being as a sustaining process

About: ontologically speaking..

How we can we determine if a generalization refers to an actual being and/or something that actually exists, or whether it is just some subjective conjecture?

My point in this item is that there is a spectrum of being ... a spectrum of existence.

It ranges from mere mental conceptions to actual sustaining processes.

Anything that can be said to be ... to exist ... falls somewhere in that spectrum.

Incidentally "sustaining" is only one value that could be chosen to order that which exists ... there are many others. As such then there could be different dimensions of our ontologies and their comparison.

Here are some things put on that spectrum, they range from the low numbers where things are extremely mental and highly subjective and not independant of the minds which concieved them ... to higher numbers where the processess are sustained almost indefinitely and exist quite independant of any persons mental activity.

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my threzie-leaf-thingey described in the first comment.
...
...
this idea
.
.
the Renton Food Co-Op
.
.
.
Freud's conception of my so called "ego" ?
.
my conception of plastic habits
my breakfast of prunes every morning
the #toothlessfoodie's kitchen
.
.
.

...

fastblogit.com
...
Speak To Me Catalog
...
...
.
Seth Russell
.
Facebook
.
the US government
.
.
The Internet
.
Society
.
Humanity
..
Life
..
The Earth
.
.
The Cosmos
...
?
Mark's timeless beings perhaps start here.

Think of anything, and i will bet we can find it by comparison somewhere on that spectrum. Oh sure we can argue a lot and will certainly disagree about where your things and my things go in the spectrum relative to each other ... and that is kind of the point ... but wherever someone puts something in the spectrum relative to the other things does kind of tell us what they consider to be real and tangible being.

Incidentally i threw some things up there on that spectrum without a whole lot of thought ... and have already moved things around .. i am sure after i think about it, i will more them again.

What is interesting is that this collection of items in this spectrum in this item have been entirely subjectively collected and placed by me. If you attempt to see your items in this same collected list, you are in fact comparing your ontology to mine.

One puts a thing in such a list by judging whether the thing is more a sustaining process than the things with lower numbers and less a sustaining process than the things with higher numbers.

me thinks this is a different (perhaps even new) way to think about ontology. It's primary value is to compare one ontology to another.

Instead of dividing that which exists (and even does not exist) up into mutually exclusive partitions, we see that which exists within a spectrum of value relative to each of us.

Try it, if you dare.

Comments

Seth says

source: Mark

You just created one such example since I don't know wtf you are talking about..

...

oh brilliant ... thanks for proving that you do understand exactly what i am saying

, kudos indeed

Mark de LA says

I think it is all a mung bean.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-26 06:42:48 17115

btw being is NOT a process - processes imply time - being just IS!

ok, fine, then if i understand you, all things that you would call "beings" would fall somewhere after my current number 48. but get particular here. Name some beings. Put them on a list of ascending sustaining. How do they stack up relative to the ones i listed?

you see, this list does allow for your ontology ... er, that is the point.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-24 15:22:30 17115

Einai 2014-02-24 13:57:08 17115

A conjecture exists as a concept somewhere in some context in some domain. Existence is never really a problem. Whether something exists on the physical plane is a matter of demonstration. Point to it. Prove it exists.

Let me give you an example of what i am talking about here. Let's say i walk into the forest and pick out three leafs from where i happen to stop and call call that a "threzie-leaf-thingey". That class would be entirely a artifact of my subjective mental construction. The class threzie-leaf-thingey has, imho, no independent existence apart from my mind and the mind of those i tell about these very real leafs seen from that point in the woods.

Obviously there is a spectrum of subjective arbitrariness ranging perhaps from the extreme case above through the one below where the criteria is definite and tangible even if the choice of a criteria is not.

Now how about a classification of something that actually does exist apart from the mind of the person or persons making up the classification. Take for example, the existence all blue eyed people in Renton. Now that may not be a very important or interesting class, but it is extensional, and exists independent of my mind which just made it up.

Now there is nothing that implies that we classify only physical things; we can just as well classify events, or behaviors, or abilities, or feelings, or thoughts, or attitudes, or spirits, or gestalts, or whatever.

The point is that the actual existence of the things referred to by these classifications (these generalizations) range within a spectrum, from on the one hand, subjective and arbitrary, to the other, tangable and indepant of the mind doing the generalization. On the one hand i would put just mental artifacts with no existence apart from one's mind ... on the other i would put beings and processs which actually do exist.

I said that to say, when Freud pointed to some mental behaviors and called them "eog", his generalization fell, imho, towards the subjective-arbritrary end of the spectrum where i would not expect them to refer to anything that really exists. I suspect Steiner's did as well, but then i don't have access to the facts he is generalizing, so there is no way for me to judge.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-24 19:59:45 17115

That didn't disprove it's existence because it was already given being by your munging with something.

will i suppose i should have said "exemplified" instead of "proved" ... as we never can prove something just by examples ... which is all that is going on here.

That said and dispensed with, ...

