Q&A about Dar Innis's metaphysics

I managed to get Dar here on my blog and he was kind to do a Q&A session about his metaphysics essay:

QS: Hi Dar and welcome! I’m very glad that you got the time to visit my blog, how have you been?

DI: I've been doing well, thanks.

QS: Thanks for letting me publish your thoughts about “Being Is Not Relative, And Perspectives Of Being Are Relative”. I was very impressed when I read it. I think that although your basic idea is deceptively simple, it is at the same time extremely clever! But first could you clarify more why did you choose to use the word “Being” rather than “exist”?

DI: It's not really my idea. It's Parmenides idea. I simply take it a step further than he was able to. I actually used to refer to that which I here call Being as existence. Existence didn't work so well as I want to talk about what unconditionally is, and I found that people strongly associate the word existence with things that conditionally are. Being also suffers this problem, but people seem more willing to get beyond that with 'capital B Being'. I personally prefer the word truth, next I prefer 'capital T Truth'; yet, with the word truth I have to clarify that I am not speaking of propositional truth and the like. I've even tried making a new word: isness. Lao-tzu made a good point in the Tao Te Ching when he referred to this subject as unnamable. Yet, we have to refer to it in some way. He went with the Tao. Currently I favor 'capital B Being'.

QS: One of the reasons I personally liked your writing is that it seemed to suit my personal views on metaphysics. According to your definition, it is not only physically directly observable things that can exhibit Being, but anything that can be stated in some form including things like logical truths, fictitious statements or even dreams. But do you think it would be still possible to categorize the different types of being in some more “fundamental” levels of existences? For example, it seems to me that many physicists seem to rank the being of physically observable things more “real” than our thoughts, even if the thoughts were about what we make of our observations. I, on the contrary, have always thought that logical truths are somehow more fundamental than physical observations =).

DI: I do not think it useful to regard any real thing as any more real than any other real thing. Everything that is, is. There is not anything that is in a way that is more or less than anything else is. In understanding how different things relate, I would agree that logical truths are more fundamental than physical truths. I think physical truths are a manifestation of logical truths. However, I also think that thinking and the development of logic depend upon having something like a brain which depends upon physical truths.

QS: You make a separation between perspectives of being and being itself. Being exists in every way it is possible for it to exists, allowing different perspectives. But aren’t the perspectives themselves some sort of beings? Like the notion “A is shorter than B” is a sentence that is being, at the same time it is a perspective to the being of A. Do you see any contradiction that a thing is at the same time being and a description of a perspective?

DI: This is really an excellent question. Being itself is sort of it's own universe of discourse, and it cannot be related to anything else. Perspectives of Being constitute another universe of discourse. All perspectives of Being are Being, but no single perspective of Being is Being itself. Sort of like A is a letter of the alphabet without being the alphabet itself, or a circle is geometrical without being Geometry itself. No, I do not see it as a contradiction for a sentence to both be and to be a description of a perspective.

QS: Ok, so perspectives are something that get shape through our cognition, right?

DI: No, these perspectives I am talking about are not shaped through our cognition. Being itself seems to have a crude awareness of itself. From this awareness arise the singular and continuum perspectives of Being. Betwixt these two extremes there lies a continuum of intermediate perspectives where the singular and continuum perspectives relate with each other. It is this relativity of perspectives that give rise to physical phenomena and the complexity necessary for human cognition.

I realize it seems odd to consider non-human perspective, or that Being itself has a crude sort of awareness. This is likely the most fantastical seeming aspect of this metaphysic. If being did not have some sort of awareness of itself, the perspectives of Being would not arise. If the perspectives of Being did not arise, nothing resembling us or the world in which we live would arise. At least, that is the case if this metaphysic is correct. I suspect that human awareness is like a spike in the crude awareness of Being itself. Augmented by sense organs and a brain for memory and computation, our awareness is much more advanced than the crude baseline awareness Being as of itself.

As for actual Beings, I do not think there are any such things. Being is indivisible, singular. It cannot be separated into Beings. There does not be such a thing that is other than Being by which Being could be divided.

I'm much more in line with the Buddhist view of the world. We would not consider the blinking of an eye as a Being. The blinking of an eye has no independent being or substance of its own. The blinking of an eye arises, occurs, then ceases, so is impermanent. The blinking of an eye only is while the eye blinks, so is dependent upon and conditioned by the eye blinker. The blinking of an eye is an act, and we consider the blinker of the eye to have a greater claim to be a Being than the blinking of an eye.

