HUMAN BEING VI
                          ( and)

My dearest Khalid,

I have promised to answer some of your queries, specifically those which concern the concept "and". I have already indicated that this question touches at the very crux of the philosophic matter. Please prepare yourself for a mighty
"headache"! Do you have the Prozac and Ritalin nearby?
Ready for "boredom", "ivory-tower theory", "mind control therapy" and "sophistry" !!!

Well, Giddy Up, Ride on Cowboy, here we go!!

Note:

Please read and study what follows, very slowly, carefully, to avoid mistakes and misunderstanding. Also, read the first eng. html pages on our Web Site (Geocities). Of course, everything is over-simplified here, we left the original text, in order that the reader can also follow our "baby-steps".
 

 "and"  a n d  "a n d "  AND  "AND" ,

like

Cosmos  a n d    Einai      AND   Nothing

form a Triagory!
 

What we are discussing below are:  "and"  and  " a n d " (see above)!

They are our Relation terms, our Bezug concepts for:
Rest (and); for Motion ( a n d ).

Our central logical Triagory is written as follows:
Rest  a n d  Motion  AND  Bezug.

In the next lectures, we will illustrate in more detail " a n d "
and  "AND", our Neither/Nor term. Here and now, we will
start with "and".

Two Steps Forward :  and

Generally in English grammar and in philosophic writing, "and" has various meanings. We will just illustrate a few.

In its widest meaning, "and" is a conjunction which simply indicates addition of the same formal logical thing, A, or of two mutually exclusive things, A and B.

Furthermore it is used to introduce a consequence or aim, e.g., hide and go seek; trial and error, look and leap, shoot and then ask questions.

It can also introduce a question expressive of surprise, incredulity, wonder or success, e.g. divide and rule, And what did Adam discover under the fig leaf?, And what happened when you set the thief to catch a thief? And after glory did not fame come?

Sometimes "and" even is apparently meaningless: When that I was and a little tiny boy. It can even take the meaning of other words or conjunctions, e.g., and if -- even if, although;  and all -- not without;  and how (coll.);  but and (obsolete), meaning
and also. "And" has even the function as sign ampersand (&), and per se and,: something added. Also in Shakespearean English, "and" sometimes means "than".

Surely, all these meanings, functions and expressions of "and" we incorporate philosophically, but we add, annex, include, exclude, intend and extend much more content to this mental language tool, as you will note below.

"and" does not think! We think, using "and" !

The reason why We explained the above is to stress that a word, e.g., "and" , does not in itself think,  nor does it produce its think contents all by itself. Who thinks is the person who uses the word in her or his thinking; and it depends on her or him what specific thought content is expressed in this specific word.

In what follows we will carefully elaborate what "and" is all about. In brief, We will explain the problem which encircles "and", and its philosophic implications.

Historic Philosophic Overview

If we study the totality of patriarchal philosophy, we will note a definite idealist or materialist current of thought; sometimes the two tend to purify themselves, for example, in Plotin or Berkeley, in Democritus or Hobbes. However, generally,  in
the last analysis, idealists and materialists alike,  differing  only in degree and accentuation, were heavily leaning towards an idealist train of thought.

Even Aristotle, Giordano Bruno and Bloch, in spite of their radical concepts like Dynamei On, All Matter or Ultimate Matter, never really emancipated themselves from their patriarchal philosophic idealist roots. Matter, Nature, Mother Nature still remained the handmaiden of Father Form, God or Spirit.

The mechanical materialists went to the other extreme and they reduced everything to mechanics, technics, calculus, stones and dust. We need not explain what the so-called "Catholic philosophers"  did with Matter, and how they elevated idealism to the level of divinity. Even Arab or Jewish philosophers like Avicenna, Averroes and Avicebron could not solve the puzzle concerning the "relation" of Matter and Mind, Substance and Form, Materie and Geist.

In reality, Heracleitus and Parmenides had generated this puzzle, by formulating its two extremes: Panta rhei, Hen kai Pan, All flows, One and All. And now just cast a short glimpse at the text above, and look at the number of "and" that appeared and note in which context they need serious explanations, and then look at this very sentence, and  see how heavily "andified" it is.

REST, REPOSE, and
MOTION, MOVEMENT, a n d

In philosophical language, the two extremes are : Rest or Repose   and   Motion or Movement. The German philosophers call them : Ruhe   und   Bewegung.  What is of interest is that a thing is   either   in Motion   or   it is at Rest;  formal logically, there is no alternative. No matter how slow, in the slowest motion, a thing is still in motion. It moves in time and space. When at rest, a thing is simply at rest, with no motion whatsoever;  in this case, the concepts time and space are irrelevant.  Even a thing externally at rest, and internally in motion, is at rest. Also a thing internally at rest, but externally in motion, is still considered  as being in motion.  This is   mutatis mutandis  how  our formal logicians think in time and space terminology.

Non-Relation Between Rest and Motion:  and

There is simply no relation whatsoever between Rest and Motion; they are dualistic, like A and Non-A they obey the Law of Non-Contradiction; Rest and Motion can never ever nowhere contradict themselves. The whole patriarchal ideology, including its languages, is based on this  A, Non-A principle, on Either Rest Or Motion, on this Rest Or Non-Rest principle. Hegelian and Marxian dialectics have at least brought Non-Rest into Rest, have placed Motion internally into Rest.