... the only strange thing to me is that i am saying pretty much the same thing you are saying with your "mung" word ... just munging things together does not create a being ... me thinks you agree with that ... that one leaf there, with that other one over there, and the one beneath your feet, got munged together in my mind, and even named, yet that threzie-leaf-thingey is a being in my mind alone ... it is not a being independent of my subjective interpertations. i die, it dies. The trick is to grock when that is so, and when not.

All i am trying to do here, is to get to this being theingey through language which is standing in front of it.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-26 06:28:56 17115

maybe remove being from equation & just talk about your sustaining process would be better
RS uses the notion of hierarchy in the spiritual world
sustaining process is getting even more abstract - could refer to anything
sustaining someone's Ego - see 17112 - maybe Bozo's
I actually got some insights from BofNK re being that had tzu in the real world for being this doesn't for me
tastes like intellectualism
different strokes, though

well whatever you consider to be a being is a sustaining process. that is almost a definition. Yes the list is all about sustaining process ... it is judging everything that you consider real in your universe against that one value. That is how the list is used. So if you want to play the game, name a being and consider where you would put it on the list.
this may well be very similar to RS's spiritual hierarchy. I would love to see what RS would have done with my list/ontology game. I have a feeling that i would learn a lot by seeing him do it ... and i bet if he were living today, he would not shirk from playing.
"sustaining process" is in fact a generalization. some things don't really make it as sustaining processes go ... er, my threzie-leaf-thingey for example. others, like for example you, do quite well on the list, maybe in the 20s or 30s. That is the point.
-- nc
what is your insight from BofNK re being ... relative to this idea here?
this is a method of comparing ontology -- yours/mine/PC world/etc. do you know of another way to compare different people's ontology?
-- nc

Seth says

of course, of interest to me, is whether humanity is a mung or a being? now obviously it is a species, and as such is definitely a being. the question is does it stop there. after all we have society at large ... that is not a mung ... that exists ... does it not extend humanity? simple! yet not so very simple to perceive it beyond mere intellectual understanding.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-24 23:05:22 17115

seth 2014-02-24 21:53:02 17115

Einai 2014-02-24 19:59:45 17115

That didn't disprove it's existence because it was already given being by your munging with something.

will i suppose i should have said "exemplified" instead of "proved" ... as we never can prove something just by examples ... which is all that is going on here.

That said and dispensed with, ...

Nah, I think I will give up here. You fail to notice you gave being to something which you did not express well enough to pass on. It still exists in your mind somewhere & maybe will leave there or not. Brushing things aside & claiming agreement will never work for me as communication .

well i expressed the example quite precisely enought. If you care to come to Washington i will show you the three leaves themselves. Then you can believe in them or not, just as your choose. I stated agreement where i understood it, if you think those things are not the the same, notwithstanding my understanding that they are, then please show me how they are distinct. Incidentally, as far as i am concerned this is not an argument, we hopefully are just resolving our contradictions ... or not ... ,your choice of course.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-25 10:11:59 17115

seth 2014-02-25 10:06:07 17115

...

Thanks for the mung beans ... i will make a soup with them

. ... and also thanks to the marketplace which will collect them for me

.

And thanks to you for showing me a being that is quite a bit twards the right of the spectrum that i have indentified

After all i didn't really like my subjective threze-leafe-thingey which i discovered in the woods and can use for nothing except as an example of a useless generalization.

Looks good! I have the beans & will get the milk & maybe the green leaves.
Thanks,

i love to cook a pot of beans ... but have never cooked mung beans ... am not even sure where to find them, except perhaps as Whole Foods.

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-25 11:01:19 17115

seth 2014-02-25 10:41:13 17115

Einai 2014-02-25 10:33:19 17115

They are smaller than you would expect. They are the beans that become the traditional bean sprouts. I may add some bean sprouts to round out the balance as a garnish. I got a bag of them about 6 months ago & have never used them. Thanks for the inspiration. I got mine at the Chico Co-op health food store which has them in bulk. I'm sure Whole Foods would have them.

wow ... so you get to shop a co-op ! Are you also a member?

Yep, but it is more a store than what you describe up in Wa.

oh we are certainly hoping to be quite a very store

... at the moment we struggle merely to exist

Mark de LA says

seth 2014-02-26 08:21:38 17115

Einai 2014-02-26 08:19:56 17115

seth 2014-02-26 08:13:16 17115

Einai 2014-02-26 08:06:52 17115

Please be specific about your judgements about this method of comparing ontology here.

I did & something got lost.

no you did not. you started just talking about me. watch the subjects of your sentences and you should be able to tell what they are about.

Adios!

Seth says

Einai 2014-02-26 07:06:46 17115

seth 2014-02-26 07:00:41 17115

Einai 2014-02-26 06:42:48 17115

btw being is NOT a process - processes imply time - being just IS!

Go master BofNK & I'll get back to you. Being is used both as a noun & a verb in regular English, but PR divorces the distinction/context from both. This is one to argue with yourself for yourself, maybe go through the sustaining process of building your own walled garden & see who signs up for tickets to go the inside.

Why are you talking about me? this item is not about me.

Seth says

Incidentally "sustaining" is only one value that could be chosen to order that which exists ... there are many others.

being as a sustaining process

About: ontologically speaking..

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