Well, I am an act done by organs. Organs are acts done by tissues. Tissues are acts done by cells. Cells are acts done by organelles. Organelles are acts done by molecules. Molecules are acts done by atoms. Atoms are acts done by subatomic phenomena. Some subatomic phenomena are acts done by other subatomic phenomena. Other subatomic phenomena seem elemental. We do not know what does these elemental subatomic phenomena. We do know that these elemental subatomic phenomena are 'quanta of energy'. Quanta of energy is a scientific way of saying 'discrete packets with measurable activity'. Discrete packets of with measurable activity is a verbose way of saying 'acts'. We are acts, just like the blinking of an eye is an act. I may occur longer than the blinking of an eye, but this makes me no less empty, impermanent, or conditioned than the blinking of an eye. It would be inconsistent for me to regard myself a Being so long as I do not consider the blinking of an eye a Being. Furthermore, I have yet to encounter anything else that I could consistently regard as a Being. The Buddha speaking of things in the phenomenal world would say 'All is Dhukkha'. I would say, also regarding the phenomenal world, 'All is activity'.

QS: I see! But the “act” that we call our cognition does seems anyway to interact with other cognitions through language , so could it be said that the relationship between “universe of discourse (about perspectives)” and “universe of actual Beings” is in some way similar to relationship of language and the true essence of perspectives of beings, that Wittgenstein, existentialists and others have been trying to study?

DI: Our language developed in response to the world as we had to engage it. Rarely did we have time to consider the nature of things. Things like mountains, people, and hammers seem to long endure. From a practical perspective likening them to acts such as the blinking of an eye seems absurd.

I think that existentialist projects have a great deal going for them; however, I do think that many existentialists confuse their primarily epistemological projects with metaphysics, or think that they allow them to make proclamations about metaphysics that I would classify as categorical errors. I covered one such instance when I spoke of Heidegger's lecture, 'What is Metaphysics'. I certainly do not think metaphysics is a linguistic confusion as some would suggest. If it were, it should be much easier to find the right words to express metaphysical claims.

I haven't explored existential philosophy perhaps as much as I should. To me, its enough that I experience anything at all to know that it is Being that I experience something, and that it is not Being that I do not experience something to establish that there is Being.

QS: What do you think is the implication of your metaphysics to the definition to causality? If Beings of things are not related to each other, they probably can’t be causes to each other? So is causality also all about perspectives, too?

DI: What I mean by Being is quite different than what we mean by the being of a thing. In perspectives where there are many things, these things can relate with other such things. Perspective does seem to me to be close to the root of causality though. The crude physical theory this metaphysic lead to uses the two basic perspectives of Being, and the need to make them consistent with each other in intermediate perspectives, as its basis. As for Being itself, that is beyond causality.

QS: In light of your metaphysics, do you think that the lack of something, or the not-being of a thing, can cause a perception of something else being? So that that not-being could be cause of something (even a perception?)

DI: If a thing is not, it is not even a thing. A thing cannot not be. The basic perspectives of Being might seem a sort of nothing, but they are still perspectives of Being, and that is not nothing. I called an earlier form of this metaphysic 'Nothing and the Void', as a point without anything beyond it would seem like a sort of nothing, and an undifferentiated infinite continuum would seem like an endless void.

QS: You made nicely provocative statements that your metaphysics would make quantum mechanics less unintuitive….here is what came into my mind: When you say things are either Being or not, they become being only when they get some sort of stated form. And stating how things are Being needs someone to do it, there must be someone doing it. I understood the analogy to quantum mechanics, so that we know that physical things exists only when by observing them, but the observation is always part of the interpretation of a specific consciousness. We don’t know about the Being of things unless there is a conscious observer…or how would you describe the analogy?

DI: Well, perspective is the most mysterious aspect of this theory to me. For there to be the basic perspectives, and for them to interact, there must be some sort of awareness to in some way perceive them. For there to be motion at the speed of light or gravity or electromagnetism, according to this metaphysic, there must be some sort of awareness. I do not want to suggest this awareness is anything like human awareness. In the case of the basic perspectives, there does not exist enough complexity for even a crude half baked notion, no less self reflection, in either one of them. To get to the aspects of quantum strangeness this metaphysic seems to help resolve, I'd need to go into more detail on the crude scientific theory this metaphysic leads to. Some of it comes down to how the basic perspectives must interact in the intermediate perspectives. Some of it will come down to how different perspectives become more or less significant in determining how phenomena unfold. When we make an observation, we alter that dynamic.

QS: What about the concept of emergence? Does it become useless in light of your metaphysics? Since beings of things are not related, the whole question of reductionism vs. holism is only about perspectives?

DI: Well, the way the perspectives must interact in order to remain consistent causes all sorts of things to emerge. I guess you could put me more on the holism side. I think that awareness is inherent in Being, which enables Being to perceive itself in different ways. I tend to think of human awareness as sort of spikes in this awareness, where our physical bodies have enabled more detailed sensing with organs and an ability to record, organize, and ponder what is sensed with brains. Sometimes I like to think of consciousness and life as Being seeking to take a more active role with itself. I do not believe in disembodied thought, even if I think Being itself has some sort of crude inherent awareness.

QS: What do you plan to do next? Are you planning studying specific applications?

DI: I'm still working on expressing this understanding better, and I need to work on expressing the scientific theory it leads to better. Trying to pummel it into words is not easy for me, and most of my attempts seem to fall short. I need to get it polished to a point where it falls short slightly less so.

QS: Thank you!