even in the work of our greatest thinkers. We post-Heideggerian postmodernists should just presume, instead, that any such deep background will be plural rather than singular, and so irreducible to any one over-arching interpretive framework. In that humbler hermeneutic spirit of ontological pluralism, we can then set out to develop at least some of a thinker’s best insights and deepest philosophical motivations beyond whatever points that thinker was able to take them.[9]

In such a spirit, my own work focuses primarily on some of the interconnected issues of enduring concern that I think we continue to share with Heidegger, including (1) his deconstructive critique of Western metaphysics as ontotheology; (2) the ways in which the ontotheology underlying our own late-modern age generates troublingly nihilistic effects in our ongoing technologization of our worlds and ourselves; (3) Heidegger’s alternative vision of learning to transcend such technological nihilism through ontological education, that is, an education centered on the “perfectionist” task of “becoming what we are” in order to come into our own as human beings leading meaningful lives. My interest in those interconnected issues (of ontotheology, technology, and education) led me to try to explicate (4) the most compelling phenomenological and hermeneutic reasons behind the enduring appeal of Heideggerian and post-Heideggerian visions of postmodernity; and so also (5) the continuing relevance of art and poetry in helping us learn to understand being in some enduringly meaningful, postmodern ways. The point of this postmodernism, to put it simply, is to help us improve crucial aspects of our understanding of the being of our worlds, ourselves, and each other, as well as of the myriad other entities who populate and shape our interconnected worlds. (It is, in other words, a continuation of the struggle against nihilism, to which we will turn next.)

Beneath or behind it all, I have also dedicated much of the last decade to working through some of the philosophical issues that arise, directly and indirectly, from the dramatic collision between Heidegger’s life and thinking (as I have been working on a philosophical biography of Heidegger). I have thus taken up, for example, Heidegger’s views on the nature and meaning of love (which prove surprisingly insightful, once again, when approached with critical charity), while also continuing to participate in that ongoing re-examination of the significance of Heidegger’s early commitment to and subsequent break with Nazism, as well as the more recently revealed extent of his ignorant anti-Semitism (fraught and difficult topics).

In what follows I want to focus on the role that art—understood as poiêsis or ontological disclosure—can play in helping us learn to live meaningful lives. So I shall try briefly to explain some of my thoughts on nihilism as our deepest historical problem and art as our best response. How can art and poetry encourage existential trajectories that move beyond the nihilism of late-modernity? Let me take up this question while acknowledging the apparent irony of doing so in this technological medium. In fact, this need not be ironic at all, given my view that we have to find ways to use technologies against technologization—learning to use technologies without being used by them, as it were—by employing particular technologies in ways that help us uncover and transcend (rather than thoughtlessly reinforce) the nihilistic technologization at work within our late-modern age. What Heidegger helps us learn to undermine and transcend, in other words, is not technology but rather nihilistic technologization. By “nihilistic technologization,” I mean the self-fulfilling ontological pre-understanding of being that reduces all things, ourselves included, to the status of intrinsically-meaningless stuff standing by to be optimized as efficiently and flexibly as possible. (That, of course, will take some explaining.) . . . . ."

Nihilism as the Deepest Problem; Art as the Best Response

"Let me take up this question while acknowledging the apparent irony of doing so in this technological medium. In fact, this need not be ironic at all, given my view that we have to find ways to use technologies against technologization—learning to use technologies without being used by them, as it were—by employing particular technologies in ways that help us uncover and transcend (rather than thoughtlessly reinforce) the nihilistic technologization at work within our late-modern age. What Heidegger helps us learn to undermine and transcend, in other words, is not technology but rather nihilistic technologization."

This idea of using technology against ("technicity") surprises me ... specifically this technology i.e. electronic communication ... as it seems to be exactly the kind of technology H. was concerned about?

In the same way Ufology's literal, concrete conception of consciousness and the desire to make motors and other technology of it extends technicity to the subjective. If not literally possible, extending the concept is a result of and expansion of technicity?
 
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