The Hen That Lays The Golden Eggs

They, at least, have shown that internally a nesting Hen can pass restless from the mode of egg, to a chicken, to a Hen. But this dialectics has never left the sphere of Hen-ness, of Hen kai Pan; the same Hen again reproduces itself with new eggs, chickens and hens. In this way, Hen itself always remains in repose, at rest, in her nest. She will never produce babies or ducklings. The Patria reproduces itself, but it never leaves the limits it has set itself, that is, its resting limits, never mind its internal commotion, class struggle, wars and peace.

Hen Truth

Let us revise some important aspects of the philosophy of Parmenides, the Father of One and All. With  him the paradox of Truth entered Greek patriarchal philosophy; in other words, he discovered that truth can never be apolytos, i.e., can never be absolute. His teacher Xenophanes already had taught him that:

"The certain truth there is no man who knows, nor ever shall be, about the gods and all things whereof I speak, Yea,  even if a man should chance to say something utterly right,
still he himself knows it not - there is nowhere anything but guessing."

This very Houdini "truth" we had stated in a previous lecture.

No Secrets About Historic Truth

Now, gnosis is knowledge and agnosis is ignorance. Thus according to Xenophanes concerning the Truth, we will always remain ignorant, because it can never be known, neither through sense-perception nor through cognitive or even apperceptive mental reflections or reproductions.

Hen and Egg Truth?

Of course, as far as we are concerned, it all depends about which Truth he was talking; if it concerns Divine Truth, well then he is right, and in any case, it is not worth knowing anything about it. If it is historic Truth, then there is no secret about it, and there is also nothing mysterious to discover. Parmenides, the pupil of Xenophanes, explained the principle, the arche of everything as the One and All, as Hen kai Pan, the sphairos, the Static World Sphere.

Patria Truth

It is infinite, eternal and indivisible; in our terminology, used before, this world sphere is cosmic, material, substantial, it does not obey any time, is eternal, it does not occupy any space, it is infinite; it has neither internal nor external motion, it is totally at rest, in repose. This is the one extreme of patriarchal philosophy. In idealist terms, this Rest is the Platonic Idea; in materialist terms, this Rest is the Parmenidean Sphere.

This is Idealism and Materialism, Philosophy, at rest, resting in peace. The Patria at Rest, at its Best, blue-blooded and aristocratic.

Extreme Ignorance; Backdoor for Belief, for Religion

As we see, Parmenides had driven Greek philosophic agnosticism, i.e., ignorance to its extreme: We know nothing and we will never ever know anything about the Cosmos, about the Sphairos. We can just believe, can just wait for the Platonic Idea to inspire us, to save us.

Parmenides not only denies motion or change, but also variety, also the existence of many things. If we determine the Cosmos of Parmenides as Being, or more accurately, Non-Being, not Not-Being, also not Nothing; then the Cosmos of Heracleitus can be identified as Becoming, or more precisely as Being-Becoming, not Becoming-Being.

Panta Rhei: Everything Flows!

What does all this mean?  Again, let us just glance at specific aspects which concern us!

Heracleitus says that the principle, the arche, is Infinite, Eternal Fire, pyr and phos, Fire and Light, Being and Becoming, Being-Becoming:

"This world, which is the same for all, no one of gods and men has made; but it was ever, is now, and ever shall be an ever-living Fire with measures kindling and measures going out. ... What lives in us is always one and the same, a living and dying, an awakening and a slumber, young and old; it is a perpetual interchange of the one for the other.   ... the way up and the way down is one and the same."

Take note of the "and" in this fragment of Heracleitus.
For Heracleitus Fire flows, Everything flows, panta rhei. And as can be seen in his fragments, Fire, Everything, Pan flows in Time and Space, although the latter concept will be developed fully only later, by Democritus, with his Atom and Void.

Thus, for Parmenides Being is at Rest; for Heracleitus Being Becomes; Being is Being-Becoming.
Here we have the two extremes: Being, Being-Becoming.

Comparing all this to our Logics, we can also think the above
as follows:

Being                        Becoming  (Dualism, Formal Logics)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Being          and      Becoming  (Dialectics)
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Being (Affirmation)
Being  a n d  Becoming  (Negation)

Rest
Rest   a n d   Motion
Rest         a n d         (Rest   a n d   Motion)    (Dialogics)
 

Affirmation         a n d           (Affirmation  a n d  Negation)

Being (Cosmos)  a n d    (Being (Cosmos) a n d  Becoming (Einai))

    Cosmos          a n d    (      Cosmos       a n d           Einai  )
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 

And there are zillion other ways to think about  Being, Becoming, Being-Becoming, Becoming-Being, Non-Being, Not-Being, Non-Becoming, Not-Becoming, No-Becoming, Nothing, Not-Nothing, No-Nothing, Non-Nothing, etc.

In the following  lectures we will explain what "a n d"  means above, with reference to our Dialogics. This is all for here and now.

Love Greetings,

Franz.

(continuation)